No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on November 7, 2013

I am keeping this review spoiler free. I cannot promise for the comments. I am asking that we keep this spoiler free until Monday and then discussion can commence

Last night Peter, Caroline and I went into the city to the Marvel Friends & Family screening of Thor: The Dark World . We enjoy going to these because it is always fun seeing the film with a room full of people who know the history and get the jokes.

We saw the film in 3-D so I will address that first. Do I think that the 3-D is worth seeing? This is one of those “it depends” films. Overall I would say not really. But if you enjoy having all kinds of things being thrown at you including hammers, then it is worth it. The 3-D enhances the experience but doesn’t distract. But one would be missing very little if seen in 2-D.

Also stay all the way through the credits. There are two extra scenes in it.

I had a few concerns going into the film based on the trailers and the number of times Hiddleston was showing up as Loki at conventions and on TV. My concern was that we were in for the Loki film with Thor. I have to applaud the scriptwriters and the director for putting the right amount of Loki in the film. He was there when needed but he didn’t become the center of the universe (that honor goes to another character). He did get all the best lines and looked good doing it and that is just fine with me.

My other concern was how dark, lighting wise, the previous film was. And considering we are encountering the dark elves, I though we were going to go round two with the murky Thor film. Not a problem.

This film was a balancing act all the way through and they didn’t fail at it for the most part. There wasn’t too much of this character or realm. The story was well put together although you really had to pay attention at certain points of the film to get exactly what happened at the end. All the pipework is there but if you missed a couple of lines, you are left wondering what was going on at the very end. It did feel like there is a scene missing that I am going to be very interested to see if it shows up on the DVD.

Of course the visual were wonderful. Each realm had a feel to it so you couldn’t mistake where you were. The costumes were fabulous. I expect we are going to see a legion of Dark Elves in the Dragon Con parade this year. I loved the design of them because it skirted the idea of the cute elf and takes it to a pretty twisted place. It looked like they simplified the Asgardian costumes some what. I did love the gowns that they had a number of the ladies in especially Frigga’s outfits. Practical armor sort of.

The acting was solid. It was nice that almost every character had some form of a story arc within the film even Darcy. Zachary Levi took over Fandral from Josh Dallas who is doing some TV show for ABC and did a good job. The Warriors Three were there but more background characters this time but they were needed for the story. It was evident that Chris Helmsworth continued to work out rather heavily post Avengers. There is a very gratuitous no shirt shot that had the woman sitting behind me to exclaim “Woof” I had to agree. He is very easy on the eyes. Hiddleston walks off with his scenes but I don’t think anyone would be surprised with that. (side note: before the film we got a video that Quesada did with Steve Wacker about his next career. It was for the gang in that room since it was one heck of an in joke. Hiddleston shows up in the video and talks a bit, quite honestly, about playing Loki for over 4 years now and how much it has meant to him and his career. He thanked Marvel for giving him such an opportunity. Class Act all the way. Also Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was at the screen and he thanked Marvel for letting him to play in their sandbox. Turns out he is a comic book fan.) Eccelston was excellent as Malekith. Considering most of his dialogue was in elvish, he did a great job getting his character’s points across while we were reading the subtitles.

It does need to be seen on the Big Screen. There are things that one will miss on the small screen. It is an epic movie that lives up to the word “epic”. A fun ride with the right amount of action, drama, and comedy. I was entertained and in the end isn’t that what we want from a film?

I am grateful I got to see this film with that group of people.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 6, 2013

This year Caroline designed her own costume. She decided to be a Vampire Princess.

I am putting most of this under the cut since this is very picture heavy.

Next year her goal is to sew her own costume having designed it.

(more…)

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 4, 2013

This is one of those entries that was prompted by a couple of things that happened really close to each other.

I was reading through some friends’ blogs and ran across one where the blogger informed their readers that there would be less of their child’s antics on their blog because the child had requested she stop putting what he said and did on the Internet. A little bit later on Facebook I saw a parent talk about their kids but use codenames for each of the children. You would only know the kids’ real names if you personally knew the family. That is how the children have been referred to since about the time they were born. The parents chose to do it this way. I respect their choice and don’t put their kids names out there when I write about Caroline and they are involved. I know of other parents who you won’t know they were parents or grandparents unless you know them personally and they know you personally.

Caroline has grown up in a bit of a fish bowl because of her father and me. Peter asked my permission to talk about our lives in his column and on-line. Caroline was born into it. By the time she came around, Peter had been writing the Comic Book Buyer’s Guide for many a year and about a 1/3 of the columns had something to do with his family. Also when writing summaries for his various comics, he would put in a factoid about what was going on in his life. Her birth announcement was in CBG as was Ariel’s. The older girls ask their dad not to put things out there and he respects their wishes. Caroline has just kind of rolled with the stories.

She knows that her potty training is spoken about in an issue of Captain Marvel. She knows that Peter’s readers know that she takes Kung Fu and is up to a green sash (actually she is up to advanced green sash now). She knows there are bits and pieces of her life out there on the Internet and they are not going to go away.

She knows that her life is not a typical kid’s life. She calls Harlan Ellison, Uncle Harlan. She understands the difference between her fandom Uncles and her blood relations. She goes to voice records for animated series and meets the voice cast. She goes to conventions all over the planet with her family. Her understanding of things is a bit different from most of the kids in the neighborhood.

This all can be good and bad for her. She doesn’t brag about all the stuff she has done but if asked, she will tell you about it. Her classmates are aware that she goes to conventions and that her dad works for Marvel Comics. They know that both of her parents work out of the house so she has both parents pretty much around all the time. They know her mom is a puppeteer and a costumer who knows a lot about books. She is the kid of the creative parents who have the different jobs than their parents. And we all know how different can be a two edged sword.

Caroline and I talked about her on the Internet the other day. She doesn’t have a problem about her father or me writing about her and her adventures. She knows that there are pictures out there that were not taken by a family member. She knows there are fans of Peter’s who have been following her growth since she was born.

I honestly don’t know if this is going to change as we are now in the tween years heading rapidly to the teenager years. I have a feeling it very well might. Or she might start recording her own point of view out here on the net and create her own Internet presence. Whatever she choses, I will try to respect her wishes because it is her life that I am recording.

I am grateful that there is a record of Caroline’s life out there.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 2, 2013

The clouds are moving rapidly across the sky right now making all kinds of patterns. Caroline is looking at them and giving me running commentary about what the clouds look like. Her cat Fig is looking along next to her. Really kinda cute.

The clouds are also breaking up enough to allow some sunlight to stream into the house so I can turn off the overhead light.

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: Tonight in most parts of the US we go back to standard time which personally I think we should have never left so tonight before you go to bed, remember to set your clock back one hour. So as of tomorrow the light I am seeing now will be there about the time that Caroline gets up for school. It does mean that it will be getting much darker faster around here in the afternoon.

It is kind of funny that my parents and I live in the same time zone but I am about as far east as you can get and still be in the zone and they are pretty much all the way to the west which means that our light and dark are at different times on the same day.

1,2,3,4 I declare a thumb war (just something that has been stuck in my head for the past couple of days). That and the cell block tango from Chicago but I can trace that to the Disney/Chicago mash-up of the Cell Block Tango that has been making the rounds on the Internet

Sometimes I think we have too much information and entertainment to choose from. We are so connected that at times we seem to be disconnected from reality. I feel a little overwhelmed at times.

I think today the graveyard goes back into the garage. I do plan to keep the lights up for a while. I finally figured out a safe way to attach the lights to the railings on our porch, I have been using the chenille steams (pipe-cleaners) to attach them. Heck of a lot easier than tape especially when taking things down. Ditto with strips of cloth and zip ties. Pumpkins need to retire to the compost heap. I think they have served their purpose well. This will probably take less than an hour to do.

Then I need to clean up from Caroline’s Halloween Costume project and do some small sewing that has been building up on my sewing table for simple repair.

I am getting some urging to pull out my clay and play for a bit.

But first I promised my family pancakes so that is next on my list.

I am grateful for getting things done in a timely fashion.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 29, 2013

As of October 1st 2013 Etsy had some major rule changes to the site that set off a firestorm of comments and complaints. Almost a month later and people are still trying to figure out “what it all means”. I think if you distill it down to the basics, Michael Korrs could open a shop on Etsy and be within the new guidelines.

A little history for those who haven’t dealt with Etsy at all, Etsy started in 2005 as a site where they focused on handmade times, art & craft supplies and vintage items (over 20 years old so we are talking 1993 by this point). It was considered like a permanent craft fair where you could open up your craft stall and sell goods to people with discerning taste.

I have mostly used Etsy for supplies with the occasional really cool handmade good purchase that I have enjoyed over the years.

In the beginning they were pretty good about policing their marketplace and removing people who were skirting the rules about both vintage and copyright issues. But like any market place there were those who just didn’t follow the rules at all and came up with reasons why they weren’t violating the rules.

There was an entire site devoted to Etsy and its not so fabulous entries called Regretsy. One of the things this site did was point out groups that were reselling items that they bought from other companies to sell at rather inflated prices. One of the biggest controversies was Ecologica Malibu who then said, “Oh we are a collective.” Collective became the code-word for manufactures goods and was used by many to skirt the rules.

The other issue was copyright infringement. There were two kinds of this. One was the typical kind where intellectual property of bigger companies (Cartoon Network, Disney, or Warner Brothers to name a few) was being turning into items sold by the sellers (think the Jayne Hat from Firefly or Harry Potter wands). The other kind was people seeing someone who had a good idea or goods and then making something almost exactly like it and selling it for less. This was a bit more of a grey area because I noticed that when a new technique was discussed in a magazine or a clever way for making something, there was a plethora that then showed up on Etsy pretty shortly there after. I saw some very clever bleach ideas, which took a long time to do, all of the sudden show up all over the place. There were copies of things and outright recreations of goods. Some of it Etsy dealt with and some of it they didn’t because it was the method that was being copied not the item itself. They were fast when the Children’s Television Workshop came to them because someone was selling what they called “replicas” of popular puppets in the show. Slower for another friend who’s art had been used to create iPhone stickers, which I never understood how that was even crafty (that is the stickers not her work which is fabulous.)

As of October 1st they have seriously changed the playing field by allowing manufactured goods on the site along with resale of said goods. They are touting it as the next step for the site allowing small businesses that have grown from one person making the items to a real business.

The new language reads
If you work with an outside manufacturer to make items that you have designed, we ask that you share additional information with Etsy and share information about the manufacturers you work with on your shop and listings. We also expect that you choose ethical manufacturing partners.

From what I can figure out from reading through the rules and the like, you can call it handmade if you are the creator of the original idea or “authorship” as they say in Etsy speak then you can have it manufactured and shipped from where ever you wish. So I could get someone in say South America to manufacture Phluzzies for me and I could still use the handmade label even though I never touched the puppet. Also the rules for proving copyright infringement have been made even more torturous than before.

I know that someone is going to use this new set of standards and trying to resell goods on Etsy. Heck, it has already started. Over the past month there has been an influx of goods that aren’t handmade by the seller at all. Now according to the rules you have to say if you are farming the work out but Etsy has not exactly been stellar about this sort of thing in the past and I don’t expect anything to change.

What I do expect is that my Etsy shop will probably be gone by the end of the month since Etsy has seemed to make this policy of shutting down/out dissenters at a rather rapid rate. They shut down threads in the forms that aren’t “happy” threads. Questions get censored and resellers have made Etsy their new home.

There are alternatives to Etsy. Some are start-ups and some have been in the game for a while. None have the buyer base that Etsy has built over the years so you have to do a lot of promotion to get people to your site. But self-promotion has been a large part of being a handcrafter anyway so that is really nothing new.

It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Over 7 years ago Etsy was touted as the best alternative to Ebay which allowed the crafty person to be able to set prices and sell their goods to the public. Now it is changing its business model and the business models for many. I expect the next site that will be more selective is around the corner.

I am grateful for venues that allow me to sell my handcrafted goods and not have to compete with businesses that mass manufacture items for sale at ridicules prices.

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