Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

This time around, it seems that history was "invented" in the Middle Ages:

“You are the bishops in spiritual matters, in the sacra interna of the Church. I’m the emperor, rendered by God as the person in charge of secular matters.” by Constantine the Great.

My art has unexpected dividends in entertainment.

I did some searches on google images with the following terms (filter on moderate):

• astro boy +schematic
  
• astro boy +blue print
  
• astro boy +diagram

...and there's a lot of Astro Boy images as you'd expect. But, I found a lot of weird stuff as well (you'll have to brows down the pages)...

Also see http://www.thisman.org/

OK Go - WTF? from OK Go on Vimeo.

And how it was done:

AMV - Weird Al Yankovich - The Anime Polka

AMV Weird Al Yankovic - Pretty fly (for a rabbi):

Love Hina Weird Al Yankovik - Your horoscope for today Anime music video:

These and more on my anime / song playlist at Youtube.

I've been overdosing on the Kingdom Hospital mini series today. This is a remake of Riget  (1994) - a.k.a The Kingdom - a TV series mostly written and directed by Lars von Trier.

When I first moved from Perth to Newcastle in 1996, I was in Sydney for a few days before coming up to Newcastle. It was then that I saw the entire  thing in one hit at the Valhalla Cinema in Glebe. That's right - 260+ minutes (with a small intermission in the middle if I remember correctly) from start to finish! And really, it was never boring.

A while later they made a follow-up series, and I watched that too on SBS, but they never made the third series that would have finished the story. In 2004 it was adapted to an American audience by Stephen King in 13 episodes and retitled "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital".  I watched that when it was first shown on local TV as well. Different, but not really better or worse - just American instead of Danish.

And it's been the perfect thing to watch on a day like this.

I didn't want to to watch or listen to any news today and apart from watching a taped Good Game from last night, I've been watching this and doing cleaning and chores in between episodes. Outside it's been pretty much continuously raining and the cold wind doesn't encourage staying out for too long. Nice and cosy inside. There's a strange obsessiveness to the show (apart from all the other strangeness in it) that just made it a perfect choice. I started watching the first 5 episodes a few days ago, but today I'm watching all the remaining ones.

And right now I'll be watching the finale.

I caught a link to this on aesmael's journal. First up - Bowling Balls:

...and if you want more, go to http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm. I think the people who work there have way too much spare time. I happened to watch a couple of these while listening to Massive Attack's 100th Window - definitely enhanced the experience!