March 31st, 2008
I’ve always been a fan of the James Bond films, but nothing ever fanatical, I preferred Moore to Connery simply as it was the era I was born into. I then went on to prefer Brosnan thanks to Goldeneye, I played the game, but never bought the movie or any other Bond movies for that matter, certainly not on DVD (may have bought a video as a present actually).
So when they announced that the deluxe special editions were coming out I admit I was interested, if not vaguely curious about the older films. I looked on longingly as they released the box set, in a briefcase I think and about a month back I caved in and got the Casino Royale total box set which comes in a casino motif box on sale (not as cheap as they are advertising as of yesterday grrrrr).
Bloody hell it’s heavy.
Mainly, as I discovered when I got home thanks to poker chips in the middle which I suspect I’ll never use.
So last weekend I finally got around to watching the first movie; Dr No and absolutely loved it. I think I enjoyed it as much for the storyline and the acting for its wonderful retro feel, which of course at the time wasn’t retro and was probably quite modern.
There are a lot of mistakes in this film, to be absolutely fair, but I think they are all forgiven. The driving sequences would probably feel wrong if it wasn’t done with the stationary car and the film running in the background simulating the driving (did they have green screen back then?).
The scene where the spider crawls up Bond’s arm is great despite the obvious glass that Connery is pushed up against. Everyone picks on Raiders of the Lost Ark for the cobra reflection in the glass but I figure I wouldn’t let a spider crawl on me and I certainly not sitting in front of a cobra unprotected.
I know they cleaned it up for the DVD but Dr No looks crisp and clean, not only in the film quality but even in it’s production design. Dr No himself is very sharp in his clothing, and has the shiny black robot hands, Bond is always extraordinarily well dressed and the first movie is certainly no exception.
In fact Dr No is actually the perfect template for a James Bond story, meglomaniac trying to take over the world, banter with Moneypenny, some gambling, the immortal ‘Bond, James Bond’ and of course the beautiful Ursula Andress in that iconic scene coming out of the ocean and getting caught up in the world of international espionage.
Something I didn’t know about Ursula Andress is that she is the only Bond girl to be referenced directly in an Ian Fleming Bond novel, someone points the actress out in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The other thing I didn’t know is that her voice was completely dubbed over except for the singing by a voice actress named Nikki van der Zyl, another woman did the singing.
Light on the gadgets which personally I don’t mind too much, I like the scene where he uses ‘no tech’ means to work out if someone has been in his room. The ‘dragon’ is pretty low tech itself but I love the dudes dressed in sci fi radiation suits running around doing henchmen things.
The music in Dr No is as iconic as the movie, and because this is the first one we are treated to it throughout the film. I wonder if they were aware how endearing and ageless the music would be?
It was a real treat watching Dr No and I realised whilst watching that I had never completely watched it from start to finish, I had seen scenes here and there but never the entire film. I’m sure all the Bond fans reading this are jealous of me being able to watch it with fresh eyes!!
Popularity: 8% [?]
Categories: Movies |
Tags: Casino Royale, Dr No, Goldeneye, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Nikki van der Zyl, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Ursula Andress | 2 Comments
March 30th, 2008
I didn’t get the chance this weekend to draw as much as I had hoped, actually I barely got the chance to throw a couple of outline lines down, but I did work on sargedesign.com’s refit. I’m building it as a portfolio site and using a Wordpress theme to do so, unfortunately I have to completely gut the theme and rebuild it. By the time I finish it it should be a pretty sweet theme.
But I’m going to do something here that I wouldn’t normally but it may interest you to see the process. Here is the sketch of Iron Man that I’m working on, the pose may change the surroundings will definitely change but it gives you an idea of where I’m going:
No podcat today either, maybe later in the week.
Popularity: 16% [?]
Categories: Art, Comics, Web Design |
Tags: Art, comic book, iron man, sketch, Web Design | 4 Comments
March 29th, 2008
There’s a dude who lives down the road and we can see generally into his yard, which we don’t spend days upon days staring into (just making that clear). But whenever we do happen to glance in that direction you can bet your bottom dollar that he’s either on the trampoline or at the very least in line with his kids to have a go.
There are a number of times where it’s late afternoon and everyone is winding down from work and sure enough he’s out there in twilight bouncing away.
I think it’s awesome.
It makes me wish that I’ve got a trampoline, one of those newish ones that isn’t all iron and static electricity and falling through the edge and catching yourself on springs. Trampoline technology appears to have advanced since I was a child. There are pads and nets and they are round.
God I wish I worked at the trampoline institute where they research such things.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Categories: Stuff |
Tags: static electricity, trampoline | 21 Comments
March 29th, 2008
I’ve had a pretty shit (look there is simply no other way to put that) week this past week; hate mail; other stuff and yesterday I received an email threatening legal action in regards to an individual who will remain nameless as per their request.
I’m not going into any great detail but the guy is essentially pissed because this site ranks highest on a search under his name in Google and thought that if he threatens me with legal action then I’ll run off into the hills.
Honestly if the guy had actually written to me politely and explained why he would appreciate it if I removed his name from this site I would have not hesitated. Â But he threatened legal action and after the week I had it was the cherry on top.
I even offered a compromise that would have been beneficial to him and helped clean up his name online. Â But again he chose to threaten legal action. Â He has no legal standing for such a thing, as quite frankly I was actually quite fair and open in the final post regarding him.
But I’m tired. Â I’m tired and I really don’t care. Â I don’t care about his rubbish, I don’t need the grief and have removed his name and his “brother’s” name and if anyone does mention it from now on I will remove said names.
One of the conditions of this is that he not attempt to contact me again, this is the last I wish to even hear his name, if he does I will take it further. Â Â I doubt he’ll contact anyone who’s page doesn’t register higher than his on the Google search results but if he does it is your decision whether or not you want to argue with him about it or not.
Me I don’t think it’s worth it.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Categories: QYDJ |
11 Comments
March 27th, 2008
Yay for importing memorabilia!
We tried to get the plush DRDs from Farscape for ages here in Australia with absolutely no luck at all. We had them ordered through a pop culture specialist place here that will remain nameless as in the past we’ve done well with them and hope to again. But with our last couple of orders they really dropped the ball which included not getting my DRDs.
So we went directly to an overseas supplier and they arrived today:
Yes and next to me is the life size plush Dominar Rygel XVI. I also have a smaller one (not shown) that we got before we knew of the life sized one. The reason why they are still in plastic is obviously to protect them at this stage until we move when we will release them from their plastic shrouds.
Oh and it is very cool that the webisodes are coming!!!! Mentioned now on Scifi.com and Henson’s official site. Â One of the best scifi shows ever.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Categories: Science Fiction, Television |
Tags: DRD, Farscape, Rygel, sci fi | 21 Comments
March 26th, 2008
I had a cover in mind when I first started working on this so this is the natural end of playing around with the image.
I’ve also taken the plunge and can now be found on deviantArt so if you enjoy that sort of thing you can always see some of my work there (you’ll probably see it all here first anyway), I do hope to be producing a lot more stuff though and as soon as we move out of here I’m going to get to work on my upcoming independent graphic novel for my new indie comic book company.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Categories: Art, Comics |
Tags: comic book cover, Comics, deviantArt, hulk, iron man | 12 Comments
March 26th, 2008
I have to say that this is very clever and very cool. I want one for my desk, so if anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday this would be right up there. Actually forget that, I don’t really want to be reminded of my birthday. Already this year my eyesight has failed and now Tracey is examining my thinning hair. I even had to shave as there was one or two grey hairs popping up in the beard.
I think my favourite scene in Star Trek II Wraith of Khan is no longer where Kirk screams:
“KHAAAAAAAANNNN!”
It’s now when he is reading the screen when he is about to input some code and he pulls out his reading glasses with a muttered ‘damn’.
And those damn kids and their parties and their iPod Touches. I remember when an iPod only had 8 GB and you didn’t hear any of us complain when we only had 14 days worth of shuffled songs.
Huuuurrrrrupm.
Anyway I found this vase whilst searching for pictures of Iron Man. The vase is called Iron Man Pen Holder & Vase and is available from a site called Wrapables.com. I think it’s really well designed, simple but brilliant.
A little piece of art sculpture right there on your desk.
Now were is my cup of tea and blanket I feel like watching my stories then off for a nap this afternoon.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Categories: Stuff |
Tags: flowers, iron man, pencils, vase | 9 Comments
March 25th, 2008
Well this evening I was treated to a comment that I had to ridicule share with you all because it is hilarious and hopefully written as a joke because if it’s not then I feel kind of bad for the kid, being challenged and all. This was in response to the Bruce Campbell in Burn Notice post.
TO LEE (BIGEST DICK ON PLANET EARTH)
YOU AND THE REST OF THIS BUNCH OF SHIT DONT KNOW A THING ABOUT THESE TYPES OF PROGRAMS. WHAT TYPE OF A** ****ING FOUR EYED C**** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE .YOU ALL HAVE NO ****ING RIGHT TO CRITISISE THIS TYPE OF A PROGRAMS, I MEAN WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ,KOREANS .EVEN THOE YOU MAY BE ADULTS ,WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO MAKE A WEBSITE ON SOMEONES HARD WORK. OH AND GO AHEAD BE A PUSSY AND DELETE THIS COMENT I DONT GIVE A ****ING CRAP
F*** YOU ALL TO HELL…….. AND BACK AGAIN
Oh my god. I don’t even know where to start!? I could simply dismiss this child as some whiny, spoilt little illiterate. But here at Quit Your Day Job we are always trying to put back into the community so I thought I might try and help our challenged special little friend.
TO LEE (BIGEST DICK ON PLANET EARTH)
Straight away I’m going to stop you and point out that it’s rude and bad etiquette to use all caps. Plus you probably shouldn’t use brackets in your greeting, I don’t know if this is a hard and fast rule but I think it only makes sense. You did misspell biggest too, try and spell check your prose if the school system has let you down in spelling.
YOU AND THE REST OF THIS BUNCH OF SHIT DONT KNOW A THING ABOUT THESE TYPES OF PROGRAMS.
Punctuation, my dear child! The word don’t has an apostrophe. Also your statement doesn’t make sense as my readers and I probably do know something about these types of program, I’m assuming you are referring to Burn Notice and not the Old Spice ads.
WHAT TYPE OF A** ****ING FOUR EYED C**** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE .
Whoa! I’ve had glasses for less than a week and already with the four-eyes insult!? That’s cold. Oh and we don’t use the C word in polite conversation my dear, it reveals that you are of low class and of bad breeding. Your sentence is poorly put together and I think you’re missing a question mark at the end.
YOU ALL HAVE NO ****ING RIGHT TO CRITISISE THIS TYPE OF A PROGRAMS, I MEAN WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ,KOREANS .
Just can’t get a break with these question marks can you? Actually you’ll find that I have every right to criticise what I choose as I live in a free country. The point though that you are missing is that I was actually praising the show especially considering it has Bruce Campbell in it. Aww that’s a shame you went and got all ignorant and racist.
EVEN THOE YOU MAY BE ADULTS ,WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO MAKE A WEBSITE ON SOMEONES HARD WORK.
Though is the word I think you are aiming for, got to invest in that spell checker. You may also want to watch the punctuation as you’ve missed the apostrophe again in someone’s. The sentence once again misses the actual content of the post again and what did we leave off the end again? That’s right, it’s free to use question marks so go wild and throw some in there!
OH AND GO AHEAD BE A PUSSY AND DELETE THIS COMENT I DONT GIVE A ****ING CRAP
Hang on a second! You sound like a troll. That’s the type of thing trolls say. You’re not a troll are you? Punctuation again, no full stop and you could probably use a comma or two.
F*** YOU ALL TO HELL…….. AND BACK AGAIN
Yours Sincerely? Yours Truly? Best Regards? That’s three sign-offs you could have used, really are you putting your best foot forward here? I do however enjoy the very dramatic use of the ellipsis and if you were going to stick with the way you’ve written it you could have gotten away with an exclamation point.
So what do you think guys?
Feel free to add any advice you’ve got for Smackdat14 (whom I have the IP address of I might add). Also if you actually do own that email address and it isn’t you who left this pile of drivel you may want to leave a comment letting us know that some troll is hijacking your email address and is in violation of Hotmail terms of use.
Of course you could always just apologise.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Categories: QYDJ |
Tags: spam, troll | 30 Comments
March 25th, 2008
Here is the thumbnail sketch I did in my journal the other night when I couldn’t get the imagery out of my head so I could get some rotten sleep. For lack of interest’s sake the sleep I had that night was indeed rotten even after I got the stuff out of my mind, in case you were wondering.
So this is fairly new for me, usually I’ll start and finish a drawing on the paper it will end up on. But as I’ve mentioned I had a bunch of ideas that had been rolling around in my head and I had to get some of them down on paper or it was threatening to make me a blurry eyed zombie come go back to work day.
The first thing you may notice is that the helmet depicted in the rough thumbnail is the early 90′ish version which is when I really started heavily reading Iron Man so this is the natural one in my mind. Also, and this is a key decision that was made, his eyes are wide open behind the eye-slits.
I changed my mind on this for a couple of reasons:
- As his head is slammed into the ground Tony’s eyes would no doubt be shut anyway
- Having the eyes wide open gave it more of a posed look
- I like the idea that the helmet hides everything, it’s a little like Batman, I prefer it when the eyes aren’t drawn in on the cowl (I think Robin is the same with his mask).
So I jumped into Photoshop and threw a little colour around the place and was quite happy once again with the result:
One more post on this drawing as I go further and make it into a cover. (ok maybe two)
Popularity: 28% [?]
Categories: Art, Comics |
Tags: Art, Comics, hulk, iron man, sketch | 8 Comments
March 24th, 2008
I am more than happy with this piece! It wasn’t the drawing I meant to do this weekend but once I had it in my head I couldn’t get it out until I got it down on paper.
About two o’clock last night I sketched out the thumbnail design for it and this afternoon inked the pencils. For some reason Iron Man and the Hulk have been having issues throughout the last ten years or so and so I thought I’d add to the rift!
I love the classic Iron Man helmet actually and a lot of thought went into what era armour to use. I was highly tempted to make it the one with the pointy tips (I’ll use that one at a later date).
Since scanning this in I’ve run it through Photoshop and will show the results over the next couple of days (you will get sick of seeing it!).
Popularity: 13% [?]
Categories: Art, Comics |
Tags: Art, comic, hulk, iron man, sketch | 5 Comments
