Visiting Family, Cooking, Apartments and stuff like that there
Wherein Ryan watches Corpse Bride and shares a visit with his family…
My mother and my step father came to visit me a few weeks ago. We had quite a good time seeing what there is to see around the Phoenix and surrounding areas. We took a trip out to Sedona on Sunday, which was probably the pinnacle of our experiences. Sedona is just beautiful. Sedona is basically a verdant canyon with dozens of huge rock formations surrounding it. The temperature was at least 15 degrees cooler then Phoenix , if not more. I kept thinking, wouldn’t it be great if they moved the studio up here, instead of leaving it in the desert. Yeah…right. We also checked out the Heard Museum , a more or less static exhibit that highlights the native people of the Arizona/New Mexico area. It was a classy place with some very nice pieces. We also took some time to go to the Desert Botanical Garden , which had its upside and down. The down is it was crazy hot that day and I got a really nice sunburn on my neck. Also the “Desert Wildflower” exhibit was basically dead due to the time of year. But they had some really cool cactus and herbs and other flora, so it made the trip worthwhile. In other news, after the recent acquisition of a couch(!), I finally had some friends over to my apartment. I cooked dinner for 6 people including myself and think everything turned out well. I’ll definitely be doing that again sometime soon. Work is the same, still good, still crazy. Hank is doing well, the car is doing well and I am doing well. I’ve sent the dates that I can go home for the Holidays to my dad and step-mom who will be buying my ticket. I’ll find out when I fly sometime soon I hope. Oh! One more thing. One of the producer’s of Inko’s, that brilliant white tea drink that I preach so much about, actually saw my review of their product on my webpage somehow and sent me an email thanking me! I think I’ve got a free Inko’s t-shirt coming in the mail as a result, which I will proudly wear and advertise their product. Drink Inko’s. It’s good for you and it’s delicious. That’s it for now.
PS: I saw Corpse Bride this past weekend and if anyone remembers, the company that created all the animation for Corpse Bride, Laika Entertainment, used to be Vinton Studios, the studio at which I did my internship. Well, the character designs and the animation were top notch I must say. Brilliant use of Stop Motion and tasteful CG. The story, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired. The pacing was far too rapid and while the characterization was good, it seemed like much of the time the director was using a “well it worked in Nightmare Before Christmas” attitude about the visual gags. There were several musical numbers in the movie, all done by everyone’s favorite movie composer, Danny Elfman. (He is everyone’s favorite, right?) Unfortunately, even the music for Corpse Bride seems like it was taken from the cutting room floor of Nightmare and dressed up for a new movie. The lyrics were half-hearted, the melodies were derivative. All that being said, the actual construction of the models and the sets was * amazing * and the stop-mo animation was totally awesome.