i don’t even know what to say.  this is so awesome that it defies explanation.  Rhythm and Hues won the academy award for best visual effects!  i am … stunned.  i am also REALLY FREAKING EXCITED!

dumping links here for later reference:

• NY Times feature on Golden Compass vfx
• oscar.com transcript of the visual effects award
• vfx academy award winners photo

AND

FUCK YEAH — R&H wins the Special Visual Effects award at BAFTA 2008, for our work on The Golden Compass!

We were up against The Bourne Ultimatium, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End, and Spider Man 3 :) That’s a pretty big win, if you ask me, and a nice little bell on my cap for the look development work I did on the wolves in Bolvangar.

links:

• link to the BAFTA site listing the winners
• youtube video of our awesome vfx supervisor Bill Westenhofer giving his thank-you speech at the BAFTA ceremony in london.

here’s why: she just read 1000 picture books in 100 days.

yeah. i know! she’s crazy, what can i say?
she was set on her course this past august when a speaker at a conference that she attends suggested that in order to know how to write a good picture book, one must have read a thousand of them. she decided to do so, and moreover, she decided to do it in only a hundred days. holy crap! here’s an excerpt from her recent post about it:

“On the last day of 2007, I reached my goal of reading 1000 picture books in 100 days. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for my writing. I have a new understanding of picture books that I’m already putting to good use and much fun.

I kept track of all the books on LibraryThing. You can sort the entries by any category, author, ratings, or, most handy of all, publisher. I’m excited about using it to see what publishing houses are publishing what sort of books. I hope you find the list useful as well.”

so if you want to help me out, i’ve submitted the story to Propeller and Digg both. please feel free to vote on them! … (propeller, digg)

just spent 5 days in cancun. could not possibly be more relaxed. here’s the daily schedule of events that sara and i followed:

• wake up in giant bed, shower in giant rainfall-type shower in giant luxury bathroom
• order breakfast from room service
• stake out giant thatched-roof umbrella on the beach, lie down in total shade
• meander out to giant pool and fountain, swim around aimlessly and enjoy the near-body-temperature water
• swim up to bar, order margaritas with lots of salt
• swim around drunk
• meander back to umbrella, read book, possibly with naps.
• swim out into ocean, ride the waves on inflatable raft
• order guacamole and chips in spanish from cute cancunian.
• meander to pool again, swim around some more.
• head back to room as sun sets, take another rainfall shower.
• meander down to beachhouse restaurant, order awesome tacos.
• head back to room, sit around in terrycloth robe, watch american movie with spanish subtitles, drink beer, fall asleep.
• lather, rinse, REPEAT AS NECESSARY.

sara and i have been a little crazy! we took a day this past week and went to be audience members on the ellen show. it was nuts! Al Gore was supposed to be the big guest for that day — but they had already taped his segment a couple weeks ago :( however, we did get to see matthew fox from LOST, which was pretty cool.

SO

we’re here on day 12 of the ‘twelve days of giveaway’. we’d heard that the twelfth day is the Big One, and it’s sheer luck that we got in that day (another story for another time). we do some segments, and then the big moment comes and Ellen starts revealing the giveaways on the show: first thing she says is something about how we should pack our bags — and then reveals a GIANT piece of luggage. “Oh my,” I thought, “we’re travelling somewhere, aren’t we?”

and then she says how nice it is to keep in touch with each other, and then lifts another box, inside which is a samsung a900m, and *then* she tells us we get 6 months of free service! wheee!

so the crowd is pretty excited at this point, lots of screamin’ and shoutin’. the next thing that happens is that the music stage door slides open and in it is a platform with a bunch of people sitting in airplane seats, surrounded by flight attendants. that’s all set up to announce that in addition to the luggage and cell phones, we’re getting two round-trip tickets to cancun! and gosh, whatever could we do in cancun? well, i guess we could stay five days and four nights at this resort! each room is decked out (hell, each room has an ipod dock) in all the latest awesomeness. so you could say we’re a little stoked. we’re going to cancun on a free vacation! (well, minus taxes).

so this all sounds pretty awesome, right? yeah, well, it gets better. now i want you to remember: sara and i are each audience members at the show. can you do the math on that one? how many times do you think i’ll be going to cancun? (psst — the answer is not “once”)

check out the resort’s site… but you will very quickly tire of the graphic of the blond grabbing her own boob (though i can’t say it bothers me that much), since it keeps coming up all over the site.

so that’s our past couple days! we spent all last night moving our contact list from the old phone to the new ones. we could have done it over bluetooth, but i don’t have bluetooth on my computer (poor thing is so old it’s mostly made of wood, brass, and pistons), so we had to do it by hand… ugh! i’m going to buy an adapter though, so we can upload our own mp3 ringers and all that.

here’s the link to the giveaway page at the ellen show site. i don’t know how long it’ll be up there, but you can check it out.

today’s the holiday party at r&h — sara and i are bringing rum and the BEST eggnog in the universe and inviting a few people over to the groove lounge.

i’m mostly posting this so that i’ll remember it: you can now buy previously viewed movies from netflix, with hardcover case and jacket art, for wicked cheap ($5.99 in most cases). i think i know where a lot of my library will be coming from from now on.

how awesome is that? very.