- June 22nd, 2009 at
1:12 pm by --KALEB NATION-- -
Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter
Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen
Click the images to see them in hi-resolution. From PerezHilton.com and Yahoo
This movie will be EPIC. Finally, the first photos from the much-anticipated “Alice In Wonderland” film by Tim Burton have been released, with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham-Carter as the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Being an enormous fan of Tim Burton’s other movies (especially The Nightmare Before Christmas) his name being attached to this film makes me even more excited to see it. Throw in Stephen Fry as the Chesire Cat, Timothy Spall as the Bloodhound, and Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar (I’m not even making this up) and you have what could easily be the biggest movie of 2010 (and perhaps the big breakout role for newcomer Mia Wasikowska, who is playing Alice).
For all you Alice In Wonderland fans anxiously awaiting the movie, set for release in 2010, here’s an awesome song I found on YouTube that was composed almost entirely of sounds from the Disney animated version:
- June 20th, 2009 at
9:27 pm by --KALEB NATION-- -
After a while of being part of the Twilight fandom with TwilightGuy.com, I noticed a huge and enormously irritating trend of obsessive fans or attention-seeking creeps creating fake Twitter accounts for movie stars, and acting as if they are the celebrities themselves. To my greatest annoyance, these fakes gather lists of all-too-eager celebrity-chasers, sometimes 20-30,000 followers thinking they are following the real Robert Pattinson/ Taylor Lautner/ Miley Cyrus, etc.
This morning, I was amused greatly when ‘Robert Pattinson’ sent an @ reply to my Twitter account saying “@KalebNation geez i talked to u on the phone =O” from an account called @BobbyMcMurphy (the Fake Rob was referencing my interview with the Real Rob). It struck me that this person had actually fooled 170 people into thinking he was the real thing — and even worse, was chastising other Robert Pattinson accounts which had already admitted to being fake! Not surprisingly, when I called the fake Rob out on my own Twitter, he suddenly stopped following me. Oh epic laughs.
Before I go on a rant on how crazy someone must be to actually follow a Robert Pattinson on Twitter who can hardly write a decent sentence, I must admit that I was once hoodwinked myself by a fake Stephenie Meyer account (then, twitter.com/stepheniemeyer, now suspended). This is in spite of me knowing Stephenie, Stephenie’s publishing people, and many of Stephenie’s fandom-gurus, none of whom had ever mentioned any ‘real’ Twitter even once. I thought I was poser-savvy: but I WAS STILL TRICKED. Also, just a few months ago, I myself, in all my unknown-ness, was plagued by a smart poser who went as KaiebNation (in Verdana font with a capital ‘i’, that looks exactly like KaIebNation). This fooled my friends and even my own brother (but look what happened to Fake-Kaleb). To save you from similar embarrassment, I’ve made this 10-item checklist of How To Spot A Fake Twitter:
1. If the account is a mixed up spelling of an actor’s name that appears to be the name but isn’t (for example, RobertPattinzon or DakotaF@nn1ng) it is almost certainly a fake (exception: Rachelle Lefevre’s account).
2. If the Twitter is not linked on the official website of the actor (or on a reliable entertainment website) it is probably fake. NOTE: There is a HUGE RING of FAKE Twitter accounts, that actually create fake Myspace pages just to link to the fake Twitters. Make sure it is the real website!
3. If the Twitter only links to press photos of themselves and never any personal photos, it is probably fake (unless they are very obsessed with seeing themselves Photoshopped).
4. If the Twitter discusses their personal relationships when said relationships are currently HUGE NEWS in entertainment (for example, if a Kristen Stewart account says ‘I am not dating Robert Pattinson‘). Stars usually are smart enough not to discuss this on a Twitter (this rule is not always reliable).
5. If the Twitter talks in Chatspeek or in some other broken form of English. This is especially true for British movie stars, who usually don’t write stupidly.
6. If the Twitter links to other accounts that are obviously fake (for example: on @BobbyMcmurphy, a fake Robert Pattinson account, the poser links to @kristensss, saying that Kristen Stewart told him it was her new one). Twitter-fakes will make a huge network of poser accounts and have them ‘talk’ to each other, to make them appear real.
- June 15th, 2009 at
8:06 pm by --KALEB NATION-- -
There are some new features to point on on my site, and a bunch of little updates that I’ve been meaning to post, but just didn’t seem to merit an entire blog to themselves! So without further ado:
- I added an entirely new Fans page, where I’ll be posting some of the awesome stuff that BranFans are making. Creative people are always sending in photos or pictures they drew, so I’ll be collecting and putting them on that page, along with all their cool fansites and videos and music,
- I now have an Official Facebook page, aptly located at www.Facebook.com/KalebNation. It is fan-run, but I will be dropping in at times to post updates,
- I have migrated the TwilightGuy.com Chatroom to jointly be a part of this site, so BranFans and TwilightGuy readers alike can hang out. I’ll be dropping in at random times and there are a ton of cool people there every day, so be sure to check it out,
- I uploaded a new song from the Bran Hambric soundtrack to YouTube, and you can also download it for free! Listen below:
Question time! Since there are only 85 days until Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, I’ve been trying to think of cool stuff I should prepare as a countdown to the book release. I know that Stephenie Meyer always did some type of countdown where she would give quotes from the book a week or two leading up to the release. This would be a bit difficult for me to pull off since this is a first book, and nobody really knows who the characters are or what I’d be talking about. The only way anyone would understand it was if I forced them to read the preview chapters. FOR EXAMPLE:
“Oh terrible nights of woe and destruction, as I break down and blow up all forms of construction!” he screamed in delight.
If you had never read the book or preview chapters, you might think that Bran had said this under the guise of the pronoun ‘he’, and suddenly feel to your horror that the book you undoubtedly pre-ordered (because ALL GOOD CITIZENS have preordered Bran Hambric*) is actually about a fat brat who likes being brazenly destructive**. ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
“Blast the library,” Sewey said. “We’re going where we can be as loud as we want and not get thrown out!”
“Yay, the zoo!” Balder oinked.
“No,” Sewey snorted. “A bookstore.”
In this case, while the characters are obviously not Bran, you might come to the conclusion that Sewey and Balder are Bran’s pet pigs who happen to talk***, which he keeps in his bedroom closet. Or, to your utter disgust, you might assume that Sewey and Balder are two friends of Bran’s, and that the line afterward would be
“Yes! Let’s burn all the books while we’re at it, comrades!” Bran Hambric sneered, whilst throwing rocks at old ladies and bending over to punch a small rabbit.****
which isn’t at all the case, at least with the book I wrote.
I don’t even know how I got onto that tangent, but as some people have mentioned, there are some of you who would still like a quotes-countdown. You can at least be sure that I’ve got a bunch of plans together to make it lots of fun before the release date!
QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS: What are some cool things and ideas you would like to see happen as part of the Bran Hambric countdown?
——NOTES——
*Obvious attempt at brainwashing
** No offense to those of you who are like this: I happen to have a character for you in the book, whose name also begins with the letter ‘B’.
*** Unfortunately, there are no talking pigs in Bran Hambric.
**** This does not appear in Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse. I am not barring it as a possibility from the sequel, however.
- June 11th, 2009 at
6:41 pm by --KALEB NATION-- -
I just received news this morning from my wonderful foreign rights agents that the Russian translation for BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE has been sold to Eksmo, one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. Eksmo is well known for many authors, but especially for being the first Russian publishers of the ARTEMIS FOWL series.
Of course, I am wildly thrilled at this news. I hadn’t expected any foreign interest in Bran Hambric until the book was out and selling in the United States. But as with most happenings surrounding this book, I was delightfully surprised to see things unfold even better than I had thought. In fact, it was so unexpected, that the first I heard about the deal was this morning in an email! It was quite a wonderful thing to wake up to.
Seeing the books that Eksmo has put out so far (Artemis Fowl being one of my all-time favorite series) I have great confidence in this deal. I don’t know their release date for the book or what the cover will look like yet — I’ll keep my site updated with anything I get on that, because I can’t wait to see how Bran Hambric looks in Russian!
Also, it is worth noting that once one country picks up foreign rights, it is quite common for many other countries to start reporting back from reviewing the advance copies they picked up at the London Book Fair. So for those of you who are eagerly awaiting Bran Hambric in your countries, I am more confident than ever before that we will soon get some good news for others around the world!
I once had a goal, and that goal was 10,000 subscribers to my YouTube channel before the year 2010. It was one of those ‘reaching higher than you think you’ll ever get’ things for me. However, to my great amazement, the BranFans and Twilight fandom have once again surpassed all my expectations: and now, my channel has just passed 30,000 subscribers!
As promised, I will be doing a LIVE BlogTV show to celebrate! Most of the big prizes on the show are for my TwilightGuy readers (not that anyone will REALLY turn down something signed by #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephenie Meyer!), but be assured that there will be a few surprise Bran-Hambric-related prizes to be given away on Saturday’s live show!
The show is at 5 PM CST on Saturday June 6 in my BlogTV room.
NOTE: My BlogTV shows fill very fast. It is a good idea to line up early if you want in the main room. After 150 viewers, people are put into waiting rooms, where you can watch the show but I can’t see what you say in the chat box. People with BlogTV accounts get rotated automatically into the room faster. I have no control over who is put in the main room.
I just received news this morning from my wonderful foreign rights agents that the Russian translation for BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE has been sold to 
