Ever want to be knighted?

NOW YOU CAN BE!

It occurred to me today that anybody who reads my blog could be called a "SIR reader," right? Therefore, I hereby declare that all readers of my blog are knights. Knights of the Order of... hmmmm. What should our Order be known as? Please leave your suggestions in the comments!

There are a couple of other stipulations to becoming a knight. The first is that you must become a follower of this blog. I've added a "Knighted Readers" section on the sidebar. All you have to do is click "follow" and you will become a knight. Don't worry, if you don't want your profile showing up in that box you can check the "follow privately" box and you'll be a dark knight.. If you don't click the follow button but you still post a comment every now and then you can be a squire.

Hold on though, is there such a thing as a female knight? I don't want to alienate my female readers, but I don't know if you want to be called knights.

(five minutes later, after several Google searches)

Yes! Indeed there are female knights! For a long while though, there weren't any. Women were not allowed to take up arms throughout much of history. In modern times female knights have become more widespread. It appears that there are a few options for the title.

Simply "knight" is acceptable

Dame (equivalent to "Sir")

Chevalière (French feminine version of "chevalier," or horseman." So literally, "horsewoman.")

The Knights Templar also allegedly had a class of "warrior nuns." I can't seem to find much info supporting that, but it equals awesome.

So, in review. Please click the "follow" button to be knighted. Or post a comment now and again to become a squire. Post your ideas for the name of the Order and post your vote for the female knight title. (I'd make a poll but I don't think it's worth it).

Oh, one last thing, if any of you are still interested in completing my long-overdue graphics contest, might I suggest a coat of arms for the blog? That would be amazingly awesome.

So, my good readers, get to it! Tally-ho!

It's Christmas! ...again.

Yup, I had Christmas today. Kinda weird I know, but my mothers side of the family had to postpone our christmas festivities until today. So, Merry Christmas! It was a good time, my cousins Josh, Heather, and Ian all came down along with their mother and my mother. We watched the movie "9" and ate ridiculously tasty foods (like Crabbies! Also known as crab puffs). I may or may not review "9" in a coming blog post. I don't really feel like blogging about much tonight but I will tell you that my cousin Josh explained to me how the double-exposure could have occured in Steve's photos. Apparently the effect can be achieved several ways but the most likely in this case is that the mechanism which advanced the film in the camera broke and only moved the film forward every other picture.

In news related to uberlate-Christmas I really want to go lose myself in a Barnes&Noble store for several hours as I now possess four gift cards total.

Near-calamity on the Putt Putt Syndrome front. The final back-end credit sequence (which is 92 gigabytes in size) turned out to be unreadable on the hard drive we put it on. Somehow the file got "wrapped" in the software of the drive itself. The file can be watched but not removed from the drive. Technology can really be a pain sometimes. Allen and Dino desperately need the credits for the Feb 6 premiere so they are currently driving up from Connecticut to pick up the file directly. Shaw is meeting them at the school at about one in the morning.

The only good news that can come from this is that once these credits are added to the film there is absolutely no going back. Allen can't come to us asking for a tweak here or there to the sequence. Once Dino sticks them on DVD's can start coming out of....DVD factories? Where exactly do movies get made into DVD's anyway?

Alright I'm going to head to dreamland now.

PS. I successfully managed to avoid having this month have fewer posts than December. Since that was pretty much the reason I was updating daily I may or may not continue this post streak.

Steve Pearl

I've been thinking a lot lately about ideas for the script Shaw and I are going to write for Script Frenzy and I remembered that one of the ways my sister gathered ideas for her NaNoWriMo novels was by drawing upon the history of our family and ancestors for names and characterization. This is the easiest way to come up with lifelike characters, seeing as they are based upon real people. However, it wouldn't be a good idea to simply use the entire life of an ancestor/relative. I plan on only using the attributes that fit well with the message Shaw and I will try to convey.

I've found at least one ancestor of mine who I believe is ripe for study and possible incorporation into our script ideas. Steve Pearl, who is (sort of) a great-uncle of mine (still figuring that out) was left to live with his mother after his parents divorced at a very young age. Once he grew up he successfully invested in the stock market, using his earnings to travel the world and take photos. He was accepted into the four most promenant choral groups in New York at the time but was never in any relationships and died lonely. My grandmother is in possesion of many of the photos that he took while on his trips around the world. She has given me a few of them.

These four photos appear to be of a Japanese or Chinese performance and they also appear to be double-exposed. At least I believe that is the correct term. Any photography buffs out there please let me know how they were taken and why they appear the way they do.

Any insight into the location of the photos, the content they display, or the method by which they were taken is appreciated. The last image is my favorite. The double-exposure almost seems intentional, the bright dancer on the right encroaching on the dark figures to the left. The motion and life which are captured are impressive, I find it pleasing to the eye. Click on the images for high-res versions and let me know what you think.

I plan to get more images from my grandmother so expect future posts to feature Steve's photos occassionaly.