HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :D

Okay, it’s early, early December 31st as I write this, but I thought I would check in and let you know how my Yule is going…

So…

Friday, December 21, 2007: I take off for my week with Tisha. I head out around midnight and give her a call to let her know I’m on the road.

As I drive the dark Texas highways, I’m listening to Jim Butcher’s GRAVE PERIL, the 3rd book in the Dresden Files series.

Okay, that’s creepy enough…

As I drive, I come across a huge set of gray tracks that seem to be made by mud and seem to lead from the wooded area onto and up the road. Miles later, I come across a similar set of tracks (leading from the woods onto the highway).

Now, I realize I’m very likely being creep-ed out because I’m listening to a horror story written by a master and read by a genius (James Marsters). But still…

The moon is ASTOUNDINGLY full! So much so that it kind of blinds me to the road, once I’m out of city limits and ambient light.

It’s just this BIG FULL MOON.

And as I drive down the road, I keep seeing these corpses along the side! I mean, I see a few that are definitely animals (deer, raccoons, etc), but there are a few that are so large and shapeless that they might be HUMAN remains!

This is the way a horror movie might start out! (A good and scary one!)

The story and the moon and the gray tracks and the carcasses all combine to freak me out just enough that even when I stop in a small town for a refill, I’m pretty sure this is the scene when I first meet the creature pops out for the first time and I begin my long, terror-filled dash across Texas to escape this thing, lol.

Saturday, December 22, 2007: Around 8:00 am I’m in southern Lubbock and get off the loop a tad too soon, then spend some 20 minutes trying to find my way to the road that will take me to Levelland.

It’s a pleasantly moody morning, with dark, pregnant clouds, and I notice that the car’s thermometer is registering freezing temperatures outside. As I finally figure out where I am and get back on track, I notice that it’s actually snowing! (None of it’s sticking to the ground, but who knows…)

I call Tisha and she lets me in, and I lay down to take a nap, but I don’t really get to before she wakes up a few hours later.

I bought a sausage & egg burrito on my last gas stop, so I’m not really hungry when she gets up and makes herself some eggs and bacon. I chat with her as she has breakfast.

Now, there is a huge jar of brine (you know, that light green salt & vinegar water that pickles hang out in) sitting on the table, as well as an Applied Physics & Chemistry book and a few other odds and ends that must have found their way there over the course of a busy week.

So as Tisha eats her tasty-looking breakfast and we chat, she casually reaches over, unscrews the lid to the plastic vat-o-brine AND DRINKS IT! Just as normally as though it were a glass of orange juice!

I ask her, “Did you just drink that brine?” And she looks at me questioningly, apparently unable to comprehend why this might be considered odd behavior.

The conversation somehow veers back to where ever it was before my daughter took a huge swig of brine, and the subject doesn’t come up again until a day or two later, when I find out that indeed, yes, my daughter drinks brine. It is, apparently, a bit of delicacy to her…

I’m not judging, mind you… When I was 17 I had a ceiling full of dangling green 7-Up 2-liter bottles and pizza boxes tacked to my ceiling and walls. We do what we do when we’re young, and I delight in Tisha’s quirks! (I’m not particularly worried about Tisha becoming a victim of peer pressure, lol.)

After breakfast, Tisha teaches me some Chemistry, finally – after all these years since high school Chemistry – making me understand the practicality of the Periodic Table! (You have a chemical that behaves a certain way, and you want to create a chemical compound that behaves this certain other way, you quickly refer to the Periodic Table to find what chemicals will combine with the chemical you’ve got. Kind of cool, actually.)

Saturday night, I make plans to treat all 4 of us (Tisha, Connie, Dale and me) to a drive-in double feature of I AM LEGEND and AUGUST RUSH.

I fall asleep that night to THE ARISTOCATS. Very nice end to the day. :)

Sunday, December 23, 2007: I wake up before everyone else (except Connie, who is a nurse and had to be at work early). So as I lay on the air mattress laid out for me, the Christmas tree lights winking on and off, I watch MICKEY’S ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS on my iPod.

A very Yule-Tide-y experience! :)

No one else is awake yet, so I play some Texas Hold ‘Em, Bejeweled, Majong, Music Quiz and Solitaire on my iPod until it needs to be re-charged.

I called my Gnomey Goddess and got to talk to her for a while as she wrapped presents!!! :D xoxoxo

(I LOVE YOU, BABY!!!)

Then folks wake up and we spend the day… Um… Doing stuff. I really don’t remember exactly what, because what I’m really looking forward to is the night, and going to the Stars & Stripes Drive-In Theater!

DUDE!!!

Okay, first of all, I GOT TO WATCH A DRIVE-IN DOUBLE FEATURE!!! :D I haven’t done that since I was maybe 6 or 7 years old!!! The last movie I remember seeing at the drive-in was the 1977 remake of KING KONG! (You know, Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges and Odo from STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE.)

Secondly, I got to watch this double-feature with my daughter!

Thirdly, I AM LEGEND RULED!!! I read the script that was written in the ‘90s – when Arnold Schwartzenegger was planning to star in the flick – and this is pretty much that movie. But in that script, the vampires had a whole society, more like THE OMEGA MAN and this film keeps the vampires more monster-like, in keeping with the original novel. And the ending is almost a 180 from the novel, but it’s GOOD! It’s a really deep, emotionally satisfying movie! (As well as being all bad-ass and cool!) I think that if you enjoyed I, ROBOT you will probably enjoy this one.

Finally, AUGUST RUSH IS A PERFECT MOVIE!!! :D

I knew NOTHING about this flick! Tisha was excited when she discovered that it was the second feature, and described it to me: An orphaned boy who is into music believes that if he continues to play music his parents will be able to find him.

And my thought is, “Huh?”

But Tisha really wants to see it, and I’m thinking that I REALLY want to experience the whole double-feature thing, so what the heck, right?

THIS MOVIE WAS MUSIC!!!

I’m serious, the images and story serve this gorgeous collection of score and songs that almost never stop throughout the whole film! It’s not like the film is a musical or an extended music video, the movie IS MUSIC! It’s as though someone who is really, really into the magic of music said “Why don’t we make a movie that IS music?”

I was encouraged by the opening credits: The story was by someone named Paul Castro and by Nick Castle. Nick Castle was the original Michael Myers (known as The Shape in the screenplay) and then went on to write ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY, HOOK (“screen story by”), and ESCAPE FROM L. A., and direct THE LAST STARFIGHTER, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY, and DENNIS THE MENACE!!! The screenplay was by Nick Castle and James V. Hart. Hart wrote HOOK, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, MUPPET’S TREASURE ISLAND, CONTACT, TUCK EVERLASTING, LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE and SAHARA!!!

These are storytellers I trust!  Between the two of them, they have given me hours of cinematic joy! Some of it really definitive for me, too!

Also in the opening credits, I note that Keri Russell is one of the stars (I’ve been crushing on her since FELICITY and can’t watch enough of her!) and there is an “and Robin Williams” credit, which means that he may not get as much screen time as one might hope, but his role will be important!

Oh, and William Saddler’s in it!!! (He’s the bad-ass evil guy from DIE HARDER and the bad-ass sheriff from ROSWELL and The Reaper from BILL & TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY, just to name 3 of his almost infinite list of great roles!)

All very good signs if you’re going into a flick you know nothing about!!!

Plus, the flick begins with gorgeous music and a boy’s voice stating that music is everywhere if we just listen.

Very encouraging!

The titular star is played by Freddie Highmore, whom you may know as Peter from FINDING NEVERLAND or Charlie from CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY! This is a TALENTED KID!!!

I spend the next 100 minutes, or so, drawn deeper and deeper into this emotionally stirring fable that I could never do justice to if I tried to explain it to you!

Afterward, I’m texting friends and telling them they have to see this movie, and I discover that women – somehow – already want to see this movie.

HOW?!!

I mean, after I see the flick I remember having seen one – ONE – 30-second spot on TV that just DID NOT grab my attention in the slightest!

So how is it that women know about the film and actually WANT to see it?

I mean, turns out they’re RIGHT. It’s a BRILLIANT movie! I was so moved I had Tisha (who drove us) stop at Walmart so I could buy the soundtrack. But how did they know?

When we get back, we finish the day with Stephen King’s THE STAND! :D

Oh, that’s right! Okay, earlier in the day (the part I couldn’t remember) Dale and I watched TV while Tisha crashed in one of the comfy chairs next to us, and THE STAND came on. He had never seen it, so we watched. But it’s, like, 5 hours long or something, so we had to stop watching it before it was time to go to the movie.

But they own it on VHS, so after the double-feature, we resumed the flick.

It’s worth mentioning that they have this HUGE TV with surround sound, so watching stuff on TV there is like watching it at a movie theater! That was the first time I watched THE STAND and it felt like I was watching a movie! (As opposed to a made-for-TV mini-series.)

I don’t remember what I fell asleep watching that night.

Monday, December 24, 2007: Christmas Eve was ridiculously relaxed, lol.

The 4 of us going shopping for the Christmas feast. We watched THE POLAR EXPRESS on their big-ass TV, and the movie was so much better that way! (I didn’t see it at the theaters, so that was my first big-screen viewing of it.)

Tisha kept popping in Christmas movies, and we watched, and they were fun.

Dale stayed up all night, cooking the turkey so that we could eat before 6:00 pm, and I stayed up chatting with him. They had been given a bottle of Crown Royale as a Christmas gift, and I think I had 2 (maybe 3) glasses. I finally crashed after the sun started coming up and so…

Tuesday December 25, 2007: I woke up to a very annoyed Connie and Tisha, yelling at me to wake up, lol!

Dale had an excuse: He was cooking the turkey.

I did not.

I became conscious as we all opened our presents, then we watched the last half of THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, which was really fun! AND, the movie was playing again immediately after (on one of the cable networks) so we watched it from the start.

I called Brian to see how he liked the LEGO STAR WARS: THE GAME I had left for him to open. He seemed excited about it. (Kelly had recommended it to me. He’s been playing it on his PSP and loves it.)

The meal was AMAZING, and I regret that I didn’t have enough room to have 2 or 3 huge helpings of everything!

Then we digested while watching more Christmas movies.

It was a really nice Christmas! It was intimate (I prefer small gathering to huge crowds; I’m just like that), and it was well relaxing! Spending Christmas with Tisha is usually a madhouse with tons and tons of family packed into a single house. But this year was just the 4 of us.

I believe we all went to sleep fairly early that night, lol.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007: Dale and I watched a marathon of THE UFO FILES while Tisha slept in one of the comfy chairs.

I kid you not, that’s how we spent the day after Christmas.

That night, Tisha and I went to see SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET and it was GREAT!!!

It was a great deal more bloody than I expected. I’ve seen the play live once, and a video recording of the Broadway version (the one starring “Mrs. Potts” as Mrs. Lovette) a couple of times, and I was shocked and surprised by all the blood.

I later figured out that it’s because the play doesn’t use blood. The killings are kind of mimed. It works in the play just fine, so you never notice it.

But on screen, when you actually put the blood in at the appropriate times, the movie becomes a true horror flick! ;P

One of my presents to Tisha was a Liar’s Dice set. Brian & Tommy & I have had so much fun playing this game that I wanted Tisha to own it!

A surprising amount of my relationship with Tisha involves us playing games – just the 2 of us or the 2 of us and her family or the 2 of us and her friends. When she was into Pokemon, I had a couple of starter decks, and we played every time we were together for several years. I keep a “travel version” of Clue with me at all times (it’s basically the game without the board) and Tisha and I have played that more times than I can remember.

So after we got back from the movie, I taught Tisha Liar’s Dice with her new set (it’s a replica of the cups and dice Davey Jones’s crew used in POTC: DEAD MAN’S CHEST) and we played for hours!

She won the first couple of games, but then I had a lucky run AND SHE CALLED ME A WHORE!!! lol

That was a shocking thing, being called a whore by Tisha, lol! (I believe my response was “Yes, but don’t tell Wendy” which made Tisha laugh.)

(Note To My Gnomey Goddess: I’m not really a whore, baby, I’m a nympho slut. More accurately, I‘m YOUR nympho slut. ;P )

After half an hour or so, some of Tisha’s friends came over and joined the game. I don’t remember who won the most games, but I’m tempted to say Tisha did. We all played for about 2 more hours, until it was entirely too late for them to be there, lol.

Thursday, December 27, 2007: After the game, Tisha and I stayed up talking until Connie got up for work. I said good-bye to everyone and hit the road before the sun was up. (Only about an hour earlier than I was originally planning to head back, really.)

I resumed listening to GRAVE PERIL on the trip back, stopping in Early, Texas for an hour-and-a-half nap.

The audiobook finished up just after I pulled into my parking lot. I had time to check the mail and unload the car as the book ended. (Very convenient timing!)

Back home, Brian’s at work, so I call him, then Tish and my Mom and let everyone know I arrived home safely.

Um…

Then the last few days have been a blur, lol.

There was drinking… I met my friend Lothar in SL for a while… Did a bit of writing…

Ooh! Brian & I watched Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN and all the behind-the-scenes stuff! That was cool!

Since today is New Year’s Eve, I didn’t drink yesterday. (Thought I might want to sober up a bit before I ring in the New Year, lol.)

Last night, Brian cooked-up these Uber-Burritos: Beef, fajita chicken, refried beans, tomatoes, black olives, guacamole, sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream!

HEAVEN!!!

We chowed on too much food while watching the first 8 episodes of LOST: Season 2.

VERY cool! :D

(Yes, I know, we’re so behind on LOST. But we don’t have cable or a TV antenna, so we watch our shows on dvd.)

Oh, yeah, and the night before last Brian and I caught halfway up on REAPER! The series (well… the 10 produced episodes, anyway) is available on iTunes, and I used some Christmas money to finally buy them all.

And that pretty much catches us up.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve, and I have no idea how that’s gonna play out, but I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be fun! :D Sci-Fi Channel is having this 48-hour TWILIGHT ZONE Marathon, and Brian thought that sounded cool, so we’ll probably be watching a lot of TWILIGHT ZONE as the new years rolls in.

Other than that, no idea.

Which is just fine by me! :D

HOPE YOU HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! (And tons of fun in the remaining few hours of 2007!)

Happy Kwahanimas!!! :D

I'm really kind of just checking in. Not much to report.

Got some love from my Gnomey Goddess recently!!! And been chatting with my daughter in preparation for my upcoming visit.

Brian & I have been watching a bunch of Chjristmas dvds, lol. This weekend we watched A Chipmonk Christmas and The Pink Panther Christmas. (The former is pretty week -- but we saw it on TV back when we were kids -- and the latter is WEIRD!!!)

And when THE SIMPSONS MOVIE was released on dvd, I snatched it right up! I've seen it 2 or 3 times now, not including all of one audio commentary and maybe half of the second audio commentary. Brian's seen it more times than that!

Um...

I've re-read STORM FRONT, the first book of the Dresden Files, and I'm re-reading FOOL MOON, and I spent the weekend burning the third and forth book on cds so I can listen to those on my way to Tisha's.

And...

I'm plotting my novel, but that's coming along a bit too slowly for my taste. :( When I get back from seeing Tisha I'll have a few days off still before I return to work. I'm hoping 3 or 4 days of serious concentration might help me out. The story is sort of tearing off in tiny chuncks every week. I'm hoping a really good tug might pull the bulk of it free, so to speak.

And, um...

I MISS MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! This is the second Christmas we haven't been able to spend together. I'm hoping this novel might make a huge stride toward being able to afford to see her face-to-face, but I don't realistically anticipate being done with the first draft until next summer.

I mean, I don't mean to whine here. My baby loves me so well that even a little goes a LONG way! (And my baby doesn't know how to love just a little, hee-hee. :D ) But still...

Like, she's been working really hard and never getting any rest, and I SO wish I could be there to make her feel all groovy and refreshed in between shifts! (I can be VERY refreshing when I'm trying, hehe.)

Blah.

Okay, maybe it's not a great idea for me to simply sit down and write when I don't have something specific to report, lol. I may say too much when I'm just rambling.

Okay, hope you're making the most of your Yule Tide!!!

PEACE!!!

:D

Kille The T-Rex!!! :D

After completing TR LEGEND, I am now obsessing over TR ANNIVERSARY.

I mean, obsessing!

This morning, before going to bed, I loaded the soundtracks to TRA and THE CRADLE OF LIFE (the second TR flick) onto my iPod so I can listen to the music.

I also have a couple of the trade paperback collections of the Top Cow comic series -- The Merlin Stone and Saga of the Medusa Mask -- and I stuffed those in my bag in case I feel the need to READ some TR.

No idea why I can't get Tomb Raider out of my head, but I can't.

It's really weird!

Well...

Not THAT weird for ME... but...

Anyway, so now I'm on a quest to conquer TRA.

Where I got stuck when I first tried to play through was the damned tyrannosaurus! I thought I had gotten past it, but it turns out I hadn't.

I've played the first 2 1/2 levels through several times now, and I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the controls, so I decided to take on the T-Rex 3 days ago...

...and I finally killed it today before work!!!

YAY!!!

With the T-Rex down, it shouldn't be much longer before I'm through "Peru - The Lost Valley", the third level.

Then I only have 11 more levels to clear, lol.

GOT A CALL FROM MY BABY WEDNESDAY!!! :D

I almost missed it, too.

I had gone to bed a bit early (around 7:00 am) and she called around 8:00 am. I sorta, kinda woke up to the ringing but I wasn't up to answering the phone. But then a minute or two later the phone beeped to let me know that I had a voice message. So I checked to see who was calling me (and what time it was) AND IT WAS MY BABY!!! :D

So I quickly called her back and we had a nice conversation!

That pretty much made my week. :D

She's such a li'l hotty!!!

AND...

I still have the voice message she left, so I can listen to it whenever I want, hee-hee. :)

Okay, I should get back to work.

Hope you're having a FANTASTIC WEEKEND!!! (Only 26 hours until my weekend begins!)

I Finished TOMB RAIDER LEGEND!!!

This is the first non-PC-version of a Tomb Raider game that I've completed.

I had TOMB RAIDER REVELATIONS on our Sega Saturn, and I lost interest in that one fairly early on.

Never played TOMB RAIDER CHRONICLES.

I have TOMB RAIDER: ANGEL OF DARKNESS for PS2, but the gameplay on that one is really annoying. It's similar to RESIDENT EVIL gameplay, only with RE you're shooting mostly. Somehow it seems to work for RE.

But when I think of TR I think of leaping and swinging and jumping out of the way of boulders and bounding off crumbling bridges and things.

As well as shooting, hehe. :)

But the company that produced TR Legend and TR Anniversary abso-LUTE-ly got the gameplay right!!!

AND I JUST FINISHED THEIR FIST INSTALLMENT!

:D

Originally, I got stuck in Kazakhstan (with the Tesla gun, if you're familiar with the game) and then TR Anniversary came out, and I figured I would end up finishing that one first.

But then I got stuck in the Lost Valley (which surprised me since I've played the original TOMB RAIDER through COUNTLESS times. I mean, yeah, this is a new game, but the levels -- and even the many of the secrets -- pay homage to the original game) and put that down for a while.

Anyway, this last week and a half I've become obsessed with TR Legend, and I've been playing it for an hour or two at a time, until today.

I woke up, finished this week's chapter, then started playing around 4:30 pm. I started at the beginning of Kazakhstan, and I ended up playing through the level!

So I kept going...

And ended up playing through England!!!

By this time it was, like, 11:00 pm and I had had 2 large glasses of coffee and nothing to eat. So I paused the game and made myself some food, took about 5 minutes to digest, then I kept going.

I played through Nepal, dying SEVERAL times because it's a level of trap after trap after trap! You shimmy across an icy ledge and it crumbles just as you're leaping to another ledge, which itself crumbles; but you just barely leap to a path which crumbles beneath you as you run and you get to the end and leap to a pole that you can only swing on once before IT crumbles!

lol

It's really quite exciting. When you get to Nepal you really get a sense that you're at the very end of the game!

But I kept playing, and Brian crashed just before I played it through.

Often when Brian & I are both off, he'll sit and watch the game, chatting with me. It's nice to have conversation reminding me that this is just a game in parts, and it's REALLY COOL to have someone yelling with me when I die or when I JUST BARELY execute a difficult move! It makes it feel more like a sport, lol. Or any action movie.

Brian was in the chair and I was on the couch -- our normal positions when we're both hanging in the living room -- and he woke up while I was just starting Bolivia Redux, the last level. I actually played a bit of that level on my feet, moving from the couch (where Brian sleep) to the chair, lol. :D

Luckily for me, the last level is mostly cut-scenes, and the fighting is very instinctive. I don't know if I could have survived another long, drawn-out, trap-filled level, lol.

And then the game was over and I had WON!!!

:D

YAY ME!!!

I think it will be a while before I get back into TR Anniversary, though, lol.

I think I'll just savor my triumph for a while. ;)

Not that the medium really makes a difference, but it does kind of FEEL different. You know?

I Look Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!!

AND WILLOW!!!

:D

Don't believe me? See for yourself!



As a Joss Wheadon fan, I couldn't be more delighted!

I also, apparently, look like Sam Neil, so that's groovy! (I've always wanted to run screaming from dinosaurs! Weird little fetish of mine.)

And Ashton Kutcher, too!

I certainly don't mind being considered to be in his league!

And I've had a crush on Diane Lane since I was in my early teens.

Now I know why, lol!



Brendan Fraser doesn't surprise me, though. I've been told we look alike since ENCINO MAN.

Which is cool, 'cause he's SUCH a brilliant actor!

I am a little surprised to discover that I look like Britney Speares, however.

Didn't see that one coming. (Not that I thought I resemble Sarah Michelle Gellar or Alyson Hannigan, lol.)

AND ANYKIN SKYWALKER!!! I was obsessed with Darth Vader growing up! So it's cool that this face-recognition software says that if Vader had taken off his mask, he would have looked like ME! :D

(Wait a sec... He did take of the mask... And he was all gnarly looking. Hmm...)

I love technology and the Internet!!!

:D

Howdy Friends & Lovers

Actually... There's only one lover, hehe....

AND I GOT TO TALK TO HER FOR QUITE A WHILE AFTER WORK!!! :D

Talk about a GREAT start to my weekend!!!

I came home and I was just about to plop into bed without signing onto the Net, but I signed on (just to be safe) AND MY GNOMEY GODDESS WAS ONLINE!!!

This has been a groovy week...

I was scheduled to go in for some over-time Tuesday, but I ended up going into work Monday, as well. But the groovy part is that a single day off suited me just fine this week!

usually I'm very protective of my time away from work, but with my baby working so much lately, it didn't bother me going in 2 extra days.

So that's cool!

I'm 2 days away from the deadline of my next chapter, and I still don't know what I'm gonna write, lol.

But that's kind of the way it seems to be going... I think about it casually from Thursday up till Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday I get serious and the next leg of the novel presents itself.

So I'm not really worried.

My baby says that's just my process, and I suspect she's right. :)

When I'm not working I've been playing Tomb Raider Legends A LOT, watching PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLDS END, and listening to the 2005 Broadway revival soundtrack to SWEENEY TODD!!! Those tunes just keep flitting through my noggin. I never know when to expect one of them, or which one it will be, lol.

GOOD music, though! (I don't think anyone has ever questioned Stephen Sondheim's brilliance, lol.)

Like many, many people in the world, I am eagerly anticipating the Big Screen adaptation due out this month.

Unlike many of those people, I'm not merely excited about it because of Johnny Depp...

My friend Tommy was in a production of it at the Globe of the Great Southwest, a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre back where I grew up. If memory serves, the ONLY reason I went to see it was because Tommy was in it.

I didn't know Sondheim's work, and the it was promoted as Sweeney Todd -- not Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- so I figured I was going to be watching this girly musical.

MAN, was I surprised!!!

This would have been back in (or around) 1990 or 1991, and I wasn't as deep into Horror as I was as a young teen or as I am now. But there has always been a little Dark Side in me (as far as entertainment goes, that is; not interested in it in Real Life) and I simply couldn't believe what was going on up there on stage, lol!

It's STILL edgy, in 2007!!!

But beyond the gran guignol aspects of the story, there was (is) deep PASSION in that play! And Sondheim's music cuts to the core of that passion, filling you up and making you want to sing along with the characters emoting on stage!

Really brilliant!

Then , and I confirmed this with my ex-wife last night over the phone -- for whatever reason, she and I listened to the soundtrack (the original Broadway cast from 1979, with Angela Lansburry as Mrs. Lovett) over and over again!

So the play is tied up with a bit of my history, to me.

And I've been a fan of Tim Burton since EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and he has let me down so often... But if he does what he does -- the moody, dark, gorgeous visuals -- and doesn't step on the story, the film version of SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET should be POWERFUL!

And if it's not... I can just go back to the soundtrack, lol.


Okay, I think it's about time for me to start thinking about bed, so PEACE!!! :D

"Heartburn Changes Everything"

A commercial made this (rather bold, I feel) statement.

Everything, apparently...

This is alarming information.

If heartburn changes everything, then apparently I don't even have to have it to be affected!

If heartburn only changed things for the person suffering from it, it wouldn't change everything. It would change "everything related to the person who suffers from it."

But this ad stated that heartburn "changes everything".

But then... I've noticed that there are some things in my life that haven't changed. My shoe size is the same. My bedroom appears to be the same. My love of pizza appears not to have altered in the slightest.

So maybe -- just maybe -- the writers of this commercial didn't mean everything. Perhaps they were merely over-stating for dramatic effect.

Even still, this is alarming news to me!

Even if heartburn merely changes almost everything, that's still a VERY POWERFUL disorder!!!

This means that a team of dedicated research scientists got together and made a list of all the things that heartburn changes, and all the things that heartburn doesn't change, and the list of things that heartburn changes IS LONGER!!!

I would seriously like to see this list!

I need to know exactly what heartburn changes! (It could be vital to my future!)

For instance, does heartburn change how much I make?!! Does it alter my middle name?!! Does heartburn change my Gnomey Goddess's feeling for me?!!

Good God, my ignorance of what all heartburn changes could alter my reality as I know it!!! :O

And this doesn't even address the issue of HOW heartburn changes the things it changes!!!

In fact, come to think of it, maybe heartburn doesn't change everything for the worse! This data was not revealed in the 30-second commercial spot... Maybe heartburn changes something for the better!

For instance, in what way does heartburn change my income? Does it give me MORE money?

If so, I may become a fan of heartburn!

And in what was does heartburn poverty in Third World countries? Maybe heartburn cuts down poverty there.

Again, if this turns out to be the case, I gotta give kudos to heartburn!

WELL DONE, HEARTBURN!!! :D

I'm also curious to know how heartburn changes contact with alien races...

For all we know, heartburn might smooth over any misconceptions aliens might have gathered about the human race from observation -- you know, like what our tendency to war with each other might accidentally lead them to believe about our temperament and state of mind as a species -- and convinced them that we're really quite groovy people after all.

In which case, I <3 HEARTBURN!!!

Heartburn REWLZ!!!

You know, I was starting to get tense about the direction of human society -- what, with the sinking of the US dollar, Global Warming and the proliferation of Reality TV shows -- but now, thanks to heartburn, I think we're all gonna be just fine!

THANK YOU, HEARTBURN!!!

AND GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE!!!

:D

7 Days Later...

Hey, sorry it's been a while. Now that I'm writing, the weeks seem to just zoom by! It's nuts.

But cool! :)

DUDE!!!

Remember me blogging about having RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK on my iPod? Well now I have BATMAN BEGINS and SPIDER-MAN 2, as well!!! :D You should totally check out this guy Alpha Geek's article on how to do it.

I'm going through my KISS dvds now. I figure I need at least one KISS concert with me at all times.

OH!!!

Okay, here's the REAL news this month...

DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY IS ON THE AIR!!!

Well, that is to say... It's not... At the moment...

Here's the thing...

Okay, back in July I discovered that Dirk Maggs and Above the Title Productions was adapting the Dirk Gently novels (and completing the unfinished third novel) for 3 BBC Radio 4 series. And when I discovered that there were 2 sources: One said the first series would air in December 2007, the other said the series would air in January 2008. So as to not make myself crazy with anticipation for the next 5 or 6 months, I put Dirk Gently out of my mind.

(Well... Not entirely... I re-read both the books first. THEN I put it out of my mind.)

So Wednesday I wake up with this burning need: I must know the status of the Dirk Gently series!

I mean, it's December now (well, it almost was on Wednesday), so even if the series doesn't start until January, it would be good to know if it's, like, January 5th or January 30th. Right?

But I couldn't check it out until I found a slow period at work.

I do a quick Google, and find THIS...

I MISSED THE FIRST SERIES!!! :(

Man it sucks not being able to get BBC Radio here.

However... There was kind of a bright side...

I missed the first series by SO MUCH that the cds are already available! So that's cool.

And if the cds are available, maybe there are download-able mp3s available, as well!

So I search...

The BBC Shop has it for £9.99, which is roughly US$20.00 or $25.00. I can't afford that this paycheck (this is the rent paycheck), but maybe next one.

Amazon UK has it for £9.59. Save a buck or two there...

But both of those options mean I have to wait FOREVER to hear this series, about which I am now positively OBSESSED.

Then I remember my mp3 download sources!!!

I go to Audible.com, where I find it for $20.35! And with that there's no shipping charges! (And I don't recall, but I'm guessing shipping from England would probably tack on another $5. So Audible.com is not only more convenient, but also cheaper!)

Then I make a mental note to check iTunes when I get home! When I do, I find it on iTunes for $17.95 or something. EIGHTEEN BUCKS!!!

I listened to the entire series before I went to bed Thursday morning!!! :D

So in less than 20 hours I went from wondering when the Dirk Gently radio series was going to begin, to discovering I had missed the first series, to discovering I could now enjoy the whole series all at once, to having enjoyed the entire series!

Big day for Ray Jay, lol.

I did feel a bit disappointed, none the less.

With Dirk Maggs' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE series, I got to wake up on Tuesdays, all excited to listen to this week's episode on BBC's website. It was so badass! There's just something novel about listening to it episodically, being forced to wait a week between episodes.

But then I remembered something: I totally missed the Tertiary Phase of HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE. IN FACT, I didn't even know the last 3 HHGG books were being adapted for radio until I walked into a Borders Books and saw the completed series on cd!

So, if anything, my DIRK GENTLY experience is kind of duplicating my HHGG experience.

Which is kind of interesting.

Well... Interesting to me, lol.

So anyway, starting June 26th, visit the BBC Radio site and you can listen to that week's episode for 6 days after the episode is broadcast! If you listen to the trailer (which is the only thing available to listen to at the moment, until the second series starts up) you'll get a good idea of what you're in for.

And, by all means, get your hands on the first series!!! Dirk Maggs is absolutely BRILLIANT!!! The man knows how to make movies in your ears, lol!!! I kid you not, everything I've heard him do (BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL, SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY & BEYOND, FLYWHEEL, SHYSTER & FLYWHEEL, HHGG Tertiary - Quintessential Phases) is EXCELLENT! And since he's doing audio, he's able to tell stories that no film studio would spend the money to do right! Even in animation! I mean, I love the direct-to-dvd movie SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY, but if you want to know what really happened (besides reading the comics, which you should do anyway, lol) then listen to Dirk Maggs' SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY & BEYOND!!!

Okay, I should probably get back to work now.

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! :D

And to all a good night!