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Alan Colmes discovers that for Ann Coulter, “denial” isn’t just a river in Egypt. Link ganked from Tori (who is going to CMU! SQUEE!).

Aww, my little boolets are all grown up and saving China and going off to prestigious universities! Mimi is going to Denison and Ashley wants to go to Olin. Madschnoogles to all!

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Oh! I forgot to mention! The past few days, there have been some workmen cleaning the 38th Street Bridge. The blockades they’re using to cordon off the area say “Stuart-Dean.” Every time I see them, I flash back to Jon Stewart’s internal monologue re: gay marriage as he “interviewed” Howard Dean. “Dr. and Mr. Jon Dean-Stewart…” I am so entertained.

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Beth put it best.

Happy “We’d All Been Seeing Serenity Right Now If It Weren’t For George Lucas” Day, everyone!

*kicks stuff*

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I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I spent the entire day painting skin weights* for the lower half of Hattie’s body, trying to see how my new solution (see earlier entry) would work out. I’m not totally pleased with where I am now, but it’s a heck of a lot better than where I was yesterday. But then I moved to the upper body, spent a couple hours working on weights for the shoulders and upper torso, then went to move the arms into place on her walker. Only to find that no matter how I fussed with the IK**, it wouldn’t move the way I needed it to move. I’m going to have to remodel her arms in place.

* skin weights: Determines what areas of the skin move with each joint, and how far they move.
** inverse kinematics: a godsend. A labor-saving system for animating stuff like arms and legs. Move the foot at the ankle, and it’ll move the knee and the hip for you.

Now, the remodeling itself will be a snap. It won’t take long at all. However, in order to remodel, I’m going to need to unbind the skin from the skeleton. And that will destroy all the skin weights I spent all day painting. I’m going to sleep. After eating lots of brownies and ice cream. Life hates me.

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Switched comments to Reblogger, as Blogback was getting really annoying and not letting me read certain comments and just generally being contrary. Hope this works! Renata seems to like Reblogger, so huzzah. And like Blogger’s commenting system, Reblogger emails you your comments! So with the combination of Reblogger and the Gmail notifier I downloaded yesterday, I will no longer have to check my blog every five minutes to see if there are any new comments! With these two powers combined, I am industrious!

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*falls over* If anyone goes to this, I would offer my firstborn for nearly any of the titles listed, much less autographed!

Neil Gaiman. Terry Pratchett. Gregory Maguire. Daniel Handler. Orson Scott Card. And more. GUH.

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O Rapture! Priscilla might actually be able to start animating before the project is due!

(Man, I love the facial expressions I can achieve with my Hattie.)

While working, I’ve been listening to this lovely stream of the HHGTG soundtrack. With the notable exception of the Marvin’s bit at the end, I find myself really enjoying the songs. I started out rather skeptical, and with the skepticism, I found the lyrics moronic. However, as soon as I forced myself to stop being so limited, I quickly learned to stop worrying not panic and love the bomb Vogon demolition squad. Someone wrote that the songs reminded them of Eric Idle’s style, and I tend to agree. Excluding, of course, the Marvin song. That’s just kind of painful. He may be one of the most loved characters in the trilogy, but at no point is he “cool.”

So who wants in on the betting pool for how long it will take fandom to produce an LJ icon with the list of Zaphod’s qualifications for Presidency, only using Bush? Man if they’re not playing that up. “Freedom, and I dunno, Democracy! Stuff like that! Yeah!” Feh.

As for the score, I’m hearing a lot of Elfman influence. Probably because I’ve been listening to a lot of the Music For A Darkened Theatre compilation recently. Very pleased to see that “Voyage of the Sorceror” made the cut! And that’s all I have to say about that.

(Wow! A whole entry and not one mention of the Pope! Except that one right there, which so doesn’t count. Yes.)

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I have spent four hours today and untallied hours yesterday working on a series of really complicated methods for keeping Hattie’s dress from intersecting her belly, none of which worked. And now I realize in a crystal-clear moment of divine clarity, that I am AN UTTER MORON. We only see her legs for one brief shot, and for that I can easily use a different model. Someone PLEASE thwap me upside the head with something heavy and blunt. *deletes blend shape cheats, influence objects, and the painstakingly painted skin weights, and restructures the model so there’s nothing underneath her dress, and her legs start at the knees*

Oh, Pizza Rustica, why don’t you deliver?