On the Eve of New Year's Eve...

HOLA, ALL!!!

I discovered that I have my regular weekend off this week WHICH INCLUDES NEW YEAR'S EVE AND NEW YEAR'S DAY!!! (Then I get an extra day off to recouperate, hee-hee!)

And I don't know what YOU'RE doing for New Years, but it looks like Brian and I may be having a 24 New Year's Eve...

Get this, I go to Best Buy to buy CLERKS II -- because I figure that might be a fun thing to watch on New Year's Eve, and I STILL haven't seen it(!!) -- and they, naturally, have TONS of copies of CLERKS... the Criterian Collection... and CLERKS X, the 10th Anniversary Edition... and CLERKS: UNRATED, the animated series...


NO CLERKS II!!!

Well, they had 3 copies... OF THE FULL-FRAME EDITION! FULL-FRAME?!! I mean, why even BOTHER?!! If they're gonna chop off the sides my movie, they should be forced to GIVE the dvd to me FREE! I shouldn't be forced to PAY for HALF a movie!!!

Sorry... I get very frustrated by the mere existence of Full-Frame dvds. I mean, they're dvds! Surely they can give the THE ENTIRE PICTURE!

I'm doing it again. Sorry.

So anyway, I didn't buy the Full-Frame edition of CLERKS II, and I was on my way out of the store when I passed a table FULL of all 5 seasons of the series 24. About 3 years ago I owned the first 2 seasons, and I LOVED them! And Brian dug on the first season, but he never got around to watching the second season.

Then I lost possesion of a bunch of my dvds, including 24... And I was sad.

And every time I get the itch to rejoin Jack Baur on his harrowing adventures I just look at the price tag on a single season ($57.99, or thereabout) and I decide to content myself with with one or five of the dvds I ALREADY own.

And on this table at Best Buy that has all 5 seasons laid neatly out in huge stacks, the sticker prices of each dvd is between $45 and $58 each.

...but BENEATH the stacks, attatched to the table itself, are OTHER sticker prices!!!

"24, The Complete First Season: $19.99", "24, The Complete Second Season: $19.99", "24, The Complete Third Season: $19.99", and so on! ALL 5 SEASONS!!! My buddy Pete hooked me up with Season One, so I scooped up Season's Two through Five!

And today, before I went to bed, Brian and I popped in the first disc of the second season and started watching! (Did I already mention that Brian never got around to seeing the second season before I lost my dvds?)

It was about 8:00 am when we popped in the first disc... And if you remember, Day 2 starts at 8:00 am! So that was kinda groovy! I didn't even notice it; Brian pointed that out this evening.

I went to bed after the first hour. I forced myself since I have work tonight. I ended up waking up way-early, and Brian was on Disc 3 of Day 2! He had just kept watching. One of the reasons I got up when I woke up early is I needed to withdraw some money for rent, so I could go ahead and pay it and not have to worry about it over the holiday. I alwso wanted to get a bit of shopping done before tomorrow night. Then when I got back -- still several hours to go before I had to leave for work -- I sat down and joined Brian in watching hours 6:00 pm through 10:00 pm(ish).

AND talked him into maybe ringing in the New Year with Day 3!

I haven't been able to see my baby in the last couple of days, so I don't know how much time I'll be able to spend with her tomorrow. :( However, she's bound to pass out before I will, as she'll begin her New Years drinkin' 6 hours before I will. So I can spend that time with Jack Baur & my li'l bro!

Good times for all!

And I imagine we'll take a break from time to time to walk out onto the balcony and enjoy the fireworks our neighbors shoot off.

It should be a good night! (All I have to do now is get past the next 6 1/2 hours of my shift...)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

After 11 days without a day off, then approximately 20-and-a-half hours without sleep, I am awake and refreshed and READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

And this year, I was ACTUALLY ALSEEP when Santa came, lol! Haven't done THAT in a few years. (The last time was probably when I spent Christmas with Tisha. We tend to stay up late, but we didn't hear or see Santa that year.)

And I can say that -- even before I open a single present this year -- I have gotten EVERYTHING I wanted, and more!!! The presents are just icing, lol!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Last Santa Update This Year

I am WELL drunk and about to pass out, lol. Seems I will be asleep by the time Santa hits Austin.

As of 5:55 pm Central Standard Time Santa just cruised through Spain and is now in France.

OOH!!! He just hit southwest UK!!! So he's gonna hit my bay's house in a minute or two!!!

And with that, I can pass out in blissful peace. :D

My Gnomey has given me the BEST Christmas Eve I have EVER experienced!!! I can't believe I stayed up this long! It was because of her! She kept me laughing and loving and having a REALLY GREAT TIME!!!

I didn't plan how I wanted this Christmas Eve to turn out, but Wendy made it turn out BETTER than I could have planned!

God bless us, everyone!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Santa's Visiting The Troops

According to NORAD Santa is making his way through Iraq, heading northwest toward Syria.

Wow, that's a sobering thought. Did you get that too just now?

Anyway, Merry Christmas to anyone serving who might stumble upon this silly little blog of mine, and also to anyone who has/knows someone over there!!! And ANYWEHRE that there might be those uninterested in the spirit of loving and taking care of each other!

As I type this Gnomey and I are taking a break from our little Christmas Eve celebration while she shares in some family traditions! My li'l heart just goes THUMP THUMP thinking about her laughing with her family!

Woah! Santa's TRUCKIN'! He's just about to enter Moscow now.

Dude knows how to MOVE!

Tracking Santa Again :D

As of 9:33 am Central Standard Time (I think) NORAD has Santa in Nepal!!!

I logged on at work aound 3:00 am, I think, and Santa was at the North Pole. I did some work, then turned back around a few minutes later and they had him around the Fiji Islands, if memory serves.

Dude starts EARLY!

I've been getting to sleep later than I wanted to the last few days, so since I'm off today and tomorrow, I figured I'd just try to stay up and spend as much time with Wendy as possible! It's CHRISTMAS EVE after all!!!

Our first Christmas together!!! :D (You know, VIRTUALLY together... That is to say, together virtually... I mean, we're TOGETHER, but... You know what I mean.)

I haven't watched any of the videos yet this year, but I've been following Santa live on NORAD's map thingy.

VERY FUN!!! hee-hee

My baby thinks I'm cute! ;P

Ooh, and I got a call from Tisha a couple of nights ago and she inadvertantly gave me the GREATEST Christmas present... She asked me to get her 30 Seconds to Mars's second album!!!

There was a time, a few years ago, when the only way she and I could enjoy the same music is when I adopted her tastes... As I result I became a Spice Girls fan (still love them, though, I became an enthusiastic fan before they made their movie) and bought Britney Spears's FIRST album (remember way back then, before she started hangin' with Paris?)...

And NOW...

My Tisha has discovered one of my favorite bands ON HER OWN!!! I didn't give her the album and go on about how good they are and how she should listen to it or anything! In fact, she may not have even known that i was a fan! SHE discovered them FOR HERSELF!!!

I just couldn't be prouder!

Music is such a HUGE thing in our lives! I think it plays a bigger part -- to each and every one of us -- than we even realize! So for Tisha to call me up and ask me to get her 30 seconds To Mars is just MONUMENTAL!!!

For me, anyway, lol.

She also wants My Chemical Romance, and has recommended them to me many times. I really should give them a listen! (Tish is the one who turned me onto Panic! at the Disco, and they RULE!)

Blah.

Wonder if my sweety's back yet. Ooh! And where is Santa NOW?!!

Santa just left Dhaka/Dacca. He's moving southeasterly. In the general direction of Yangoon/Rangoon.

Gnomey's not back yet though.

BUT, I got Michael Crichton's new book, NEXT, from iTunes, so I think I'll go back to listening to that. (She let me watch her wrap presents earlier while I listened. IT'S DEFINITELY CHRISTMAS FOR RAY JAY!!!)

Rockin' With Tha HOTTY

I just read my baby to sleep again! :D It's been quite a while since I've been able to do that with her, so it was REALLY NICE for me!!!

This would be my "Friday", but with the holidays upon us the other overnight guy is taking some time off and my boss apparently couldn't find anyone to fill in, so I'll be working the next three nights, and then resume my regular schedule. (I'm hoping I can have next weekend, tho' and enjoy Christmas with my peeps. We'll see how that goes.)

For some reason, tho', knowing that I'm going to work tomorrow, too, made it easier to get to sleep this morning early enough to wake up and spend time online with my Gnomey Goddess!!!

I actually ended up waking up a full hour before I set my alarm! I got to shower and get dressed before coming online.

See, usually she stays up late to see me, and I'm usually in my jammies & robe, with puffy eyes and hair all askew. So it was important to me to wake up early and surprise her, and look good doing so, lol.

It was wonderful!!!

She was very playful tonight -- insisting I need my eyes tested (because I kept going on about how beautiful she is, hehe) and creating bizarre scenarios to get me in for an eye checkup, lol.

At one point, tho', she left me to go wake her mom out of bed and tell her the chickens need their sponge bath and to shave the monkeys. I have no idea why she did that to her poor sleeping mom. (I think my baby may have been drinking a little tonight, lol. Don't tell her I told you.)

She's a strange woman.

But PRETTY!!!

hee-hee

It was cool reading to her again. I started with Chapter 12 of SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH (we still haven't finished that book yet, lol) and by the end of Chapter 13 I could hear her breathing quietly and steadily into the phone. When I asked if she was still with me she didn't respond. So I told her "good-night" and stuff and let her go.

It was ADORABLE!

I know that long-distance relationships are supposed to be hard, but somehow Gnomey makes it easy. And wonderful!!! Maybe it's just the knowlege that if it's THIS great now, it will be a million times sweeter when we're sharing the same continent.

I recently discovered this Texas band called Flyleaf, so after Wendy fell asleep I went to iTunes to see if they had any albums or videos. I found a Christmas single by the band!!! "Do You Hear What I Hear." It's GORGEOUS!!! A very earnest and heartfelt rendition of the song... THAT ROCKS, lol! It's now in my iPod next to Sarah Macglaughlan's "Silent Night".

:)

Okay, I should get to work now. Only 8 more days to go until I'm off again! (Hopefully...)

PEACE & YULE TIDINGS & STUFF!!!

BOND RULES!!!

I did such a fantastic job of developing the backstory for my new screenplay Saturday night and last night that I'm allowing myself to watch dvds and play videogames!

What's that you say? "Bollocks?" That sounds like BOLLOCKS to you?!!

Well, it is.

;P

I did have an amazing burst of creativity SatSun and yesterday, and got some good work done. But the truth is that I'm slackin' off today because it feel groovy. :)

My Gnomey's feeling better than she has in, like, a week and a half, if not 2 weeks!!! She went back to work today (or... technically, "yesterday" as she'll be waking up soon for her Tuesday while I'm still enjoying my Monday night) and I got to see her before I went to bed and she stayed up so I could see her before she went to bed... ALL IS GOOD! :)

I stayed up late last night/this morning, too! I was looking for a very specific Christmas present for her in SL (she insisted I not get her one in RL) and it took maybe 4 hours to track down THE specific think I was looking for, BUT I GOT IT!!! hee-hee :D

And, as it turns out, my alarm still woke me! (It has failed to in the past, lol.)

So after Wendy went to bed I ran downstairs to check the mail... AND MY JAMES BOND BOX-SET FINALLY ARRIVED!!!

There's a story in this:

A couple of months ago I didn't really have money, but I got SO OBSESSED with wanting to FINALLY put a dent in my HQFS library that I ordered 3 dvds off Amazon.

This requires a bit of explaination... HQFS stands for High-Quality Field-Sequential, and it's a format for watching 3-D movies at home.

If you purchased SPYKIDS: GAME OVER or SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN in the last couple of years and watched either with the red/blue 3-D glasses that came with the dvd, you discovered that it's not really 3-D. In fact, it's not really watchable.

Red/blue 3-D (there's a term for it, and it's something like "anaglyphic" but I'm not sure) works incredibly well if (1) your TV set is perfectly color timed, and (2) the original picture is in black & white. When these criteria are met, one eye sees one image and the other eye sees the other image, creating the same illusion of depth that your eyeballs give you in everyday life. (Assuming, of course, that you have equal sight in both eyes.) But either studios or home video distributors believe that we -- the Public -- will not buy black & white movies. So they simply tint one image blue and the other red and give you the glasses.

But that's not really 3-D. You're not seeing one image in each eye, you're seeing 2 images because any color that's not red or blue fails to disappear. So you sort of, kind of get an impression of depth, but not really, as there is always this ghost image to contend with.

It's a HORRIBLE way to watch a movie!

But some really smart folks came up with the Field-Sequential system which present almost-theatrical quality 3-D.

Each frame of film alternates between left-eye perspective and right-eye perspective. And film frames pass by so rapidly that if you're not wearing the Field-Sequential glasses you see both perspectives simultaneously. (Just like if you take your glasses off in the theater.)

But the HQFS system causes the lenses of each eye of your glasses to take turns blacking out in an alternating pattern, allowing each eye to ONLY see the propper frame from that eye's perspective.

It's quite brilliant, really!!!

So some years back I bought this package of 3 IMAX 3-D dvds and the HQFS syetem (2 pairs of glasses which plug into a box that tells the glasses to black-out according to a syncronizing signal it receives from the dvd being played, if I understand it all correctly). One of the dvds was shite, but the other 2 were quite good.

And I ended up losing the dvds. I didn't misplace them, I lost possession, ownership, of them.

But I found one of them at a pawn shop! My favorite one, in fact!

But ever since I discovered that Amazon still sells several HQFS titles, I've been ACHING to stock-up, so I have a little variety when I want to watch a 3-D movie.

So a couple of months ago I really didn't have the money, but I couldn't stop myself from ordering SPYKIDS: GAME OVER, SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN (I wanted to be able to watch it in REAL 3-D this Christmas) and a disc called TRANSITION.

A week went by and I still hadn't received it.

Well, HQFS probably isn't in the highest demand, so they're probably rare-ish.

So I waited patiently.

Then a month ago -- around the time you couldn't turn on a TV or log into a website without seeing an ad for CASINO ROYALE -- I decided my Bond library was embarrassingly small.

I had DR. NO, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and DIE ANOTHER DAY.

Brian had A VIEW TO A KILL on VHS.

Very sad, indeed.

And these new Bond box-set were popping up in Walmart, each PACKED with Bond!

But they're $80.00!!!

I had money, but I would be broke if I bought ONE of those boxed-sets. PLUS, I have very specific tastes in my Bond flicks, and there were certain flicks I HAD TO have, and the others were just gravy, if I wound up with them.

But the way they arranged these new box-sets, I would have to buy all 4 to acquire my Have-T-Haves. :(

However... Browsing Amazon, I discovered that they still sell the Bond collections from a few years ago!!! (The Christmas that DIE ANOTHER DAY came out in theaters.)

AND they were affordable!!!

AND the first box-set contained MOST of my Have-To-Haves!!!

So I ordered it!

When I ordered it, I noticed that my 3-D flicks hadn't shipped YET!

That sucked.

So for the next few days, I logged into Amazon to see if either of my orders was moving.

Bond shipped a couple of days later.

I've experienced this before... You order something hard-to-find off Amazon and it doesn't ship, and 6 months later you get an email informing you it's still not available, and would you like to cancel your order or continue to wait.

Okay. Real 3-D is kind of a Holy Grail for me, so I accepted that this was just another mirage in my quest.

But I had me some Bond on it's way to me!!! :D THAT would soften the blow!

The next day I get an email saying that Bond has shipped!

2 days after I get an email saying that my 3-D has shipped!

Okay, so I had a weekend coming up... With any luck, Bond would come this weekend and I could watch it before heading back to work, and then -- if the gods were REALLY smiling on me -- I would get my 3-D dvds in time for NEXT weekend!

That weekend came and went, and Bond never arrived. :(

Luckily, though, I had some Marx Brothers from Netflix to tide me over. So that was fun.

Another weekend came and went, and Bond STILL hadn't arrived. :(

BUT... In the meantime I had acquired ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, A VIEW TO A KILL (on dvd... with EXTRAS!!!), THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH!

So now the Edwards Boys' Bond library was 7 titles strong! (hee-hee)

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is a Have-To-Have for me simply because I like the world of Brosnan's 007. It's the weakest of his Bond films (through absolutely NO fault of his own!) but it still has that state-of-the-art, up-to-the-second immediacy that makes Bond exciting for a 12-year-old boy trapped in a 36-year-old man's body, lol.

Brian and I watched it (his first time, my second -- after seeing it on the Big Screen when it was first released I felt no desire to see it again, until now) and it's a lot better than I remembered it!!! The wrote the fuck out of that movie, lol! Seriously, that story was working on SO MANY levels!!! Ig nore Denise Richards' performance -- just enjoy the view -- and that's a pretty strong entry in the series!

So that was a pleasant surprise for me! I now owned a Bond film that I like that I didn't previosuly like!

(I experienced the same thing with TOMORROW NEVER DIES... After GOLDENEYE I guess I expected all the Brosnan Bonds to be of the same quality, but I left the theater a bit disappointed... But when I bought the dvd (which I later lost possession of) I enjoyed the movie more than had in the theater... I think it's something to do with the way those movies end; you have a great time, then it just sort of fizzles just before you walk out of the theater. That's a theory, anyway.)

Then, last weekend, I go down to check the mail and...

...my 3-D MOVIES HAVE ARRIVED!!!

Which is a bit perverse, but I got to see SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN in 3-D so I'm not complaining one bit!!! It was GREAT!!! :D

And that brings us back to today, the reason I took you on this whole journey in the first place.

I got to talk to Gnomey before she went to work, then spent the next 4 hours or so tracking down her SL Chritsmas present, and that put me in bed WELL LATE. But I woke up in time to see her (because she also stayed up until the time I usually wake up) and I got to talk to her some more -- which was HEAVEN!!!

Then went downstairs to check the mail... AND BOND HAD ARRIVED!!!


(I'd like to take yet another paragraph to explain that this is a fortuitous event. There is a very narrow window between when I wake up and when the appartment complex office closes for the day. And when I order dvds or books, I usually get a slip of paper in my mailbox informing me that I have a package waiting for me in the office. MANY is the time I've received that slip of paper after the office is closed, so my anticipation of these Bond flicks has had me going downstairs in my pajama bottoms -- or Pirate Pants, as I call them because they have Pirates of the Caribbean on them -- and a coat and checking the mail half-asleep, just so I'll make it in time, in case my package has arrived. AND to have it arrive on a Monday, when I have 2 WHOLE DAYS to enjoy my package before the wrok week begins again... Even more of a miracle!)

I talked to Gnomey on the phone for a bit before she fell alseep, and then wandered into the living room to see what Brian was up to. he was destroying humans in Japan. (He's not racist or homicidal.. he was playing the game DESTROY ALL HUMANS 2.) I offered to help him ravage Japan, but he hates the split-screen, so he generously let me destroy some humans for half an hour or so, then it was time for breakfats/dinner (breakfast for me, dinner for him) and we popped in a Bond flick to watch while we ate.

The box-set I ordered came with:

GOLDFINGER
THUNDERBALL
LIVE AND LET DIE
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
LICENCE TO KILL
GOLDENEYE
TOMORROW NEVER DIES

Which is ASTOUNDING because 5 of those are my Have-To-Have Bond flicks. FIVE!!! For $45.00, including shipping!!! (Less than $10 a movie and with LIVE AND LET DIE and THUNDEBALL thrown in as bonuses!!!)

I was suggested we watch LIVE AND LET DIE because before Tom Mankiewicz wrote SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE and SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT (NOT the theatrical version of SUPERMAN II) he had written some James Bond films. And being the incredible writer/film nerd I am, I wanted a taste of what he had done for the Bond franchise!

Turns out that Mankiewicz had written DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, LIVE AND LET DIE and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

Now, DAF if the flick that Connery returned to Bond as (for, he believed at the time, the LAST time) and I remember TMWTGG being a decent Bond flick when I had recorded it (along with the other Bond flicks) off TNT's Christmas Bond marathon for my dad several years ago.

So when I thought of how bad LIVE AND LET DIE was, I was probably only thinking of one of two bad scenes, and the movie as a whole was probably much better than I remembered it, right? Like with THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH.

Brian and I didn't make it through the whole movie. I was falling asleep in my chair and Brian was making unrepeatable jokes about the cheesiness of the way the film was directed. (He was in rare -- if scatological -- form tonight, lol!)

So I hopped to the Making Of LALD and rather enjoyed that. (Not sure if Brian did... But he's kind of a wierd cat... He seems to simply enjoy new knowlege and new experiences. Put in an obscure b/w classic and he'll watch it and take stuff away from it that you wouldn't imagine was intended by the filmmaker. But then you pop an "artsy" flick in there and he's in pain and misery -- as am I usually, lol.) We started watching THNDERBALL because we're both familiar with NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (I think we both saw it in the theaters.. I know I did, but Brian doesn't seem to remember and I don't remember who I was with when I saw it, lol) and I recently discoverd it was a remake of THUNDERBALL.

Before the first act was over we were both heading ofr our beds, lol. But that was probably more to do with the huge meals we had both consumed than the movie.

Anyway, I got a call that woke me up a little, so I decided to just go through the Bond discs watching the Making-Of featurettes, and had a really nice time!!!

Then I played a level of TOMB RAIDER 2... And now I'm here, writing this entry for the last hour or more, lol.

My baby hasn't woken up yet.

At any rate, I haven't written any more on my screenplay, but I'm still really excited about it! :D

Not an excuse, mind you. Just an explanation of what I've been doing instead.

Okay, I'm outty. PEACE!!! :D

Some Random Philosophizing...

This is just me thinking aloud... So please feel free to skip this entry. It's a lot of my very peculiar beliefs, but I need to organize them so I'm jotting them down here.

I sometimes get frustrated that my life doesn't seem to be moving more quickly.

I fear that I'm not writing enough, or not writing fast enough. But we can only create as quickly as we can create, and my Taoist/Buddhaist nature assures me that I am where I am meant to be when I am meant to be here.

And yet, life would be a great deal more convenient if, say, I had more money -- just for a start.

There's a great line in this week's episode of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP in which Matthew Perry's character (the head writer for a Saturday-Night-Live-like weekly, live sketch comedy show) says "I hate L. A. as much as anyone else, but I live here because in any other state in the country I'm unemployable."

I feel like that. I know I have talent and skill and knowlege that could be earning me a paycheck large enough to pay me more than simply what it costs to survive from month-to-month, and yet because no employer (who is seeking to hire someone with my abilities) is aware of what I can do, I spend my entire check paying bills and have nothing left over to put into a savings account or buy my baby a plane ticket to come visit me.

That's really my main frustration... I mean, yeah, I want to own more toys and dvd box sets, but there's a certain fun charm in having ALMOST everything you want and having a finite selection of entertainment to choose from. You know? If I had the dvd or videogame library I want to have I don't think I'd be able to make a decision based on the sheer VOLUME of options. Plus, it's kind of cool picking and choosing which movies you want to own and which you're content to simply rent whenever you're in the mood.

Blah.

Anyway, at this point in my life, my main frustration reall only comes from the fact that I want to own a house large enoguh for Brian and Wendy and me to live in comfortably, and I want my pay-the-bills job to be doing the things that I love to do. I don't want Wendy to ever HAVE TO work again in her life, and I want to be financially able to support a family.

Plus, it would be SO COOL to be able to send Mom a ridiculously large check every month as a Thank You for taking care of me all these years.

And yet...

Things only come as quickly as they come.

When I rush through a screenplay, it comes out crap. Something that I don't want to have my name associated with. And when I get an idea that I know is commercially viable, the story only comes a quickly as it comes.

:(

My Inner Guru tells me that not everything is in place yet, and that if I keep vigilant and continue to work and try, I will be ready when everything is in place.

(Yes, my Inner Guru is fond of fortune cookies. What do you expect after being raised on a rich diet of Zen Koans and Stephen Mitchell's translation of Lao-tzu? My Inner Guru, that is, not me... I didn't discover Eastern Philosphy until I was in my mid-20s.)

And come on... Here on the Western Hemesphere we are programmed to believe that if you want something you DO something to get it, and that patience is a loser's strategy and all that. And after striving for a specific career for 14 years and still being apparently not one step closer to attaining it, I tend to see Western Civilization's point.

But then I look at the citizens of Western Civilization, and I see A LOT of unhappiness -- people who possess their dream jobs and/or dream spouces, or live in their dream homes or drive their dream cars -- and yet they really aren't dancing in the streets and kissing their neighbors.... or even being nice to their neighbors, for that matter. Or themselves!

Now, granted, I don't know anyone who lives on the Eastern Hemisphere personally, so maybe they're just as screwed-up as we are. I don't honestly know.

But here's something...

I went a decade -- 10 YEARS -- without sex or a girlfriend because Eastern Philosophy suggests that it's better to be happy by myself than to be unhappy and be getting sex on a quasi-regular basis. Through in a little good old-fashioned Spiritualism (we live in a universe/multiverse that is essentially possitive and the negative aspects are meant to build us up and make us spiritually stronger, and God -- whomever/whatever He/She is -- loves us unconditionally and wants to see us happy) and I'm thinking that not only can I be happy by myself for as long as I'm asked to be alone, but that there IS SOMEONE out there meant for me, and in time we will be brought together.

Now, a 10-year "dry spell" had me doubting that there really was someone out there meant for me, but I was happy to have discovered that I actually CAN be happy by myself. I knew a couple of women who possessed several of the personality traits I was looking for, but there were always the deal-breaker qualities that made it VERY CLEAR that we weren't meant to be a couple. I seriously doubted that a ingle woman could possess all the qualities I insisted upon having in a mate.

Then I met Gnomey!!!

You really CAN'T understand how inhumanly perfect for me this woman is! You can't! SHE can't understand it! I am the only one who will ever fully recognize how amazingly perfect and wonderful she is, because I'm the only one who has experienced the joys and heartbreaks that I have. I'm the only one who is me.

But that's not even it... She not only meets, but EXCEEDS my seemingly impossible demands for a girlfriend. And not because I've given her a handbook of what makes me feel all mushy inside and she dutifully obeys it. (Dutifully obeying ANYONE wouldn't be in my handbook, anyway! hee-hee) She just IS everything I hoped a girlfriend would be! Just by being her! (Which is, ironically, one of my criterea for Mrs. Right... That she not have to change who she is for us to fit. That's one of the deal-breakers, hee-hee.) AND THEN SOME! She possesses personality strenghts and quirks that make me giggle in a way I could never have imagined!!! She is, in short, everything I ever wanted in someone to share my life with AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!!!

But THAT's not even it!

Here's the thing. The reason I get so confused about following my instincts (and thereby the Eastern Philosophy) and my Western Philospohy upbringing, which yells at me that I'm worhtless and lazy and if I haven't ammounted to anything yet I never will...

The existence of a Gnomey Munts Munts and the fact that she could actually be into me too (!!!) proves that the Universe/Multiverse is indeed a kind and loving place, and patience actually WILL pay off in the end. (I did nothing to deserve or earn my relationship with her -- I didn't even seek it out -- and then she appeared... Apparently at the time in her life in which she was ready to meet a Ray Jay.)

AND... On both her side and my side, our meeting each other seems to have been an intricate web of incidents and events that shaped us into who we are, shapped our preferences into what they are, and then guided us to do the things we were doing so that we would eventually meet. We each have at least one "You know, if I had/hadn't ____ we would never have met!"

So to me, Wendy -- everything about her, and about us -- is a loud and CLEAR confirmation that following my instincts and vibes IS THE way to proceed through life.

And yet...

Why does stuff taks SO LONG to happen? :(

Blah.

I'm gonna go have a smoke and decide whether or not to even post this entry. Back in five...

...

Okay, I'm back.

My Guides (that's what I call the quiet voices that give me suggestions and nudges about what to do when I'm uncertain) suggest that someone, somewhere, sometime will read this and it will make speak to them, and that some others will get a little gigle from my way of looking at stuff.

So I'm publishing the entry.

...

P.S. Apropos of nothing: Don't ya LOVE those dreams that make you actually, physically laugh out loud, waking you up a little?!! I had one night-before-last. I don't remember what happened, I just remember waking myself up for half a second laughing. (And you're always laughing really loudly in the dream, and then when you slip into consciousness the laugh is just a quiet little chuckle.) And then last night I passed by Brian while he was asleep and heard him do the same thing.

There is simply NO better way to wake up than laughing!

(Well... You know... ;P )

I'VE DISCOVERED THE SECRET OF THE iPOD!!!

It's PLAYLISTS!!! :D

I'm guessing any regular Mac user probably could have told me that... But you DIDN'T, you bastards.

I'm a pc user.

By default, in all honesty, not by choice. My writing heroes talk about the glory of the Mac, but you see... I'm NOT a rich man.

And I've inherrited all my computers. I haven't bought my own computer yet. I've purchased a PS2 and now a Video iPod, but I haven't yet bit the bullet and purchased my own computer.

(I will as soon as I can, though, because mine are dead now, and I'm using Brian's computers at the moment. Not purchasing your own computer means that you're accepting a computer that's too old for someone else, sadly.)

So anyway, as glorious and wonderful as the Video iPod is, it was also unspeakably vexing! The audiobooks I had transfered to mp3s from cds would play out of order because Apple programmers wouldn't let me make MY OWN FRIGGIN' FOLDERS!!!

I mean, the ZVUE (Mircrosoft's initial go at competing with the Video iPod) has an incredibly limited selection of compatible video available, BUT AT LEAST THEY LET ME MAKE MY OWN FOLDERS!!!

Ever since I got into computers I discovered a real knack for organization. I'm quite good at creating places to store things so that I can access them quickly and easily in the future.

The ZVUE encouraged me to do my own organizing.

The iPod simply wouldn't hear of it.

The iPod programmers apparently feel that I only need so many folders, and they'll name the folders for me, and when I drop content into Eddy What Travels w/Ray Jay (that's the name of my iPod... The iPod programmers WERE kind enough to let me name him, bless them :D ) it goes JUST WHERE EVER the iPod programmers decided it should go! Even if it's counter-intuitive -- like putting audiobook tracks in my Music folder!!!

And then... AND THEN...

...I'm listening to Allison DuBois's second book yesterday morning (ThurFri night, in my time) and it kept hoppin' around from chapter to chapter, disc to disc!!!

HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT?!!

I'm having an emotional moment about a woman dealing with the loss of her child, and them I'm hearing about what happened and didn't happen ON THE TV SHOW!!!

I mean, the whole book is wonderful and spiritually uplifting... BUT IN ORDER!!!

And I can't rename the tracks so that they play in the correct order, because Eddy only knows what THE COMPUTER THAT CONVERTED THEM NAMED THEM!!! [I used to convert stuff in batches and rename it after it was converted to save time, but my ZVUE taught me to go ahead and take the time to work on the titles and tags as I was converting because apparently sometimes computers ignore humans and only listen to what OTHER COMPUTERS tell them.]

But that's not even the worst! HERE's the WORST...

I found the free movie trailers on iTunes -- which is brilliant, because movie trailers are (when they're done right) like 3-minute jumbled-up mini-movies -- and I happily downloaded them onto Eddy...

...AND MY FRIGGIN' iPOD COULDN'T FIND THEM!!!

Tonight at work I was gonna show My Genius Friend Dave the trailer for GHOST RIDER (because I know he doesn't get to the movies much and figured he probably hasn't seen it yet... and I was correct) AND MY iPOD COULDN'T FIND IT!!!

I've gotten in the habbit of, once a week since I got the beautiful iPod, sharing some short treasure with My Genius Friend Dave, because he works WAY too much, and needs more little treasures in his life, I feel.

(As he reads this, he's laughing, but he's also agreeing. ;P )

And tonight, I was unable to keep up the tradition.

LUCKILY, however, I CRACKED THE CODE!

It turns out that the iPod programmers weren't as narrow-minded as I first assessed. (Presumptuous and arrogant, yes. But not narrow-minded.) (Do I come across as bitter?) They built in a back door of sorts to compensate for their presumtion...

...THE PLAYLIST!

So hear me now, all non-Mac users who seek to own and manipultae an iPod...

It IS possible for a PC user to hear his/her audiobooks IN ORDER and WITHOUT having purchased them from iTunes, or to watch his/her free movie trailers...

You simply make a playlist in iTunes!

THEN... You select that playlist for syncronization!

Now, if it's an audiobook that you converted yourself, or free movie trailers, the playlist will be found in the Music section of your iPod syncronization interface... BUT YOU'LL GET TO HAVE THINGS YOUR WAY!!!

It's not the same as being allowed to create your own folders on YOUR portable media device... But it works.

And THAT'S the key: Subjugating Technology to serve Humanity's needs/desires/whims/organizational-preferences.

THAT is the Secret Of The iPod.

....

Btw: For all my bitching and moaning, I REALLY DO LOVE my Video iPod!!! I've watched, like, 7 or the current 9 episodes of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP on it so far. And lots of KIM POSSIBLE and JOHNNY BRAVO. PLUS... the only episode of HEROES I've seen, I watched it on my iPod, along with the pilot for SKYLAND and FRISKY DINGO. Ooh! AND Pink's video for "U + Ur Hand". (Friggin' HOT!!!)

And everytime I've shown someone my new toy, they comment on how crisp and clear the image is (something NEVER heard when I showed them video on my ZVUE).

So it really is a magnificent device! If you can afford one, go grab one! VERY cool! :D

I just add this last bit because I don't want to be unfair. Now that we know The Secret we can enjoy our new toy the way we want to! :D

Ooh! And did I mention the Slideshow option?!! I have a folder on my iPod of Gnomey pics, and I can view them as a slideshow, which is really nice! :D Particularly during my work-week when I don't get to see her as much.

That's QUITE Enough Work For One Night

Okay, I had this dream last night, and it may make a VERY EFFECTIVE horror novel. I wasn't scared during the dream and didn't wake up all sweaty and anxious, but the subject matter was DEEPLY disturbing.

BUT... The dream gave me a MOST original monster that also is rich with thematic metaphor!

A gift from the Muses, one might say.

But to write a story one must do research.

The screenplay I wrote had me spending hours researching BDSM. So guess what I spent my night researching tonight.

Go one, guess...

CANNIBALISM!

Nice, huh?

Seriously, maybe horror isn't my genre. ;P

I mean, I like the spirituality of the tales I can tell without ruffling too many feathers, but the subject matter! Yick! (That's a melding of the phrases "yuck" and "ick", not a typo.)

Anyway...

I get the gift of a rich, and potentially very exciting story, and I complain about being forced to confront some uncomfortable aspects of humanity. How much of an ingrate am I, lol?

Ooh! Looks like my baby just signed into Messenger! :D

BYE!

The Theme From GOLDFINGER

Have you ever really considered the lyrics to it?

Shirley Bassey goes on for quite some time about how evil Mr. Goldfinger is, and you think "Wow, 'web of sin', that's pretty bad!"

But then the ending -- the very, very end -- always places a shadow of doubt in my mind.

She's all "He loves only gold/Only gold" and I'm all "Yeah, he sounds like a materialistic bastard all right." But then the last line, her big finale, is the lyric "He loves goooooooooooolllllllllddddd," belted out and held for like 3 minutes straight.

If you haven't heard the song you MUST. It's an impressive vocal feat!

But when she finishes off this character assasination with "He loves gold" I suddenly wonder if maybe THAT is his only real crime, and perhaps Bassey has just revealed her TRUE discontent with him... She hates gold!

Like maybe they dated for a while, and at first they're all lovey-dovey and they don't notice each other's differences, so she overlooks his fascination with gold even though she's repulsed to her very core with the notion of this not-yellow, not-orange metal that's all heavy and hard to carry in great quantities and is really quite maliable for a metal! Gold, to her, is an abhoration of nature -- too wimpy to be a TRUE metal, and yet all shiny and smug and Holier Than Thou.

Maybe she's even just as materialistic as he is, only she's obsessed with diamonds! Now THERE'S a ROCK! Harder than all the other rocks, it has REAL reason to be all shiny and proud!

But then they get to that point in the relationship where she tries to change him, and is constantly pointing out how superior diamonds are to gold, and he says "Look, Shirley Bassey, I love you, but I'm not giving up gold. I really believe we can find a way around our differences, but you have to understand that my obsession with gold isn't just a phase I'm going through. It's part of who I AM. It's in my name, for heaven's sake."

And then she just SNAPS. She packs up her stuff and moves out, and on her way out the door she's all "I'm gonna sing a song about you and tell people what a real wanker you are! And I hope James Bond KILLS you!"

That last line just suddenly sounds like the lady is protesting too much, and it makes me replay the whole song in my head, looking for other clues that maybe this is just a personal grudge, rather than the genuine warning it first seemed to be.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen the movie and he IS a bastard! He tries to bisect Bond's happy place! WITH A LASER!

Not cool!

I'm just saying...

Yes, these are the thing I think about at 1:41 in the morning, when I'm puttering around on the computer and Gnomey's still asleep.

Groovy Thanksgiving

It's the last 3 hours of my FriSat shift and I have a couple of minutes to blog.

I had a cool Thanksgiving.

Woke up to some Gnomey love, which is ALWAYS a good thing! I was pretty groggy tho, so I don't really remember much about the conversation, lol. (And I KNOW I looked like garbage, lol!)

Then the family get-together; good meal & lots of laughing.

Then for about half an hour before work I got to play some DESTROY ALL HUMANS 2 and get us a little further along!

Work was surprisingly BUSY. I mean... Not hectic, but just not as dead as I had hoped.

For that matter, tonight's had me running around a little, too.

Maybe tomorrow will be cake.

Apparently Brian got us up a level or two in DESTROY ALL HUMANS 2 and now WE'RE BLOWIN' UP ENGLAND!!! :D I haven't played it yet, but it'll be fun to hear the random comments the characters in the world make, lol!

Oh! And I didn't get to watch my Thanksgiving movie, like I do EVERY year on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, but I did get to watch the latest episode of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP... which was really, REALLY good!!!

Ooh, and there was cake here at work tonight, lol! The GOOD kind with the REALLY SWEET icing!!!

That's a bonus.

This is kind of a random blog entry, but I'm really just touching base.

I should get back to work before it starts piling up.

PEACE, Y'ALL!!!

(And to my Gnomey Goddess, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY!!! :D I'm dancing for you as I type this!!!)

Just Finished the Novel CASINO ROYALE

For $10 iTunes has an unabridged audiobook version of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel CASINO ROYALE, and I just finished listening to it.

I listened to it in almost a single sitting (about 5 hours) and I have this to say...

If you saw the new movie and thought that this new take on Bond is surprisingly realistic and hard-hitting compared to the Bond you've grown up with... You may not want to read the original novel.

One scene from the movie that seems to brutal that surely it must have been invented by a contemporary screenwriter is lifted DIRECTLY from the 1953 book! Moreover, it's more brutal in the book!

Also, the film's devistating ending? Easier to take than the novel's ending!

The film stuck very closely to the spirit of the novel... A SUPERB adaptation, actually! Makes JURASSIC PARK's transition from page to screen look clumbsy! (I say this only by way of comparison as I deeply admire and respect screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Spielberg. In fact, I believe Koepp is one of the GREAT unsung screenwriters today! If you doubt me, see THE SECRET WINDOW and STIR OF ECHOES... He adapted and directed both, and they are both GREAT films!)

My dad's attitude toward the Bond films always surprised me as a kid. He enjoyed them, but I got the vibe that he felt the Bond movies were sillier, more frivolous than the novels. As a teen when I started reading the Bond novels for myself, I found Fleming's take very dry and boring. I prefered John gardener's take, which carried the flavor of the movies, but added a hightened sense of realism and believeability, without loosing the action or the "cool". I figured that Dad's preference for the novels was simply a generation gap... He was older, and the Fleming novels spoke to him in a way that I couldn't understand because I wasn't alive at the time they originally came out. (CLEARLY -- to me -- Gardener's take was superior to the creator's take, lol.)

But I had never read CASINO ROYALE. It was the one novel that had not been translated to the screen (other than a TV movie that made Bond an American and was not available to me to watch) and it was also the book that introduced the character to the world. There were several Fleming novles that I started but could not finish -- I remember specifically DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER -- because they just bored me to tears. And I wasn't a Reader to begin with! I was and am a MOVIE guy! I LOVE movies! I love them so much I want to marry them, lol! (I mean that quite practically... I want to make them for the rest of my life. I want to wake up next to Gnomey, enjoy the company of her and our children in the morning, go make movies for 12 hours, come home to Gnomey and the kids, tuck the rugrats into bed and fall asleep with Wendy in my arms, and wake up the next day and do it all over again.) And my attitude toward reading hasn't changed that much... Some authors have engendered my slavish devotion because everything the write holds me in thrall the way no movie or TV show ever will be able to -- such as Crichton, Koontz and Adams (I am forever rereading Douglas Adams' work!) -- and some I trust enough to read IF the premise draws me -- such as King and Higgin Clark -- and most I will only sample grudgingly after someone I trust hounds me relentlessly for a very, very long time. (I FINALLY read THE DA VINCI CODE about a week before the movie came out simply because I wanted to experience the book first, and because I had a strong intuition I would enjoy both (and I did).) So as a teen, as now, I hate to not finish a novel, but if it allows me to put it down I am very unlikely to return to it. And because of my experiences with Fleming's novels I was reluctant to pick up CASINO ROYALE.

Now, I had gained a glimpse of the type of realism and depth Fleming's Bond stories offered from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, a book of short stories. They were slow, but they were short, so I could wade through them and get a sampling. And I enjoyed the continuity of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. (I wanted to find out what really happened to Bond after he lost his only wife, and the films just didn't even touch on it really.)

But at the age of 36, I just don't think I was ready for Fleming's Bond. The Bond movies are to us what Westerns were to our parents... Safe Good vs. Evil morality tales that don't delve too deeply into the nature of either evil OR good. Bond's enemies might as well have been Storm Troopers: a dime a dozen and created to be disposed of.

Had I read CASINO ROYALE as a teen I would have HATED Fleming! Fleming was writing a literate novel in that he could give his hero great rewards, but only at great expense. Bond isn't some melodramatic Greek god or demigod he's a human being, and Fleming would not give more than he was willing to take away.

It's a tough read.

Made even more tough by the romance, which I will not describe or spoil, but which hit me where I live. The language he used, in particular, made me think of Wendy and the way we talk to each other and feel about each other, and made the ending all the more tragic.

If you've seen the film, you have some preparation for the brutality of Fleming's novel... But maybe not as much as you think. If you feel like you have truly known love, this book will hurt you. Badly.

Which is it's genius. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to shine a negative light on the book. If anything I feel MY medium has, until now, diluted and failed Fleming's source material! Like Edgar Rice Burroughs before him, Fleming was trying to convey a thoughtful analysis of what it is to be human, and the movies took a dynamic character and stripped him of his "importance", replacing morality and philosopy with action and spectacle.

Reading CASINO ROYALE finally, after having seen how faithfully the movie has preserved the spirit of Fleming's original work, makes me excited to see the next Bond flick! If Hollywood can control itself and continue to stay faithful, we're in for some eye-opening -- and ridiculously exciting and provoking -- new Bond films! A franchise that was once a punchline that characterized superficially entertaining storytelling will become the model of how to tell a great story and still be entertaining! (Like the Spider-Man movies, if you think about it for a moment and are honest with yourself.)

Is it just me, or do you too see a very possitive trend in screenwriting lately?

I mean, yeah, you've got PLENTY of your Bret-Ratner type movies out there... There are an EMBARRASSING number of movies that cater to the idiot audiences Hollywood believes we are.

But in the New Mellinium there have arrisen a number of screenwriters and directors who seem to realize that quality counts! Consider the superhero movies of the 1980s & 1990s compared to the superhero movies we have now. The first 4 Batman films started out as pretty good, then good, then degenerated into NOTHING. Then Nolan picked up Batman and finally delivered an experience true to what we perceived when we read the best of the comics. Consider SUPERMANs II-IV:THE QUEST FOR PEACE as compared to SUPERMAN RETURNS.

And look at the original KING KONG, then the 1970s remake, then the current remake!

Actually, the Bond series itself offers a superb illustration! Timothy Dalton was a FANTASTIC Bond, but the filmmakers didn't do him justice! The first script was written for Moore, then sort of (weakly) re-taylored for Dalton, and the second movie was so incredibly poorly directed that the script and Dalton's performance were just straight-up LOST. Then Brosnan comes along and someone, somehow had the brilliance to hire Campbell (a filmmaker who cares as much about what he's shooting (the screenplay) as he does about how he shoots it) and all of a sudden Bond is BACK. But then the very next film -- TOMORROW NEVER DIES -- sees a bit of the old Bond Baggage seep in, and it's somehow not as fulfilling as GOLDENEYE. The THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH comes along and Brosnan might as well be Moore. (No offense to Roger Moore... He's a GREAT comedic actor, but Bond was simply never designed nor intended to be a comedic character.) Luckily for Brosnan and us DIE ANOTHER DAY seems to have been written and directed by people who had read Fleming's original novels and were interested in balancing the cinematic traditons of Bond with the literary traditions.

But NOW...! Daniel craig should experience the most successful run as Bond ever! The filmmakers seem to have finally committed to translating the original work for contemporary audiences!

And it may simply be a matter fo now we're ready for it. In this age of GRAND THEFT AUTO and FEAR FACTOR our toleance for violence must be at an all-tim high. So the only way to shock a contemporary audience with violence is to make it REAL again... show them the damage to our very Humanity that violence inflicts! Not only on the victims, but on the assailant! (Witness THE TEXTAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING.)

Blah.

Okay, I'm going off now, lol.

Let me guess, your eyes have glazed over by now and my words sound like so many clicks and buzzes, lol.

Anyway... CASINO ROYLAE, both the book and the movie, well worth your time and emotional investment... If you're ready for them. ;)

Such A Beautiful Morning!!!

Techically, it's my night, as I'm about to go to sleep in an hour or so.

But since I've been with Gnomey I tend more to think of days in her terms, rather than mine, lol.

Anyway, I just spent the GREATEST couple of hour with her!!!

And it was so simple! We chatted -- she told me about a dream she had and I told her about my theory about possible Atral Aliens that abduct us when we astral project in our sleep, lol, and about what I got up to while she slept -- and we listend to mucis together ( she has the most SUPERB taste in music!!!) and she quizzed me on music... I think I might have surprised her once or twice with my knowlege of current music, and she definitely stumped me once or twice with a song I wasn't familiar with.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

I LOVE WENDY SO VERY MUCH!!!

She doesn't like her name. It's quite odd because you talk to her for a couple for hours, get to know her as a person, then you see her picture then discover her name is Wendy and you find that the name possesses a MUSIC you never noticed before! I mean, before I knew Gnomey the name "Wendy" seemed sort of ordinary. Not the slightest bit boring, but un-exotic, if you will.

But after discovering that Gnomey's given name is "Wendy" I can only think of the heroine of Barrie's PETER PAN! And, curiously, that association doesn't do justice to my Gnomey Goddess because though she has the nurturing nature and creativity of Barrie's Wendy Darling, she is MUCH more like Pan! She's playful and mischievious quick for an adventure! She has both the beauty of Wendy Darling and the spirit of Peter Pan, lol!

And OMG she is SO MUCH FUN to hang with!!!

Seriosuly, I just spent an AMAZING morning with her!!!

And I can't help but imagine how amazing our time together will be ONCE WE'RE PHYSICALLY TOGETHER! I mean, what you really love about your spouce is her spirit and her mind! But there's this spiritual transference when you're actually physically next to some one... Think about the "vibe" you get when you're hangin' in a coffeehouse with your best friend, talking face-to-face. You FEEL them.

So when Wendy and I are actually sharing the same physical space... I think my heart may skip a couple of beats and my head may well explode, lol!

I can't -- CAN NOT -- believe another human being can give me this much unadulterated JOY! I mean, I've been finding joy all by myself for A DECADE now. When I wanted to feel better than I did, I figured out how to make myself feel better. (Please feel free to insert your own Rosey Palm joke here, but just know that that's not what I'm really talking about.) And then I meet this person who lives in ANOTHER COUNTRY and is able to give me so much joy that I IMMEDIATELY (she isn't even at work yet, she's on her way there, lol) HAVE TO blog about it!

This is one AMAZING human being!!!

And back the fuck off boys and girls! 'Cause she's mine, lol!

Not that I'm actually worried... For some ineffable reason she fell maddly in love with ME, hee-hee! :D And I honestly don't believe that I ahve ANY competition for her affections.

This, too, is a VERY STRANGE feeling! With the woman that I chased for 6 years of my life, I knew that I always hade at least one competitor for he affections (occasionally I felt like I had 2). And with the woman before Gnomey I knew that I was ALWAYS 2nd place to one other guy (and I felt like I was 2nd place to others, as well).

But with Wendy... I can't describe it...

It's as though the trepidation and/or insecurity I felt with other woman was accurate, and I feel this way because I finally met HER! You know? THE ONE. The person I was created to be with for the rest of my life.

Okay, I'm getting all mushy... But what-the-fuck-EVER. This is MY blog, and I CAN NOT describe the way this woman makes me feel! I spent 10 YEARS waiting for THE PERFECT woman for me. I did not settle, I did not give into lonliness or peer pressure or societal expectations. I WAITED. There was this long, long list of things I wanted in a mate, and I would not yield until that list was met!

And then I met Wendy, and she not only meets EVERY expectation and critea but EXCEEDS them all! I ask for "loving" and "funny" and Wendy is loving, funny and strong and playful and smart! I ask for "creative" and Gnomey is creative and talented and geeky and cool!

It's like God saw my list before I made it and created not only the female version of me, but the female version of who I WISH I could be!

And then -- with God's wicked sense of humor being what it is -- God made her 16 years younger than me, just to see if I was paying attention, lol.

Luckily for me, though, I AM paying attention, and I am enjoying Life as I never knew I could!

There are so many songs and movies and novels about how sad it is that we tend not to notice what we have until it's gone. I feel SO BLESSED that I can see EXACTLY HOW MUCH I HAVE while I still have it!!!

I am blessed!

And I hope that you are too! If you're reading this an you have a Significant Other, think about why you fell in love with them and do something wacky and uncharacteristic and surprising to show them that you love them! RIGHT NOW, while you still have the chance!

Make sure they have at least one memeory of how much you love them!

CASINO ROYALE RULEZ!!!

Brian & I saw CASINO ROYLAE last night and it was SOOOO GOOD!!!

A qulifier, though... I love the Bond novels! It is concievable that someone who only likes, say, the campiest, silliest Roger Moore era Bonds might not enjoy this movie as much. The character Jaws is not in this, and no vehicles turn into other vehicles.

But if you like the more realistic, darker Bond, then you should really enjoy this reboot of the series!

Martic Campbell directed CASINO ROYALE. He also directed GOLDENEYE, which not only introduced Pierce brosnan as Bond but also brought the franchise back from obscurity! hen he directed THE MASK OF ZORRO, which brought the character of Zorro to new audiences!

Campbell RULES!!! The man knows how to tell a story, and how to tell it WELL! And he brings humanity to these superhero types of characters! (Not just him, obviously... First and foremost the writers, then the actors... But the director can certainly muck it up! Did you see X-MEN 3: THE LAST SAND?)

When I kid Roger Moore was Bond. And I dug him because he was Bond. As a kid I had no interest in Sean Connery because... well... I was A KID, and he was the "old Bond" the Bond my father prefered, lol. And Roger Moore had a car that turned into a submarine!

But then I got a little older (and a bit more open-minded) and my dad pointed out that Sean Connery had a car with an ejection seat and guns and a bullet-proof shield in the back! So I watched GOLDFINGER... over and over and over and over.

Okay, so Dad knows a thing or two about Cool. I'm all ears.

Well then he tells me that Bond was originally books, but that the movies are different than the books. A Lot! He prefers the books because they're mysteries, though he enjoys the movies too.

Bond was ORIGINALLY a literary character?! Well then I goota check out the originals!

The ORIGINAL Bond was a badass!!! He smoked and drank whiskey and killed people! Not like shoot them once and they fall down dead Storm-Trooper style, but KILLED THEM! Sometimes he used his bare hands! And sometimes the bad guys caught him! And tortured him! But Bod never gave up the info!

So in my teens I was able to embrace a world with "Alternate Universe" Bonds. here's the literary james Bond, and there's the cinematic james Bond. Both are fun, just in different ways.

Then in the late 1980s Timothy Dalton was announced as the new Bond. And he said he was gonna go Old School!

And since I was familiar with the novel, I knew what that meant and I was EXCITED!!! Bond the assasin, rather than Bond the superhero!

And I like the Dalton Bond movies. They were poorly directed, so most people just walked away going "He's not as good as the other guys" but it WASN'T Dalton's fault! If you can separat his performance from all the rest of the movie, HE KICKED ASS!!!

Then they announced Pierce Brosnan as the successor to Dalton.

I was disappointed.

I LOVE Brosnan's work, all of it! But I felt like they were just doing it because he played a Bond-like character at the start of his career. But Remington Steele was only superficially Bond-like... He was stylish and suave, but he wasn't that bright and he CERTAINLY wasn't a cold-blooded assasin!

But then I saw GOLDENEYE!!! And alfears melted away! I like all of Brosnan's Bonds. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is weak -- like Moore's OCTOPUSSY or Conery's NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN -- but that's no fault of Brosnan's! Brosnan's Bond can seduce a random hotty in a casino, or kill a man with his bare hands and not shed a tear.

So when I heard about Daniel Craig taking over the Walther PPK, I DID NOT protest.

First of all, I knew that Campbell was returning to do this movie! A good director makes sure he has a good cast and a good script. Good directors KNOW they can't polish a turd, ya know?

Second of all, I protested Brosnan, and then he became my favorite Bond. (Though I will ALWAYS respect and admire Timothy Dalton's contribution to the character, and I just WISH he could have starred in a Martin Campbell Bond flick!!! He'd STILL be Bond if Campbell had directed LICENSE TO KILL!)

So this new Bond was blonde. SO WHAT? At least he's not American. THAT would be a poor choice. (Although I believe George Lazenby is Australian, and he was my favorite Bond for a long time!)

The REALLY important issue is that BOND IS BOND! Finally movie audiences can experience the Bond that literary audiences have been able to enjoy since the 1950s!

This Bond is a real flesh-and-blood man, but he's smart and skilled... AND FALLIBLE!!! This Bond makes mistakes! And learns from them!!!

Sorry if I'm going on a bit, but I LOVED this movie, and I hope it makes a killing at the box office and Daniel craig is Bond for a long, long time!!!

LONG LIVE BOND, JAMES BOND!!!

Just Checkin' In...

37 minutes until I go home.

This is my "Monday" and the day went pretty smoothely.

It started off with a great conversation with my baby! :) She's SUCH A SWEETY!!!

I also discovered some sweet comments she left on a couple of my blog entries. That's always nice... It's like finding Easter eggs in your bedroom, lol. (The plastic kind with cool toys or candy in them. ;P )

Did some writing last night and got a little development done tonight. So that's always groovy.

OOH!!! If you haven't seen Aaron Sorkin's new TV show STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP I HIGHLY recoomend it!!! I've been buying the episodes on iTunes and watching them on my iPod, and they're GREAT!!! Last week was the first part of a 2-parter, so last night I watched some reruns, trying to get my fix without watching the Part 1 until the Part 2 was available to purchase! It finally became available and I started watching Part 1, but then I got all drowsy and didn't get to see much of it.

But that's cool because I have something to look foreward to!

Sorkin's shows are really inspirational for a writer, because they're just so brilliantly written! And acted, and directed, and edited, lol. They're just great! Sorkin stories are always about smart people being smart and human. It's never a battle between one good, smart guy and an evil, stupid guy... All the characters are smart and doing what they believe to be right, and a lot of times the main conflicts are between to friends who care very much for each other, but they simply have opposing opinions about how a specific situation should be handled!

THAT's great storytelling!!! Since you care about BOTH characters, you're really interested to see how things are gonna turn out!

Also, yesterday was fun because I got THE DA VINCI CODE and watched it with Brian (his first time) along with ALL the dvd extras! I bought it at Walmart, and the two-disc dvd came with an exclusive third dvd of extras, and it was all fascinating!!! (I think Brian and I figured out that we had spent about 5 and a half hours going the movie and all the bonus material, lol!)

DUDE!

I fell asleep just after 5:00 am yesterday morning, and woke up just before 5:00 pm yesterday!

That's A LOT of sleep!

And it's wierd because before that I was waking up -- my body just stopped sleeping and didn't let me go back to bed -- after about 4 hours!

I have serious sleep issues, lol. And I have no idea why.

But I feel fine, so I'm not worried or anything... Just curious.

Blah.

Babbling now. I think I'll watch some iPod and ride out the 19 minutes I have left in my shift.

Hope your day is filled with beauty and joy!!!

Welcome to the Mangey Raiders Drive-In Theater!!!

THE DRIVE-IN IS FINISHED!!! :D

Well, actually... It's been finished for a while. But I couldn't blog about it because I figured there would be little point in describing it to you without pics, and Gnomey hadn't seen it yet, so I couldn't post pics as she tends to read my blog, hee-hee.

But last night we went there together!!!

So here are the pics!



This first one is me and Brian watching one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes flicks while I take a break during and early stage of development. The drive-in is pretty much just a huge parking lot with a fence and a movie screen, heheh.

I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but in SecondLife you can build things in the air, and it's advantageous to do so. SL now has a million or more residents, from all around the world, so at any given time you're sharing the servers with a few hundred people. The result of this is "lag"... You can't move as smoothely as a videogame, and it takes longer for textures to render.

But if you put your home, or your dance club, or whatever, up in the air, it's less laggy. I don't pretend to understand it, but it has something to do with the number of people within a single cubic measurement of cyberspace. The more people close together, the laggier SL gets. The fewer, the less. And apparently the rule applies vertically, as well as horozontally. So if, say, you're at an in-world concert attended by 50 people, and you're lagging really badly, you can fly up a hundred meters and the lag will go away.

Your view of the concert will suck, tho'.

So anyway, in wide shots of the drive-in you'll see that it's hovering in mid-air. That's why.



Here's me taking a photo-tour of my creation after having finished it...





I'm really proud of the signage! Did all that myself! :)

Also, Brian made 2 of the 3 cars you see in the above pic! The General Lee and the Delorean. (The Delorean's license plate reads "outtatime", and the plate on the General Lee is accurate... But I don't remember if he went with the plate from the recent movie or from one of the episodes of the TV show.)



I'm proud of those speakers, as well. They're not nearly as detailed as they could be -- because I was keeping prim-space in mind when I built this place -- but the speaker part is an actually drive-in theater speaker! :)




Here's what the whole thing looks like. :D It's a really cool li'l place to hang out. Especially at night. And one of the cool things about SL is that you can make it night (or whatever time of day you prefer) whenever you want!

There's a drive-in theater in Destroy All Humans (the first one) and it's really cool to hang out in (and blow-up) and it REALLY give you the sense of the scale. Mine is pretty small.

Still, when you're there you don't feel like it's small. It feel real.

Very groovy! :D

ALSO...

Bottom left of the above picture you can see Gnomey's and my house! It's a 2-story box on the outside (1, you really don't spend your time outside your house in SL, you're either in ir doing something or somewhere else doing something, and so there's no real need to waste the prims, particularly on such a small parcel of land as we live on; 2, a blue box in the middle of the sky tends not to attract a great deal of attention from flyers-by), and you can see the white tree in Gnomey's garden! She LOVES gardens! Before we hooked-up she used to spend a lot of her SL sitting in gardens alone. When we made the house I wanted her to have her own garden. It's not that great, really. It's 3 walls that look like flower gardens in the not-to-far distance backed by trees, and then you can see the actual (SL) sky through the trees. But she says she likes it, so I'm happy. :D

The white things you can see best in that pic are the curtains that seperate our bedroom from the garden.

Is this TMI? Are you bored yet?

More pics.




The poster on the ticket stand is a calander of movies playing back in June of 1950. Apparently, my drive-in has been around for quite some time. ;)



This is me and Brian playing around one day. :D He created a sit-ball that allows one to sit inside the ticket booth. And for no reason that know of, he decided to be Freddy Krueger at that moment. So I had to get a pic.

I also had to...



Be Jason Vorhees! Growing up, I was a Jason fan and he was a Freddy fan. So him running around as Freddy just naturally made me wanna be my guy.

At some point, though, he switched to Leatherface. I think maybe just because he likes playing with the chainsaw.

It was A BLAST! We were chasing each other around the drive-in, attackign each other, and laughing our asses off! It was brilliant! It was just so funny to watch! The thought that what these two mass-murderers do during the day is chase each other around an old drive-in theater just killed us.

I know, it's a "You Had To Be There" thing, but take my word for it. ;P

Also, just a side note: Most of the cars you've seen in all these pics so far (like the one I'm standing on and the General Lee) are actually drive-able cars. They were mostly there for ambience. The cars that now are parked at the drive-in don't drive. They are, functionally, theater seats, lol. Brian made it so that they don't drive around, which is good because if they accidentally drove out of the drive in they would have a long, long fall.



This is earlier today! :D Me and my baby makin' out next to the projection booth!!! :)

It was a short date because I had to run an errand for my mom, and when I got back my sweety was tired and needed to get some sleep. (This was around 5:30 pm my time and 11:30 pm her time.) But it was NICE! She seemed very impressed with the work Brian and I had done and seemed to be enjoying herself. :)

I friggin' love SL! I can't even see my baby face-to-face yet, but because of SL I can build a drive-in theater and actually watch a movie there with her!!!



OOH! In the above pic you can see a newer addition to the grounds.

Driving back from my latest visit with Tisha, I stopped at the rest stop that I have stopped at many, many trips before. It's really cool and has this great vibe, so I wanted to recreate it in SL. I took a lot of pictures there at the rest stop and turned them into textures and uploaded them in-world.

I had created a rest stop box with textures to make the floor, walls and ceiling look like the ground, surrounding roadside and sky, but I tore that down when Gnomey and I were finally ready to build our home.

But then it occured to me that maybe a picnick table might not seem out-of-place just outside a drive-in theater! I don't know if I've ever seen it before, but I can imagine a family eating dinner outside the car, watching the movie over the fence, while rambunctious young ones run around and wear themselves out before the second feature starts.

It just seemed to fit.

And anyway, it's MY drive-in and I wanted it there, lol. So now my rest-stop table has a home. :)

Also, all the cars you see in these last 4 pics are non-drive-able. They're the ones Brian made specially for the theater.

e's working on a couple more. He wants to see some 1950s cars in the lot, so he's making a couple. (Which he will most likely make drive-able versions of as well.)



After Gnomey went to bed I hooked up with another hotty...

Just kidding. That's her, too. She sometimes, and without warning, cycles through hair and clothes. We might be out dancing and, in the course of one song, she might go through 4 outfits, lol. I think it's an SL girl thing. I've seen others do it. Me, I tend to wear the same outfit for months and months in-world, lol. But SL women can burn through entire ensembles in minutes, lol.



And here we are gettin' a li'l freaky beside the consession stand. :D I wish I had angled this pic back and to the right a bit so that you could see the edge of the phone booth. But I was focusing more on getting us and the movie in the shot.

That's a Superman cartoon, btw. :D The movie screen is actually a HUGE SL TV, and the projection tower has a door in the back and a compartment with 2 SL dvd players. One player is loaded with, like, 40 vintage toons, and the other is loaded with, like, 36 vintage movies.

Some GOOD ones, too!!! Just off the top of my head there's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and SHERLOCK HOLMES: DRESSED TO KILL!!! There's plenty of crap, too, natch. Like THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, lol. (Although I enjoy sci-fi/horror crap sometimes.) And then there are tons of movies I've never heard of, but I'm sure some of them are good.

Between Gnomey, writing, the PS2 and work, I haven't really had a lot of time to just sit back and watch a movie at the drive-in. Around Halloween Brian and I watched a Halloween-themed Popeye cartoon there. And I watched the first 3 minutes of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD there, too, lol. But that's about it so far.

I hope that my baby and I get to actually spend some time there. That's why I built it. But we'll see. The holidays are upon us and Life tends to happen, lol. So we'll see.

But if nothing else, the drive-in has given Brian and me a couple of hours of fun, and my baby and me a little time together!

Plus... It looks COOL, doesn't it!

Countdown To The Weekend

Just trying to kill time until my shift is over.

11 more minutes...

My day continued to flow just as smoothly as it started out. I got to watch a Halloween episode of KIM POSSIBLE on my iPod. And I followed it up with Part 1 of the pilot episode of SKY LAND (an anime sci-fi series), which was free on iTunes. The show was pretty cool, so that rules! I don't know if I'll be purchasing more episodes, but it was a cool way to pass 30 minutes.

Then I emailed my baby.

And text-ed her.

Looked at pics of her on my ZVUE, lol. (I played this iPod game called Bejewelled before I did my TV-show viewing, so the battery is low. So that's why I used the ZVUE.)

7 minutes to go.

Ooh! I also got a couple of speculative pages written, too! That's not too bad. It's hard writing the screenplay that Brian and I are collaborating on without him. So when I get a piece of a scene that I just HAVE TO capture before I loose it, I'll go ahead and write those, knowing that they'll be refined when we're actually rolling on the script.

5 minutes left before my weekend begins!

I'm hoping that Brian and I will get some time this weekend (my weekend; he doesn't have any days off until next week) to get a little further than we are.

3 minutes to go. I should sign off now.

Thanks for helping me pass the time! That last half hour is the loooooongest!

:D

[sung to the tune of the Chili's "Babyback Ribs" jingle]

I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts
I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts
I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts
I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts
I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts
I love my baby my baby love my baby Munts

That's just the background part, of course. I haven't worked out a verse and chorus, lol.

I'm at work, airing a live Spurs game, so I probably shouldn't be goofin' around at all... But...

;D

I'm SO not a sports guy. Basketball, football, all of it just bores me.

I kinda dig listening to baseball on the radio, if I don't have anything else to do. Don't know why. I don't know any of the teams, so I wouldn't know who to root for or anything. But for some reason hearing baseball on the radio is sorta groovy for me.

Yeah, I'm wierd. I get that. :P

Okay, so here's another cool thing about Video iPods: They got clocks on 'em. There's a default California Time clock, then you can add your own time zone, AND I have a London clock, as well!!!

I mean, I've gotten pretty good at adding 6 hours to my time. (It's 2:38 am Sunday morning where my baby is right now. ;P ) But it's just kinda cool to have it on my iPod, too.

MY PIZZA'S HERE!

I didn't get to eat before work, and I got a couple of bucks on me, so I decided to treat myself for brunch.

So I'm gonna close this out and dig on me some Papa John's.

PEACE! :D

YAY Video iPods!!!

Just finished killing 25 minutes or so with the first episode of KIM POSSIBLE at work, lol!

Yay!

This day isn't so bad!

It started off with a 2-hour phone convo with my baby!!! (It was a gooooooood conversation! :D There was wanking! ;P ) (Apologies to my baby, and to anyone who knows what that means, hee-hee.) I've missed just hanging with Gnomey for SOOOOO long! And I didn't even realize just how much until I noticed that warm, fuzzy feeling that was engulfing me just sitting on the phone with her, giggling!

Then somehow the rest of the day just kind of fell into place, all smooth and pretty like!

And now I've got 18 minutes until I can scoot home!!!

Yay!

Tomorrow night should be "challenging" (read: ridiculously busy; Fridays are) but I'll most likely get to start the day off with some Gnomey Munts Munts!!!

The screenplay is slow going because Brian still hasn't found his groove as a screenwriter, and therefore I haven't been able to slip into it. But our conversations about his script have been really productive! When we do get this thing written, it'll be GOOD!

Um...

That's it for now, I suppose. I love my Wendy Lady and I can't wait for the screenplay to be done... Yeah, that's the gist of my life. :D

Yay Life! :)

Good Weekend!

Sunday, of course, the weekend started off with Brian and me watching BORAT, which was cool.

Monday I got to see my baby TWICE -- which is unusual because of her schedule lately -- and Brian and I destroyed some humans in between.

Then yesterday I bought CARS and got OVER THE HEGE in the mail from Netflix, and we watched them both! Fun movies both! (Though CARS ROCKS THE HOUSE!!!)

MUCH FUN!!!

And today (the Thursday part of my "today") is great because IT'S MY BABY'S LAST DAY OF SUPERLONG SHIFTS!!! Which means she'll be at work when I get home (nothing unusual there) and she may very well be awake when I wake up because she doesn't have to go in as early Friday!!!

YAY!

Ooh! Ooh! ANNNNNDDD I got a Video iPod today!!! It's loaded with TONS of my favorite audio shows -- the entire HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE radio series, all 7 books of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA and many, many episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE RADIO DRAMAS -- as well as some movies and some audiobooks! Ooh, and all of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP and the first season of JOHNNY BRAVO!

I just discovered they have KIM POSSIBLE episodes, too! Have to get those as soon as I can.

And, naturally, I loaded the iPod up with Gnomey pics and a couple of sound clips she sent me! :D (She's so wonderful!)

Oh! And it's almost 7:00 am there, so I'm gonna try to call her again and see if she's awake!

She's so dreamy! :D <3

Jak Się Masz? (pronounced "Yagshemash")

Okay, so guess where Brian and I just got back from...

That's right: BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENIFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN!!!

Okay, this being the Number 1 top grossing movie of the weekend, you're either going to hear that Sacha Baron Cohen is the antichrist, or that BORAT is the comedy equivallent of the pilot episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Here's my take...

I'm not a fan of comedy that is derived from regular people being made to feel uncomfortable -- or flat-out offended -- by manipulative comedians... But this movie made me laugh SO HARD!

Some of that was laughter with one eye covered -- because I was made SO UNCOMFORTABLE by the "victim"'s offense/discomfort -- but most of that was because Baron Cohen exposes ingnorance for what it is. For instance, when frat boys' opinion of women allign with Borat's misogynistic view, then you KNOW our country has a problem. However, when the most accepting group of Americans is what he might refer to as "chocolate faces" and we might refer to as "gangstas" and they (apparently) hook him up with loads of vernacular phrases, you tend to be surprised by the juxtaposition.

I'm not even going into the "shock humor" moments that you're bound to hear about via MANY sources.

My point is that this flick deserves a viewing just to see what it has to say about being an American.

And it DEFINITELY has SOMETHING to say.

WHAT, exactly, is up to YOUR interpretation. :)

If the commercials drag you to the theater, then see it in the theater. If you feel like you can wait for dvd, then wait for dvd.

I HAD TO see it Opening Weekend because I was curious about a specific comedic mind at work: Baron Cohen's. And I got more than I asked for, lol. But in a good way.

AND...

I also got to see my baby TWICE today!!! (Because of our work schedukes, we haven't seen each other AT ALL this past week.) Julie Andrews spun frivolously around hills of flowers as I gazed upon the wondeous countenance of my sweet, sweet Gnomey!!!

I've ALWAYS heard that long-distance relationships didn't work out -- and my past would seem to corroborate that -- but I swear it doesn't apply to Soul Mates! I only love her more and more!!!

I LOVE YOU, WENDY-LADY!!! :D

Goin' into Space :D

You've got until November 4th to join me, if you like.

Info on the mission here and a direct link to enter your name here.

:D

Wicked-Fun Halloween Weekend!!!

...AND was actually a weekend for me!!! YAY!

So it starts off with Family Dinner: Chicken-Fried Steak w/scrambled eggs and biscuits & gravy and hash browns!!!

FANTASTIC start to both the day and the weekend!

Brian had spent Friday and Saturday at Tommy's because KELLY WAS IN TOWN!!! And he was gonna spend the rest of his vacation at our house!

After Family Dinner I finally got used to the controls for DESTROY ALL HUMANS! WHICH RULES!!! That was one of the first games I bought earlier this year for our PS2, and it was only just now that I was able to figure out the controls and really enjoy it! A lot of times the way Brian enjoys our PS2 is watching me play single-player games and helping me out when I hit a snag or a boss that's particularly vexing. That's what we were doing when Kelly arrived, and after our Hellos and hugs and stuff, we three continued doing that.

Only Brian and Kelly got in on the playing, too!

Brian is EXTREMELY creative when it comes to destroying a 1950s' suburb full of humans!!! I was horror-struck and amused -- and slightly glee-filled!

I also showed Kelly some of our other games, and he showed me his badass PSP! (I'm so very jealous.)

There was also wine and lots & LOTS of laughter.

Then Monday started off with more humanity destruction while Brian worked (poor dude)! Then when Brian had had a chance to destroy some humans we three went on a mission to scout locations for a movie Kelly hopes to direct here in Austin next year. We drove a lot, but got some GREAT pics and video for him to take back to L.A. with him. I also got to talk to my Baby Munts Munts on the phone while we were in transit!!! (Our schedules have been off lately, so any conversation with her is even more blessed than usual -- and that's PRETTY DARN BLESSED!!!)

While running around we got to talking about horror movies, and got onto the subject of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (the 1974 original) and then THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (the excellent 2003 remake/reinvention) and so we decided to wrap up the evening watching both. (Kelly hadn't seen the remake before, so it was all new to him!)

Then Tuesday -- ALL HALLOW'S EVE -- started with Brian working again (BOOOOO!!!) and me taking Kel to Texadelphia for a Texi Cheese Steak (I don't think that's what they call them, but I think the nomre is cute so I'm usin' it), which we took home while we watched a cool little 1981 made-for-TV movie called DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW -- just to make note ofwhat the filmmakers did on a small budget and how their storytelling could be improved upon and so forth. (Whenever we watch a movie we're enjoying it for what it is, to be sure, but we're always also evaluating what the writer/director/actors/etc. are trying to do and how it's coming off and how we might do it differently, if at all. Just kind of the way we roll.)

Brian arrived about halfway through the flick and joined us.

Then we killed some more humans.

Then around 5:00 pm we headed to Tommy's.

We got there around 7:00 pm.

I'm not kidding.

Okay, Tommy and his wife ALWAYS have to live OUTSIDE town. I don't know why this is -- it means that EVERYWHERE THEY GO is a commute. But for some reason, they simply CAN NOT live within city limits. So when Brian and/or I go to visit, it's a journey. It's a road trip. That's just the way Tommy prefers it.

HOWEVER... Starting around 5:00 pm on any given weekday is RUSH HOUR. ("Rush HOUR" being, of course, a deceptive misnomre.)

BUT... I happend to have 2 hours of spooky OTR shows on disc in the car, so we whiled away hour Halloween early evening in the car listening to these! (Great fun for me! And I don't think the guys hated it too much, either.)

When we finally got to Tommy's he and his wife were taking the li'l one Trick-or-Treat-ing, so we manned their door, doling out candy to the Darth Vaders and Supermans and witches and whatnot. Then when Mom & Dad & Cute Li'l Squirt got bak we got to enjoy the family aspect of Halloween! It was all so cute & sweet!!!

This trip was particularly cool for me, because this was the first time I had seen Tommy's new house!!! BIG!!! Pretty, too!!! (I want one! Like his!)

Then after the Family Fun, when Tommy put his daughter to bed, The Guys headed to the Alamo Drafthouse for some adult Halloween fun!!! A sneak preview of Scott Glosserman's BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON!!! And Glosserman was there to introduce the film and Q&A after it!

It's a quasi-mockumentary that takes place in a world where Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and all of your favorite supernatural serial killers are real, and Leslie Vernon is allowing a film crew to follow him as he prepares for his first big slaughter.

I was scared. I HATE when hacks who can't make a REAL horror movie make a "horror comedy"! usually the "horror comedy" means that the filmmakers aren't capable of pulling off either a good horror movie OR a good comedy. Not always the case, but USUALLY is. They just can't make a good flick, period.

NOT THE CASE WITH BEHIND THE MASK!!!

THIS MOVIE IS BRILLIANT!!! It was advertised on the Drafthouse's site as both hysterical and genuinely scary. I had my doubts, natch. SERIOUS ones. But the other guys liked the idea, and as a double-feature with the HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS it's a WELL FUN way to spend Halloween!!! THEN I SAW THE FLICK!!!


BEHIND THE MASK RULES!!!

If you're a fan of horror (particularly Slasher Flicks) and a fan of laughing DO SEE BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON later this year or next year, when it's released!!! You won't be disappointed and you will have SUCH a great time!

We didn't stay for HALLOWEEN 4, tho'. Everyone but me had to be up early in the morning, so we decided to give the second feature a miss.

BUT... As very pleasant little surprise, just before the theater let out for the intermission Kitty Kitty Bang Bang -- a burlesque act -- came out and dances to "Thriller"... concluding the show number by ripping off their shirts!!! So YAY! (They had electric-tape tassles, but still... Boobies! :D )

And before the show, there was a fun costume contest with some very cool (and some very bad, and one truly tasteless and unkind) costumes! That was fun. Three children entered -- inexplicably, as both the films were R-rated -- and all three just happened to win the Under Four Feet Tall catagory!

After Kitty Kitty Bang Bang the Drafthouse let out for intermission and we hit a bar down the street for a final drink before we all returned home, and to Real Life the next morning. "A quick drink" turned into a couple hours of stimulating conversation, and was a nice Good-Bye to this extraordinary vacation-without-going-anywhere (for all except Kelly).

My sleep schedule inverted itself while Kel was here, but then last night I went to bed a few hours earlier than I normal would do and ended up getting some 10 hours of sleep or something -- which I needed. Without incident or fuss my sleep schedule flipped itself, then flipped itself back! (In itself an amazing and magical incident.)

Oh, and when Kelly started playing DESTROY ALL HUMANS he saved his game seperately from the one Brian and I had saved, and he got FURTHER THAN BOTH OF US on the game! So next time we go wreaking havock on the 1950s we can choose to pick up from where we left off, or where Kel left off for us, lol.

But Real Life returned with a vengence when I woke up this afternoon. I got to see Gnomey, and for a bit is was wonderful and cool... But then she got news about both her grandparents not being well and other family drama, and she was worried and unable to get to sleep, despite the fact that she's working LOOOOOOONG days from now until next Thursday.

The Silver Lining -- and I'm a cat that can usually find it -- is that I got to be with her for longer than I have been able to for a month or so. And even spending time with her when she's hurting is better than not spending time with her. I hope I don't come off like a selfish bastard when I say that... It's not like I'm partying-down while she's sad or worried or whatever. I just mean that I'd rather hurt WITH her than not hurt without her. You know?

Anyway.

I've got half an hour before my shift is over (my "Monday") and then I'm off to see if she has any word for me about how things have progressed. She may not, though, because she goes to work early now, so she's likely already at work by the time I get there.

Actually, it's 11:29 am in England right now. So she's been at work for 3 1/2 hours. But she may have left me an offline message.

Still...

I had a GREAT Halloween this year! One for the books! And my baby told me she had one of the best times with her best friend that she's had in a long time! Whatever is going on now, whatever is up ahead, we both still have Halloween!

And then one day (maybe next year? dare I hope?) we will have Halloween TOGETHER!!!

:D