James Bond Countdown: #12: The World Is Not Enough

March 14, 2013October 30, 2013 C.P.Leave a comment

Number on Countdown: 12

Title: The World Is Not Enough

Year: 1999

Short Synopsis:

In Spain, Bond meets with some Swiss banker to retrieve some money for Sir Robert King, who was buying a report from an MI6 agent. The report was stolen and the agent killed, so Bond goes in asking questions. Before the banker can give details, he is sniped, causing much chaos in the room. Bond grabs the money, but learns nothing as to who killed the agent.

Bond returns to MI6 with the money and meets King, oil pipeline dude and old friend of M. Due to some chemical reaction caused between the chemicals on the money and King’s (secretly switched) lapel pin, the money fucking explodes. Bond is shot at by some lady on boat outside Q’s new boat out to chase her on the Thames. The boats finally reaches the Millennium Dome, where the suspect de-boats and jumps into a hot air balloon. Bond grabs the ropes and tries to convince her to come and talk. Her gun speaks instead, shooting some canister and the whole thing up. Bond falls down to the Dome and dislocates his shoulder.

Later, Bond attends the funeral and sees there Elektra King, Sir Robert’s only daughter. In the local MI6 base, Bond and Co. figure out that the money is linked to Renard, a terrorist who kidnapped Elektra long ago. Oh, and due to a bullet in his head, he can feel no pain. Thinking Elektra is the next target, M sends Bond to go protect her.

Bond arrives in Azerbaijan and after a “cold reception” from Elektra, they decide to go skiing and go check out the pipeline. It is here they are attacked by flying snowmobiles or whatever. After Bond thwarts them, he meets with Valentin Zukovsky (the same from Goldeneye) at his casino to get info about the attackers. Zukovsky tells Bond that Davidov, Elektra’s head of security, is secretly in league with Renard. Before they can get chatty, Elektra comes down to gamble. She’s not one for Bond’s overprotective style, and tells him “There’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive.” Elektra then promptly blows her dad’s $1,000,000 credit line with the casino.

Bond leaves Elektra and kills Davidov, then boarding a plane to a a nuclear physics place in Kazakhstan. Posing as a physicist, he meets Doctor Christmas Jones, a super sexay American physicist with an affinity for short shorts. Bond goes down in the silo to check shit out, and finds Renard and his cronies about to steal a bomb. Bond is taken aback when Renard says “there’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive”, but can’t do much question-asking, as Doctor Jones comes in and blows his cover. After gunshots and lots of steam, Renard gets off with the bomb.

Bond and Christmas escape by posing sexily

Bond accuses Elektra of being in league with Renard and she slaps him. He later shares his thoughts with M, giving her some bomb locator signal. Right then, the pipeline comes under attack from the stolen bomb. Bond goes along with Christmas to stop it. They realize the bomb has been tampered with and half the plutonium is missing. Bond decides to let the bomb explode and give Elektra the impression they are dead. Thinking Bond dead, Elektra reveals herself to be in league with Renard and that she killed her dad. She kidnaps M, but not before M slaps her.

Renard and Elektra visit M and says she’s gonna die and shit. M then realizes she has the locator card from Bond, but can’t activate it without wires and stuff. Bond comes to Zukovsky’s caviar place to ask him questions, but the interrogation is cut short by a helicopter weilding massive saw blades. After two destroyed helicopters and a destroyed car, Bond finally gets to ask Zukovsky what Elektra’s mysterious gamble was about. Bond suspects she wasn’t gambling at all, instead paying Zukovsky for something. Zukovsky reveals that Elektra was paying for the use of a submarine commanded by his nephew in Istanbul.

Bond, Christmas, and Zukovsky go to some Instanbul base and look at some maps. It is here they realize the reactor from the submarine and the plutonium can be used to make a nuclear bomb. If Istanbul were to disappear, all the oil peeps in the area would have to use the King pipeline. M finally reaches her clock, and connects the locator card. Turns out she’s on some island-tower in the middle of the bay. Bond and Christmas try and go save M, but they are once again kidnapped and brought to the same tower.

Christmas is sent to die on the sub, and Bond gets tortured by Elektra in some torture device to which he is handcuffed. Before he can be killed, Zukovsky arrives with guns blazing, killing traitorous henchman and baddie alike, eventually reaching Bond. Elektra shoots Zukovsky and he falls to the ground. Before he dies, though, he points his concealed-in-his-cane gun at Bond and shoots his handcuff open, freeing him. Zukovsky dies. Bond escapes then, runs up the tower, frees M from her little cell, and encounters Elektra at the top. He kills Elektra when she refuses to call off the submarine.

Bond then jumps out the window to the sea (and submarine) below and finds a way inside. Bond finds Christmas and tracks down Renard just when he’s about ready to blow up the reactor. Upon news of Elektra’s death, Renard goes berserk and fights even harder, but not even captor-victim love can save him from a golden-rod-through-the-stomach death. Bond and Christmas escape the submarine, which mimi-explodes underwater, and are saved by some tourists on a boat.

M returns to MI6, where people are using the best technology to locate the MIA Bond. They find him by means of a heat signal, his body getting redder and redder. Under Bond, another set of legs wrap ’round him. M is surprised with her agent’s behavior, but no one else is. Inside the room, Bond and Christmas enjoy sex and bad puns.

Things I like:

While my complaints for The World Is Not Enough are numerous, I do still enjoy the film and several of its aspects. To be honest, I think the movie starts off a little boring, and don’t think it gets going until Elektra reveals herself to be a villain (when the movie’s plot kind of starts to make sense). Once it’s revealed Elektra and Renard want to blast the Bosphorous, the movie gets REALLY GOOD, and the climax is pretty damn thrilling. For this reason, I appreciate The World Is Not Enough most when I can watch it all the way through, for the last hour is the entree to the large, lame-ass appetizer. In snippets, not so good. All together, pretty good.

In addition to being a Bond fan, I am a fan of castles, and armour, and other medieval things, which makes MI6’s Scottish-castle base, to me, the fucking coolest MI6 base ever. Bond see-through glasses are pretty spiffy as well, and the Moneypenny flirt scene is classic.

Now, I’m going to disagree with most Bond fans and say that I don’t mind in the slightest that Denise Richards is a nuclear physicist. While her lines and delivery might make her seem like a stupid person, everyone seems to be opposed to the mere idea that such a fine-looking lady could be such a smart scientist. Which is absolutely crazy. Physicists Amy Mainzer, Sarah Kavassalis, and Lisa Randall are all 1) beautiful women and 2) smarter than either you or me will ever be. So what is the big deal with having a hot scientist? Is the problem that she’s a woman, or that she’ s Denise Richards? I’ll admit that her delivery of lines isn’t the best, but that doesn’t make her unbelievable as a brainy physicist.

Amy Mainzer, Sarah Kavassalis, and Lisa Randall. All would make great Bond girls.

And everyone seems to have a problem with her Tomb Raider-esque short shorts and tank top. While I probably wouldn’t wear such scant clothes when dealing with nuclear substances, who says a physicist can’t wear that? I don’t get it. Do the male Bond fans just have trouble accepting a hot woman is incredibly smart? This is probably a discussion for a wider venue, but I thought I’d bring this up because I seem to be the ONLY one who doesn’t mind her.

Oh, and I really love this shot, too. So great.

Renard smirks as Bond’s instant kill gets blocked. Excellent framing.

Things I didn’t like:

For as much as I like this movie, I sure have a lot of gripes about (as I do with everything).

It’s no surprise that if you space out during the expository scenes of Bond films (or any film), you’ll be completely lost. This happened to me a couple times when I was younger, and I wasn’t fully able to appreciate them until I became an adult and, y’know, developed an attention span. That being said, the plot of The World is Not Enough STILL confuses me. So, Robert King buys a report from an MI6 agent about some terrorists attacking his oil pipeline. The report was stolen from said MI6 agent who was then killed. Bond wants to know who killed the agent, so he goes to the Swiss Banker handling King’s money to ask who killed him (OK so far. . .). The banker is shot before he can deliver a name and Bond escapes with the money.

But why is the banker returning the money? Is it because the report was stolen? But in the scene with M, the report is there on her desk. So, how did they get the report? And if King did get it, then why would he need to be paid back? And how would the banker know who killed the agent anyway? And why would King have to buy the report at all if he was such good friends with M? I don’t get it.

So King goes to see his tampered-with money and blows up. After the death, Bond finds out about Elektra’s past captivity and learns her ransom was a hefty 5,000,000 U.S. dollars. Bond reads the financial statement from King’s money and notes that the pounds amount translates exactly to five million USD (It’s something like 3, 313, 313.13 pounds). Bond goes to M and tells him this is a sign from her past captor, but couldn’t the prices being the same be a coincidence? What was the price of the original report? Wouldn’t the MI6 agent have set the price? Wasn’t King buying it from him? And if it wasn’t, then why would Renard return money back that wasn’t the same price as the report? I don’t get it!

So as I understand it, Renard killed this MI6 agent and decided to give Robert King his money back. Then Elektra switched his lapel pin so that when he next saw the money, the money would explode, killing him and possibly M, who she hates for advising King on paying her ransom the last time she was kidnapped…

Wait, y’know what, there’s no point in trying to figure this shit out. The fact is that all this captivity/report/money backstory shit is just FAR TOO MUCH for a backstory. And looking at it from a logical point, why the fuck would Renard and Elektra go through so much damn trouble just to kill her father? Now, I know Bond villains often do things a bit elaborately, but this plan is so ridiculously complicated that it hinders itself. Why didn’t Elektra and Renard just kill her dad somewhere and blame it on an accident? That wouldn’t involve Bond or MI6 at all, which would keep eyes off them as they steal some plutonium and blow up Istanbul (which also would have been disguised as an accident). Accidental death and accidental city-blow-up leads to getting off scott free, so why would Renard and Elektra send a message right to MI6? Most of the time, when you’re trying to get away with something, you don’t BRING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. Stupid idiots.

While this makes me want to bang my head against the wall, my biggest complaint doesn’t have to do with the plot at all, but rather this movie’s references to the new Millennium. I mean, I get it, it was 1999, and the year TWO THOUSAND was coming along, which meant we would enter into a new era of technology and knowledge (right?). In preparation, we stored gallons of water in our basements and saw fit to label products in futuristic packaging. “The Guinness Book of World Records” saw it’s “Millennium Edition” and was all shiny silver. The 16th Wrestlemania dropped its roman numeral schtick and went by the name “Wrestlemania 2000”. Pokemon: The Movie 2000 and Dracula 2000 were released. Everything had a fuckin’ 2000 or a Millennium attached to it.

This might have in fact just been the 2,000th Pokemon movie

With such hype for the Millennium, it’s a surprise this movie wasn’t called “James Bond 2000” or some shitty-ass Millennium title, like The 2000 Is Not Millennium. And thank goodness the plot didn’t deal with some sort of plot that had to do with New Year’s and all the world’s computers freaking out. But even though it doesn’t do any of this shit, it still reeks with the dated-ness of Millennium anticipation. Even the trailer for the movie said “As the countdown begins to the 21st century begins, it’s good to know you can always count on 007” (or something to that effect). Oh, and how could we forget John Cleese’s “Y2K” joke at the end of the film?

Additionally, the score is underscored by techno-y beats (futuristic music!), and while this was somewhat present in the previous film, Tomorrow Never Dies, it’s done as much as it is here (we wouldn’t get a shitty dance track for a Bond song until the next movie). I’m talking mostly about the opening boat chase, which features some tech-y beats behind the classic Bond brass. A boat chase which inevitably ends at the fucking Millennium Dome, some stupid ass shit they built in London to celebrate the new Millennium. In addition to the Millennium Dome and the more electronic sound, electronic music artist Goldie was ACTUALLY A HENCHMAN in the movie. And his name was Bullion because he has gold teeth. Like, seriously?

I don’t know why this bugs me so much, but it does. That’d be like if the newest Bond film featured Twitter references, dubstep and Skrillex as a henchman. Could you imagine that? And could image how lame that would be fourteen years later? Can you imagine how lame that would be NOW?

All that aside, I already said before that I can buy Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist, but the it’s a wonder they named her Christmas Jones and not Christmas Saystheobviousallthetime. For example, when she and Bond try and diffuse a bomb, he says “Look at this, someone’s stripped the screw-heads,” to which she replies “Someone’s tampered with the bomb!” Uh…DUH. Such on-the-nose dialogue is given throughout. Like, yea, we got it, Christmas.

And why does Valentin Zukovsky look so fucking different? I didn’t even recognize him from Goldeneye. Fucking A.

The Song:

Finally, composer David Arnold is given the opportunity to compose the main track (after losing the race for Tomorrow Never Dies to Sheryl Crow’s song), and it’s fantastic. Shirley Manson’s voice is simply perfect for the haunting, underscored-evil lyrics written by Don Black. With the chorus of “The world is not enough, but it is such a perfect place to start. And if you’re strong enough, together we can take the world apart, my love,” the song is passively sinister, which is damn awesome. One of the my favorite Bond themes, actually.

Favorite Scene:

While The World Is Not Enough features some unique action scenes, the absolute best scene is the one featuring Q and his new protege (played perfectly by John Cleese), who Bond quips as being named “R”. Banter flies between all three of them, brimming with under-the-radar jokes and comedic subtext. In addition to great conversations, this is the first Q scene to mention Q’s retirement (Desmond Llewellyn was pretty old by this point), and shows Bond’s care for his long-time colleague. I always love the Bond-Q relationship and how, despite them always being annoyed with each other, they really seemed to care about each other. Desmond Llewellyn also makes a fitting exit to his character. Llywellyn’s last briefing as Q is an absolute perfect send-off.

Favorite Line:

While I should probably choose something deeper, my favorite line comes when Bond (posing as some Russian guy) meets Christmas Jones. She says “Doctor Jones. Christmas Jones, and tell me any jokes. I’ve heard them all,” to which Bond replies “I don’t know any doctor jokes.” Clever!

Extra Tidbit:

The film’s title is actually the English translation of the Bond family motto (first shown to us in the 1969 Bond flick On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) The original Latin is Orbis non-sufficit.

The James Bond Countdown will return…

Previous posts in the countdown:

Listen to the first six songs from the new Fadenfreude album!

March 7, 2013October 30, 2013 C.P.Leave a comment

Hello, everyone! Casey from Fadenfreude here with some, yes, I can’t believe it, Fadenfreude news. Who would have thought my little industrial metal experiment from last year would turn into something that I, well, care about? And care about enough to give it news? Oh well, things happen, and I’m happy to welcome Fadenfreude as the next entity in my creative catalog (because I LOVE having a billion projects to work on. . .)

As you no doubt know, last month was February Album Writing Month (or FAWM for short), in which thousands of people around the world attempt to write 14 songs during the shortest month of the year. I completed this last year (resulting in the first Fadenfreude album, available for listening here!), and was intent on creating the second Fadenfreude album.

After full time job-ness, project schedulin’, a concert, feeling all around burnt-out, and on the last day severe technical problems, I only managed to write six songs. That’s 42.8%, which, in every education system in the world is a failing grade (except maybe the United States). I could have bumped up my song total to 7 had my computer randomly begun to have a problem with recording (I love cheap stuff so much!). All excuses aside, here are the six tracks which will appear on the next Fadenfreude album, to be released hopefully sometime later this year.

Some are completely done, while some need an extra bit of ornamentation that a couple additional tracks of strings or electronic whatnot could easily do. They’re all at varying degrees of volume, having not yet been through the meticulous polishing process (that comes later). All the lyrics are in German, but I’ll provide a little summary for each one, as well as a link to the full lyrics and English translations. So grab your headphones and turn it up!

1. Meister aller Herren (Master of all Misters)

A song about Mr. Feeny, the teacher and mentor character from the great ’90s show “Boy Meets World.” Explains how he strikes fear and is boring, but is also smart and intelligent. As the songs states, he’s “had many experiences and already found the answers for us.” Some men just want to see the world learn. Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

2. Kostenlose Möbel (Free Furniture)

Chronicles the life of free furniture hunting and all its dangers. “Crooked nails, ripped cushions, doesn’t bug me at all!” Decorating on a budget can lead to, well, “eclectic” interior design principles, but as the song states, the bank account says “Nein!” when trying to buy nice things. Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

3. Jeden Tag Los (Every Day Go)

My first real serious song, as in meaning the entire lyrics aren’t a joke. I usually don’t like songs about partying, or feeling good, like P!nk’s “Get the Party Started” or “Let’s get it stared” by The Black Eyed Peas. Like, we’re already partying, do we need to say, “yea, let’s party!!”? Despite my aversion to such titles, I wrote one (because the world doesn’t make sense). And what started as a party song turned into a metaphor for life and how we must “go, go, go! (los, los, los!)” every day because we won’t be here forever. Weird! Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

4. Stuttgart

Another type of song that has always perplexed me is the song about a city. Like, how can you write a song about a city? Every week, FAWM would present its FAWMers with a challenge, one of which was to write a song about a city. I had no intention of doing this, since I have only really lived in towns (and didn’t want to write a song about L.A. . .), but eventually decided I should give my study-abroad-second-semester home a shout-out: Stuttgart. At the end, I say all the ‘burbs I frequented or my friends lived in. Mine, Vaihingen, is mentioned last. Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

5. Verschränkte Melodien (Intertwined Melodies)

“Every person is a melody, that has specific properties. A tempo and instrument, the soul about the sheet music. And sometimes when people meet each other, no matter how they arrived there, the melodies mix together and they go together perfectly.” So begins the most serious song Fadenfreude (and just me in general) has ever tried. A melancholy song for those us whose melodies with others might have mixed, but not been happy songs. It is common for people to believe in a soul mate, some mystery person you’re destined to share a life of happiness and togetherness with. But what if we have sad soul mates, too, who we’re destined to have sad stories with? “At first, smiles, at the end, tears, because not every song is happy”. Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

6. Plastik (Plastic)

A companion piece to the furniture-ode above, “Plastik” chronicles the life of the plastic-bottle Vodka drinker, who, despite wanting quality, doesn’t want to spend too much money (because they can’t). Click here for a link for the full lyrics and translation.

So that’s that. I have another song ready for recording, but am currently fixing my technical problems with recording (or trying to fix it and getting frustrated as hell). I’ll get back to that later for sure. Hope you enjoyed this little sample! I’ll get working on those other songs ASAP! Signing off for now.

STATE OF THE UNION 2013, or “I’M BACK!”

January 28, 2013October 30, 2013 C.P.Leave a comment

Hello everyone, I have returned! I know that for all of you that’s either great news or the greatest news, so I’m gonna dive right in, talk about 2012 a little, give you a heads-up about all I am doing creatively this year, and go over my horoscope for 2013!

It’s very safe to say that the last quarter of 2012 was a complete bust. Well, not totally. I did start a really cool job with lots of chill people, so that was positive! Having no internet for a month was a drag, trying to get it fixed was a drag, having your eight-year old computer break while trying to fix it was a drag, and then having my friend’s “it’s-so-bad-I-don’t-want-it” laptop break completely was a drag too. Like, Jesus. Luckily I was able to squeeze out my Nano before they both died completely, but still, reverting back to 1991 was a pretty hard thing to do.

Beside these technological troubles, I moved during the Holidays, which is the absolute worst idea in the history of time. Do not do this, ever. Working so hard made me feel like a real Scrooge, what with not being much in the Christmas spirit and all. Much to my surprise, I didn’t even get around to watch A Garfield Christmas (see…this is why I NEED Internet), but at least I snagged an Advent Calendar and a Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town DVD right before Christmas.

But anyway, enough bitching about old equipment breaking down and living in the 1990’s and having to move heavy objects on my days off. It’s a new year! And with that new year, it’s time to give you a taste of what you can expect from me.

CREATIVE PLAN: 2013

There’s a couple people I am associated with who seem to be creative workhorses. Every other day, they seem to be developing or releasing something. Some have written like a billion scripts and made 100 videos. Others connect with local artists and collaborate on stuff. I would love to be as prolific as them, but seem to come out with (a lot) less work. This could be attributed that I want everything to be PERFECT, that I feel I have to do everything myself, my whole “let creative works simmer for as long as they need to, man” mentality, or just plain laziness. Either way, you’re not gonna get much from Factory Poma this year (at least not that I can foresee).

Another diagnosis for this creative slow-cooking could be that I absolutely hate editing and tweaking. I can’t stand it.It’s so damn boring. And everyone who edits stuff wants money for it. (How dare they?!) Since I am too frugal (cheap) to pay them, I have to edit things myself, which turns me into Mr. Unreachable when my unpolished projects come calling. I’d much rather write something new than edit and tweak something else, but alas, no one’s gonna read an unpolished book on my shelf, nor the five other ones I would write after that. I considered taking this year off of creating things, and having an “edit” year, where all I do is make my stuff nice and shiny. I doubt that will happen (especially since FAWM, Scriptfrenzy, and NANO are happening again. . .), but we’ll see.

WRITING

As I just stated, editing is so damn annoying. While I have some new ideas cooking around for what I want to write this year, I’m hard-pressed to get “A Distant Horn”, the first part of a fantasy comedy trilogy, polished and self-published with the release date of NOVEMBER 1. That’s right, people, “A DISTANT HORN” coming out November 1, 2013. I even told my roommate that he was to keep me on track about it, so…I hope he remembers. I have no idea when the other two parts would come out, because by that time I’ll probably have another billion projects. Just saying, “A Distant Horn” coming out in November! I really need to get someone to draw the cover. Hmm. . .

And oh yea, maybe I’ll keep that Bond countdown going.

MUSIC

Oh, music. You’re so much harder to make than just writing shit. If you’re looking for a Linnalapsi release this year, don’t hold your breath. These babies take about two years to come out, and seeing as I released one last year in May, you’ll have to wait til May 2014 for the next folk metal installment. I’m just going to polish the songs I have now, fuck around with the recording process, and cross my fingers that it will turn some more heads than the last album did. I don’t want to get TOO into the details of what I’m doing with album III (I can explain all that later in another post), but yea, most likely, no Linnalapsi this year.

On another note, I probably will do another Fadenfreude album, which will all be composed during the month of February for February Album Writing Month. If everything goes to plan, it will be released probably in the following months and put up for free (and have some awesome songs on it). The Fadenfreude album I released last year, “Die Bäckerei ist geschlossen“, has actually grown on me this past year, so maybe I’ll take this next one a little more seriously (or at least draw a more attention-grabbing cover).

So, Linnalapsi, no, Fadenfreude, yes.

FILM/VIDEO

Oh, my first love. It’s amazing how you can’t make film or video without a good HD camera or equipment or a good editing program or ANYTHING. I’m blessed to choose hobbies that are so fucking expensive, so in the downtime, Ralph and I have been developing ideas for our two little projects: Grape-Flavored Waterslides: Season 2 and our horror comedy feature Die-Ing Pan. We have a bunch of episodes planned for GFW: Season 2 and would plan to release on once a week (or something) for a number of weeks (we haven’t decided how long the season is yet). Once we get a camera (or borrow one), we’ll start shooting away, but for now, all the episodes are on the starting line, ready to run. I would most likely expect these around the end of summer or Winter if they end up getting off the ground at all.

Die-ing Pan, our murdering frying pan movie, is still in the development phase, but don’t worry! We have a production schedule on our fridge, so nothing can stop us now. We plan to start writing the movie on March 1 and have at least the first draft by April 30 (I could do this for Scriptfrenzy, eh?) We’ve set aside the whole summer for location scouting and finding actors (friends) and plan to start shooting in the Winter. Our projected release date is Winter 2014 because hey, movies take a long time to make, bro. And yes, we did film a teaser before we even started writing the script, but doesn’t that make us edgy?

HOROSCOPE

Now that that’s out of the way, I can get to my favorite part of these little annual updates: My yearly horoscope. What will 2013 have in store for the Ram this year? My commentary provided in parenthesis:

2013 Horoscope (as provided by Cafeastrology.com)

~begin~

Your Aries 2013 Horoscope points to areas of life that are destined to expand and grow. (Sounds promising).

Until June 25, 2013, your communications continue to increase and expand. Your ability and desire to express yourself is greater now, and your personal interests grow. (Who’s writing this shit?) Good fortune with vehicles, transportation, through siblings, and with the communications industry can be experienced during this cycle that started in June 2012. (What positive cycle? The last part of 2012 sucked).

Potential negatives: Taking on too many daily activities (better stay home from work!), communications (what is that anyway?), new interests (how is that negative?), and learning endeavors or studies can be a problem now. Don’t overload your plate. (Ooh, I’ll keep that in mind). The more excessive tendencies of this transit are more likely to be experienced from January to March 2013.

However, for the most part, you are likely to enjoy more opportunities through your communications (“communications”?) and contact with others during this cycle in 2013. You could make new friends and feel more connected or part of a group this year. (Ok…) You might find that you travel less or not at all, and that you are busier locally, in the first half of 2013 while Jupiter is in Gemini. Your thinking is more upbeat, positive, and forward-looking, (upbeat and positive?) and so is the way you express yourself. In fact, this is an excellent time for improving your communication (there we go again with “communication”) skills and your general attitude or mindset. There can be opportunities through meetings, courses, teaching, and connections made in the neighborhood or through siblings. You are a great storyteller and teacher during this period. (Finally something I wanna hear!)

From June 25th onward, your inner world, family life, domestic activities, and domestic arrangements begin to expand and grow. Relations with family can be more pleasant and supportive. (That’ll be nice) You might move to a new home, likely a bigger one, or expand real estate holdings (Yea, I have a lot of those…). Family itself can expand, or there might be an addition to your home. (What? Who?) Some might take on a roommate for example, or bring more friends to their home. Entertaining in the home can be emphasized, if that is something that makes you happy. (Only if there’s beer). Otherwise, you can experience a stronger sense of peace and privacy in your home life. Generally speaking, more positive energy is brought to your domestic world, and long-standing problems with family might be put to bed. Do be careful about overextending yourself with home improvements (no problem there), or larger accommodations that cost more (no problem there again). Your personal life tends to overshadow your professional life or material activities during this cycle.

On a more psychological level, you might increase your confidence in yourself and feelings of security during this period. (Yay!)

Some of you could become closer with in-laws during this period. (What? I didn’t know I was married yet.) Some Aries might welcome friends from overseas into their homes. (Hmm..)

Potential negatives: Excessive money spent on home improvement, too much emphasis on the home to the point that other areas of your life suffer, or some unwillingness to expand your horizons (I’m an INFP, I never expand my horizons). Avoiding or escaping responsibilities is more possible in August and September. However, July and December bring stronger energy for enjoying the most positive effects of this transit. (What? This is so vague) For the most part, you are likely to feel emotionally secure and supported during this cycle. This is a time of nest-feathering. (Of what?)

This influence is with you until July 2014.

(What a shitty horoscope! What did that even say?)

~end~

Well, there you have it, folks. What would you want to see released this year?

Official Die-ing Pan Teaser released!

October 31, 2012June 21, 2013 C.P.Leave a comment

Hey there, everyone! Today is October 31, better known to many candy-seeking dorks and scantly clad witches (or ANYTHING) as Halloween. On a day filled with a reputation for such horror and dread, it seemed fitting to release the teaser trailer for Cat cat Productions’ newest project in development, Die-Ing Pan! Watch the teaser below!

All of the episodes of Grape Flavored Waterslides: Season One equal something like eleven minutes, so we thought “Why not do a feature about a killer frying pan? It’s just nine times as much work!” I’m keeping the details of the Die-ing Pan under wraps, but I’ll let you know that it’s still in the script development phase. Ralph and I thought that if we made a teaser to generate some buzz, people (like, our college friends) would be asking us about it and we’d be forced to finish it one day. See it as a self-enforced deadline. Of course, for the time being, there is no deadline for the film, and can only be worked on when both our work schedules allow us some free time (which they almost NEVER do!). It took Christopher Nolan something like a year to make Following, so we’ll probably be working on this for quite a while before it becomes anything tangible. But for now, we have the teaser and the promise of a script. That’s good enough for me. Oh yea, and Happy Halloween!

Keep an eye out for any Die-ing Pan updates in the near future!

Casey Poma

Humor. Creativity. Media.

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