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You may henceforth address me as Signore Pastabelli.

I did a silly thing...

Okay, I stayed up well too late this morning reading this AWESOME book -- which I'll tell you about in a second. Because I knew I was only going to get maybe 5 or 6 hours of sleep, I set my alarm to wake me up 1 hour before I'm supposed to be at work, instead of the usual 2 hours. Which means I'm going to have to jump in the shower immediately after waking up, then head straight to work. That doesn't give me time to (1) wake up or (2) cook something for breakfast/lunch. I don't even have time to slap a sandwich together on my way out the door, even if we actually had some sandwich meat in the apartment.

So I figure I'll splurge and pick something up on the way.

Now, I don't really have any money left from my paycheck, but I do -- well, did -- have a $10-bill in my wallet. I could be frugal and buy 3 Jr. Whoppers for $3 and have some money left over from the ten, but I've done that too recently. I want something TASTEY. I want to spoil myself a little.

I want some FAZOLI'S. :)

They've got this combo called a Classic Sampler Platter.



Fettuccine Alfredo, Lasagna, Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce and 2 Garlic Breadsticks... Mama mia!

But I'm hungry! I've been fighting off a cold or something since last Saturday and my body needs some fuel! So I add a slice of pizza to my order.



Okay, insane?

Sure.

But OH, so tastey!!! :D

Holy schnikies!!!

Just a moment... I need to sit and digest a bit...


...

...

...


Okay, I'm better.

So this book I was reading all night...

It started with an episode of Paranormal Podcast featuring Dannion Brinkley. Dannion's story is amazing: He was (more or less by his own admission) a redneck bastard who was struck by lightning in 1975 and died.

For 28 minutes.

In that time he visited Heaven for the first time. (The first of 3 so far.) In that time he learned some really astounding stuff about the nature of Reality.

I could try to tell you his story, but I'm not going to do it nearly as well as he will. So I highly reccommend you click on the links I'm providing and actually listen to the podcasts yourself. It's time well-spent. I think you'll really be glad you did.

I say "podcasts," plural, because after hearing the Paranormal Podcast episode I immediately had to track down more podcasts with Dannion!

I found a podcast called WOTU's Podcast, which calls itself "conservative paranormal". Listening to their intro and their bumpers I thought I was going to really hate this show. Apparently, the "conservative" part means that their perspective is Christian, and if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior you're going to burn in hell.

I'm always leery of people who feel comfortable condemning others to eternal damnation.

But the hosts seemed to be smart and open to what Dannion had to say. And the reason I was listening, anyway, was tp hear more of what he had to say. So I enjoyed the podcast immensely!

But it wasn't enough.

I had also found a podcast called Merlian News (still don't know what the name means) that had more of an open-minded and International bent.

All 3 podcasts were great, but they still weren't enough!

So I broke down and bought the new book -- the one he's promoting on these podcasts -- Secrets of the Light: Lessons From Heaven yesterday on my way to work. I started reading it as soon as I had some down-time during my shift, and I finally forced myself to put it down around 1:00 pm. I tore through 123 pages in about 13 hours I plan to finish the rest tonight. My friend Lisa is waiting to borrow it tomorrow.

This is an AMAZING read!!!

It's about spirituality vs. phisicality, but Dannnion's coming from a "Wtf?!" perspective. He's been studying How and Why.

He's a paranormal investigator who's actually been to the Other Side a few times, lol. I mean, he's actually not a ghost hunter at all: He's all about how we live while we're on this side. But the way his mind works, he's able to answer questions for us. This book should totally become a mainstay in the libraries of all paranormal investigators, I believe!

But it's more important than a mere tome on paranormal or spiritual theory. This really does provide a practical way of thinking about how we live and do stuff while we're here.

Blah.

If you're into this, give the podcasts a listen, grab the book as soon as you can.

If you're not into it, what the hell are you doing reading this blog?! lol :P

Okay, off to finish the book and maybe get some work done on my novel. (Dannion's book has actually given me a few things to think about for this story I'm working on now!)

To my Gnomey: I LOVE YOU, SWEETY!!! xoxox :D

And to anyone else reading this: I love you, too!!! (Just... you know... not in quite the same way as I love my Gnomey... you know.)

And if I don't write before then...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!!

My the time this posts, it will, technically, be the day AFTER Christmas... But...

I worked both Christmas Eve and Christmas. Which is okay. I can use the money. PLUS, I got Thanksgiving off and may very well have New Year's Eve New Year's Day off, so no complaints.

My favorite Christmas gift is probably a call from Gnomey! :D

She called me at 6:00 pm Christmas Eve, which would be midnight Christmas for her! THE MOMENT is turned Christmas she called me! (hee-hee) Also, she's feeling better!!! Yay! :D And when we talked she said she felt like a kid again because she just couldn't wait until Christmas morning proper, lol. (OMG, could she be MORE lovable?! I think not!)

Also, I got to spend Monday with Tisha! She was in town, so I got to do a sort of family dinner thing with Tisha and many of my ex-in-laws. It was cool! We played some Liar's Dice/Pirate Dice and chatted and ate AMAZING food. It was all very, very groovy! Tisha & I even got to sort of slip away and just catch up with each other away from the rest of the family.

Tuesday, I had to cancel a visit to the Trail of Lights because my body's acting weird -- I have the symptoms of a chest cold or head cold (runny nose & cough) but without the headache and energy drain that let's me know I'm actually sick. So that was a bummer.

HOWEVER, Brian took that opportunity to cook a traditional Christmas dinner. So we watched Christmas movies and pigged-out and generally we of good cheer, celebrating the season the best we can.

Then Wednesday, Christmas Eve, I wake up to a call from my sweetheart! I do the work-thang and it's groovy enough. I visit NORAD Tracks Santa org once, but Santa's already in full swing so I figure I'll give my virtual Santa-tracking a miss this year. But I did take the time to check out this year's Homestar Runner toon! :)

I get home and Brian & I gamble in the virtual (PS2) Hard Rock Casino while listening to Christmas Carols. (That was particularly fun because Lewis Black has a bit about spending Christmas in Vegas.)

I woke up to a slew of wonderful text messages wishing us a Merry Christmas (the 1st or 2nd one was from Gnomey), and even Happy New Year. And Brian was still playing Christmas movies/specials, so I got some Frosty the Snowman and The Muppet Christmas Carol before coming into work.

And now it's time for me to get to work in earnest. I've got a lot to do between now and the end of my shift. However, as I work I'll be milking the last drop of Christmas I can: I'll be listening to The Adventures of Superman (OTR show), specifically the "Looking For Kryptonite" run (which, for OTR or Superman nerds out there, immediately follows "The Atom Man" and "The Atom Man In Metropolis" runs, back in 1945). The reason I consider this extending the Christmas Spirit is because the show ran through Christmas Eve and Christmas and the characters acknowlege this within the show. So... You get it, right?

But I wanted to check in and wish everyone a Merry Yule-tide!!! I hope you receive more blessings than you can count!!!

:D

OMG...

I just watched a really, really bad movie: Bad Girls From Mars! I mean this was a STINKER, lol!

There were a few funny things about this viewing, though...

First, it took me backward in Time. It's one of those "comedies" that isn't funny, but doesn't want to make the effort to be actually good. But what gets you to pick up the flick in the video rental store is the cover art. The premise seems kind of fun, the freeze-frames from the movie that they use on the back of the cover seem to be reasonably well shot, and you know there's going to be nudity in it. (This is assuming, of course, you're a male living in the era before free Internet porn.) I've rented more videos than I care to innumerate because of this marketing formula.

But this was when I was a horny teen and didn't have any other outlet for my... less noble urges...

And, in fact, as I watched this flick I estimated that it was probably made around 1980 or 1981. This would have put it right around the time that Betamax and VHS videotapes began to sell and video rentals began to come into being. (If memory serves.)

I was therefor shocked (SHOCKED, I tells ya) when I IMDb-ed this flick and discovered it was actually made a full decade later!

I mean, people should really have known better by then, lol.

Still, it was kind of a blast from the Past to squirm through bad dialogue, cringe-worthy acting, non-existent cinematography and direction and truly abysmal "jokes" with the only brief reprieve being the occasional flash of flesh, lol. (There is a running gag wherein the murderer leaves clues behind on his latest victim in the form of a poem. The last line of each poem completely fails to rhyme, even though you -- the viewer -- think you know what the rhyming final word will be. When I thought this movie was made in 1979 or 1980 I thought this was rather a good on-going joke. Knowing, however, that it was made 18 years ago I'm less impressed. The Muppets utilized more sophisticated comedic construction back when Jim Henson was still in charge.)

Another amusing thing about watching this was some of the responses of some of the Hulu viewers. For the most part, Hulu seems to house TV shows and movies that are too old to be offensive in any way. As a result, the response posted by some of the Puritans who stumbled onto this flick seemed well disproportionate.

I mean, Hulu states flat-out, very clearly, before the movie starts that this is an R-rated movie and some material will likely be inappropriate for anyone under 18.

So where was the surprise?

Besides, the different logline descriptions Hulu uses clearly tells you that the movie is centered around sexuality: specifically, the gratutitous sexuality of a low-budget film-within-a-film. I mean, I watched the flick and it is exactly what the description says it will be: It's a bad movie about low-budget (exploitation) "film-makers" who are making a sex movie. It is therefor not much of a mental stretch to assume the the movie itself is probably low-budget (exploitative), probably poorly made, and probably has unnecessary nudity and sexuality.

But a few post-ers accused the flick of being a porn -- I know porn (like, biblically), and this was NO porn! -- and one even proudly announced that they could only watch the first 37 minutes and some-odd seconds of the movie.

(Between you and me, I was tempted to bale on this flick way before that, like around the 10-minute mark. There wasn't much story or acting going on to hold this cat's attention, and there were quite a few nude scenes during that time -- like, more than enough to send a sexulally-repressed person running to confessional. So I'm kind of wondering if maybe this individual wasn't deriving... some other... "usefulness" from staying with the movie that long.)

So anyway, the reason this reaction from some of the more vocal Hulu community amuses me is this: Has it been THAT long that nudity and sexuality has been out of vogue?! I mean, I know we're selling stuff with sex just as much as ever (during this viewing I watched a couple of really funny commercials that were using half-naked hot chick speaking sensually to sell shaving gel; but it was done quite cleverly, I thought) while we condemn sexuality in any non-procreational form in mixed company. But I thought we were getting to the point where we could all admit that even though we're supposed to feel bad about sex and sexuality, we really all enjoy it.

Is it just me? I mean how prude are we as a society? And seriously, how could we possibly decieve ourselves into believing that anyone else is buying that "sex is bad and nasty and dirty" and all that?

And just who are we trying to convince anyway?! Who is it that we think wants us to think that sex is bad?

Blah.

Too confusing for me.

Then again... I've been awake since 2:00 pm today.

Let's say you wake up at 5:00 am to be at work at 7:00 am. This would be like you waking up at 1:00 am on your Thursday (when Wednesday is really a bi-otch, generally speaking) so you can get to work at 3:00 am.

Ha! You'd almost be working my shift then, hee-hee! ;P

Anyway, I may be a little punchy at this point. I can REALLY use the extra money and, for the most part, this work day has been very, very genrous to me! But 1 hour away from the end of a14-hour shift, I believe I may be forgiven if my powers of reason are less than sound.

Plus, you know... I've been corrupting my mind with bad movies during some of that time, lol. ;P

GUESS WHAT!!!

I've made it out of Egypt in Tomb Raider Anniversary and have only 3 more levels to go!!! :D I'm running around Natla's Mines at the moment.

That's, of course, when I'm not writing.

...which is kind of a lot, sorta, lol...

Nah, actually I'm doing fine.

I pretend to give myself a hard time about procrastinating, but right now I think I'm doing well. It's not the speed of the creation, but the quality.

I've whipped outlines out production-line style and on a schedule, and the resultant story -- after months of typing day after day -- is just as weak as I (deep down) feared it would be.

Conversely, when I have waited until I knew an outline was working to sit down and bang out the pages, the result was always just a little more special than I had hoped.

So I'm not actually feeling guilty about how quickly or slowly the outline is coming along. I won't be able to finish it until I know my characters and situations inside and out, and until I finish the outline I can bet that I don't know my characters and situations inside and out. (Years of failure serve as a FANTASTICLY EFFECTIVE teacher.)

There a Q&A with a remarkably talented writer/director/animator here at Creative Screenwriting Magazine's blog. This cat has a really great, really productive attitude about writing!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Please do not listen to the above-linked Q&A if you have not yet seen, but plan to see PIXAR's Wall-E. The Q&A contains spoilers for Wall-E, Monster's Inc. and maybe Toy Story (if you haven't seen that, either).

Now, if you're reading this blog entry, I'm guessing (a) you've seen Wall-E by now or (b) have no interest in watching it (in which case the spoilers wouldn't really ruin anything for you). But I don't want to accidentally ruin any movie for you, so I thought I'd slip the Spoiler Alert in, just to be safe.

Oops!

Gotta get to work. It's the point in my shift (hard days or easy days) wherein I have, like, 5 things that have to happen all at once.

Hope you enjoy your weekend and have an easy-breezy day!!!

:D

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!!

xoxoxo

I haven't heard from her in a couple of days, so I'm going to assume that means she's healing and getting better. (Simply because I hate to think that maybe she's feeling so crappy she can't get in touch. It HAS TO be the "healing" thing! ;P )

Goin' Ghost Huntin'!

No, for reals! I'm scheduled to go on my first official paranormal investigation in January! :D

I hooked up with a meet-up group here in Austin I've reserved a slot for myself and my li'l bro.

I'm SO STOKED!!! :D

We're going from paranormal enthusiasts (like, since the early 80s when we were both kids) to actual investigators!

Well... you know, nooby investigators. We've got plenty of real-world experience to learn, naturally.

Still... Every journey begins with a first step!

AND... Brian and I still haven't haunted (Get it? "Haunted"?) a local cemetery to try to get our first EVPs, but I held a little impromptu EVP session in our apartment with some surprising results:

It sounds like I actually got some EVPs!

I used 2 recorders, and both got some different EVPs and they also bot captured at least one of the same!

I'm still in the process of isolating the EVPs from the rest of the very boring session, but I hope to get them up on the Net -- probably right here on this blog -- for everyone to analyze and debunk and all that.

Now, our apartment isn't actually haunted. It's not like we have paranormal stuff happening in our place. (You know, nothing paranormal that we don't do to ourselves or each other, at least.) And that's why I was, frankly, surprised to get any EVPs. Also, it changed the very nature of what EVPs are (or seem to be) in my mind. I've heard a couple of acclaimed EVP experts statte that EVPs are everywhere (in other words, not only where hauntings are), but hearing EVPs capture at mi casa really sort of turns my understanding of the very nature of what EVPs are -- or might be -- on its head.

I'll go into detail after I've analyzed what I've captured a bit more. It seems that maybe EVPs aren't merely the voices of "trapped spirits" in a certain location, but perhaps layers of communication from different "dimensions", if you will, of the Other Side.

Like I said, I need to look into it more -- A LOT more! -- before I can claim to have a theory.

Anyway...

Blah.

HOWEVER...!

Brian and I have discussed the possibility of recording audio sketches that we would post as an irregular podcast. And now that we have a couple of digital recorders, that really seems like something we probably should do.

AND... Now that I'm actively pursuing EVPs I figure I'll need a place that will host those sound files.

To that end, I've set-up an accoutn at OurMedia.org! This site is free and it hosts video, audio, images, just name it! :D

I may even post an entirely aural blog entry, just because I can. Not the comedy sketched I mentioned earlier (at least, not at first) but just a plain old, boring me-talking-for-probably-too-long audio blog entry.

Who knows... Maybe it won't be boring.

Hey, if you're the praying sort, my sweet-thang is in bed with a bug of some sort! She called me Monday and her voice was so scratchy and weak! :( I mean, she still sounded like an angel, but an angle that needs warm Chicken Soup and lots of cuddles and snuggles (and probably a few boxes of tissues, too). So think positive, healing thoughts about my Gnomey if you have a moment. I'll personally owe you a favor if you do! :)

Um...

Watched another disc from Season 2 of Ghost Hunters this weekend.

Also, we watched 3 episodes of MonsterQuest. That was kind of interesting. So far, I haven't found another paranormal info-tainment show that matches Ghost Hunters or GHI. I'm kind of glad I don't have cable and a DVR because I would probably spend WAY too much time watching mediocre TV shows. As it is, watching TV shows that are on DVD available from Netflix, the number DVDs I can have at my home at one time helps ensure that I can't spend too much time watching TV shows.

I mean, more than I probably should, sure. But not as much as maybe other people do.

Blah.

OOH!!!

Last night I finally saw Get Smart and it was AWESOME!!! I laughed out loud! A lot! I thought it was really faithful to the original Don Adams version and still brought its own contemporary sensibility to the comedy and storytelling! :D GENIUS!!!

The DVD (from Netflix, natch) had the theatrical version, then an alternate-/deleted-takes version where the movie pauses while you're watching it and allows you to view the alternate takes and/or deleted scenes to get a better sense of the production process and even the editing process!

So, effectively, I watched the movie twice, back-to-back before going to bed, lol.

GOOD flick!

Finally, I managed to get a little writing done, but not nearly as much as I had hoped.

Writing is always more difficult at the beginning of the process, because that's when you're figuring everything out. I write from an outline, so I struggle to figure out what's going to happen and how and why, but then when I start pumping out pages it's just sheer fun.

So I guess tha hassle at the beginning is worth it... I just wish it didn't take quite so long.

Anyway, this pops into my mind because I have a few more hours here at work tonight where I can actually get some good writing done before I need to devote 100% of my attention to work.

So I'm going away for now.

PEACE!!! :D

OMG!!! I was introduced to the FUNNIEST web comic!!!

It's called Garfield Minus Garfield!!!

I aired Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (at work) tonight and my friend Dominic asked me if I had seen it, then he pulled it up for me. I laughed my ass off!!! Check it out!

Brian & I saw the first Garfield flick, but I have yet to watch the second one. I didn't watch it tonight because I was on the phone for a few hours.

I MEAN... :O

...erm...

I was working diligently, doing my job with earnest enthusiasm.

So what have I been doing lately...

Umm...

Rereading emails from Gnomey. :)

But I do that frequently. Umm...

OH! Dark Knight is out on DVD, finally, so Brian & I have been watching that.

I've been reading something, but I can't think just what at the moment...

I'd like to say I've been writing, and I have, but... not really as much as I'd like.

I hooked up with a ghost-hunting group here in Austin! This just happened tonight, so I haven't gone on an investigation yet. But I've already asked for the night off in January, so maybe, possibly, hopefully I'll have some interesting experiences that I can blog about next month!

I'll keep you posted.

This month, though, my focus is on getting a strong outline roughed out so I can get started on my novel. To that end, I re-watched Casino Royale this morning before bed and surprised myself by deconstructing the structure of it! If you've watched the movie, you know that it's an amazingly unpredictable movie that doesn't paint by numbers. But there IS a strong structure and strong theme in there, one that you sort of sense internally even though it's not beat-you-over-the-head overt!

So that was cool.

I've seen the flick many, many times and this was the first time I spotted it. It gave me a couple of tips that might help me with my story.

AND...

I've heard that Quantum of Solace is a good, solid Bond flick, but not quite as great as Casino Royale. But now that I've spotted the sort of thematic underpinnings of Casino I'm really curious to see how the writers progressed it in Quantum.

Then, also, watching any Bond film will be cool now because I can apply my theory of what makes the character fun, thematically speaking, and observe how it was handled in that particular flick. 'Cause, you know, there are great Bond flicks and just flat-out bad Bond flicks. So it will be neat to compare how each set of filmmakers handled the character, and see if -- perhaps -- the bad flicks are bad because they ignored Bond's eternal thematic conflicts.

Blah.

Okay, so I'm back to work for now. Brian & I are temporarily without Net at home, so I'll try to blog again next week when I have Net access again.

PEACE!!! :D

Hola!

Just checking in.

Had a fairly fruitful weekend.

I actually got out of the apartment this weekend. Very unusual for me, lol. I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was hysterical, with a friend. I'm a HUGE Kristen Bell fan from her work on Veronica Mars, and it's really funny to see the roll she plays in this flick!

This coming weekend I'm meant to visit the Trail of Lights with some friends, then FINALLY see Twilight! So that should be fun.

I'm still trying to talk Brian into going on our first ghost hunt, too... We sort of came close, but he chose not to at the (more or less) last moment. Since we don't know anyone with an allegedly haunted location, we have to go to public places. But we'd have to do so in the middle of the night, and he didn't like the thought of us, you know, getting mugged or something, lol. As it turns out, minutes after he talked me out of going it actually STARTED SNOWING! It wasn't cold enough to stick -- the snow melted the moment it hit the ground -- but it stayed on the roofs of the cars outside for most of the rest of the night. So Brian was proven right on that call.

Still... I've got a digital audio recorder and I'm itching to try my hand at capturing EVPs. I've read and heard that you're not supposed to go ghost hunting alone... but... Not sure how much longer I can remain paient...

I also advanced 2 1/2 levels on Tomber Raider Anniversary!!! :D I'm not on the last level in Egypt, Level 11: Sancturary of the Scion! So I'm excited about that!

Also, Brian & I watched most of the Cinematic Titanic flicks! We had already seen The Oozing Skull and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. So we watched The Doomsday Machine and Legacy of Blood, which were hysterical! Brian crashed-out during The Wasp Woman and I made it a little past the half-way point. So we've still got that one to revisit in the future. Plus, you know, with Christmas in the air, I'll probably need to watch Santa Clause Conquers the Martians a few more time. :)

Oh! Also, our DVD player died and we were looking for some entertainment, so Brian busted out my old VHS copied of Star Trek: The Next Generation! That was really cool because watching Next Gen always takes me back to my teenage years and making short films with my Theatre buddies, and it just sort of rekindles that sense of FUN in story telling. So that inspired me to get some writing done. (919 words... not as much as I would like, but I'm still working on my outline; when that's done I'll be able to pound out much larger wordcounts much more quickly.)

But rewatching the first couple of seasons of Next Gen got me in the mood to reread Star Trek Memories and Star Trek Movie Memories by William Shatner. Don't know why, but it just did, lol. That's useful, too, because listening to Shatner recount the writing and shooting of both the Classic Trek series and the flicks makes me want to write, also!

Of course, the time I spent listening to those audiobooks could have been spent writing on mine... but... Inspiration is a good thing, right?! ;P

Speaking of writing, I don't have much time left in my shift before I'm going to get busy again, so I should probably see if I can do a bit of creating before work intervenes. (Darn that work... Always getting in the way when I'm here... you know, here at work, lol.)

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! xoxoxo

Hope you all have a GUCKING' FROOVY DAY!!! :D

Beautiful Day So Far!

Okay, okay, times are sort of tight at the moment, financially speaking, and food is a bit on the scarce side...

So after I wake up and play a couple hours of Tomb Raider Anniversary I come to work and GUESS WHAT! Free chili! :D Jason's Deli, too: the good stuff!

Which means that the food I brought for dinner tonight will be there tomorrow! :) THAT'S FREE FOOD!

Plus, a coworker brought pastries and ice cream sandwiches! She gave me 2!

Tomb Raider and free food... EXCELLENT start to ANY day!

And I thought I'd take a stab at brightening your day a bit...

If you don't know Cinematic Titanic, I thought I'd share some trailers with you. Give you a taste and maybe a giggle! :) So here goes:

This is their debut, The Oozing Skull. It came out this past April.



Number Two is The Doomsday Machine released in June. Haven't seen this one, but I can't wait to!



Then in August they released The Wasp Woman. Again, haven't sen this one yet, but it looks fun. I have a couple of DVDs that sort of reproduce the experience of a drive-in double-feature, with movie trailers and that "Let's All Go to the Lobby" cartoon and stuff, and one of the trailers is for this flick. So I'm stoked to see their riff on it. (I have a sickness, you see... I actually watch old, bad Sci-Fi/Horror flicks by myself, with no one around to laugh with me. I just enjoy (some) schlocky movies when the mood takes me.)



And just in time for Halloween they released Legacy of Blood!(!!)



And now, for our Yule Tide enjoyment, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!!! I watched this one with Brian yesterday and it's a hoot! ;P (Of course, you can watch it without the riffing and still laugh yourself silly.)



Hope you enjoy! And if you get a chance, I don't think you can go wrong buying a couple for yourself! You can order the actual DVDs or download the flicks for a reduced price and burn your own DVD! (I burn my own DVDs... I'm frugal that way.)

Here's hoping you have THE BEST day!!! :D

"Poker After Dark?"

Why, I barely met her this morning!

Ha-ha! Get it?

I'm back at work and basically procrastinating doing some writing as my programming goes automated for most of the rest of my shift.

(If you don't know, Poker After Dark is an NBC show that airs after Carson Daly.)

So, I didn't get any writing done yesterday as I spent my last day off rereading Michael Crichton's TIMELINE for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time. GREAT friggin' novel! I swear! And if you've only seen the movie, you have NO idea what you're missing! The flick Jurassic Park managed to get a lot of the DNA info and dinosaur info from the book into the movie (though they could only squeeze, like, a third of the action into it) but, say, Sphere was able to fit almost all the story and suspence into the flick while losing the one aspect that makes the novel so incredible! So TIMELINE is more like the movie version of Sphere than JP in that it does a pretty darned good job of squeezing most of the action into the film, but it leaves out the science stuff (quantum mechanics and actual history about Medievil times) that really makes the novel mind-blowing.

So if you get a chance, read the novel! It's one of Crichton's thicker works, but it is sooooooo worth it!

I sort of threw my sleep-schedule off finishing the novel, though... Or, you know, failed to get it back on track... I finished the novel around midnight Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning, rather) and had nothing left to do until 7:00 am.

So I started watching a Romero zombie trilogy of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead... And fell asleep before Night was over, lol. :( I woke up somewhere toward the end of Dawn and promtply fell back asleep, and slept right through Land.

I know, you're like, "Um... Couldn't you have done some writing unstead of falling alseep to old zombie flicks?" But I just didn't have any rocket sauce in me, I swear! The creative well was dry. I find that when I'm physically tired I just can't muster the mojo.

So anyway, I woke up around 11:00 am and tried to fall asleep to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but I ended up watching it all the way through.

THEN I remembered that Cenimatic Titanic just released their riff on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and I suddenly had to download it. Then I burned it, then I watched it with Brian and we had a great time.

And by this time, naturally, I was well awake.

So later tonight I'll most likely be struggling to keep my eyes open here at work. :( Oh well.

OOH! OOH!!

AND...!!!

Okay, for the LONGEST time I've been stuck on Level 8 of Tomb Raider: Anniversary... The Big Boss(es) of this level are these two centaurs who are nigh-impossible to defeat! Now, I'm not a hard-core Gamer in that I have NO problem buying a game, playing most of it, and when I get stuck before the last level or three just going back and replaying the levels I can get through over and over again for years and years to come. I haven't finished a Resident Evil game since Resident Evil 2 and, really, Tomb Raider games are the only ones I've completed. (All but Chronicles which I've never owned, Last Revelation which I only own on Sega Saturn and the Saturn doesn't work anymore, and Angel of Darkness which looks pretty great but maneuvers like a lead brick.) So Tomb Raider games are really the only ones I sort of feel compelled to -- eventually -- finish.

However, there was a point when I was playing Legend where I couldn't get any further and just replayed the levels I was already familiar with whenever the need for some TR took me.

Then, not long after Anniversary was released (or perhaps just before; I'm not quite sure), I picked up the last level I had left off and actually struggled through the rest of the game.

So for several months, this has been the case with Anniversary. These centaur guys are right bastards, and the game programmers were obviously feeling REALLY insecure about gamers maybe being able to complete the game too easily. (This is evident not just with the end of this level, but also the beginning of the next level, too!)

HOWEVER...

There is sometimes this thing that happens when I'm playing a difficult game and my li'l bro is watching, cheering me on... I don't know if it's his will power, or maybe just his moral support, but several times I have been able to push through an impossible level or Boss with him there that had seemed insurmountable when I was playing all by myself.

And today was no different! The juju was workin' and I NAILED those centaur bastards, and even proceeded to press on most of the way through Level 9!!!

This is WAY-significant, because completing Level 8 also completed the Greece section of the game, giving me 4 MORE LEVELS ("St. Francis' Folly," "Coliseum," "Midas's Palace" and "Tomb of Tihocan") that I can replay at will!!! :D Earlier this weak I found myself in a Tomb Raider Anniversary sort of mood and I could only replay "Peru - Mountain Caves," "Peru - City of Vilcabamba," "Peru - The Lost Valley" (which kind of sucks when you get to the T-Rex because he's one of those insecure-programmers-making-a-Boss-unecessarily-invincible type foes, so I rarely bother replaying the last half of the level) and "Peru - Tomb of Qualopec". But even if I don't finish these next 3 Egypt levels, I still have 8 LEVELS I can play through when I'm just in a jumping around, solving puzzles, killing vicious animals kind of mood! :)

Geez! Three and a half hours until I get off work and I am SO jonesing to climb back into TR Anniversary now, lol!

Anyway... I'd say that my Thnksgiving vacation has been great up until, and including, coming back to work!

How badass is THAT! :D

Okay, I should get back to work for now.

SHOUT-OUT TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! xoxoxo

And to everyone else:

PEACE, LOVE & HAPPINESS!!! :D

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

Actually, as I write this it's 10:17 pm on Monday, so I still have another day-and-a-half or so of Thanksgiving Vacation left, hee-hee. :)

But the Thanksgiving part of it is over, so I'll share that with you in excruciating detail.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Brian & I left Austin around 11:30 am and had a nice drive. We drove past every color of tree you can imagine! I'm talking green and brown, sure, but also yellow and red and orange, and some really groovy combinations of those color pattens! Really gorgeous!

We rolled into Shreveport around 6:30 pm, where Mom put us up at the Fairfield Marriott. (She & her hubby are renovating the guest room at their pad, so she prang for a room in town.)

After we checked in, Mom & Step-dad picked us up and took us out to eat at an Outback Steakhouse, and I had some Shrimp & Fettuccine that made me weep! OMG!!! The shrimp, somehow, tasted like steak, and the fettuccine was simply heavenly! I swear that they must have made the past by hand, right there in the restaurant or something, because I have never had tastier pasta!!!

The conversation was good, also, naturally. It's been a while since we've seen Erminio (Step-Pops), though Mom & I have been keeping in touch via email.

Afterward, they dropped us back at the hotel around 9:00 pm, where we found the beds to be possibly the most comfortable, relaxation-inducing beds EVER!

Okay, that might be a bit of exaggeration.

But I wasn't exaggerating about the Shrimp & Fettuccine!

At All!

Brian & I don't have cable, and therefor don't get Cartoon Network at home, so it was a really pleasant surprise to fall asleep to a show called Total Drama Island! Very funny show! I need to Netflix it when it comes out on dvd.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

When I woke up, C.N. was playing a Tom & Jerry marathon. (Not my cup of tea, but it was cool to wake up to toons, none the less.)

The hotel served a complimentary breakfast that was nice. I usually think of huge bowls of scrambled eggs and stacks of sausage patties and bacon and maybe a vat of gravy when I think "complimentary breakfast", but what they served was a bit more sensible and healthy than that, lol. There were piles of fruit and single-serving cereals and oatmeal and bagels and muffins and the like.

And, they did have biscuits and gravy, though!

They also had a nuke-able bacon/egg/cheese sandwich, so I got my eggs & bacon that way.

It was good.

8:21 pm - Just got back from the Horseshoe Casino!!!

No, wait! This was AFTER the traditional family Thanksgiving!

It was cool! We got to Mom's & Erminio's around 9:30 am and hung out as she cooked & stuff. Gan-Gan has a little house on their land, and Brian & I hung out with her on her porch for a lot of the time, chatting with Gan-Gan and just digging on all the nature around us!

Sometimes family Thanksgivings can be super stress-filled, but today was super-chill. I even got a chance to check my email! And waiting in my Inbox was a Thanksgiving greeting from Her Hotness, my Gnomey Goddess, wishing us all a happy Thanksgiving!!! :D (I mean, how SWEET is she! They don't do Turkey-Day up UK-way!)

I think it was around 3:00 pm or so when we all sat down to give thanks -- by way of stuffing ourselves with tasty, tasty food and grunting and groaning at each other about how delicious the meal is and how we really shouldn't have another helping, but we're going to anyway -- and then we all sat around for a while, bloated and deliriously contented.

Then Mom & Brian & I walked a little of the meal off as she gave us the tour of their land. It's a huge patch, and I can't think of a better place for Mom to do her retirement-thang! Had Brian & I become rich and famous already, I don't know if either of us could have picked out a better spot to set her & Gan-Gan up in.

THEN...

...around 5:00 pm (after what felt like an already long and well-rounded day) Mom got jiggy wit it!

She lives in Louisiana, and yet she doesn't get to go gambling very often. So she took Brian & me to the Horseshoe, where we three proceeded to hit the slots.

I thought about joining a Texas Hold 'Em game, but chickened out at the last minute. I've been playing it on the computer for fake dollars, but I wasn't sure how long could hold my own against real folks. I would hate to have blown my gambling money in fifteen minutes, then spent the rest of the time following Brian around the slot machines.

Wrapping up Thanksgiving Day with some gambling is probably not what our Puritanical forefathers had in mind when they created the holiday, but I've got to say: I am THANKFUL on this day! :)

This has been an unbelievable day of abundance (and some excess, hee-hee) and family and ENJOYING family!

OH, YEAH!!! Entering the casino, I GOT CARDED! This is SO GROOVY to me because I'm pushing 40 and I'm STILL getting carded, lol! My li'l bro -- 4 years younger than me -- and he just strolls in with Mom. Me, they stop and ask to see my I.D.!

How is that possible? NO idea! But it's flattering! ;P

Brian & I fall asleep to a House marathon, which is cool because it was random episodes -- some we've already seen and some from this season, with characters that Brian hadn't met yet.

Then Friday Mom fixed us breakfast and we said our good-byes to Ermino and Mom and Gan-Gan and hit the road.

I spent Saturday vegging, spent yesterday with Stephen King's newest book of short stories, Just After Sunset, and I watched Hancock and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian tonight before hunkering down to work on my current story.

I'm taking a break now, sort of rebooting the gray matter before I get back to my work.

And I kind of can't believe I've still got 8 more hours or so left in this day, as well as all of tomorrow before I have to get back to my "day job"!

A very nice vacation, indeed! :)