Picture Kaleidoscope - AllCon 2015

Two weekends ago was ALLCON!

And the costumes were everywhere and fantastic ones at that! Here are the ones I got to take snap shots of.

Big Hero 6!

From Gravity Falls - Wendy and Dipper!

Tried to catch him like 3 times. He had a mouth beneath the mask part - he looked great! 

He looked very dapper!

Loved this umbrella! Looked like fluffy clouds. 

Nice detail.

This hat was FABULOUS!

Look at all that awesome detail!!!!!

He Who Shall Not Be Named after seeing the Face Off guest for a little touch up. :)

She looked great. Didn't get her cool back hair in the pic though. 

Zoom in on this dress. Let them eat cup cakes!

Chuck! (Aka Prophet, aka God?) 

He came out very well! X-Men, better get ready!

Tim Burton would be proud. :)

A gun totting, western Medusa! Check out her arms! Awesome detail!

Chappie!

What I totally loved was the ship in the wig being attacked by Kraken Tentacles. Sweet!

Isn't she adorable?

Gruncle Stan and WADDLES!!!!  OMG he's so cute!!!!!

Beeker and the Chef - flashback time! 

Our bud across the aisle, after getting worked on by the guest special effects lady. Nice Beast!

Sweet!

Mind Sieve 8/12/13

Howdy folks!

Her Trailer 1 - weird premise, but AI's rule!

Thor: The Dark World Trailer 2 - looking better and better. :)

The Counselor Trailer 2 - I'm lukewarm on this one. Hmm

Enough Said Trailer 1 - quirky, and by the end of the trailer I was thinking it might be cute. Heh.

Muppets Most Wanted Teaser Trailer - SEQUEL! Looks like it could be fun. :)

Ender's Game Trailer 2 - so pumped!!!!

Sherlock Season 3 Teaser - they're so MEAN! So love this series!!!

100 Things to Tweet About Besides Yourself by Pam the Marketing Nut.

75 Things I Learned On My Journey To 100,000 Twitter Followers by Pam the Marketing Nut.

Gene Lempp's Writing Resources Insanity post for 10 August 2013!

Are Genre Stories More Stupid? by Jami Gold. Super awesome post! Go Jami!

Hope you have a terrific Monday!

Mind Sieve 3/19/12

Happy Monday!
A lot of stuff to share this week. Almost a flood!

New MIB 3 Trailer. This is going to be a blast!!!

For those who like Steampunk, here's a tantalizing bit for The Nightmare Machine Convention in Jefferson, TX March 30-April 1. Have to admit it's a nice gimmick! 

Star Wars The Old Republic - Times Squares Freeze Mob 12.20.11. This is just so COOL!!! Choose a side.

GI Joe 2 Trailer - please, please, please let them have fixed Snake Eyes costume!!!! No weird creepy mouth thing.

A Thousand Words Trailer - looks too darn cute! Hee!

85 Dancers From 22 Countries Stitched Into One Composite Music Video, article by Peta Pixel. Too Cute! And the song is catchy too.

Time-Lapse Growth of Las Vegas As Seen Through Space Photos from Peta Pixel and NASA.

Totally stumbled over this by accident - Brenda & Rob's Sci-fi, Eco Wedding With A Tardis! lol. Over at  Offbeat Bride. Too cute!

Ice Age 4 Official Trailer! YES! Give me some Scrat!

Despicable Me 2 Trailer!!! And how much do you bet it'll be in 3D? Hee!

Designing From Bones - Zoo Arcane: Owl, Worm, and Elderhorn blog post by Gene Lempp. Not your everyday bestiary that's for sure! :P

Jeff Strand is nuts! So it figures the book trailer for his latest work would be too. And also has a catchy song! lol. A Bad Day For Voodoo!

The Cabin In The Woods trailer. I should have known with Joss Whedon involved it wouldn't be just a scary flick. Sweet!

The Muppets Feel The Hunger Spoof Trailer. Oh yeah, Hunger Games, in your face! lol.

Dark Shadows Trailer! Looks like it's meant to be a SPOOF remake, like so many others have been of late. In that vein, it looks awesome! 

How To Make Linked-In Your Happy Place by Jenny Hansen. (Need a Clone, Need a Clone!)

Goodreads: 8 Things Writers Should Know by Rachelle Gardner. Hah! Already there! Nyah! (Not that I do all I should there. Waaaahhhh!)

Rachelle Gardner also talks about How Authors Can Effectively Use Goodreads. Their advertising module is pretty easy. I've used it before.

The Modern Author - A New Breed Of Writer For The Digital Age Of Publishing from Kristen Lamb. (I need CLONES!! Give me some CLONES!)

12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Every Time by Neil Patel at SEOmoz. Great Not To Do (and what to do) advice!

From Chuck (NSFW) Wendig - 25 Things You Should Know About Creativity.

Shot Through The Heart: Your Story's Throughline by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig. Always good stuff! And colorful! Hee!

Ack, past my time slot and my eyes are shot. Feel free to share anything awesome you've run across!

I'd like to thank my ever horrifyingly bigger Twitter stream for giving me all this fodder to share. I don't do so often enough.

Mind Sieve 11/21/11

Welcome to one and all to another Mind Sieve round of insanity! Hope you find something fun or at least useful in this mess! :)

If you're an NCIS fan, you heard Dinozzo talk about his Bucket List. Michael Weatherly shared the whole thing with the fans here. It's so Tony! Heh heh heh.

Chuck (NSFW) Wendig shared his Recipe for Sinner's Stew (Contains coffee, beer, and whiskey! oh my!) Sounds quite nice.

Hunger Games movie preview. I've not read the books but know a lot of people who love them. Preview is definitely titillating, that's for sure. :) And I love the young man playing the male counterpart. Awesome actor.

Ellie Ann is doing a series of blogs on What I Want To Be When I Grow Up - First up A Spook. And she interviews one to get the real skinny. Fascinating.

Artist MarieMJS painted this to encourage the writers for the British series "Sherlock" to write Mark Sheppard into the cast. I totally agree! Would be a super blast! Here is a Watson and Sheppard match.

A Dr Who Movie on the Way! I'm both excited and nervous about this development! But still, Dr Who on the BIG SCREEN! Woot!

Best For Film has found out that those Muppet people also have a penchant for the Twilight films. Here's one of the three posters. You can find all three here. Too funny!

Steven Popkis has a cool discussion on Signs of Life. Basically, how do you really know if there's life on a planet.

Gene Lempp's Designing from Bones tackles Signalling Viewpoints this week! (I'm thinking another worls where electricity doesn't work so towers are manned by telepaths where the next tower right at the edge of their range - mind to mind communication. heh heh.)

Movie Preview for Mirror Mirror. Looks like it will be a blast! Not your typical Snow White story, that's for sure. lol.

New preview for Disnety Pixar's Brave. Looking forward to it!

Kristen Lamb warns - Beware the Social Media Snuggie! One Size Does Not Fit All!

Are Libraries Good for Authors? A post by Kristin Laughtin. (People actually think of libraries as book pirates?!?!?)

Well, a week of two ago, I had articles here about joining Klout. This week, I have one about DeKoutifying by John Scalzi. Heh heh. (I don't do any of the perks stuff or eagle eye my score, so...shrug) What will you decide?

Rachelle Gardner gives advice on What NOT to Blog About. And she's totally correct. The internet NEVER forgets!

Why Writers Need a Platform by Kristen Lamb.

Sharla Rae tells us Why Some Blogs Make Me Cranky. (And I totally agree. A lot of this stuff makes me cranky too! Heh heh. But then, that's why I am your Mind Sieve. Bwahahahaha!)

Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law - awesome discussion by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig and the weirdness we as writers get mired in. Go - Read - Be Free!

More from Chuck (NSFW) Wendig as in 25 Reasons Readers Will Keep Reading Your Story.

Does Age Matter For Writers? Question answered by Rachelle Gardner. (I know an author that didn't publish till her 80's and she's still kicking buns! Booyah!)

From Larry at Storyfix.com The Are of Receiving Criticism. Some very good points in this! All peeps are not made the same with critiquing skills.

Foreshadowing: How A Sore Thumb Can Prepare You For A Brutal Beating by Roz Morris. Good stuff!

Okay, the eyeballs are screaming. Time for me to stop. This should keep you lot busy for a while anyways. Bwahahahahaha!
Till next time!

Mind Sieve 9/26/11

People were honestly super productive this week. Let's see what I can wheedle it down to.

FansOfMovies shared the news about the new Max Payne 3 game trailer. Total Film has the details.

Total Film shared the latest parody video by The Muppets - this one based on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

A preview to a film I'd not heard of before but looks totally adorable - We Bought A Zoo.

AceRocksBooks found this. Beyond cute! Jedi Kittens Strike Back! Totally beyond CUTE!

The Breaking Dawn pt 1 Trailer. I must admit they make it look tantalizing. Heh heh

Total Film has set photos of the Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel. Love Colin Farrell, so this should be fun!

Balladeer has a post on The Top Eleven Deities in Hawaiian Mythology. Now that's something you don't hear about everyday!

Another film I hadn't heard about - The Awakening. Very unusual location and time frame. Very tantalizing and I hate scary stuff! lol

Mary Jo Gibson gives us a peek at the Lightner Museum on Museum Monday.  Cool looking place and cool looking stuff! Be fun to visit.

From Total Film, a preview to J Edgar with Leonardo DiCaprio. Also has Jeffrey Donovan as President Kennedy! Woot! 

Dr Clayton Forrester shared a video called Because Tom Sellect's Mustache Makes Everything Better. (If you're under 40 this might not mean anything to you. Though Tom is now in Blue Bloods, so who knows!)  It's too funny.

TorBooks found this blog with AT-AT Pancakes! So cool!

From Eddie McClintock himself, a link to the preview of the 2 Hr Warehouse 13 season finale!

Dr Twuth from Kristen Lamb tackles - Now I Need a Service for Validation? Beating the Bots! Nice strategies on what to watch out for and how to avoid becoming Bot Fodder.

Maria Zannini gives us the Three Layers of Book Promotion. Great definitions and even examples!

From Laura Pepper Wu - Adding Customer Images to Your Amazon Page to Increase Your Sales. No idea if this would work or not, but wouldn't hurt. Went and added my mug to all my books and anthologies. What the hey! Wonder who in my family I can bribe to sit and hold one to look like they're reading. Hmmmm.

Kristen Lamb's WANA Wednesday - Three Keys to a Sucessful Author Platform - All This and a Bag of Chips. Kristen waxes philosophically on why you should take her online course. This might be of interest to some of you out there especially if you're just starting your author platform.

Gene Lempp's Designing from Bones - The Elements of Culture. The ancient Cyprus! Nice info on the long term culture and ways to think about world building for your own creations!

Jami Gold walks us through an answer for Where Do You Get Your Ideas? (Or how SPAM can make you a better writer. Heh heh.)

Jaye Wells has a great post on the writing experience - The Journeyman Writer.

Really nice post about dealing with critiques from Angela Ackerman - Evaluating Critique Feedback.

Setting - Adding Dimension to Your Fiction by Kristen Lamb. Great examples!

From Chuck (NSFW) Wendig comes 25 Virtues Writers Should Posses. Great list (though I'm still not sure about Coffee or Liquor as virtues, dude!) :P

Okay, I ran out of time, but here's a whittled down list of all the stuff I accumulated. Have fun! And feel free to list cool stuff you guys ran across, too! Sharing is fun! Heh heh.

Mind Sieve 8/29/11

Some definitely good stuff this week to share!

Jenny Hansen explores the question - Do Writers Read Differently Than Non-Writers? Very cute! And some truths too! Heh heh.


Total Film shared a trailer for Gerard Butler's next film Machine Gun Preacher.

Zachary Levi shared this article at IHeartChaos and a commercial from Duct Tape: Tron Style! Awesome.

Duck Tron from Ryactive on Vimeo.

 This could be a cool resource - Godchecker.com - Your Guide to the Gods. From all over the world. Rather spiffy!

Nikita Season 2 Trailer. Whole new direction!

Catie Rhodes give us the skinny on The Most Haunted Little Town in Texas - Jefferson, TX. Really great pics of the Claiborne House too!

Vevo News had a cute triple video serving - On The Set With OK GO. Then the OK GO Muppet's Theme Video comes on. And lastly an adorable promo. lol. These guys had too much fun. :)

ZombieSchool asks - Do you need a fast deployable zombie safe house? Here's one option:

Preview for Supernatural Season 7.  (You know I had to!)

Tony Eldridge shares a list of 10 Truths About Self-Marketing, Like It or Not. Some good points here!

Kristen Lamb shares The Single Best Way for Writers to Become a Brand. Woohoo! I did this right all on my own. Of course, I still haven't gotten my name to truly be seen as a BRAND, but at least I'm not having to start from scratch. Truly, this is a no brainer.

More Thoughts on That Pesky Author Branding by Randy Ingermanson. It works in quite nicely with the things Kristen was saying in the above post.

Dr Twuth is back! (aka Kristen Lamb) This time she tackles The Twuth About Twitter Pics.(Our Avatars, that is! From the title I thought this was going to be a totally different topic. DOH!)

This week Chuck (NSFW) Wendig tackles 25 Things Writers Should Know About Social Media. Look, he can be brilliant talking about writing AND social media~! (It's the Beard, you know. Chuck is just its puppet. :P)

Debbie Ohi has compiled a huge list of Google + Newbie posts and more. Might be a place to check out if you're thinking of trying out Google + at some point. These are aimed mostly at writers and artists. (Too many for me to go through, but since they were all in one place, figured I'd share!)

From The Bookshelf Muses - Weather Thesaurus Entry: Mudslide. Real nice article on how to use weather as an extra dimension in your writing. Even examples!

From Kristen Lamb the Guinea Pig Diaries: Little Darling Anonymous. Or The 5 Stages of Edits and Crying.(ROFL. Yes, and LDA meeting with 12 Steps.)

Structure Part 2 - Plot Problems - Falcor the Luck Dragon and the Purple Tornado from Kristen Lamb. Telling it like it is! Structure is king. :)

From Nathan Bransford comes There Is No Such Thing as an Overnight Success Story. WORD! (One success story I know of only appears overnight because of four name changes! lol. So it wasn't really. She worked her buns off!) :)

Ack, that's it. Brain is FRIED! (Eyeballs aren't too happy either.) Hope you enjoy!

Mind Sieve 6/27/11

It's going to be a full mashup this week!

FanOfMovies shared a link to a new Muppets Movie Spoof Trailer. Heh heh





Jerry J Davis shared a link to A Wonderful Collection of Doodles on NetFlix Envelopes!

VoiceOfBrien ran across a new lego set - All Hail the Lego Super Star Destroyer. (I wants!!!!)

Eclipse Magazine has the scoop on all things Torchwood: Miracle Day - more than just a TV series.  (Everything is becoming so interactive! How am I supposed to find time to do all this stuff! But so cool!)

Some David Tenant news right from the horse's mouth! He'll be doing a tribute in the next Dr Who Magazine to Nicolas Courtney (The Brigadier). He's also is working with Catherine Tate again (Donna Noble) in Much Ado About Nothing. 

These guys followed me after I posted about the Zombie Walk at SoonerCon. Believe it or not, there is a Zombie School! They're doing all sorts of Zombie research. :)

Adding this last minute. Too cool and fun to pass up. Meet Charlie. This starts out mundane then takes a turn. Loved IT!

Ross Dawson explains 7 Reasons Twitter is Central to His Life. Pretty much explains why the heck you want to get involved in this crazy stuff. Heh heh

Jami Gold shares her thoughts on What We Should Blog About and gets there by looking at What Makes You Decide to Buy a Book!

Kristen Lamb gives us More Sacred Cow-Tipping–Common Blogging Misconceptions. Some great ideas on blogging. (I'm already doing some of this. Monday - Mind Sieve Mashup, Wednesday - Picture Kaleidoscope, Friday (when I can!) Movie Reviews. Oh yeah!)

Collen Lindsay shared this post by Scott Tracey - Authors Use of Twitter. Great stuff in here guys! (And I totally try to do Road #1. So if you follow me and I don't follow back, it's not because I don't care. I just can only handle so many tweets scrolling by. But feel free to @ me and I will happily converse with you (work permitting!).)

PamMktNut shared a link to a post from Reviewz N Tips on Things Not To Do in Blogging.Good mind fodder info here.

Kristen Lamb's latest Twitter Tuesday wisdom - Learning to T.H.I.N.K. (Never forget, once it gets on the internet, it's forever! Kinda scary really.) :P

What Are the Odds...Really? Kristen Lamb takes a hard look at Success and what it takes to get there.

Gene Lempp shared a link to a post by ALI on How to Cut the Waffle From Your Writing. Definitely some good points and things to watch for here!

Gene also shared a link to Killer Instincts: Trusting Your Writer's Compass by Janice Hardy. The on thing to keep in mind though is that not everyone has it right off, you do tend to have to cultivate it. Just saying... I know I'm still working on mine. :)

What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Writing by Kristen Lamb.I only partially agree with this post, but only because some of the science they used in the film wouldn't work. Specifically the whole Spock and Scott beaming Kirk to a MOVING ship. Especially since they had no idea WHERE it was. So do make sure your science/tech works as well - devil in the details. :P

Ack, I had a ton more blogs to check out but my brain is now pureed. See what I go through for ya'll? :P

Gloria
www.gloriaoliver.com