Eppu – Page 21 – Co-Geeking

First Trailer for Eternals

June 30, 2021June 20, 2021Eppu1 Comment

The Western world is vaccinating their citizens furiously against covid-19, and societies are clamoring to retun to normal. It’s therefore no surprise that we’re seeing more movie-related news.

The first trailer for Eternals has been out over a month now:

Marvel Studios’ Eternals | Official Teaser by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Part of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, it apparently follows a group of immortal, human-shaped beings who’ve lived on Earth for centuries in secret, until something (or someone?) forces them to come out of hiding.

As opposed to the first Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trailer, there is at least one reference to the rest of the MCU, as bare and uninformative as it is, but I still don’t have a good idea of how these people connect to the rest of the characters we know.

Whether I’ll want to watch this is still up in the air; maybe the second trailer will give us more to go on. A talented, big-name cast should be interesting to see and Ramin Djawadi’s music awesome, if nothing else. Oddly (since I’m not especially keen on the early history of the Near East), one of the things I would enjoy seeing more of is Babylon and the Ishtar Gate, of which we see a short glimpse in the trailer.

At this writing, Eternals is set to release on November 05, 2021.

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Beautiful, Breathtaking Planetary Embroidery by Ophélie Trichereau

June 16, 2021April 25, 2021Eppu

Scotland-based French artist Ophélie Trichereau illustrates fantastic visions in gouache and watercolor. It is her embroideries, though, that I find most impressive, especially the planetary ones. Below are a few of my favorites.

At this writing, she has two different views of Jupiter available. I like this one:

Here’s Callisto:

Last but certainly not the least, the Sun:

So impressive! Every shade of every color is carefully selected, and shapes created with the stiching make the whole even more expressive. The intricacy of the patterns means they can’t be a fast project to create, but, then again, is anything worth doing worth doing sloppily? Trichereau’s effort really shows. Kudos!

See more of Trichereau’s work on Etsy or via LinkTree.

Found via N.K. Jemisin on Twitter.

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

On the Move

June 2, 2021December 15, 2024Eppu2 Comments

You may have noticed that we’ve been posting less often recently. Also, usually in the beginning of June we write a blog anniversary post, but this obviously isn’t one. This year, we just don’t have the requisite spoons, because we’re moving. Not just houses. Not just states. Not just countries. Continents.

Gosh, even saying that out loud wearies me out. A trans-Atlantic move is challenging at the best of times, never mind during a pandemic.

If you have well-wishes to spare, we’d appreciate it if you sent one our way. Please and thank you.

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Quotes: Time Belonged to a Higher Realm

May 19, 2021April 18, 2021Eppu

There’s a lot (a lot!) I liked about Karen Lord’s scifi novel The Best of All Possible Worlds. This snippet, for instance, puts words to a childhood wonder I remember from elementary school when learning math:

Karen Lord The Best of All Possible Worlds

“Standard Time was invented by Sadiri pilots. Most Sadiri procedures and quantification followed straight lines and linear progressions, created for the convenience of the ten-fingered. But Time… Time belonged to a higher realm. It could not be carried in human hands, not while it constantly carried human minds. It was all circles, wheels within wheels, a Standard year of three hundred sixty Standard days coiled up in twelve months, which in turn were composed of the small whirlings of twelve hours day and twelve hours night, tiny spinning minutes and seconds, ever-cycling breaths and blinks and beats.
“To be described as having a pilot’s mind was both curse and compliment; it could mean being unable to tell the difference between prophecy, memory, and mere déjà vu.”
– Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds

I just couldn’t fathom why the decimal system is different from time measurements, and remember that for a time trying to reconcile them was very confusing. But time—heh, heh—helped with that, of course, along with more advanced classes, in addition to a certain amount of shrugging and just getting on with life.

It’s intriguing when a book serendipitously reminds you of thoughts you thought were long buried, isn’t it?

Lord, Karen. The Best of All Possible Worlds. New York: Ballantine Books, 2013, p. 40.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

First Trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

May 5, 2021April 25, 2021Eppu1 Comment

The newest trailer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:

Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Official Teaser by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Um, okay?

If I knew little of the Avengers upon first being untroduced to the MCU, I know absolutely nothing about this Shang-Chi and his (their?) connection to the rest of the Marvel characters. Disappointingly, the trailer itself didn’t answer a single question of how they’re connected either. Oh, we got a lot of fisticuffs and action—speedy fight scenes handsomely filmed, sure—but no answers.

If the rest of the trailers aren’t going to link Shang-Chi to the characters or events we already know, I doubt I’ll want to see the movie in the theaters. I might not even rustle up the enthusiasm to see it on disc via the library.

At the time of this writing, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is set to open September 03, 2021, in the U.S.

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The Connection of a 8th-Century Saint and Finnish May Day

April 28, 2021November 15, 2022Eppu

In Finland, May the first is known as vappu (Finnish) or as vappen (Finnish Swedish), and it is one of the four biggest holidays in the country. Sometimes it’s translated into English as Walpurgis night (as opposed to May Day). I’d always just shrugged my way past that weird translation until I ran into the history of vappu: the phrase comes from Saint Walburh’s Day.

Saint Walburh was an English nun, missionary, and abbess in the 8th century. She was a part of Saint Boniface’s famous mission to German lands beyond the old Rhine-Danube frontier. The tidbit on Walburh below comes from Kathleen Herbert’s work:

“For example, St. Walburh trained at Wimborne in Dorset, then went with her two brothers to join the German mission. She became abbess of the double monastery of Heidensheim, which had a distinguished scholarly record. Her feast day is May 1st, so in her district the rites of Spring become traditionally celebrated as Walpurgisnacht. This is not a sarcastic joke but a tribute to her power, ranking her locally with such mighty ones as St. Michael and St. John the Baptist.”
– Kathleen Herbert, Peace-Weavers & Shield-Maidens: Women in Early English Society

Clearly Saint Boniface is the more prominent character of the two in history, but it’s intriguing to me that Saint Walburh’s name is still, well over a thousand years after her death, attached to a spring festival celebrated on the day of her canonization. (Granted, it helps that May Day had long been celebrated as one of the transition points in the yearly cycle; cf. Beltane).

So, in a minor way, even though we mostly don’t care or remember in the middle of everyday hullabaloo, we keep passing her name to future generations. That’s more than Saint Boniface can boast in Finland.

I sometimes wonder how much else in our culture that’s passed on without remark has similar hidden histories. I suspect more than we’d imagine.

Anyway. Hyvää vappua! Glada vappen! Happy May Day!

Herbert, Kathleen. Peace-Weavers & Shield-Maidens: Women in Early English Society. Anglo-Saxon Books, 2013, p. 44.

In Live and Active Cultures we talk about cultures and cultural differences.

Mini-Opinion of Torghast in WoW: Shadowlands

April 7, 2021October 13, 2024Eppu

I’ve been meaning to post about my first impressions of Shadowlands, the latest World of Warcraft expansion, but there’s such a high demand for my spoons this spring that I haven’t gotten it done yet. (In fact, I’ve barely had time to play, never mind writing about it!)

One thing I can mention, however, is Torghast. I simply LOVE the fact that it was designed as either solo or group content. Erik and I can either group up just the two of us or run it separately as mood or moxie mandate.

Blizzard Watch shadowlands-icecrown-torghast-cinematic

Being constrained for time and energy (both physical and mental) AND living through a pandemic, with the stress it places on people everywhere, I find I have very little tolerance for energy-wasters. If a project or person turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth, out it goes! It’s already been years since I’ve run PUG dungeons; this spring I really don’t have the patience for random idiocy. Ergo, only carefully curated groups in game.

And because of the layers to determine the difficulty, I can decide upon entering whether I want to just crash through everything for a bit of destruction therapy, or whether I’m in a good brainspace for a more strategic approach. Not only that, the random selection of anima powers keep the runs unpredictable and new every time. The multi-prong approach to flexibility works really well for me this year.

As if that’s not enough, the funniest thing in Shadowlands so far is found in Torghast: the Scroll of Elchaver anima power. It doesn’t proc often, but I have seen a mob turn into a chair, and others report boots, crates, or even a porkchop. (Someone even said if the mob was a skinnable type pre-transform, you can still skin them after.) What a hoot!

I’ve only had the power come up for me once, though. Here’s hoping for more!

Image via Blizzard Watch

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Bounceback Boys Parkour Their Way Through Wintry Helsinki

March 24, 2021March 21, 2021Eppu

Parkour! In Helsinki! In the winter! Jumping into mounds of snow!

HELSINKI WINTER TAKEOVER (PARKOUR) by Bounceback Boys on YouTube

Wow! Lots of impressive stunts here; I admire the Bounceback Boys’ skill. (My fear of heights, however, would like a word with the young men… LOL!)

Found via Helsingin Sanomat. (NB. Finnish only.)

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.