HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I hope you're having a wicked Halloween!!! :D

Mine is cool so far.

Not turning out anywhere near the way I imagined it, though.

I knew it wouldn't be crazy-fun. Last year Kelly was in town and Tommy & Kelly & Brian and I saw a sneak preview of BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON at the Drafthouse, then had drinks afterward and discussed it and filmmaking in general and all the cool stuff I wish I could do every weekend of my life.

So I knew this year would be a great deal more mellow.

But it's been odd...

First off, I woke up last night, maybe midnight or 12:30 am, and it's 8:01 pm as I write this. So I've been up for a while.

I played plenty of EVIL DEAD and DESTROY ALL HUMANS (the first one) during the wee hours.

Then I layed down to THE NIGHT STALKER and THE NIGHT STRANGLER, the 2 made-for-TV movies that kicked off the TV show KOLACK: THE NIGHT STALKER (which inspired THE X-FILES). Both of those are written by legend Richard Mathison, btw.

I was thinking I'd drift off watching those, then wake up tonight and do my Halloween-thang, whatever that turned out to be.

But instead, I remained awake. And Brian had to go in at 3:00 pm, and he has to go to sleep as soon as he gets home, because he closes the store tonight and opens another store tomorrow morning. So he doesn't get ANY Halloween. :(

So I got this idea that I thought might help him feel a bit more like he's getting a Halloween, and is something I thought I'd like to do sometime today anyway...

I have the first 10 seasons of THE SIMPSONS. That's 9 TREEHOUSE OF HORROR episodes! So I figured I'd put them all in, in order.

So Brian and I watched the first 8 together, laughing at episodes we've seen a million times, as well as ones we hadn't seen before. He had to take off for work about mid-way through TREEHOUSE OF HORROR IX, but I finished that one out.

Then, still not quite ready to drift off, I started watching them with audio commentary, in reverse order (starting with the last one I watched, the 9th one).

That was fun, but somehow watching them with the commentary takes away the Halloween-y mood. (Watching movies and TV shows with filmmaker commentary is something I do anytime, hehe.)

I've got CREEPSHOW playing -- figuring that would bring back the Halloween-y mood -- but I'm not really watching it.

I'm kind of too tired to really have much of an attention span, but not tired enough to take a nap just yet.

Which makes me a bit concerned about how getting up for work tomorrow is going to work.

I did come up with a story concept. That's cool! That's always special, WHENEVER it happens! :)

Oh, and my memory is shot at the moment, but sometime within the past 48 hours Brian and I watched the theatrical cut of 1408! We had seen the unrated "director's" cut (I place "director's cut" in quotes because the director and the writers are perfectly, perhaps equally, happy with both versions of the film) and that was the only cut I had watched.

It was really amazing to see both versions!!! THEY BOTH RULE!!! It's really amazing, because both cuts -- in particular, both endings -- seem perfectly valid to me! You don't see that a lot. Usually, when they include the "alternate ending" on the dvd, you realize that THERE'S A REASON they went with the ending they chose.

NOT the case with 1408!

Moreover, usually when I watch a director's cut of a movie, I prefer it to the theatrical release. If you disliked DAREDEVIL in the theaters, there is every possibility you might actually like the director's cut of it! And with movies like the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, or the unrated version of LAND OF THE DEAD or THE GRUDGE, or the director's extended version of GHOSTRIDER the extra footage just extends the story, makes the movie a richer experience
. (In the case of LOTR: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the extra 2 hours actually makes the movie FEEL less long, somehow, lol.)

But with 1408, BOTH versions are perfect as they are!

And... I feel weird saying this, but... I think I actually prefer the theatrical ending to the "director's cut" version. I miss the extra story stuff that got cut out of the theatrical release, but I prefer the way it ended in theaters.

Strange.

Plus, if you've ever read a book about screenwriting -- or fiction writing in general -- it has been impressed upon you that there is only ONE correct ending for your story. If your story could end 2 different ways, you didn't do your job right.

And yet... Watching the 2 very different endings for 1408, I would argue that there's a flaw somewhere in that rule.

I watched both versions of BUTTERFLY EFFECT, and I could make an argument that the unrated version is THE RIGHT ending, and the theatrical version is a compromise for the studio. Likewise, the original filmed ending of the first FINAL DESTINATION movie is -- in my opinion -- clearly NOT the right ending, and the one they re-shot was the right ending for that film.

So to watch 2 versions of a great, GREAT movie and see 2 endings that are equally valid is a bit mind-blowing. It speaks to some aspect of storytelling that I need to figure out!

Btw, I reported watching (and LOVING) Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN online...

Well, after I blogged, I did some research (just to answer some behind-the-scenes stuff I was curious about) and discovered that there was a work-print ending that differed from the ending that appeared in theaters! In this case, the work print ending IS NOT, and never was, the real ending. Zombie made this ending to prevent the real ending from getting out before the movie was released.

And the work print ending, as described on Wikipedia.org, is the ending I saw.

So I still haven't REALLY seen the movie. I mean, you and I could have a conversation about it and understand each other, but I saw the fake ending instead of the real one.

But that's okay. I wanted me some HALLOWEEN and I was satisfied.

That just means I have even more to look forward to when the dvd comes out. (I was totally gonna buy that one anyway, no question. Just now I have even more reason to by it THE MOMENT it's available, lol.)

OH! More Halloween goodness: I got a Halloween card from my baby!!! :D I love her so much!!!

Okay... So do I take a nap and run the risk of waking up several hours after Halloween is officially over? Or do I try to stay awake?

And if I stay awake, what do I watch?

I'll play it by ear. (That's my style, anyway, hehe.)

If you haven't already, don't forget to check out this year's Homestar Runner Halloween Cartoon!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! :D

All Hallow's Eve Eve (part 2)

THE GREAT PUMPKIN HAS SMILED DOWN AT ME!!!

:D

And now, that's not a typo in the title. I'm blogging about 3 hours after the entry below.

But I'm blogging because I just got an early Halloween Present from the Great Pumpkin!!!

I was thinking about eating before playing EVIL DEAD: A FIST FULL OF BOOMSTICK, and I wanted something scary to watch while I dined. (Or supped... It's was 3 or 4 in the morning, what's the proper expression? "broke"? Not sure.)

So I go online to see what horror movies I can find...

...and I find Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN!!! :D

You don't understand, this is kind of the Holy grail of movies for me right now!!! I've been dying to see it, but haven't had the time when I had the money, and didn't have the money when I had the time!

Then it was gone from theaters!

The flick appeared briefly online, but I didn't get a chance to watch it before it vanished again.

BUT I JUST FINISHED WATCHING IT!!!

:D

And it was AWESOME!!!

Seriously, Rob Zombie did an AMAZING JOB with it!!!

He took a great (if often very SLOW) horror film and turned it into something profound and SERIOUSLY CREEPY! I mean, it's this sad, macabre tragic story now. Zombie made Michael Myers real, and in doing so made the whole story even more disturbing!!!

But in a good way, lo! In the way you want a horror movie to be disturbing!

I was surprised!

I mean, I've seen great remakes of some of my favorite horror flicks, and I got this feeling that Zombie was gonna pull this one off, but I just didn't expect THE WAY he did it!

VERY fuckin' COOL!!!

And the fact I got to watch this the day before Halloween makes it EVEN COOLER for me!!! I mean, I'm basically a grown kid. I mean, I'm an adult, sure. But I still take a sort of childlike glee in little stuff.

Like when I was 15 or so Mom took Brian and me to see FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER on Friday the 13th! That was THE COOLEST THING for me!

Now, some 22 years later, I got to see the new HALLOWEEN on the eve of Halloween. Just by accident. No forethought, no planning. I just stumbled onto it! :)

When my ex-wife and I were still in high school we went to see HALLOWEEN 5 on Halloween night, but that was intentional. (No less cool, mind you!) (Or was it HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS? I can't remember at the moment.) And Danielle Harris was in this one, as well. :)

Anyway...

VERY COOL!!! :D

So I had to bust in and share this with you. :)

Oh, and if you didn't read the entry before this one, be sure to scroll down. I have some cool links to web-toons to make your Halloween more fun! :D (You can skip my entry, if you want. It's the toons that you'll enjoy the most!)

Ready For Tha 'Ween! :)

The above phrase actually means nothing, lol. Just looking for a title that sounds cool. But I'm ready for Halloween from January 2nd on, lol.

With occasional breaks in the year, such as Towel Day and International Talk Like A Pirate Day. :)

I don't have huge plans this year.

I've taken Halloween off, but Brian works until 10:30 pm Wednesday. Plus I haven't heard of any cool parties that really spark my interest. And I don't have any money so spook houses, movies at the cinema and even drinking if out, lol. So I will very likely spend Halloween watching scary movies.

Which I've been doing for a few weeks now, lol.

But that's cool! I can never watch too many scary movies!!! :D

This is a nice weekend for me... Brian & I got toasted Sunday night and conversed for hours and hours. Then I woke up (oddly) a little after 9:00 am. Brian was in SecondLife, so I popped in Disc 1 of the Steven King mini-series NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES, which is the first 3 episodes. That was really cool!

That was the first 3 episodes of the series, and when it was done I had the strong, STRONG need to DESTROY ALL HUMANS (2), hehe. So from about 2:00 pm to sometime after 8:00 pm I played that game.

My hands were gnarled claws when I finally turned the PS2 off, lol!

Then I popped in VACANCY -- GREAT flick!!! -- and watched the first 15 or so minutes with Brian until my body told me to go lay down.

Then I woke up about 1:00 am.

And now you're caught-up. :)

I think the need to destroy humans as an alien comes from the book I'm reading, HOW I CONQUERED YOUR PLANET by John Swartzwelder. It's hysterical!!! It's inspired non-sense! Whimsical lunacy that keeps picking at you until you laugh out loud -- whether you want to or not!

Part of Swartzwelder's approach to his novels is to just keep hitting you with comedy, paragraph after paragraph. And he doesn't seem to worry too much about the story. Or common sense. Part of what's so hysterical about his sense of humor is that he'll surprise you with the physically impossible. I can't give you an example (I believe quoting even a sentence violates the copyright) but Amazon.com has sample pages for his books, so you can see for yourself what I mean. :)

But in this book, Swartzwelder plays on all the fun cliches about Martians and alien invasion fiction in Pop Culture, going all the way back to H. G. Wells' 1898 novel THE WAR OF THE WORLDS! And a lot of those cliches come from the 1940s-1960s Sci-Fi flicks, which is where DESTROY ALL HUMANS gets its inspiration.

It's kind of cool, because it's sort of Halloween-y to me. I can't say why, but for some reason I associate old b/w Sci-Fi flicks with Halloween. And the novel -- while wildly hilarious and not the slightest bit scary -- has that b/w Sci-Fi sort of feel to it.

You know what? I think the association is John Carpenters doing! In the movie Halloween he and Debra Hill throw in EVERYTHING they could think of that they associated with the holiday. One of those things is, apparently, old b/w Sci-Fi flicks! Remember the scene where Laurie Strode is watching THE THING FROM OUTER SPACE with the kids? (While her friends are off getting laid and getting offed by Michael?)

I'll bet that's it.

Because as a kid, I don't remember local TV stations playing '50s horror movies. In fact, as a kid I'd watch Carpenter flicks on HBO, lol! One very cool memory is video-taping HALLOWEEN at my then-girlfriend's house, lol! (That was Network television. HBO had THE FOG or HALLOWEEN II or HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH or a FRIDAY THE 13th installment. That sort of thing.)

And our local TV stations also didn't have a Late Night Horror Movie show. :( I never got to watch some local TV personality dress up in a cape and fangs and intro old horror flicks, making lame jokes just before the commercials aired.

An outrage, I tells ya!!!

I think I was born a decade too late for that. Or just born in too small a town.

Anyway...

Luckily, I've got a VAST library of horror flicks on dvd, so I don't need to rely on a TV station for my Halloween entertainment! :) In fact, I could watch almost all the HALLOWEEN flicks back to back, lol!

Or, instead of going to a spook house, I could spend a few hours playing some of my survival horror games! I haven't picked up any of them in a while. (Believe it or not, I've been a bit too scared to, lol.) RESIDENT EVIL 4 and SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM both have a tendancy to creep me out real good, lol. :D

OOH!

It was SO COOL waking up tonight! I woke up, checked the date to see if it was Monday still or Tuesday -- my usual habit when I wake up on Tuesday night -- and when I discovered that Sunday and Monday were both, indeed, behind me I realized that I'm off Wednesday too!!!

HOW COOL IS THAT?!!

After 2 days off, I still have 2 days off!!! :D

Not to rub it in to those of you who are just looking at another Hump Day.

ESPECIALLY my Gnomey Goddess, who is working a 60-hour week! (I'm so sorry, baby!!! xoxoxo)

Ooh! Another cool thing about this Halloween...? My baby's going to a party in a skimpy red vampire dress, and she promised me pics!!! :D

How GREAT is SHE?!! :D

OH, HEY! Here's a Halloween-ish treat I stumbled onto a few nights ago: 26 animated episodes of Roman Dirge's LENORE: THE CUTE LITTLE DEAD GIRL!!! These are short and cute. The animation isn't the greatest, but it's in keeping with Dirge's style, so they look pretty. I think sometimes the animator steps on the punchline, but you can get the overall flavor of Dirge's humor.

In case you don't know, LENORE is a Slave Labor Graphics comic book, usually made up of lots of 1-page to 6-page comics. But it's got that "Underground Comics" feel, very Goth. Along the lines of Jhonen Vasquez books like SQUEE or JOHNNY THE HOMICIDAL MANIAC. In fact, Dirge was one of the writers on Vasquez's TV show INVADER ZIM! So they have a (generally) similar humor.

The toons are shorts, so you can watch a bunch of them in a sitting.

Also, if you're in the 'Ween mood -- or want to get into it -- don't forget Homestar Runner!!! They've released this year's Halloween toon!!! :D And it's ALWAYS a blast to go back and watch the older ones!

In fact, I'll link to them individually, to make it easier on ya:

Homestarloween Party (2000)
The House That Gave Sucky Treats (2001)
Pumpkin Carve-nival (2002)
3 Times Halloween Funjob (2003)
Halloween Fairstival (2004)
Halloween Potion-ma-jig (2005)
Happy Hallow-day (2006)
Jibblies 2 (2007)

Also, if you go here you can see what's new on the site. Click on the "Holiday" button on the remote control and you can watch a Fluffy Puff Marshmallow Halloween commercial, or an old-timey short "That Darn Ghost" or see some Halloween costumes made by fans.

AND... Don't forget that the first 2 years, The Brothers Chaps included games to can play while you wait for the toons to download! I guess Net connection speeds significantly increaced by 2002 becaused they stopped doing it. (Or maybe they just got tired of it, lol.) But I have killed hours at a time playing those games before the cartoons, hehe. :)

You know what I could use right now? A few hours of zombie slaying in EVIL DEAD: A FIST FULL OF BOOMSTICK! :D That's a cool, moody game! Not as intense as a Resident Evil or a Silent Hill, but just fun and Halloween-y! :)

Better go limber up my game claws...

CAT BOWLING!!!

Have I shared this Halloween Flash game with you?

CAT BOWLING!!!

It's BRILLIANT! My mom forwarded it to me, and I can't play enough of it!

The first time I played I scored, like, an 86! That's probably my best bowling score ever!

Well, up to that point...

I recently score, like 150 or so.

Hold on... Let's see how I do tonight...

Game 1: 95

I mean, that's not bad... But...

First frame I took out two, then picked up 7 more on the second pass.

Second fram, I'm a bit demoralized by the way the game's starting out, but it's okay. Just not stellar, as I kinda hoped. Stiil, I take out 6, the pick up 2 more.

Third frame... STRIKE!!!

Forth frame... STRIKE!!! Wah-hoo!!! Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! :)

Fifth frame: 2 on the first throw, then I pick up 6 more. Not pretty, like the last 2 frames, but still quite respectable.

Sixth frame: GUTTERBALL! BOTH times! :( I'm not making it into the triple digits this game.

Seventh frame, I knock down 3, then pick up 1. ONE!!! :( SO not pretty. (However, those 4 points raise my score from 65 to 69... So I take some consolation in that.)

Eigth frame: 7, pickup 2.

Ninth frame: 7, pick up 1. I'm back into vaguely respectable territory now, but there's no way I'm getting that 100+ score I really want.

Last frame I take out 4 on the first go, then pick up 5. 95 is a decent score... Much better than I could do in real life!

Still...

I want that 100+...

Game 2...

Frame 1: 6/1=7
Frame 2: 2/5=14
Frame 3: 6/1=21
Frame 4: 4/5=30
Frame 5: 6/2=38 I can't pick up a spare TO SAVE MY LIFE! :(
Frame 6: 5/4=47
Frame 7: 0/7=54 A spare would have been REALLY USEFUL here...
Frame 8: 4/5=63
Frame 9: STRIKE!!!=81
Frame 10: 6/2=89

This, sadly, better reflects my actual real-life bowling abilities. If you take out the strike, that is. And put in a few more goose-eggs.

Game 3: 115!!!

I was gonna do a play-by-play, like with the first game, but as I set up the frames (like above) the music -- WHICH NEVER STOPS -- got annoying, so I closed the game page... THEN I REMEMBERED THAT THAT'S WHERE ALL THE INFO WAS!!! lol

But it started weak with the first frame, then I got a strike on the second frame, then a whole lot more weak up until the eigth frame...

...then on the eigth frame I got another strike!

Then on Frame 9 I got ANOTHER strike!!!

But then my usual weak sauce on the last frame.

Still... 115!!! Triple digits!!! :D

Um...

If you haven't figured it out yet, work is going well tonight, hehe. :) SO well that I'm bored.

Which is how I can spent my shift giving you play-by-plays of my Cat Bowling, hee-hee. ;P


You've GOT TO click on the link (above) and play it yourself! It is SOOOO fun!

I should probably get off the computer for a while, though. Starting to feel guilty, so I think I'm going to go create work for myself, hehe.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

(I know it's not Halloween yet, but since this is the weekend before, I'm sure many of you are in costume, partying as though it were Halloween.)

:D

BLOODSHOTS 2007 "Blindspot"

IT'S ONLINE!!!

:D

If you're curious to see the short film Tommy & Brian & I made back in September, HERE IT IS!!!



Hope you get a kick out of it!

In Case You're Curious...

VACANCY rules!!! :D

VACANCY is what I watched today (Tuesday, still, for me), along with a handful of MEDIUM: Season 3 eps.

I think VACANCY's theatrical release was hurt by the other horror movies that came out around the same time. The way I remember it, it looked like a classy movie, and who can NOT love Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson?!! But when you offer me a movie with ghosts or other supernatural monsters or a movie with sick humans doing sick things to other humans, I'm going with the supernatural horror flick.

Plus, the threat of the movie is extremely brutal psychos, and I suspect a lot of the people who go to see movies about extremely (or, XTreme, bra') brutal psychos probably go for the gore.

But this flick isn't really an exploitation film, per se. It's a REAL movie.

AND IT'S REALLY SCARY!!! :D

Yesterday, Brian and I watched a made-for-TV adaptation of Stephen King's DESPERATION, and it was okay. It was directed by Mick Garris, who's filmography reads like an abreveated list of King's bibliography, lol: DESPERATION (2006), RIDING THE BULLET (2004), STEPHEN KING'S THE SHINING (1997), THE STAND (1994) and SLEEPWALKERS (1992).

Actually, that's a very abreveated list. For some reason I was thinking he had directed more than that. Still, I think he's directed more King adaptations than anyone else so far.

Blah.

Anyway, DESPERATION was okay. I wouldn't call it scary, but I would call it watchable.

After that I watched RIDING THE BULLET, and that was pretty good visually.

I like the novella a great deal better, though. The novella creates this mood, like a classy horror story kind of mood! The movie is SURPRISINGLY faithful to the original text (MUCH to Garris's credit!!!) but it has a sort of tongue-in-cheek mood.

Not my brand of horror.

Although, I have to give Garris credit for having directed PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING! For some reason, I really like the Psycho franchise, even though most would argue that there should never have been a 2nd, much less a 3rd or a 4rth. But I don't know... something about the character of Norman Bates and the location just keeps me coming back!

And the theme music!

I'm not talking about the famous REE-REE-REE-REE theme you think about when you think of PSYCHO. I'm talking about the VERY HAUNTING and beautiful themes created by jerry Goldsmith for PSYCHO II and Carter Burwell's haunting and beautiful themes for PSYCHO III.

In case you don't recognize the name second... I didn't either. I had to look him up. I've seen about 22 of the movies he's scored, but the only 2 scores that jump out at me are A GOOFY MOVIE and PSYCHO III. But if you follow the link to his IMDb entry, you'll find that he's done A LOT of composing for The Coen Brothers. Since the beginning, actually.

So that's got to give him some filmmaking "street cred".

But like I say, I prefer his themes from PSYCHO III.

I guess maybe the Psycho movies are a guilty pleasure of mine, hee-hee. :)

IN FACT... I'd almost forgotten this, but I've actually read all 3 of Robert Bloch's novels!

No kidding!

There's the first one, written as a pulp novel in 1959. The famous 1960 Hitchcock movie is really quite faithful to it. But the big difference that I can remember is that Norman Bates is middle-aged, pudgy and bespectacled in the novels.

Then in 1982, I'm guessing it's about the time that Universal Studios (and, presumably, Anthony Perkins -- since he spent a large chunk of his career haunted by the character) Bloch wrote his PSYCHO II, which the studio hated. It takes place on the set of a film made about Norman Bate's life and crimes (though NOT, if I remember correctly, the Hitchcock movie; like, some alternate-reality movie about Bates).

The book and the movie both did well, so Bloch wrote PSYCHO HOUSE in 1990. I remember liking that a little bit better. Probably because it went back to the original location. (A lonely motel off a forgotten highway in the middle of the desert.)

But the novel sequels veer way away from the movies, the way recall them, in that it's not about the continuing saga of Norman and his struggle with sanity. I don't mean to spoiler them for anyone, but I want to say Norman didn't do it in the last 2.

I was too young to appreciate them when I read them, but I'm guessing they were Bloch's social commentary on society, NOT a horror series.

I should do some research, come to think of it. I no longer own any of the books. But I'd like to have my memory jogged about just how things went down.

Blah.

Anyway...

Well, it's getting time for my baby to be headed to work, which means it's about time for me to head to bed and call this weekend "complete".

Not a bad weekend, really! :) I watched a bunch of flicks, a few REALLY GOOD! Got a text from my sweety! (My phone ran out of juice, and when I turned it back on after recharging it, so I lost it. :( But I remember getting one!)

Not bad! :D

Hope you have AN EXCELLENT day!!! :D

(And My genius Friend Dave, I hope you're getting LOT'S of PERSONAL work done, sir!)

(And My Gnomey Goddess, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU!!! xoxoxo)

Mom + Gan-Gan = GOOD TIMES! :D

So Mom came into town this weekend!

And as a Birthday present to me -- even though she already sent me a card with a big-ass check in it -- she took Brian and me out to eat! :D

As a bonus, Mom picked up Gan-Gan on the way to our appartment, and the four of us had some Olive Garden!!! :D

Okay, first off, if you're a restaurant snob, you're gonna be all "Olive Garden", but I have to tell you... I bit into my first chunk of Chicken Parmagiana AND I WANTED TO CRY!!!

IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOD!!!

A week or 2 ago Brian & I ate some Chicken Parmagiana that was frozen and intended to be heated via oven, and we really enjoyed it!

But WHAT THEY SERVED AT OLIVE GARDEN...!!!

Brian had the "Tour of Italy", which is Chicken Parmagiana, Fettucini Alfredo and Lasagna!

I just orered the Chicken Parmagiana and Mom & Gan-Gan shared the Lasagna, and we all had more than we needed, hehe.

My friend, Sharla, also texted me during the meal, which was cool, lol.

Then when Brian and I got home, we watched us some of the "Criss Angel Mindfreak - Halloween Speacial" (2005) (which I had gotten from Netflix, and which SHOULD HAVE been included with the first season of MINDFREAK), then we watched us some THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, which was BRILIANT, but during which Brian fell asleep, lol.

Brian has to be at work ALARMING EARLY this moring, so he should have been asleep long before I put in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, lol.

Btw: I LOVE that freakin' movie!!! Robert McKee talks about how we should create strong characters doing battle with each other...

But this movie is about a single strong character doing battle with lesser characters... BUT HE IS WRONG!!!

LMAO!!!

Seriously, the cat who wrote this is A GENIUS!!!

And the motherfucker who wrote the book it's based on IS A GOD!!!

Okay, so now I'm hanging out on the Net, hoping ti find My baby before she goes to work...

Not optimistic, but hopeful...

HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASIC DAY!!!

:D

Holy Schnikies, Cap'n Jack!!!

Brian and I were talking about finances (as brothers/roommates are apt to do from time to time) and I made the point that neither of us has made any money off our T-shirts yet.

Then -- on a whim -- we Google-ed "Mangey Raider" and found MY T-shirt store, BUT I COULDN'T FIND HIS!!!

Google not only has my CafePress.com store, but it also had a link to the first blog entry I made about my store... BUT NOT BRIAN'S STORE!!!

WTF?!!

So I went on a search for Brian's store on Cafe Press... and I couldn't find it!

Unfortunately, Brian's asleep now, so I can't ask him what his password info and all that is, but I'm a bit disappointed. I spent an hour and change searching every Key Word I could think of on Cafe Press's site to try to locate my li'l bro's T-shirts, to NO AVAIL! :(

How we supposed to get out of our dead-end jobs if no one can find out cottage-industry products, lol?

The REAL bummer part is that Brian's designs are SO MUCH BETTER than mine! I mean, it's just not fair! I have these comical, cartoon-y designs and his are 3-dimensional and all! (Plus, he's ALWAYS been better with color than I am.

Blah.

Well, there's always the Lottery Saturday, lol. Maybe we'll make some money there and won't have to worry about whether anyone can find our T-shirts or now. :P

PEACE!!! :D

Crazy 37th

Okay, so it seems like 37 isn't necessarily a banner year, birthday-wise. Even though there's a 7 in the number, and a 3 (which is often a holy number).

Go figure.

For one thing, I'm broke on this birthday. Not a great way to ring in the next chapter of your not-having-died-yet, you know?

But I have everything I need to get me through this weekend and next week (I get paid Friday), so that's cool. I've got my pizzas, some sandwich meat for work, weekend beer (drank that Sunday morning before going to sleep) and birthday beer. So that's cool. I'm on number 4, so 2 more and I'll be feeling like it's a party no matter what's going on.

Healthy? Mature? Why not, lol?

So when it turned midnight Sunday Brian agreed to watch PET SEMATARY with me! That was cool!

GOOD movie!

Then we watched the 3 making-of featurettes.

Then Brian was ready for bed.

So I checked some email... Responded to said email...

And I wasn't ready to go to sleep yet.

I've got Season 3 of 21 JUMP STREET laying next to my dvd player in my room, so I popped that in and had a 21 JUMP STREET marathon.

It didn't suck.

Well, that is to say, most of it didn't suck.

That show mostly doesn't really stand up to repeat viewings, sadly. A lot of it just feels like the writers were killing time.

And having come of age in the '80s, looking at what we used to wear back then just HURTS, lol. (The hair! OMG THE HAIR!!!)

There was an interesting episode that co-stared Dom DeLuise and Peter DeLuise's younger brother who looks a lot like him. (You know him... He played Luke's sister's husband later in GILMORE GIRLS? FUNNY guy! Really genius!)

That was an episode that was meant to be funny, but just wasn't. But still it was cool seeing the DeLuise family on film together! And it's an episode I never saw when it aired. Didn't even know about it.

I eventually fell asleep, 3 episodes from the end of the season.

Then I woke up and checked my email.

Then responded to my email, lol.

I got a lot of nice birthday greetings! That was cool!

And my birthday card from my Mom and Ermino arrived in the mail TODAY! That's some very cool timing! :D

But I was feeling generally bored and a tiny bit blue-ish. (My baby's apparently been busy the last couple of weeks.) So, on a whim, I went to Homestar Runner.com to see if there were any new toons, and there were!!! Like, three of them!

So I watched those, and that was really fun. I adore the Homestar Runner universe!!! It's genius! The Brothers Chaps are so funny and strange! Their humor reminds me a lot of The Muppets from when I was a kid! (Not the 90s-Present Muppets, but back when Jim Hneson was in charge of things.) It's a whole universe all in itself, with a sense of humor that isn't necessarily "adult" but certainly not "kiddy" either!

Brilliant!

So then I got the urge to re-watch the Strongbad_email.exe dvd set.

And now...

Um...

I'm thinkin' about making some stuff up. You know, to make my 37th seem cooler.

Let's see...

Okay, I'll do it in SecondLife so I can take pictures, which makes it more convincing, heehee. ;P



Okay, so first I hooked up with My Gnomey Goddess (that IS NOT a friend of mine named Tangie Book who is tagging along with me to I don't look so lonely and lame in these pics, it's My Gnomey Goddess, and she just happens to looks a lot like my friend Tangie Book at the moment, for some reason that is inexplicatble, but completely logical).

We went to the Mangey Raider Drive-In and watched NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Good flick. :) Can't get enough of it. (Actually, my fave is either DAWN OF THE DEAD or LAND OF THE DEAD, but neither of those are available in-world, so NIGHT OF serves quite well, hehe.)

Love me some Romero zombies!!! :D



Then we hopped aboard a pirate ship (that Brian designed and created and parked in between an island that he made and an island that I made in-world) and did some fishing. Fishing is so relaxing! Just hanging out, watching the surf and the sun rise, waiting for that tug on the old fishing line that indicates you've caught yourself a huge bass... or an old, wet tire...

Nice activity to drink beer to!



Then Tangie... Gnomey! Then Gnomey and I sat by the fire and ate what we caught.

The diver's helmet was a bit tough, but with enough A1 Steak Sauce it was eventually eddible.



Then we hopped over to the Space Station, where we did a little gambling.

Gambling is, apparently, illegal in SL now. But these are my machines, so I could simply refund My Gnomey Goddess any money she lost. (And, you know... Demand back any money she won.)

So I hit the Black-Jack table, and she hit the slots.

After that we hit the Mangey Raiders' Pirate Hideout and raced around on our Hellbikes (faithfully recreated by one Brian Edwards!)!!!



We raced around the top deck for a while to get our bearings, then headed for the bottom tube...





The tube was designed by me, but created by both Brian and myself. I like it! The rings give you this heightened sense of speed!



Then Gnomey and I went to The City (you know, the place where The Tick hangs) and atop a skyscraper we watched fireworks in celebration of my most recent birthday. :D



Then my baby and I returned to the drive-in where we downed some birthday pizza and Coke and watched NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD until the sun came up.

Now THAT was an amazing 37th birthday!
___________________________________________________________________

Okay, here's the REALLY GREAT part of my birthday...

I called my baby (about 9 am her time) AND WE HAD SUCH A WONDERFUL CONVERSATION!!! :D

I mean, the conversation was catching up and stuff...

BUT TALKING TO HER...!!! :D

THAT was my favorite birthday present this year!!! :D

Poor thing has been so busy lately! AND she's not feeling great. :( I told her that the Central Texas heat would do her some good. ;) (OMG I gotta win the lottery SOON, lol!)

OMG!!! HER VOICE!!! It's like an angel singing! With a British accent, lol!!!

Omg, it was SO NICE to hear from my baby again!!!

When I hear her voice, it's like the last part of track 12 of the soundtrack to PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END. (You have to listen to the soundtrack to understand the reference, but I promise, you won't be disappointed.) The stars align and the Universe SINGS when I hear her voice!!! :D

So THIS, in the end, has been AN EXTRAORDINARY birthday!!! :D

I started this off feeling a bit down, but a conversation with my baby turned this into one of the BEST birthdays I've EVER had!!!

That woman has some POWER, I swear to you! ;)

THANK YOU, MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! :D

Cool Friday

Since the weekend Master Control crew is made up of Libras, with birthdays coming up, My Genius Friend Dave brought ICE CREAM for all of us!!! :D

So that's a good way to start off the weekend.

Plus, SNL was pretty funny. That's a bonus. (Since we're airing it, and things have generally settled down by the time it airs, we might as well hang out and watch it.)

I brought MONSTER HOUSE because My Genius Friend Dave and Pete haven't seen it, but we didn't get around to watching it.

But that's cool.

I'll bring it back next Saturday and maybe we can watch it then.

Um...

I didn't get any writing done tonight, but I'm in pretty good shape coming into the weekend... I think Brian & my current story is shaping up decently.

And...

Um...

Well...

I haven't heard from my Gnomey Goddess in a week or so. :( I have no idea how she's doing or how things are going for her. This is troubling because usually when I don't hear from her for a long stretch of time, it's because things aren't going well. :(

So that's kind of hanging heavy over my head.

I mean, I'm fine. I'm not a worrier, because there's nothing I could do anyway. If the time comes that I can be useful, then I'll focus on that.

Still...

I miss her.

And I want her to be good and happy and have everything she wants. You know?

Blah.

I didn't log in to mope.

But, you know, not having her in my week sort of makes the week less exciting.

Um...

OOH!

I bought PET SEMATARY!!! I haven't seen that in YEARS!!! I remember that as one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, so I look forward to watching that again this weekend! :D

Brian and I watched 1408 last weekend, so it seem appropriate to continue the Halloween festivities with another great King adaptation.

Also, I look forward to watching MONSTER HOUSE this weekend, as well. I haven't seen it since Brian & I saw it in 3-D at the theater. (I don't mind watching it again next weekend with my work buddies. It's a good li'l flick. VERY Halloween-y!)

And I'm about halfway through volume 5 of THE WALKING DEAD. That's the last I have, and I can't afford to buy the next 2 collections at the moment. But that's okay. I can just start over until I get some money. Those stories will bare re-reading!

But before I buy the next 2 THE WALKING DEAD collections, I promised Brian I'd buy MEDIUM: Season 3 as soon as it comes out. We missed most of last season (Brian more than I did). And that'll be a fun marathon!

Sorry I don't have more to tell ya.

I'll probably blog some something silly on or after my birthday.

1408 & Northern Exposure: Season 2!!!

Yesterday (Monday) was kind of un-focused and chillin', but today was BAD-ASS!!! :D

First, Brian & I watched 1408!!!

OMG!!!

If you like ghost stories or haunted-house stories, this movie is for you!!! :D

It's smart, it's scary, you actually care about what's happening to the characters! IT'S GREAT!!!

And then Brian & I followed that up with another NORTHERN EXPOSURE marathon, this time Season 2!

Also, naturally, BRILLIANT!

I had never before sat down and watched NORTHERN EXPOSURE in order. I got into it late in the 5th season, followed it through the 6th (and final) season, and then mostly saw the first 4 1/2 seasons in syndication on A&E.

So it's cool to watch the series unfold the way fans who were there from the start watched it unfold. Classic episodes like "Spring Break", "War and Peace" and "Slow Dance" are better when seen in context!

I wish I could find a site that goes into great detail about the writing of the episodes. It's some AMAZING writing! I'd love to dip into the writers' heads and see what they were thinking and why they made the choices they did!

GREAT show!



Shout Out: Gnomey, if you read this, I LOVE YOU!!! :D xoxoxo

8 Hours of PSYCH And Counting...

DUDE!!!

PSYCH RULES!!!

The show ROCKS!!! :D

I started on Episode #7 from Season One and I'm about to start Episode #14! I can't stop watching this show!

GENIUS!!!

If you don't have cable (as I don't) and/or can't afford to rent the dvds (as I can't, at the moment, but I'm buying them eventually! Count on it!) then you should search for the eps online! GREAT SHOW!!! Smart, funny... SO funny!!! Fun characters... Just everything you want in a TV show!

:D

Gettin' In That Halloween-y Groove

OMG!!!

I just spent 3 or so hours describing how I've been re-reading Stephen King's "Riding the Bullet" and how I had resumed my trek through Robert Kirkman's THE WALKING DEAD trade paperbacks, and how I got to talk to my sweet, sweet Gnomey Goddess...

AND THEN BLOGGER LOST THE WHOLE ENTRY!!!

:(

This is SO not cool!

Sorry this is such a crappy entry, but it's totally Blogger.com's fault.

Btw...

I GOT TO TALK TO MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! hehe :D

I GOT ME SOME GNOMAGE!!! :D

It was, like, bite-sized Gnomage. Like a Gnomage snack, if you will.

BUT I GOT TO CHAT WITH HER FOR A SEC!!!

Poor thing, it turns out she's been working too much and sleeping too little. :(

But OMG the way I felt when she logged in!!! It felt a bit like my heart burst out of my chest and exploded into festive fireworks!!! :D

And now I'm just sort of glowing, a bit sunburnt from the light from the fireworks display, but it doesn't hurt at all! It's more like a nice warm comfortor wrapped around me in the midst of an otherwise chilly winter's night!

DUDE! I am ONE LUCKY FOTHERMUCKER!!!

:D

Sputnik 1's 50th!

I usually try not to blog twice in one day, but I was just shocked to discover that TODAY is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I!!!

This is HUGE!

Not only because I've been thinking abut space exploration recently (consider the previous blog, posted just hours ago) but because Sputnik I CHANGED THE WORLD!

It's the first piece of space-junk we ever sent up, for starters! The first time we, humans, made something on the land and stuck it up in our night sky!

But more than that, according to Wikipedia.org, Russia beating us into space caused our government to increase spending on scientific research and education!!!

OUR GOVERNMENT!!!

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND EDUCATION!!! lol

Dude, I just wish there were some current something or other that could get "Dubya" and his crowd excited about scientific research (NON-commercial, that is) and public education!

Actually, I mock President Bush, but NASA's been busy these last few years. So I take back the easy joke at his expense! (I shouldn't be in the habit of making the easy jokes anyway; a writer shouldn't get creatively lazy!)

But Sputnik...

It's pretty cool that it happened to be in October when it launched, too!

Follow me for a second:

October...

Halloween...

Old Horror/Sci-Fi movies...

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD...

...satellite crashes to earth just hours before dead people start walking the earth and devouring the living...

Actually, just follow the Halloween and Horror/Sci-Fi flick connection... Some of the GREATEST Halloween viewing (well, for me, anyway) is that slew of Sci-Fi flicks made in the 1950s/1960s as a reaction to America's fear of outer space and scientific progress!!! INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE BLOB, THE FLY, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES (never seen it, but what a great title considering this topic, right?), the afore mentioned NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and let us not forget PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE!!!

PLUS, 5 seasons of THE TWILIGHT ZONE!!! A show which probably wouldn't have had as much of an audience before October 4, 1957! (Prior to Sputnik, Sci-Fi was considered, in America, to be the strict domain of childhood!)

So I say "YAY, SPUTNIK!!!" :D

Space Shuttle/ISS Expansion Update

Looks like the International-Space-Station-expansion missions will round out the year a single mission behind.

You may remember me blogging about my hope for the shuttle missions this year, and then months later belly-aching about the delay of an early March mission that forced it to launch in June instead. Growing up in the 1970s & '80s -- with the snail-like pace of space missions back then -- I was afraid that this delay would knock the ISS completion missions off schedule so that in 2010, when the space shuttles are permanently retired, the ISS would be left incomplete.

But the shuttles have been BUSY this summer!!! :D

Comparing the original mission schedule for this year with the current mission schedule I see that NASA is mostly on-track!

The bumping of the mission that was originally scheduled to happen in December means that instead of 4 ISS-expansion missions in 2008, there will be 4.

Now, I'm not a pessimist, but I do believe very strongly in Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it most likely will.

Especially when you're funded by government money and answerable to governmental bureaucracy.

Still, my gloom-and-doom fear -- when a March mission was postponed until June -- was that this year's ambitious schedule would fall behind by 2 or more missions.

And it still can, to be sure.

But with Discovery slated to launch on the 23rd, I feel SO MUCH more confident about the possibilities!

As I've said before, probably too many times, I WANT A SPACE STATION!!! Not for my very own. I mean I want one for the citizens of the Earth! (NOT the corporations of the Earth, the CITIZENS!)

So, yeah...

If my earlier posts about the ISS-expansion missions caught your interest -- even a little -- here's where they stand right now.

Not too bad, either! :D

Fingers crossed for no more delays, though!

Northern Exposure...

No Gnomage today, but I had me a GROOVY day with my brother!

First, after both working on zombie avatars for SL that haven't yet panned out, we settled into THE MESSENGERS.

I've got to say, after watching this flick 2 days in a row, it ROCKS!!!

The second day in a row, it's like THE SIXTH SENSE in that you're not as likely to jump and scream like a little schoolgirl, but you see stuff that only makes sense after you've watched it all the way through once.

Then there are still some thing you can't explain still...

After that we engaged in a NORTHERN EXPOSURE, SEASON ONE marathon that was REALLY COOL!!!

Nothing makes living a quirky little life in a small Austin apartment seem more cool than a NORTHERN EXPOSURE Marathon! ;P

Then we worked out a cool process for pumping out a screenplay a month! We'll see how that goes, but it COULD turn out to be EXTREMELY profitable starting mid-2008! :)

We'll see...

Okay, my baby's not online, so I think I'm going to sleep now.

PEACE!!! :D

Just Checking In...

I just finished watching a 1953 Bogey movie called BEAT THE DEVIL.

I watched it because, apparently, animators use it to study character animation. And so My Genius Friend Dave (who animates) acquired it and let me watch it.

Interesting little flick. It's a John Houston movie, his last Film Noire flick and intended as a parody of the genre he helped create. At first you think you're just watching a Noir, but it starts getting more and more absurd, climaxing with an almost cartoon-ish twist ending. (A bit Tex Avery, actually, lol.)

Humphry Bogart (one of the stars in an all-star cast), who wasn't pleased with the final result, said of the film "Only phonies like it." But I've got to say that I like it. I mean, it's not one of my faves, and I might or might not ever watch it again. But it didn't suck, really. Not at all. It never gets boring and it does get funnier and funnier the longer it goes.

Not Broken-Lizard funny, but amusing. :)

If you're curious, the movie is in the Public Domain, so you can download it or stream it at archive.com.

Before that I watched THE MESSENGERS!

THAT movie RULES!!! :D

I jumped several times, was thoroughly creeped-out, and even screamed like a little girl a few times!

The last movie that made me scream like a little girl was the East Asian horror movie THE EYE. I don't remember if I blogged about it, but I still remember the incident very clearly: Brian was here, in his room (this a several years ago, when this room as his area and I had the rest of the appartment; we've basically flipped the areas we frequent since then) and I was in the living room watching it by myself. Something scared me so baddly that I yelled, and then I hear Brian in here laughing at me.

Turns out THE MESSENGERS is a Pang Brothers film, the same cats who made THE EYE! (I've read that they're currently working on an American version of THE EYE, so if you want to be scared -- like THE GRUDGE and THE RING scared) DO SEE IT!!! :D

I've got THE EYE 2, but I have yet to watch it. Sometimes it's because I don't feel like reading a film (it's sub-titled) and sometimes it's because I'm not sure I'm ready to be scared like that again.

I have to watch it now, though! I've seen 2 Pang Brothers films, and they were both EXCELLENT! I've got to see if THE EYE 2 keeps their reputation intact! (There is a third THE EYE movie, so THE EYE 2 probably is good.)

I kicked the night off with another My Genius Friend Dave movie, one he insisted I watch: ONE HOUR PHOTO.

Good movie.

I didn't want to see it because I know how great an actor Robin Williams is, and the promos made this movie look really creepy, in a not-supernatural/could-happen-to-you-tomorrow kind of way. I'm not a fan of real-life horror. I believe violence should exist only in storytelling, and that people should treat each other better than we do. So I had no interest in watching a great actor convince me that he's a homicidal stalker. If Robin Williams says he can play the part, I KNOW he can play the part.

That doesn't mean I need to watch him play the part.

But My Genius Friend Dave tried to convince me that the movie was different than what I thought it was.

And he was right.

Turns out it's just this quirkly little film -- beautifully written and shot and acted -- about this quirky little guy. Not nearly as insidious as I though it would be, and actually quite a bit sweeter than I could have guessed!

I probably will watch that one again sometime.

So that's 2 "Art films" in a sitting. If my film buddies give me hell about my taste in movies any time soon, I can ward them off with BEAT THE DEVIL and ONE HOUR PHOTO, lol.

Still haven't seen my baby. :( This concerns me, because she was ill, and she said she was feeling a bit better, but she also said "I'll see you tomorrow" (which was Sunday). And after we've missed each other for a few days, she usually doesn't come back online with "Sorry, I was having too much fun to say 'Hi'." Usually he absense means things are going badly for her or someone important to her. :(

Although, yesterday I did go to bed early and sleep late. So it's possible I just missed her, and she got busy today, but that all is well with her and her loved ones.

I'm gonna be optimistic and hope that this is the case.

If she's well enough to go back to work, I have another hour and 15 minutes before I know that she's not logging on. But I'm afraid I may not be able to stay awake that long. I've been at this computer for 12 or more hours now. It will be nice to stretch out in my bed, hehe.

Ooh... That sounds REALLY NICE... :)

Okay, that does it for me. I'll chat will ya's later. PEACE!!! :D