Monthly Archives: July 2013

Hans Zimmer Soundtracks.

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Thursday!

I think I’ve mentioned that I enjoy music. I especially enjoy movie soundtracks. Particularly when they are composed by Hans Zimmer. (John Williams is also fun, but Hans Zimmer consistently writes music I really like.)

So here’s a bit about

My Favorite Hans Zimmer Soundtracks

1) Muppet Treasure Island. This is true fluff. It’s actually a musical. I don’t know who did the lyrics, but this is some of the most awesome movie music ever composed. Here’s the song about the advantages of becoming a Professional Pirate.

And here’s the movie intro music:

I mean, how epic is that music? Granted, it sounds a whole lot like his Pirates of the Caribbean music in some ways, but oh well. That brings me to:

2) The Pirates of the Caribbean Series. Granted, it sounds a lot like his previous pirate-y soundtrack, Muppet Treasure Island. But it’s still really fun music. It’s fun how in the second movie he uses a special theme for the villain, and plays with it a bit. And pipe organ is a lot of fun! And in the third movie, he introduces another new theme that he plays with a lot. And the fourth movie? It’s got a fantastic soundtrack. Zimmer went way overboard with the melodrama for the new badguy theme. It’s totally epic. I think it’s impossible for it to be more melodramatic!

One of the other things I love about movie four’s soundtrack is that Zimmer makes little references. Heads up, spoiler alert: In the Fountain of Youth scene, when the Spaniards come and start to destroy it, the music totally makes an “old classics” reference. Zimmer pulled in a traditional plainchant theme: The Dies Irae theme. From what I understand, the chant translates to “day of judgement, day of wrath…” and goes on from there. Nice little reference when the Spaniards are judging and being wrathful, don’t you agree?

3) Lone Ranger Soundtrack. From what I understand, in the traditional Lone Ranger genre, the William Tell Overture is “his theme.” Zimmer uses that and incorporates it. He also makes variations on the theme. Sometimes it’s slower. Sometimes it’s a lot darker and more mysterious. But it’s still very recognizable as the William Tell. And as with Pirates, Zimmer uses musical phrase references brilliantly. There is one scene (minor spoiler(ish) alert) where a woman is talking about her days as a ballerina. A portrait of her as a ballerina is shown, and Zimmer pulled in a small, clearly identifiable segment from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake during that shot. It’s very well done.

How about you, Fluffsters? What are your favorite soundtracks?

TV’s Gone to the Dogs.

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Hello, Fluffsters! It’s the middle of the week- yay!

Today’s post is plagiarized from inspired by Fluffy.

What?

Yes. You posted about a tv channel designed for dogs. So that inspires today’s post:

Top Reasons to buy your pet a TV

1) You don’t need to share the remote. I mean, have you seen Garfield? Poor Jon is hardly ever seen using the remote to his TV. Clearly, if Garfield had his own TV, Jon would be able to watch whatever he wants, whenever he wants!

Sometimes, I wonder whether the Webmaster realizes when things are fake…

b) Keep your pet entertained while you’re out of the house. Because buying a toy, and letting them play outside is so not good enough. Kids are allowed to watch TV and not play with their toys or go outside for entertainment! Why should your pet be any different?

Four) Bragging rights. “My dog’s better than your dog! My dog’s better than yours! My dog’s better ’cause he has his own TV and channel for crying out loud! That’s why my dog’s better than yours.”

There you go! A few reasons why you should get your pet its own TV, and buy your dog a subscription to the TV channel.

Happy Wednesday!

Advantages of having a house: Bedroom Decorations

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Sometimes, when I look around your world, I wish I’d lived in a real home.

…You didn’t have a home?

Well, it depends on how you define home. I didn’t have a house. We all lived in a caravan and traveled around. It was fun, but apparently, at least in your world, there are some amazing things you can do with bedroom decorations in a real house.

Uh… If you say so. Except for the fact that I like having space to make a mess in, and I really like my nice showers and plumbing, I’ve thought that living a traveler’s life would be totally worth it.

Oh, it does have its benefits. I’ve enjoyed some of the sites. But there’s no way to make any of the rooms like the children’s bedroom decorations this website shows. They’re amazing. And the sad thing is, I wouldn’t even be able to make one for myself if I went back.

Hold on a minute. Let me see if I’ve got this straight:

You normally live in a caravanish type thing.

Except for when we spend the night in a friendly farmer’s barn, or a Lord’s castle, or on a ship, that’s usually correct.

And you’re jealous of children in my world who can live in rooms that imitate caravanish type things, barns, nobles’ castles, and ships?

Wait… you’re the one who made sense in this post? How can this be?

You acknowledge that I made sense? YES!!!

Of all the thrice-blasted Brassicae Fati… Now you’re going to be insufferable, aren’t you?

Isn’t that slightly overreactionary?

Not really. I am a melodramatic actress.

But that is neither here nor there.

Happy Tuesday, Fluffsters! I hope you have a fantastic week. And if you can decorate your room, do let me know what you do? You can leave a comment right down below.

Even if you don’t have an amazingly decorated room, please leave a comment! I like to know that I’m not actually just talking to Fluffy.

So, Happy Tuesday!

DIY Housewarming Card

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Hello, Fluffsters! Remember how a bit over a week ago I ruined a pair of pants doing a craft project, and I said I’d share photos with you in a while, because it was a gift for someone?

Well, today’s your lucky day, because I’m about to share the photos with you!

“Your lucky day”? Really, Webmaster? Do you try to come across as arrogant, or does it come naturally to you?

…Says the know-it-all in the computer…

But I digress.

DIY Housewarming Card

So, here’s the end result:

Closeup of the Housewarming Card: Sideways view

Housewarming Card Sideways view closeup

A fuller view of the house warming card

Full view of the Housewarming Card

I didn’t do a professional looking message, but I did write a personal one. So I don’t have a picture of the inside. But really, it’s nothing very special.

Here are the instructions for how to make it.

1) Find a light-colored piece of cardstock and a brown piece of cardstock. I chose white and dark brown. Clearly. The white is the main color, the brown is the roof and door color.

2) Cut them in half vertically. Keep one piece of each color. You won’t need the other scraps.

3) Fold in half. The end result is that you have a card that’s about a quarter of a page in area. Half of the length by half of the width. Basically, this is to make it fit in a greeting-card-sized envelope. (Normally they’re called “invitation envelopes”, I think.)

4) On the white cardstock, trace a house shape. Note where your fold is. The way I did my house was I kept the fold to the left of the “floor”. So in the bottom right hand corner, I traced a rectangle. Or a semi-rectangle. If the angles are not perfect right-angles, it adds a cute, quirky look to the card.  For the roof, start at the corner where your rectangle left off. Figure out what angle you want your roof to have. Trace that angle. Note what your angle is, and draw a similar angle down. Note: Do this on the “right” side of your white cardstock. If you want to add a chimney, find a location on your slanted roof. Trace a small semi-rectangle.

5) Cut out the shapes. Hold both pieces of cardstock together, and cut. In this instance, you probably want the brown on the inside so that you can see the traces. Be sure to keep your pieces of cardstock folded! Note: I didn’t do this, but you could cut the brown cardstock in half, on the fold, before your cut out the shapes. That might make it a bit easier in future steps.

6) Shape the brown cardstock. Find the bottom of the roof. I scallop-cut across where the bottom of the roof was. From the remaining cardstock, you can cut a thin(ish) rectangle to be your door. Looking at the dimensions, I think it was probably about a 1×2 inch rectangle. Start off with a bit bigger than that, and trim it down to an appropriate size. Also, cut out 4 thin strips of cardstock to make windows with.

7) Glue. First, you want to glue the brown of the roof to the top of the white card. Try to make it line up. After all, you cut them to exactly the same dimensions… So it should work, right? Then you probably want to glue the door. Find where it looks reasonable, and glue it down. This is your card, so you have flexibility here! You can look at the pictures of mine for a reference, if you wish. After you get the door done, you’re going to do the window. Ok, so I’m going to suggest you do it differently from how I did it here. I recommend spreading glue in a rectangle, and then pressing the little strips of cardstock you made onto the glue. What I did was I glued down the cardstock, each piece with its own glue squirt. I realize now that it wasn’t the best of all possible ideas… If you do go with my original way, you will then want to spread a thin layer of glue on the inside. When the glue dries, it leaves a shiny appearance. This will give your “window” a slight “glass” effect. If any of you are artistic, or if you know what the inside of your friend’s house will look like, you could probably past a picture of their house behind the “window.” That could actually be really cute! Let me know if you do that?

Anyways.

8) Paint / decorations. I happened to have a bit of gold paint on hand. I took a very fine tipped brush and painted a doorknob onto the door, in addition to the location’s street number there at the top. At some point in there I also ended up sketching “shingles” onto the roof. That’s totally optional. I’m not sure I like how that part came out, but it was probably worse just having straight brown. So all in all, I think it was the better move.

Happy Sunday, Fluffsters! Have fun! If you do end up making a card like this, do let me know! (I’d also love to see pictures.)

Book Review: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

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Hello again, Fluffsters! Happy Saturday!

Today, I’m going to once again be reviewing an extended version of a famous fairy tale. This one is

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine (spoiler alert)

This story is a retelling of Cinderella. I really love it.

What makes this story particularly delightful is that Levine provides an explanation for why Cinderella is a wuss, and doesn’t fight for better living conditions, etc.

So, here’s the situation. Ella was enchanted by a traveling fairy (not her fairy godmother). She was “blessed with the gift of obedience.” She magically will follow every order that she is given. This could be from anything as stupid as “clap your hands” to anything serious like “kill yourself” (or a different person.)

This “gift”, of course, makes Ella a very strong willed person. She just can’t do what she wants to do if given a direct order.

The book is written from the first person perspective, which adds a great deal of depth. Since Ella is the main character, and a lot of the issues that arise are personal, it’s great from the story perspective to be inside Ella’s head.

So the story starts off with the narrator talking about her early childhood. Within the first chapter or so, her mother (very sadly) dies. We then meet the other players. Her father is an unloving, ambitious, hardheaded merchant who is frequently away. After Ella’s mother’s funeral, the father sends Ella off to a finishing school with two other girls about her age: Hattie and Olive. Hattie is surprisingly intelligent and very ambitious. Olive is, well, less than brilliant, and very greedy. Hattie discovers Ella’s secret “gift”, and uses it to her advantage.

Adventures ensue.

At about the last half to third of the book, Ella’s father marries Hattie & Olive’s mother in order to try to regain some of the losses that would ruin him. (The three ladies whose family he marries into do not know about this loss; the three think that they’ll be getting a lot richer through this marriage.)

Because of the unexpected lack of change of financial standing, as soon as Ella’s father goes away again, Ella gets demoted to low servant. She works as a kitchen maid.

Stuff happens, and the parents of prince Charmont (who Ella has been corresponding with) throw a ball in honor of the prince. Ella ends up going, re-meets Char, breaks the curse, and lives happily ever after.

I highly recommend this book. Levine, as always, writes with an engaging style. She expands the short story into a full length child-friendly book that is still engaging for adult readers. The land is realistic, the premise charming. I highly recommend this book. It’s aimed at a slightly older audience than The Princess Tales, but it’s still very family friendly. I’d highly recommend this for anyone, oh, age 8 and up. (Many 7 year-olds would probably enjoy it as well, though.)

I hope you have fun procrastinating with all of the books I recommend! If you read any of the books I’ve reviewed, comment about what you thought of them?

Book Review: Beauty by Robin McKinley

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Hello again, Fluffsters! Happy Friday! I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July.

Today, I’m once again going to be reviewing a book. I’m even repeating an author from earlier this week…

Beauty, by Robin McKinley (Spoiler Alert)

I really enjoyed Beauty. I’d give it probably a 17/20. It’s more of a young adult book, similar to Spindle’s End. It’s not nearly as long as Spindle’s End, though; it’s only about 250 pages. (Spindle’s End was a bit more than 400.)

As you may have guessed from the name, this is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It’s in the more traditional vein with a few twists, though, rather than the Disnified version.

Setting.

Beauty, whose real name is Honour, has a family: Her father and two sisters. Beauty gets her nickname when she’s a lot younger. She considers it an unfortunate nickname, since she is not considered a great beauty of the land. Her sisters are lovely; she isn’t, per say. They start off as a wealthy merchant family. Within the first chapter, the oldest daughter and the love of her life are engaged, but the entire family loses its wealth. They all decide move to where the two lovebirds will be living: a small town bordered by a magical forest.

The father goes away on a trip. On his way back home, he stops by a mysterious castle. He is waited on by the invisible servants and shown every courtesy. Only when he tries to pick a single rose for Beauty, as she requested he bring her, does the Beast first appear. The Beast then offers a trade: The perpetual companionship of one of the father’s daughters in exchange for his life. The father has a week. Beauty learns of this deal, and takes it. This transfers the setting to the castle.

The castle itself is a wonderfully imaginative location. It too is full of magic. Servants cannot be seen, and a library has every book ever written (in the past and in the future) in the castle.

Characters

Beauty. Beauty is a stubborn girl who loves reading and horses. She is also absolutely devoted to her family.

The Beast. The Beast is simultaneously a beast and a gentleman. He shows Beauty every courtesy, but he does require her to stay with him, as they agreed. He does have a softer side. After the Beast sent the father on his way, he magically filled the father’s saddlebags with all sorts of valuable objects the daughters jokingly asked for. The Beast also uses his magic to help a garden grow.

The family. The family are all very nice, very likeable people.

Villagers. The villagers are also likeable. There is no “Gaston” element. Granted, the villagers are all wary of the monster in the woods, but there aren’t any over-the-top egocentric xenophobes like Disney’s Gaston.

You actually used the words “Egocentric” and “Xenophobe”? I’m impressed, Webmaster!

… Uh, thanks, Fluffy!

As I was saying. All the characters are well written and interesting people. The invisible servants in the palace even have their own personalities.

Overall

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It’s a typical plot, but in a different setting. I like the common use of magic, and I really like the library with Every Book Written in it. The characters are also very real.

Overall, I highly recommend this retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Fourth of July Book Review: American Fairy Tales by Baum

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Thursday! And happy Fourth of July, to all my fellow Americans!

In honor of the day, and the theme of the week, I’m going to be reviewing a slightly older book:

American Fairy Tales by L. Frank Baum (Spoiler Alert)

(Yes, the same L. Frank Baum who wrote Wizard of Oz, etc. )

American Fairy Tales is a collection, well, fairy tales located in America, with a very American feel to them.

One of the best parts of the stories are the morals. But the stories themselves are also quite charming.

The first one tells the tale of a girl who meddles in affairs that do not concern her. She therefore accidentally releases a band of thieves her uncle had kept locked in a chest in the family attic. Through quick thinking, the little girl makes the situation. But the moral of the story is “not to interfere with matters that do not concern us.” After all, if the little girl had refrained from opening the chest, she wouldn’t need to return all the items the thieves stole from her own house.

One of my favorite “morals” occurs after a story with lots of trickery and generic not-good-moral-character-stuff. (All G-rated if it were a movie, though.) The author writes “I suppose [one of the characters] is there yet, and am rather sorry, for I should like to consult the wizard about the moral to this story.” Clearly, the author just wrote a fun little story, but at the time all short stories “needed to have a moral.” It’s charming little turns of phrases like this that make American Fairy Tales so much fun to read.

There are about a dozen stories in this collection. Some of them are a bit politically incorrect, but then, they were written in a different time. I don’t remember anything truly offensive in them. I recommend reading them. They’re a fun collection of American-style short stories, and very child friendly. Except maybe for the last two stories. But I digress.

I hope you enjoy them! They’re a fun way to procrastinate, and the collection is out of copyright, and so is therefore available from Project Gutenberg. (Free reading! Yay!)

Happy Fourth of July! I hope to see(?) you tomorrow!

 

Book Review: Snow White and Rose Red by Wrede

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Wednesday!

Today’s book review is on

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede. (Spoiler alert.)

As I’ve mentioned, Patricia C. Wrede is one of my favorite authors. She writes in an amazingly compelling way that’s very well done.

Her book “Snow White and Rose Red” is a retelling of a Grimm fairy tale of the same name. It is not the tale of “Snow White.” Instead, it’s a tale of two sisters and their mother.

Unlike most fairy tales, the mother actually lives for the entirety of the fairy tale, and they have a good relationship with each other. The original is relatively nice, and not actually as gruesome as many original fairy tales.

Wrede takes the fairy tale, and expands it beautifully. She sets the story in old England. The language use is beautiful, and the dialogue is written with “thees”, “thous”, and other flowery things that just sound pretty.

The human main characters are devout Christians who live on the edge of Faerie, and so also do a bit of magic. (So, very different universe.) They’re not witches, they’re not evil, and they mostly restrict themselves to using herbs for healing. Later in the book they learn how to do a bit of magic, but again it’s for healing purposes. Mostly. It’s slightly complicated.

Wrede did an amazing job. The fairy tale is fairly straightforward. Wrede takes the tale and adds about 3 subplots that interact with each other, and still fit the fairy tale. I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. So pick up a copy for yourself and read it, ok?

And have a great rest of your week!

Book Review: Spindle’s End

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday!

I hope your week is going well, and just continues to get better! I’m continuing the Book Review series. Today’s is

Spindle’s End, by Robin McKinley (spoiler alert)

I really liked the first 5/6ths of this book. The setting is great, the characters are compelling, and it’s a fun retelling of the classic story of Sleeping Beauty.

It starts off with a description of the land. It’s a land that is thick with magic. Like, literally thick. It “settled over the land like chalk-dust.” It would also do random things like spontaneously transform loaves of bread into ivory thimbles that stayed around for a few days, before crumbling away to dust. Fairies are relatively commonplace, sort of. And the provide a very useful role in society: They help keep the magic manageable.

The first few chapters examine the life of the royalty, before switching over to one of the main characters of the story: A fairy named Katriona, who kidnaps young princess Briar-Rose for her own safety, and raises her as her own niece. For another interesting twist, McKinley gives the young princess the ability to talk with animals.

Most of the book is about the princess’s first 16 years. Then the last bit of the book is about what happens after she finds out she’s the princess. And that’s where it gets confusing. I’ve read the book several times, and I’ve yet to fully understand the last sixth of the book, or so.

This book is written for the young adult crowd, rather than the younger crowd. I recommend it, but not as strongly as the other books. McKinley’s ideas are creative and fun, but come across as really confusing in certain areas.

Have a great week, Fluffsters! Talk with you soon!