Fannish Argosies

This is the best thing I've seen all week.



Air New Zealand's new safety video, Hobbit-style. Peter Jackson shows up, as does Dean O'Gorman (there may be others, but I didn't recognize them).

Didn't know I needed to see the Witch-King of Angmar grumping because he had to turn his smartphone off during the flight, but obviously I did. ♥

I can't with Downton Abbey this week, so instead here are some links.

arduinna has posted a series of awesome picspams for Once Upon a Time.

Part 1: Some utterly kickass observations on the set design in Once Upon a Time. I had noticed some of this, but certainly not all of it. The bit about Archie's office astounds me.

Part 2: A comparison of Regina and Rumple's castles, both in Fairytale World and Storybrooke.

Part 3 and Part 4: Analysis of costume/clothing choices.

Part 5: A short one on Disney references.

Part 6: Various and sundry things in the background that bring some insight into the way the curse works and give us character hints.

Seriously, I LOVE THIS SHOW.

Normally I dislike being stuck at my desk in the mornings, but Friday was a very good day to be so. We have a general newsgroup thing for our email system at work, where people post all manner of things (questions, for sale ads, stuff going on around town, etc), and if I'm very bored I'll check it randomly throughout the day. Luckily I did so at just the right time, as one of the ladies in Development was giving away her KitchenAid stand mixer for FREE. I saw it 4 minutes after it was posted and managed to be the first to respond, so it is now MINE. I have always wanted one for baking, so this is hugely squee-inducing.

It's definitely an older one, as it has the type of power plug I remember from things my parents had back when I was growing up (hard to describe, but kind of like the prongs are made of longer pieces of brass folded down, not like the solid prongs we have now). But that's a good thing, as the newer models have complaints of poor quality parts and more failures than the old ones. It's certainly very solid. And it runs, which is good. She insisted in needed oiling, so I'm gonna take it apart to see if it just needs new grease or if there are indeed any leaks or anything (hurrah for lots of online tutorials!). Parts are also widely available, and generally pretty cheap.

The bowl it came with looks perfect, so I'm thinking she didn't use it much. It has the standard attachment, the bread one (whee!), and a wire whisk one. I honestly can't wait to try making bread in it. I've always wanted to try, but just can't be bothered with hand kneading.

There's some slight discoloration around the head which makes me think it might've been burning some oil at one point. However, even if I do need to repair it slightly, that will be much, much cheaper than a new machine, which I could never justify buying, even on sale. Even used ones on Craigslist still tend to be over $100. So I am feeling very lucky indeed. :D

I would have killed to have been part of a marching show like this. So, so cool. Seriously, some great forms there, especially the horse. The horse was amazing. Those are seriously the kinds of drill charts you dream of in marching band.

I hope we see more geeky shows like that in the future. It certainly got the crowd interested! And now I'm a bit nostalgic for high school, something that definitely doesn't happen often. Too bad I probably couldn't play my instrument worth crap now.

Today's xkcd is AMAZING.

♥

All settled at con, doing the annual "peruse the schedule and decide on panels" with my besties. Margaritas have been had, so things are amusing (though no alcohol was needed for the general conversation to hit NSFW status earlier - best fanfriends ever).

I got inside the Sheraton and back out with my badge in under five minutes this year. Holy shit, still can't believe it.

This is so my Happiest Place On Earth, no lie. *hugs the whole con, even the gamers*

So jealous of VividCon goers right now, seriously. But I love that modern technology allows the vids to go up the same weekend they're premiering these days, as well, which means I already have shiny vids to watch. Just starting to dip my toes in that pool now, but so far these two vids have blown my socks off:

Starships by bironic - Multifandom. Spaceships. Awesomeness. Much squealing and grinning on my part while watching.

Ride to California by bradcpu - Avengers/Thor/Captain America/Iron Man movies. Just, wow.