The Plaid Pladd Blog

Terrifying Don Bluth Films: Ranked

May 12th, 2016 by pladd

Don Bluth left Disney to pursue his own dream: to scar children for life. But which Don Bluth film is the most terrifying? To decide, I chose to rank them entirely based on my unreliable memory from whenever they last terrified me as a child.

9. The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)

The bad guy in this movie was a weightlifting bro-penguin rapist named Drake.

Voiced by Tim Curry

But honestly the scariest part is how they try to distinguish between the penguin sexes by giving the girl penguins ludicrous human curves:

Why would penguins need boobs???

8. A Troll in Central Park (1994)

I mean, yes, this movie was scary-bad, so it automatically ranks higher, but the scariest part is honestly that these two infants are left to wander around New York City alone:

Do you HAVE parents??

Honestly I’m thinking the trolls they meet in central park are a childish imagining to block out their real abductors and the trauma that ensues.

7. Thumbelina (1994)

I don’t remember a ton about Thumbelina (besides this annoying-ass song) but there were at least two terrifying parts. When Prince Cornelius is frozen in ice:

How does this even HAPPEN?

I remember it really bothered me that his finger was still sticking out. That shit is going to turn black and snap off, Cornelius. Of course, even scarier is when Thumbelina is roped into marrying Mr. Mole, who hates sunlight and probably smells like mildew:

And you do NOT want to see what’s under that cumberbund

6. An American Tail (1986)

Besides the countless times someone almost gets stepped on or worse, you have this:

Which I think speaks for itself

5. Anastasia (1997)

Granted, I was a little older when this one came out, which I think is the only reason this guy doesn’t rank higher on the list:

He’s like a creepy demon zombie sorcerer

4. Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

I don’t have as clear a memory of this one, besides that it included live-action footage of bad flooding, which hit pretty close to home.

Also this thing

3. The Land Before Time (1988)

Yeah, sure, kids love dinosaurs. They also love tons of violence and the worst on-screen parent death until Mufasa.

I’LL HAUNT YOUR NIGHTMARES UNTIL JURASSIC PARK MAKES ME ALL THE MORE REAL

Kids love them some emotional trauma

2. All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

What the fuck is this movie

There is literally a dog hell

And even if the protagonists don’t end up there

THEY STILL END UP DEAD WTF WTF WTF

1. The Secret of NIMH (1982)

It is impossible to find a screencap of this movie that ISN’T fucking terrifying.

Creepy

Is that a good guy? What the hell?

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

STOP

IT JUST GETS WORSE

In conclusion, this movie still haunts my nightmares.

Previously: Disney Villains Ranked by Scariness

Tagged: list, movies

Posted in lists |

Hate Book Club: Interview with the Vampire

May 9th, 2016 by pladd

Brian and I read this book for Hate Book Club and then kind of forgot about it. For all the hype I’ve heard about it over the years, it’s a surprisingly forgettable book. Read his review here!

And it has this shitty cover

As always, I’ll begin by thinking of 3 compliments for the book.

1. It was published in 1976, but didn’t feel particularly dated.
2. It failed to scare me even a little bit at all so I had no nightmares while reading. Which I guess means it failed at being horror, but I think we all know this book is gothic romance.
3. This amazing description of a vampire:

The smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.(4)

I therefore pictured this whole book as a live-action/animation hybrid a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

Here is a plot breakdown:

Lestat gets in a fight with his vampire boyfriend Louis and they end up turning a 5-year-old girl into a vampire despite the fact that we all know how Vampire Child Drama ends:

BADLY

Louis and Child-Vamp Claudia kill Lestat and it’s weird. Then they go on a Vampire Journey of Self-Discovery through Europe, eventually ending up in Paris where they meet a group of older vampires led by Armand. Louis and Armand are in love, but SURPRISE Lestat isn’t dead and leads the other vampires to kill Claudia because she’s an abomination and also HOW COULD YOU LOVE YOUR CHILD BRIDE MORE THAN ME, LOUIS??? Louis escapes, The End.

The movie HAS to be better

Claudia was definitely the weirdest part of this book. Turned into a vampire as a five-year-old plague victim, she keeps the body of a child, but supposedly her mind matures into a woman in a child’s body. Louis is clearly in love with her, and everyone is creeped out by it forever. Especially me.

I was interested to see how popular this pairing was with fans, since a good portion of the book was Louis angsting on and on about how THEIR LOVE COULD NEVER BE BUT I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HER. So I took a sample of around 80 Interview with the Vampire fanfics and recorded the pairing(s):

More than half of the works in fan literature feature the Louis/Lestat pairing, probably helped along by the fact that these Whiny McAssholes were played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the 1994 movie. Louis/Armand was the second most popular pairing, but it had only about a quarter of the fics Louis/Lestat had. Louis/Claudia was third most popular, featured in 11% of fics, some of which I noticed made disclaimers like “In my version Claudia is magically an adult.” Okay, if that helps you sleep at night. Lestat remains the most popular character for whatever reason (???people are big fans of fiery vengeance???) so the fourth most popular pairing was Lestat/Original Character (read: Author Insert). Three percent of fics featured Lestat/Claudia, and I found one fic each that featuered Lestat/Armand, Armand/Original Character, Lestat/Edward Cullen, and Lestat/Thomas Jefferson.

Let me repeat, the “TJ” in that graph stands for third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. I hope that fact made your day like it made mine.

In conclusion, this book was pretty atmospheric, kind of gory, and not at all scary. So to sum up in gif form:

Don’t forget to read Brian’s review!
Previously: Hate Book Club: The Art of the Deal

Tagged: Book Reviews, hate book club

Posted in Hate Book Club |

New Bern!!

May 6th, 2016 by pladd

Steven and I went to New Bern for a weekend! It was the original capital of North Carolina back when it was a royal colony, so there was lots of historical things to do with people in period costume!

Tryon Palace!

Fancy period gardens!

Tryon Palace’s back lawn

And then there’s this nerd

We stayed at a bed and breakfast that ratcheted the fancy up to 11! This was our room:

The King George III room!

Here’s King George III preparing to watch me sleep

Look at this fancy-ass bathroom

SERIOUSLY LOOK

Honestly it was hard not to spend the whole weekend in the bathtub. But I made other plans. Like a tour of town in a Model A Ford!

So rickety!

Of course there were costumes

New Bern was an important port city back in the day because it lies at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse rivers that lead out to sea.

Selfies by the water!

One of the best parts about bed and breakfasts are the elaborate breakfast, and this place did not disappoint! Every morning there was a fruit-crumble-like appetizer followed by a choice of 3 entrees. I was usually all about the pancakes:

PANCAKES

The menu changed every day.

BUT NOPE MORE PANCAKES

Steven’s French toast was good too

New Bern is also the birthplace of Pepsi! I talked Steven into going in. It was WAY less fancy and ridiculous than The World of Coke we went to in Atlanta. Basically just a soda fountain.

Steven begrudgingly experiencing history

But the best thing about New Bern are the bears!!!! They were decorated and put up all over town to celebrate the town’s 300th anniversary in 2010. I tried to get my picture with all the ones we passed, but there are way more:

“Bearer of Rights” bear lol

Mitchell Bear (he works in a hardware store)

“Flag Bearer” I hope you like bear puns because New Bern is all about that

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: new bern, Steven, travel

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

2016 Goals: Jan-March

March 24th, 2016 by pladd

Time for my quarterly update on mymy yearly goals! I’m pretty much rocking it.

1. Cook every recipe in the Sally’s Baking Addiction cookbook: 52%

I started this one strong, and I have only 35 more to go!

These gingersnaps were pretty great:

Mom’s Ginger Snaps

But so were these blondies:

So yum

It’s hard to pick a favorite

2. Finish all my 2014 Goals: 56%

I already feel better about this.

2a.) Read ~~all of~~ T-Z of Brewer’s: 29%

I finished T, which was fairly long, and U, which was fairly short. W is the longest section left.

2b.) Make ~~one pie a month~~ 7 pies: 29%

I’ve made two pies this year! One was a traditional apple pie for Pi Day (with apples from the farmer’s market, so a little nicer than normal), the other was a carrot pie!

Carrot pie?!?

It was kind of a weird experience, but ended up tasting pretty good. Carrots have a natural sweetness to them, and if you think about it, it’s no weirder than sweet potato pie.

2c.) Make a new ~~cocktail~~ mocktail once a month: 25%

During the ice storm in January, I tried to recreate me favorite cold-weather cocktail, the hot toddy. The recipe used rooibos chai tea, apple juice, and lemon juice:

And ginger!

The key ingredient turned out to be cayenne pepper for a kick. It was no hot toddy, but it was okay.

Again, it helped that it was an ice storm

Then in February I made a much more successful crock pot hot chocolate!

But March let me down again with a weird celery/cucumber/pineapple/lime smoothie. The recipe came from a magazine.

Still not as bad as the time Rob made me drink strawberry-pickle juice

It wasn’t awful, but it was too weird to finish.

2d.) Get everything (then currently) on my To-Read List off it: 100%

Since I’d done some work on this in the intervening time, I only had two books left, and I read both in January!

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran was funny and real, mixing stories from the author’s life with feminist analysis.

The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb seemed like a cool premise: family secrets, potentially haunted house etc, but was really sloppily written.

2e.) Update my blog ~~once a week~~ 7 times: 100%

My book wrap up posts really helped me knock this one out:

1. 2015 Goals wrap up
2. 2015 Books: The Good
3. 2015 Books: The Bad
4. 2015 Books: The Ugly
5. 2015 Books: The Pretty
6. 2016 Goals
7. Princess Celestia and the Summer of Royal Waves review

3. Finish all my Craftsy Classes: 40%

I finished Tunisian Crochet! I also finished 40 Techniques Every Sewer Should Know. Three more to go!

4. Complete a temperature scarf: 22%

I decided to average the high and low temp for the day to determine what color I should work with, using this chart I made:

The average hasn’t been less than 20 degrees, so I haven’t had to figure that out yet

Here’s what it looks like so far:

Data visualization!

5. Read at least one book a month someone else recommended to me: 25%

In January I read:

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

It was recommended to me by someone in my penpal club. It’s kind of like urban fantasy but with Russian folklore, set during the Russian revolution. So like communist house elves, basically. It was pretty good. Narratively kind of weird, but pretty good.

In February:

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

This was recommended to me by a coworker. It’s historical fiction about a girl who rides one of the orphan trains from New York City to Minnesota. It switches perspectives between her growing up and the present day old-her cleaning out her attic with a troubled teen assistant. It was a quick read, but I liked it.

In March:

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

I assume this book was recommended to me by my friend Roque since he mailed it to me. The star of the book is definitely the pseudo-olde-englishe language Kingsnorth developed to better reflect the setting: England 1066. The protagonist, a Saxon whose entire village is destroyed by Norman invaders, is unlikeable, and the plot spends a lot of time meandering, although it seems well-researched (not that I’m a great judge). The language just makes it really hard to get through, at least for me. I felt like I was back in high school.

Total: 38%

Not bad for March!

Steven’s Goals

Steven doesn’t keep spreadsheets like me, so I had to verbally interview him about how his goals are going.

1. Cook one vegetarian meal every week

“Failed. Totally forgot about it.”

2. Learn a new violin piece every month

“2/3 right now. It’s too late for March.”

3. Finish all Craftsy classes

“Pretty much done no work on this. I made popcorn once.”

4. Make at least one case or bag out of leather.

“Actually just bought another Craftsy class to help me out with that.”

So, not that this is a competition, but clearly I am winning

Previously: 2016 Goals

Tagged: 2016, 2016 goals, Steven

Posted in 2016 Fabulous Five |

Sailor Senshi Attacks: Ranked

February 1st, 2016 by pladd

Sailor Moon attacks are ridiculous. You just shout a bunch of random English words, and your enemies explode in a fit of hearts/sparkles/butterflies. I love it. But which Sailor attack is the best? Here’s your answer:

33. Star Gentle Uterus

This is the worst Sailor Senshi attack and the inspiration for this list. It belongs to Sailor Star Maker, and I don’t care what it does, the word “uterus” (and also “gentle”) shouldn’t be in your attack name.

32. Twinkle Yell

This is a Sailor Chibi-Moon move, where she rings a magical bell to summon Pegasus to give Sailor Moon the power to defeat the enemy. So it’s not even really an attack so much as a fancy, less-useful cellphone.

31. Pink Sugar Heart Attack

Sailor Chibi-Moon’s other “attack” just kind of annoys the enemy briefly.

30. Venus Love and Beauty Shock

This Sailor Venus move involves her blowing a kiss and then throwing hearts at the enemy. Pretty much a hyped up version of Pink Sugar Heart Attack.

29. Moon Tiara Stardust

This Sailor Moon move can heal a lot of zombies at once, so it’s not so much an attack. Also, it’s only ever used once.

28. Silver Moon Crystal Power Kiss

These things are not threatening, Sailor Moon. I’m sorry. A “power kiss” sounds like the weirdest work out move ever, and this attack involves so much more weird posing than the others, if that’s even possible. Also the sound effects for this one are the weirdest.

27. Jupiter Oak Evolution

Sailor Jupiter twirls around and throws leaves at you! Run in fear, Sailor Galactica!

26. Bubble Spray

This move fills the nearby area with bubbles to confuse the enemy. It’s good at that! But…

25. Moon Princess Halation

What the fuck is a halation
Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: sailor moon

Posted in lists |

Princess Celestia and the Summer of Royal Waves

January 18th, 2016 by pladd

My Little Pony book report time again!!! This time we’re reading:

Princess Celestia and the Summer of Royal Waves

Summary of Amazingness
By Patricia
Princess Celestia is very busy ruling all of Equestria, running a magical school for unicorns, and raising the sun every day with her own magic. But when she receives a letter from her old friend Duchess Diamond Waves, she has to travel to the seaside duchy near Southern Prance called Monacolt to help. Duchess D thinks some scary monster attack is coming soon and only the magic of the young unicorns in her academy can save the kingdom! But her students are all failing her standardized tests so she’s hoping Princess C can help. Princess C is like “FIRST OF ALL, your magical hourglass that’s warning you about monsters seems hella sketchy. SECOND, your students are totes overworked and need some chillaxing time on the beach.” After a few of Princess Celestia’s building sand castle lessons, the students actually start performing magic well! But Duchess D is not convinced that mental health and scholastic aptitude are linked, probably because she’s already sunk so much of Monacolt’s resources into this standarized testing scheme. So Princess C stages a fake monster attack with a giant crab the size of a building in the middle of a beach party to show Duchess D what her students are really made of. Plus, that hour glass ends up being totally fake. The end.

So regal. So wise.

Analysis within MLP Canon and Fanon
By Steven
Unlike the Pinkie Pie book, this one actually stepped outside of the familiar by basically taking a single underdeveloped canon character (Celestia) and tossing her wholesale into a new place populated by new characters, with new backstories, referencing other largely non-show-based canons. So basically there’s little point of comparison—ironic, given that I have a good deal more questions (and gripes) about this one than the last—since the show has yet to ever go into detail on other equine polities (or, really, any extra-Equestrian nations apart from Griffonstone and, to a lesser extent, Yak-yakistan).

Tribal council? Rampage-ocracy? Viking warlord? Who knows.

All of which brings up the first question that this raises within the realm of canonicity, which is: what is the relationship between Equestria and Monacolt? Allied neighbors? Client state? Autonomous region? Feudal fiefdom? Actually, politics in Equestria have always been a little bit hazy, thanks to the show’s reliance on a direct diarchy of quasi-immortal alicorns with some sort of noble class hovering largely unseen off to one side.

(Side note: what does Prince Blueblood DO exactly?)

So now we have a Duchess Diamond Waves, who is apparently a particular friend of Celestia’s from “when they were younger,” which raises all sorts of questions on its own, e.g. “Just how old is this Diamond Waves character?” Actually, there are a lot of references to things I’d like a little more detail about, like Prance, King Nautilus, and the apparently sentient Carcinus species. Then there’s the interesting notion of Celestia offering up a Latin prayer/thanks to the sun when raising it? Which seems more like some personal habit than any kind of necessary ritual (as we’ve seen her raise the sun multiple times without any accompanying invocations). As to the Latin itself, not even going to go there, but suffice to say it could use a verb somewhere. Still, nothing provably off there. Luna does seem oddly playful about her former role as Nightmare Moon, which the author supports by describing it as “after Luna had acted up and been banished to the moon” which plays well with her character in the comics canon more than the show canon, but that’s a toss-up as well.

Basically it’s hard to point any strong fingers at canon leakage and more a case where you end up shrugging and going, “Well, hopefully some of this shows up again somewhere in the show for confirmation.”

Patricia’s Favorites
Character: Twilight Sparkle, who is back home manning Canterlot magic school in Celestia’s absence. She is a total nerd who assigns hella summer reading because it was her favorite part of school, and “I treated some of them to a reading from Star Swirl’s Seven Principles of Unicorn Magic: Third Edition including some of the hoofnotes!”
Part: Duchess D wants her students to get serious, so anyone caught in the halls during class time is attacked by magical spiders. EDUCATION

I’m just trying to help you LEARN, Frodo

Thing I Learned:Standardized testing is not the way to learn. The way to learn is to build sand castles and get fake-attacked by giant crabs.

Steven’s Favorites
Character: Discord, who appears only in a brief memory of a “prank” involving making himself invisible and following Celestia around for a week, repeating everything she says in a whisper. That’s comedy and/or horror gold right there!
Part: The frequent references to her shoes as “hoofcuffs,” the way she’s clearly changed her mind about Twilight’s friendship-spam mail, or the Monacolt-as-gambling-paradise reference. Can’t choose.
Thing I Learned: Basically, trolling and/or pranking is the way to run a country, and pulling one over on fellow monarchs is apparently a longstanding tradition.

Previously: Pinkie Pie and the Ponypalooza

Tagged: Book Reviews, my little pony, Steven

Posted in Book Reviews |

2016 Goals: The Fabulous Five

January 4th, 2016 by pladd

I’m only setting five goals for myself in 2016, but one of them has many parts.

1. Cook Every Recipe in the Sally’s Baking Addiction cookbook

It’s definitely my favorite cookbook

I had already started this goal before I realized what I was doing, just because there are so many good looking recipes in this book. Before the year even started, I had completed 28 recipes, meaning I have 45 more to go.

2. Finish my 2014 Goals

It’s always bothered my that 2014 fucked me up so much (for a variety of reasons), and I regret that stupid health things kept me from completing my goals. So I’m going to finish them up two years late. Here’s what I have to do to complete them:

2.a) Read ~~All~~ T-Z of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

I made it through S in 2014, so I only have seven letters to go.

2.b) Make ~~a Pie Once a Month~~ 7 pies

I managed to make five pies in 2014! So I just have to make 7 pies this year at some point, preferably kinds I’ve never done before. Which should help me tackle some recipes from Goal 1 too!

2. c) Make a new cocktail once a month

I didn’t make any cocktails in 2014 given that I couldn’t eat anything besides english muffins for most of it. I still don’t drink, so these are going to probably be non-alcoholic fancy drinks.

2. d) Get everything (then currently) on my to-read list off it

I’ve been kind of doing this anyway, since maintenance of my to-read list is basically a professional concern. At the end of 2014, I had 7 books to go, mostly ones my library doesn’t own. I’ve done pretty well on them since then:

Fair Coin by E.C. Myers: deleted from list because so-so reviews
Apron Anxiety by Alyssa Shelasky: ILLed, abandoned after the second chapter because of poor writing
Beyond: A Ghost Stary by Graham McNamee: deleted from list because of reviews
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst: read in 2015 and LOVED
The Night Watch by Sergei Lukanenko: deleted from list because could it live up to the Terry Pratchett novel with the same title?
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb

So this list now sits at a grand total of 2 books that I either have to ILL or buy.

2. e) Update my blog ~~once a week~~ seven times

I only missed 7 weeks in 2014 despite all the shittiness. Unless something even more dramatic happens to me in 2016, this one shouldn’t be hard to finish either.

3. Finish all my Craftsy classes

Craftsy sends me emails whenever classes are on sale, and I often cave. I currently own 5 classes, 4 of which I’ve never even opened. Here’s what I’ll be learning this year (hopefully):

40 Ways to Cast On and Bind Off

I know like two of each, so I definitely need more study in this area.

40 Techniques Every Sewer Should Know

Ditto.

Sewing Vintage: The Flirty Day Dress

I’m not even sure why I bought this one, because I could easily go to the store, buy a pattern, and make a dress myself. I guess I know I take a lot of shortcuts and half-ass things when I’m making stuff, and I’d like to stop. Or at least know how to stop.

Knit Faster with Continental Knitting

I bought this class while I was making that sweater in 2015 and was SO SICK of stockinette stitch for a million rows. Anything to make that go faster.

Tunisian Crochet

This one I am about 50% done with, although I’ll probably have to go back and redo some of the videos since I’ve forgotten so much.

4. Complete a temperature scarf

Temperature scarves are data visualization + fashion so I’m kind of surprised I’ve never done one before. There’s lots of ways to do them, but I plan to knit one row of a scarf every day, the color determined by the temperature. For example:

There are a million of these online

I’m going to try to use only yarn I already have, so mine won’t be these colors.

5. Read 1 book a month someone else has recommended to me

I want to talk to my friends more about books. You can recommend a book to me here. I already have some from posting on facebook, many of which I’ve already read.

Bonus Addendum: Steven’s goals!

No, one of them is not to act less stupid

For the first time ever, Steven agreed to let me record his goals for the year too! Maybe he’s hoping the pressure of competition or the shame of disappointing the Internet will motivate him.

Steven Goal 1: Cook one vegetarian meal every week.

Steven says he feels his skills in this area have been left relatively untested, and he wants to branch out from his meat-centric cooking. And I always want to eat more vegetables, so it’s basically a win-win.

Steven Goal 2: Learn a new violin piece every month.

Steven plays in the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle, but he never practices outside their once a week practices, because it’s hella easy (for him, what a nerd). He says he feels like his skills have atrophied and he wants to counteract that by working on music at his actual level.

Steven Goal 3: Finish all Craftsy classes.

Steven is even worse than I am about buying things when they’re on sale that he might want someday. His list of classes is longer, but tastier than mine:

Homemade Italian Pasta
Artisan Cheese Making
Danish Pastries from Scratch
Miniature French Desserts (Macarons, Madeleines, and More)
Homemade Salty Snacks
Artisan Bread Making
The Art of Stir-Frying

Unlike me, Steven has actually successfully completed one Craftsy class, the one that taught him to make his amazing homemade croissants. He also has made the macarons and madeleines from Miniature French desserts, so really he just has to tackle “and More.” I’m pretty excited for the results.

Steven Goal 4: Make at least one case or bag out of leather.

Steven’s hobby of the moment is leatherworking, and since he has a lot to use up, he wants to tackle something harder than a belt.

I’ll give you updates on our progress throughout the year, whether you want to know or not!

Tagged: 2016 goals, Steven

Posted in 2016 Fabulous Five |

2015: The Pretty

January 2nd, 2016 by pladd

I always feel like I need to make up for my The Ugly part of the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly by doing a post of book covers I actually liked. Here they are: