Lost In 2 Great Books...

I'm almost finished reading Eckhart Tolle's A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE, which is probably the first Oprah Book Club recommendation that I've ever read, lol. But my friend Traci told me about the free 10-week online class, which is available for download on iTunes the next day.

So I watched the first 2 classes (Chapters 1 & 2) on my iPod, and bought the book. It's good reading! :)

Also, since I've seen the cover of Stephen King's current novel, DUMA KEY, I've been obsessing over it. So this morning, after I bought a money order for this month's rent, I treated myself to the unabridged audiobook version ($35 at Audible.com, $32 at iTunes!) and fell asleep listening to it. Then I listened to it on the drive to work, and have been listening to for the past 2 and 1/2 hours at work. (I have all my heavy-duty Friday stuff done, so the rest of my shift is babysitting the technology and keeping the beast fed. Plus, I keep the iPod audio quiet enough that I can easily hear all three of my stations, in case something went wrong.)

I paused in my listening because my iPod was almost out of juice, lol. I'm recharging it (AND watching/listening to my stations) as I write this.

I think DUMA KEY may turn out to be one of my favorite King novels! :D

I'm LOVING the book so far!

I should explain: One of the big reasons I started obsessing over the book after I saw the cover art is because, for whatever reason beyond the ridiculously obvious, the cover art and the blurb reminded me of the weekend I spent in Florida at my friend Chuck's wedding. (Chuck just happens to be as devoted to King's writing as I am to Michael Crichton's. So there's that, as well.)

I remember obsessing over the book INSOMNIA when I was living a fairly solitary life in Georgetown. The book is about an older guy and his life after his beloved wife passes away. I've read the book a few times now. I really enjoy just being in that world. (Chaos and supernatural murder not withstanding.)

I dug on CELL a couple of years ago, and it's definitely up there as one of my favorites, if for no other reason that it's King and it's (more or less) zombies. Oh, AND it's post-apocalyptic. (Got a weakness for fictitious apocalypses...)

But I've only returned to hang out in that world once, so far.

But Duma Key...

I'm kind of digging being there! :)

And the relationship between the guy (in his 50s) and his adult daughter... There's definitely something very "me" about this story so far! :D I'm really relating to it!

The audiobook is divided into 9 2.5-hour chunks (21.5 hours total running time), and I'm about 4 hours into it. So I'm really in "Act I", if you thought of King's work in screenwriting terms. I've seen glimpses of the supernatural evil lurking somewhere in the darkness, but it hasn't really sprung just yet.

But that's fine by me! :)

I'm just living on a Key right now!!!

Awww MANNN...!

I just noticed that we're airing one of those trashy "Laugh At Videos Where People Get Hurt And/Or Die" shows for the next hour! :( NOW is the time I REALLY need Mr. King to divert my attention, only the iPod's recharging!

There's no work I can be doing to distract myself for the next hour, so I could really use a distraction.

I LOATHE watching people get injured. It sickens me. And it sickens me even more to know that there are enough people out there who aren't bothered watching their fellow humans suffer.

More than that, wasn't FACES OF DEATH supposedly banned in several countries 20 years ago? How come we can show stuff worse than that on TV now? What the hell?

Blah.

Okay... Smoke break, then I'll see how much the iPod has charged. I only have 2 more hours left of my shift, so maybe I don't need it to recharge all the way.

Hope you've got some fun shiny objects with which to distract yourself, too! :)

And happy Easter!!! :D

WOO-HOO!!! :D

I just finished outlining my screenplay!!! :D

What that means is that the next step is JUST WRITING IT!!!

The writing-pages part doesn't take NEARLY as long as the figuring-out-what-happens-and-making-sure-it's-something-good part!

I got an email that Screenwriting Frenzy starts April 1st. Last year the rules stipulated that the project had to be begun and completed within the alloted 30 days. (I think.) So I need to check to see if a movie that's already outlined is admissible. I hope so, cause I think that would be a cool, participating again this year! (I believe last year was the first year of the contest, so it would be REALLY cool to keep going with it!)

I'll let you know after I look into that...

I also need to hear back from my friend (the one who keeps me to my weekly deadlines). Technically, as per our agreement -- which has been INVALUABLE for keeping me productive and not letting me slack until I loose the creative enthusiasm for a project -- I would be taking some time off until April 1st if I sign up for Screenwriting Frenzy.

So if my friend (my Producer, really; in fact, I think I'll start referring to her as that from now on) doesn't go for it, I won't be joining anyway. Which would be fine from a Big Picture standpoint: This script is about getting my career started, not about competitions that don't actually have cash- or production-prizes. Screenwriting Frenzy is more about providing writers with an excuse to do some work and make it more exciting -- which is indescribably valuable! (Often, screenwriting feels like thankless work when you're not getting any recognition -- like a paycheck -- from it.)

However, if my Producer feels like the script is best served just by getting it done now, striking while the iron is hot, so to speak, then that's cool, too! Who knows, if we went that way, I might possibly be done BEFORE April 30th! One never knows...

Also, BIG DAY TODAY!

The reason I completed my scene breakdown this morning -- rather than procrastinating until tomorrow and finishing it then, since Tuesdays are my weekly deadline -- is that TISHA'S IN TOWN!!! She's spending Spring Break in Austin, and tomorrow is my day with her! If Brian's not too worn-out from work, he'll be joining us, too!

And if all that weren't sweet enough, I HEARD FROM MY GORGEOUS GNOMEY GODDESS TODAY!!! :D She didn't have long to chat, she just wanted to tell me she loves me! :D How lucky am I!!! xoxoxo

So two bad-ass days in a row for me!!! :D


Hope your day -- your whole WEEK -- is bad-ass, too!!! :D

Cruisin' Along...

Sorry I haven't really been blogging lately.

The screenplay I'm working on is coming along nicely... Not super-fast, but not slowly at all. Just this nice, even pace! :) I think this may be the first one I finish that I'm actually proud of! :D

At this moment, I'm trying to avoid the living area, where Brian is watching yesterday's episode of LOST online. I have to get ready for work soon, so I'll watch it later.

THE INTERNET RULES!!! :D

I've also been following TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES thanks to Hulu.com, and that's fun! They've also got the first 3 seasons of NEWS RADIO and the series THE CROW: STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN!

HULU RULES!!!

Um... What else?

Haven't heard much from my sweetheart, so I'm guessing she's really, really busy lately. :( Poor hotty!

OOH! Brian & I are all caught up on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which (you guessed it) RULES!!! And I've watched the first 2 discs of Season One of ALIAS. (Another RULEr)

And I suppose that's kind of it.

Basically, I find myself thinking "I am finally sort of living the life I imagined for myself" a lot with this screenplay, as well as the Zencasts I've been listening to lately.

For example, this past Tuesday (a few days before payday) I scrounged some change and the couple of bills I had in my wallet and went to the store. Only, my gas was way low, and it was a nice evening, so I walked.

It was one of the most gorgeous walks ever! :)

The gold and violet twilight cast this golden glow over the apartments and trees, the odd family out enjoying the dusk and each other, the odd fellow walker taking their dog out.

On my path to the store I pass this old movie theater that has been closed down for maybe a decade now, but it's the same theater wherein I saw INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM the Thanksgiving after I turned 14, and where I saw myself (or, rather, failed to see myself, as I was an extra in a sea of extras) in STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY in 1991. I always wish the theater was still open, but I am always reassured somehow by the fact that it hasn't been torn down and replaced with something else.

Every step of the walk was rich and textured and beautiful!

And on my way home from the store I, once again, realized that I am living the life I imagined for myself so many years ago! That day I woke up, checked my email, worked on the script, took this gorgeous walk, and was on my way home to watch a mini-marathon of ALIAS!

THAT is LIVING! :D

The only thing missing was my Gnomey Goddess. The walk would have been indescribably more beautiful with her, and ALIAS marathon would have been more fun. (If she's into ALIAS. I haven't gotten a chance to ask her yet.)

I mean, obviously I don't make the money I hope to one day make, but that's just money. And I rent an apartment rather than owning a home, but that's not REALLY a big deal, either. The only thing missing from that perfect Tuesday was my Gnomey.

But if I just imagine she was out of town on a business trip or something and would be back home soon, that day was PERFECT.

So life is groovy! :)

And I hope you can say the same, too!!! :D

It's A BEAUTIFUL Day!!! :D

I just got back from seeing U2 3D!!!

You haven't lived until you've had Bono standing right in front of you, singing "Wipe your tears away" to you and only you, lol!!!

But I've got to back up a bit...

So I wake up and Brian and I discover the way to remove all out mental blocks to writing, lol!!! I mean, I haven't been blocked in a while, but Brian has. But what's more, this method of developing a story has certain built-in almost-guarantees (because there are no ACTUAL guarantees when you're creating ANYTHING) that allow you to proceed with confidence. (And lack-of-confidence is a HUGE writing block in itself!)

Now, this new information -- gathered from a very reliable source -- is, for me, ON TOP OF the fact that my current screenplay is whizzing right along, no problems, no blocks! This new information will simply speed the process up, immensely! :)

So my day is already off to a smashing start!

After that is breakfast with Mom (who is in town for a few days). The meal? PIZZA!!! Domino's pizza with Double Dave's Pepperoni Rolls!!! (If you haven't had Double Dave's, your life is not quite complete.) Plus, as Brian and I are on our way to meet Mom and this feast she's procured for us, I'm reminded of when Brian & I were kids and Mom would order Domino's. So that was nice.

The reason Mom is in town, sadly, is because her mom, my Gan-Gan, is in the hospital. However, after dining with Mom, Brian & I went to see Gan-Gan, and that was a nice visit! :) It's always alarming when your 70+ (80+?) has to go to the hospital, but it's reassuring when you visit her and she's just as quick-witted and funny as ever! :D

After that, I worked on my writing for an hour and a half, then time for U2!

I HAD THE ENTIRE THEATER TO MYSELF!!!

It was crazy!

It was kind of strange, in a really, really positive way, though...

I got into U2 when I saw the trailer for U2 RATTLE AND HUM back in 1988. I had heard their music, and liked most of it. But I wasn't a fan, necessarily.

Then I go to the theater and I see this trailer... Red background, black silhouettes walking across the screen in slow motion as these exciting notes from an electric guitar slice through my ears, and then the slicing notes become this gorgeous repeated melody that life my entire being into the air and fly me miles through the sky, and then the title card: U2 RATTLE AND HUM, OCTOBER 27, 1988.

That's the way I remember it, anyway. ;P

I don't even remember what movie I had gone to see. I just remember being transported by this trailer and I HAD TO know more about this band!

In particular, I HAD TO HAVE THIS SONG!

Turns out, the song is "Where The Streets Have No Name" from JOSHUA TREE, and the rest of the album is pretty damn good, too, lol!

Being who I am, I also had to buy Eamon Dunphy's UNFORGETTABLE FIRE - THE STORY OF U2 and read it, rereading sections of it several times. (This is back when I was 17 and didn't read unless I absolutely had to, lol.) The book lead me to collect U2's entire discography to date.

I fell in love!

I had them on VYNIL, if you can believe that! (Yes, I am THAT old, lol.)

U2 became my favorite band.

I could go into HOW into them I was, but I'm kind of eating up your Net-surfing time as it is.

But in 1991 I was in L. A. trying to be an actor. I wasn't getting any of the parts I was auditioning for, all my personal relationships were imploding (including my marriage) and life was just sucking, hard-core. I was alone on someone else's turf.

Then I heard "The Fly" on the radio, and I wanted to know who this new, exciting band was. This was an amazing sound! Really fresh!

And then I discovered who it was!

RATTLE AND HUM was the album I listened to the least. I prefered their earlier work, particularly UNFORGETTABLE FIRE and OCTOBER. I guess in the back of my mind I had resigned myself to the fact that U2 was kind of over. I mean, I had seen it many, many times before. Bands put out a few great albums, then put out some not-great ones, then they break up and leave the industry. You still have their good albums, you're just never going to heard new GREAT stuff from them anymore.

But then U2 reinvents itself!!! I mean, "The Fly" was every bit as exciting a fresh to me as "Where The Streets Have No Name" was back in '88!

I got to buy the cassette at the same Tower Records that Richard Gere drove by in PRETTY WOMAN, too, lol.

And I guess this theme of reinvention sort of seeped into my subconsious, because the same month I bought the tape I decided to move back to Texas and get my life back together. The idea of leaving L. A. morphed, in my mind, from a concession of failure into the beginning of the next phase of my life. (Which it turned out to be, actually.)

This isn't an "I Owe It All To U2!" type of story at all, lol. It's just an interesting coincidence, the way the band and their music has sort of been the soundtrack of my life through various stages, from teenager into my 20s and into my 30s, so far.

I'm sure you have a band like that.

Also...

U2 was THE band that I desperately wanted to see live. There were a few of them (the original KISS lineup in makeup, natch), but U2 was THE band. And when they reinvented themselves AGAIN for ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND, I finally got to experience that! (No Doubt opened for them, when Gwen Stephani was still the frontman for a ska band, hehe.)

AND -- and this is a little strange, I'll grant you, but no less emotionally significant to me -- I got to see U2inSL (a SecondLife cover band) with my soon-to-be Gnomey Goddess in SecondLife! She is a U2 fan, as well!!! :D

So tonight I go to see them in 3D, a few months shy of 20 years after they first rocked my world with their first movie. My brother wanted to go with me, but he's had a LONG day and elected to crash.

So I went alone.

And I was REALLY alone, lol! I had the whole theater TO MYSELF! It was, for 90 minutes or so, as thought I had a personal screening room! :P Just me and U2. I could sing along with the songs and giggle with child-like glee at how AWESOME this experience was, just enjoy the movie in any way I felt like!

And I DID, too! :)

And it's sort of cool in a metaphorical sense, because it's great sharing music with other fans, but more often or not, when you're listening to their albums, it really is kind of you and the band. You know? The music speaks to you on a deeply personal level (if it's that kind of music, that is, lol) and you always feel like no one else will ever have the same relationship to that music that you do.

And it's true. Because if you love U2 also, you and I don't -- and can't -- have the SAME relationship to that music. Our experiences are unique.

And even though this is atrocious grammar: My experience of U2 3D was WAY unique!!! :D How many other people on the planet have enjoyed a personal screening of the flick?

Hi, All...

Got a phone call from my Gnomey Goddess a couple of days ago!!! :D xoxoxo

It had been a while, so it was AMAZING to hear her voice again! More musical each time I hear it!!! :D

She told me she was going to be online, but it was late (for me) and so I camped out in front of the computer with PICK OF DESTINY playing... And woke up several hours later! :( She had typed a whole conversation to me, and I missed it. :(

Still, she was so sweet and loving that it made me feel as thought she had curled up with me as I slept, and departed just seconds before I woke up. <3 <3 <3

Oh, yeah... and I've had a couple of other experiences, too, lol. ;P


Um...

Well, I began my weekend sick. :( I was forced to call in Friday and Saturday. I started getting back to well again late Sunday, and I was able to rediscover boredom Monday, lol. But then Tuesday brought some ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and ALIAS, via NetFlix, so that was cool, hehe.

In fact, Brian & I have watched all of season 1 and most of Season 2 of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, and we're laughing our balls off!!!

Then, today before work, we watched the pilot episode of ALIAS and had a blast! We have the first 2 discs of Season 1 in our household at the moment, so I predict more fun and excitement!

We just finished watching yesterday's episode of LOTS and O... M... G...!!! The very last word of the episode (just before the LOST logo glides toward the camera) blew both our heads off!!!

LOST-viewing, I believe, must be best as a group sport. It's just TOO COOL to turn to your buddy and go, "Did you see THAT coming?!!" And then you speculate for half an hour afterward about what it all means, lol.

DUDE!!!

I hope I get to watch ongoing episodes of LOST with my Gnomey Goddess, and speculate with her!!! :D She always tends to speculate toward the obsurd, so that will be SO MUCH fun!!! :)

Um...

Today -- Thursday night/Friday morning -- was a bitch. But that's not very interesting to write about.

Oops. My laundry is done. I need to go grab it.

I didn't have anything more interesting to write about, so I'll say "later" for now.

Later! :D

Btw: 2 Shout-Outs...

I LOVE YOU, MY GNOMEY GODDESS!! Thank You For Us!!! :D

And THANK YOU to "Senior David"! You know why! :)

My House...

Okay, first off, I think I made a mistake...

I took these shots of the house I just built late night/early morning...

When I shrink them down to a size small enough to read in a blog entry, the colors seem to condense and become one. :(

Sorry about that.

I hope to do something cool in my house, so that you can see what it looks like in broad daylight.

As I took these pics, I genuinely thought these pics would be fine. But I wasn't thinking about the fact that I would be forced to condense these pictures by 100%, lol.







Okay, so that's the outside of the house at night. I rather like the Mangey Raiders flag on the outside of the house! It's fully lighted, so if you see nothing, from afar, you WILL see the Mangey Raiders flag, hehe. :)



This is inside the side door. The front door is a bit more boring...



Here's the Living Room area...

It looks pretty cool in poor lighting, but you can't see much.



This is a reverse angle on the Living Room. You can see the side doorway (the one with the INVADER Zim poster to the side) down the hall.



Off to the side of the 2nd Floor is a sort of dining room. Here I am sitting at it.



Here is me and my friend Tangie in the 2nd Floor "Common Room" type area.



Just off the 2nd Floor Common Area is my room...



..and here's me sleeping in my bedroom (which you probably can't see because I took these pics during the night/morning)...

And this is Tangie in her room.

She lives on the 3rd Floor. She's a friend to my li'l bro & me, so she rents a room and helps me offset the cost of the land.



She's a bit more creative than I am at decor...







The 3rd Floor is meant to be a sort of Game Space, but due to SecondLife gaming rules, there aren't a lot of games we can play anymore... :(



However...

EVERY home should have a hot tub!!! :)



And so Tangie & I enjoy a relaxing evening/early morning hangin' in the hot tub.




Granted, this isn't the illuminating tour I promised, but -- as I said -- perhaps I'll have a cool House Warming Party or something soon, with better pics so you can see it better. :)

PEACE!!!

Down The Rabbit Hole!

DUDE!

Wikipedia rules, but it's a little bit TOO convenient, lol. I'm starting a new screenplay and I'm still trying to find a "shape" for the story, so I'm researching thematic ideas.

In the course of the last 3 or so hours, I've gone from reading about the theories about simulated reality to reading about natural selection! I think my head might explode, lol.

And that's just the wikipedia articles! That's not even going into more reliable sources. (Which you have to do, because if you look up any wikipedia article on a topic you know well, you'll find inaccuracies and omissions that the article writer missed.)

The scary part is that reading about natural selection doesn't have anything to do with my research, lol. I was reading theories on simulated reality and that brought up questions (just "I'm curious about.." things, not story-based questions, lol) which brought up new questions, and on and on until I look at the clock and laugh out loud at my own meandering mental state.

I haven't found anything that helps my story, yet, either. (Though sometime in the future I may be able to write my own version of THE MATIRX with some of the reading I've done, lol.)

I may get to see my Gnomey Goddess this weekend!!! :D xoxoxo She emailed me a coupld of days ago and told me she may get some down time.

So between getting some lovin' from my lover and working on this bad-ass script, I'm just in heaven!

It's funny, too, because last night at work I was taking a smoke break, and Austin is sch a GORGEOUS city at night, and I was thinking about some TV shows and movies I need to watch as research for parts of my screenplay, and it occurred to me that I am living my dream!

Not completely, of course. My dream is waking up with Gnomey, sharing breakfast with her, then writing for 5 to 10 hours, then hanging with her some more, and maybe going out with her and friends to see a movie or for some Starbucks or something, then going to sleep cuddled up with her.

BUT... One of the reasons I chose writing (and filmmaking in general) as my profession is that I love the thought of watching movies and reading books and learning things ALL THE TIME! :) hen I figure out how to make writing/filmmaking my FULL-TIME job, I will be SO spoiled, lol. ;)

Anyway...

I should probably get back to work. Just wanted to take a break from the idea-overload, lol.

Oh, and btw...

BEWARE THE INFINITE MONKEY!!!

"Missed It By THAT Much"

That's a quote from an old, old movie that you haven't seen unless you're as old as I am. It's called THE NUDE BOMB.

MY BABY IMed ME!!! :D

That's the good news.

I missed her by 12 minutes is the bad news.

Worse still... I was just in the kitchen doing dishes, maybe 15 feet away!!!

How cruel can fate be!

Blah.

I'm a bit grumpy because of that. I know she's been working hard and dealing with family things, and I HATE that when she snuck online for a minute to tell me she loved me, I wasn't there to tell her how much I love and miss her back!

I could use a drink. :( (But payday is coming up in a few days so, naturally, I can't afford one, lol.)

In an attempt to make this entry not so down, I noticed something interesting...

I've been on this Jack Benny kick lately, and reading about him, I discovered that he's got an interesting link to David Letterman.

First, understand that both of these men are comedy heroes for me. I discovered Benny back in the '80s when all my favorite heroes cited him as their inspiration. So I went to the library and checked out some OTR tapes of his show, and quickly fell in love with his humor as well.

Benny was this master of absurdity, using the fact that radio was an aural medium to create these whimsical scenes in your imagination.

Letterman's humor has that sort of quality, too. His Top 10 Lists, specifically, often create these impossibly absurd pictures with words.

Now, I don't know if Letterman was influenced by Benny, but I know Johnny Carson was one of his influences. And Carson was sort of an indirect protege of Benny.

But that's not their link.

Jack Benny's show ran from 1932 to 1955. (His radio show. He had a couple of TV shows, also, which were successful, but I'm talking about his radio show.)

HOWEVER...

After 16 years of success on NBC, the head of CBS stepped in and stole him away. From 1949 until 1955, Benny's show was on CBS.

The reason Benny jumped networks?

The head of CBS recognized what an asset his show was to whichever network aired it and treated Benny with the respect his first 16 years on air rightfully earned him.

Jump ahead a few decades in broadcasting history, and we find LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN debuting in 1982, following Johnny Carson's THE TONIGHT SHOW. Letterman built up a loyal following and legendary status as a comedian over the next 11 years, to be stolen away by CBS, who were willing to give him a show at an earlier time slot (which, to my mind, indicates a show of appreciation and respect for hsi talent).

Now, Benny when on to successfully broadcast for 6 more years.

Letterman has been doing THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN for 15 years now, so the comparison begins to fall apart, hehe. Before his broadcasting career, Benny was successful in vaudeville, while Letterman didn't spend much time in stand-up comedy (plus, the two live forms of performance are pretty different, anyway)...

BUT...

I just think it's kind of interesting that history sort of repeated itself -- in an up-dated sort of way -- 45 years later.

We all geek-out about different things, lol.

:)

MY GNOMEY EMAILED ME!!! :D

Poor thing's been so busy with work and life that she hasn't been able to contact me lately. But she made a point to email me Tuesday and it MADE MY FRIGGIN' WEEK!!! MY MONTH!!! (She calls me "Beautiful"! hehe As in "Hey, Beautiful!" How hot is that!)

Sorry I haven't made and entry lately, but it's kind of been more of the same... I spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday trying to figure out what I was going to write before Tuesday.

Then, Monday morning, just before I was going to turn in for the night, inspiration struck and I churned out just over 7 pages!!! (I consider anything between 5 and 10 pages good, but if I turned in only 5 I would feel guilty.)

Also, my friend Lothar -- who is new to SecondLife -- has inspired me to want my own residential house. For years, the thought of a residential home in SL seemed kind of silly because once I log off, I cease to be until I log in again, during which time I'm unlikely to spend much time in my house.

However, lately I've been just sort of hanging out in SL again. PLUS, Lothar has this dream pad that made me want one, lol.

Besides, though I haven't been able to duplicate the success of writing a script in Thoreau's cabin by Walden Lake in SL, I'd like to try. (Come Monday night when I don't have any pages written yet, I always wish I could escape some place cool to do my writing. Maybe a groovy SL pad could be such a writing nook.) (Maybe... Worth a shot.)

Plus, besides hanging with my baby in SL, I'm never more happy than when I'm making something!

So you can expect picks in a week or two.

What else...?

OH!!! LOST RETURNS TOMORROW!!! :D My friend Tommy is throwing a Season premiere party! I already told him that I wasn't going to be able to make it, then my boss came in late tonight and told me I'm off tomorrow!!! So now I just have to wait for Tommy to wake up, get my text messages and emails, and get back to me, lol.

Worst Case Scenario: I'm off on the busiest day of my work week and finish building my SL hose, then watch the Season Premiere Friday or saturday, when it goes online, lol. ;P

Hope you all have a FANTASTIC Thursday!!! (And the rest of the week, too!!!)

PEACE!!! :D

CLOVERFEILD ROCKS!!!

I finished the pages (all of them) that I hoped to finish yesterday.

So today has been a day of drinking and celebration. :)

I watched CLOVERFIELD online, and I CAN'T WAIT to see it on the Big Screen!!! :D

Know that I would prefer to see movies Opening Weekend, and to be able to pay for the tickets, and help influence the weekend box office grosses. But I'm not a rich man or a "man of means" and therefor, I must enjoy what I enjoy by any means I stumble across, lol.

But the point is that CLOVERFIELD is a WORK OF GENIUS!! :D

It's what I hoped the American GODZILLA would be!!!

It may be one of the GREATEST monster movies EVER MADE!!! :D

Okay.. I'm going to hang out in SecondLife for a while.

PEACE!!!

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! xoxoxo

:D

I Should Be Writing

Well, technically I am...

About 80% of writing is thinking about writing, trying to come up with what happens next.

Or, put another way, about 80% of writing is procrastination.

So writing this blog entry is actually part of the process.

WE'RE CAUGHT UP ON LOST!!! I finished Season 3 last night! :D Now it's all about waiting for January 31st!

And I'm on Level 8 of TOMB RAIDER ANNIVERSARY! That's really cool for me! I've made it to Level 8: "Tomb of Tehocan" in Greece. 6 more levels to go! In fact, once I get to Level 9 I'll have beat Peru and Greece and will be in Egypt for another 3 levels.

So that's cool.

I was worried about the gorillas, and -- it turns out -- rightly so. They're BASTARDS! I mean, they're not all that hard to kill, but they always manage to do damage to you, and they always show up in 2s!

And the game's not shy about sicking them on you! "You're leaving a room? COUPLE OF GORILLAS!" "You're entering a room? COUPLE OF GORILLAS!" "You're leaving that room? A GORILLA AND A LION!" "Entering another room? COUPLE OF GORILLAS!"

And they're scary, too! I mean, mowing down zombies is creepy, but seeing a couple of realistic-looking gorillas hurtling toward you is terrifying on some deep-down primitive level.

LOVE TO MY SWEET THANG!!! xoxoxo

I haven't heard from my Gnomey-Goddess for a while now, so I'm guessing she's up to her sweet tush in work.

I'm gonna go now.

I want to crank out 15 pages tonight, so I should probably stop procrastinating.

PEACE!!!

:D

LMAO!!! :D

I don't know if my last blog conveyed the SHEER HEAVEN that Brian's sushi was, but we FEASTED on more sushi than you can eat at a buffet! Seriously, if we had paid for the quality/quantity of sushi we consumed a few nights ago, we'd have to sell both our cars and take out, like, 3 more credit cards!

I mean, have you ever felt FULL from SUSHI?!!

I ate one meal that day: Brian's sushi feast!

Okay, so, to give you a little context... Money's tight. (Not a big surprise in my life, but I managed to pay off ALL my bills, so it's particularly tight this paycheck.) I've allotted myself $2 for a meal each working day. There are these great, microwavable Chinese cartons for about $2 (I'm fond of the Chicken & Rice, but the Garlic Shrimp left me a bit dissatisfied) as well as a few bowls of instant Chinese noodles (the dry kind that you add water to and nuke), and as I came home this morning I was pondering what I might grab on my way to work tonight.

I have also been craving corn dogs for a few weeks now.

No idea why.

BUT...!!!

I discovered these Hill Country Fare coorn dogs with beef franks THAT ARE REALLY GOOD!!!

They're nuke-able, and they come 5 to a $2-package...

So...

If I have a fairly large breakfast (at 6:30 pm, lol) before I go into work, then I can make a meal out of 2 of them, and I have 3 for a meal the next day!

Now, I just want to clarify that this isn't a telathon, and I'm not asking for donations, lol. I'm actually having a great time at the moment, and I find our financial... challenges... kind of quaint! I've lived long enough to know that when I sell that million-dollar screenplay or novel (or I win the lottery, or whatever) I'm going to look back on THIS very time in my life with a sort of odd fondness. Perhaps even a wistful sort of longing. (The Past -- once we've survived it -- often seems preferable to the Present. Sometimes I recall my first few years in Austin, living with my parents again -- most of my day spent pounding away on a primitive "Brother Word Processor" on a third- or forth-hand particle-board desk -- with a pang of nostalgia. Go figure, lol.)

So anyway...

I open the fridge and see a Tupperware container with two tiny notes stuck on it:

"Sushi for you OK" and "You Are Happy!"

LMAO!!! :D

Brian and I often rejoice in what is known as "Engrish" -- those wonderfully enthusiastic signs and slogans translated from Asian languages into English! NEWS RADIO did an episode called "Super Karate Monkey Death Car" in which Jimmy James writes an autobiography that doesn't sell well, but it sells really well in Japan, so he has it translated back into English and resold here in the states, to hilarious result! (It inspired a blog entry not long ago.)

Engrish (or Janglish) ads and signage are particularly genius!!! "Go Skating Funny Boy! Just Stand There, Don't Fire Back!" "Please would paper chuck in wastebin Thank you!" "Let's Play! Become delghtful time!" "Sunny Town Erection Party 21" "Please don't worry if a fire is occurring. Our hotel has reliable scattering facilities to ensure you evacuate safely."

And so on, lol.

Anyway, so finding Brian's "Sushi For You OK You Are Happy!" was a fantastic way to wrap up my day on SO MANY levels!!! :D

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[Erm... Political Correctness Check: Please know that it is not my intention to mock a people, culture or hemisphere here. The Asian languages are said to be the most complex and subtle on the planet, and I have no doubt that that if I attempted to speak them, the results would be equally -- if not more -- hysterical. I normally don't give a flying fuck about "political correctness", but it's also not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings.

Except my friend Kelly!

If he's reading this, I hope he's crying like the little baby he is!

YOU HAVE A GIRL'S NAME, DUDE!!!]


*******************************************************************************

[Okay, Political Correctness Check #2: Please know that above, it wasn't my intention to mock men named Kelly. Just my best friend, who happens to be named JORDAN KELLY! I mean, come on! JORDAN KELLY!

CRY, BITCH!]

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[P. C. Check #3: Okay, I didn't mean to hurt the feelings of ANY Jordan Kellys -- or even Kelly Jordans -- EXCEPT my buddy.

I love him dearly, and he's one of my bestest, bestest friends EVER.

But I like to make him cry.]

Hey! You Got Yourself A Fish Biscuit! :)

I've spent the last 3 days on a mysterious island with Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley, and on the planet Virgo where humans will have begun colonizing the planet in 3010.

Both places, you may have guessed, are fictitious, lol.

Brian & I have finished Disc 3 of Season 3 of LOST! ("It only took the polar bears 2 hours." "How many of them were there?")

And then, naturally, I've been working on my novel.

But I'm declaring "Brain-Fry" and taking the day off.

I woke up to Brian in the kitchen looking like...

Well, looking like this...



There's some backstory here...

I think it was after we finished Disc 5 of Season 2 of LOST, we're jonesing for more LOST but we've got to wait for Netflix to send us the next discs. So we went back to Season 1...

Now Brian is sort of a culinary adventurer, and so when Jin makes some mysterious something (that the filmmakers never show us, but which everyone on the island is reluctant to eat) Brian gets this obsession with the idea of mastering sushi.

He wants to make sushi.

Now, we're drinking at this point and we're broke, so I go online -- Wikipedia, natch -- and learn a few basics about sushi.

First off, what we know as sushi is makazushi, the rolled form.

Also, the green/purple "skin" that holds the rice and stuff in place is called "nori" and it's made out of an edible seaweed.

When I go shopping for the weekend's groceries, I find some rice and nori that's designed to make sushi-making easy.

I buy it, and Brian tries it out and it's delicious!

But Brian's not satisfied.

So a few days later he buys some sheets of nori, and stuff to put inside the sushi, and so I wake up to Zushimon's Sushi Lab...






I can't wait to try it! :D

I heard Brian moaning with ecstasy a minute ago... I'm guessing that was the sound of him trying his first peice of sushi and judging it satisfactory, lol.

Oh, and the pirate getup... No idea...

I mean, sushi is seafood, and pirates lived on the sea...

I dunno.

But it looks cool, right?

Anyway, I'm gonna check with the Zushimon and see if our sushi's ready yet! :D

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! xoxoxo

*******************************************************************************

UPDATE: Just thought I'd let you know that the sushi was a resounding success!!! The best I've ever tasted!

My brother is a genius!

And now we're laying about, full of sushi and ridiculously contented, lol.

Life can be GOOD! :D

DON'T SHAVE THE MONKEY!!!

I'm at work, battling a sudden need to sleep, as well as a desire to write coupled with a weird sort of block.

Well, it's not a block, really. It's more like... a whiny-baby wish that I had a writing partner who could follow me around and do half the writing, or at least talk to me and encourage me and give me ideas or help me make my ideas better when I do have time to write.

I can so relate to Douglas Adams:

When he wrote the first 2 THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY radio series he had a producer or two and some other creatives around him to bounce ideas off of and generally keep him company as he wrote the scripts...

Then when he wrote the first two novels, he was simply adapting the radio scripts to a different medium...

A combination of the radio series and the first 2 novels then made him internationally famous, and probably more than a little well-off...

Then came time to write the third (but not last) book of the 5-book "trilogy"... This one, I suspect, came with more difficulty, because all he had was what had gone before... But this time he was all alone when he wrote...

While writing the next 2 HHGG novels -- as well as 2 Dirk Gently novels and the non-fiction LAST CHANCE TO SEE -- he gained a reputation for hating to write. He was (in)famous for procrastinating, even to the point that someone from the publishing house would be sent to his home to sit there and wait for him to finish writing each chapter.

What changed between that which made him a famous writer and the rest of his career?

PEOPLE!

While he was writing what made him famous, he was surrounded with creative folks to help keep him inspired and encouraged and (presumably) having fun while he wrote.

AFTER he became a famous, successful writer, he was left alone to do it by himself.

I, similarly, began my creative endeavors as an actor in community theatre. Always people around, and the acting (and costume and makeup and set-building) got done between long stretches of laughter and fun and craziness.

But writing -- unless you have a partner or a writers' room -- takes place in solitary confinement; you're often told to shut people out and explain to them that you need to not be disturbed while you're writing.

I think writing would be better if it were a group sport, somehow, lol.

Blah.

Anyway...

DUDE!!!

Yesterday before work, I managed to conquer Level 4: Tomb of Qualopec!

Then today before work, I managed to tackle Level 5: St. Francis' Folly!!! :D

I'm just cruising right along!

I am SO NOT looking forward to the bosses at the latter levels, but I've got about 7 levels to go before I even need to start worrying about that.

HOWEVER...

The next level is Coliseum, and I don't mind telling you I'm terrified of the gorillas and the crocodiles!!!

I mean, I've played the first 2 TRs a couple dozen times, and it's scary whenever you run into a gorilla or a T-Rex or something... And that's with graphics which are a bit embarrassing nowadays, lol!

When I ran into the raptors and the T-Rex in TR Anniversary I very nearly soiled myself! :O The state-of-the-art graphics make the adversaries just a million times more intimidating and scary!

And I caught a screencap of the gorillas in TR Anniversary...!!! :O

On the one hand, there is a crazy part of me that can't wait to experience it, to see just how difficult they are to defeat...

On the other hand, there's the saner part of me that prefers to scale ledges and hop around obstacles, free from the threat of dismemberment, lol.

I mean, like, the BEARS! The old-school bears were fairly innocuous: Big brown representations of an animal that SHOULD be scary, but just really isn't.

The bears in TR Anniversary? They LOOK like BEARS!!! You know, those thousand-pound monsters that can kill you with a single swipe of their claws!

Tomb Raider rules! :D

OOH!

And Brian & I have finished Season 2 of LOST, and should be getting the first 3 discs of Season 3 in the mail tomorrow!!! :D That's really exciting!

I considered helping the time pass here by watching a couple of episodes tonight, but I felt a bit guilty watching them without my bro.

It's more fun watching the show with him anyway!

Okay, I'm gonna go pretend to be busy.

PEACE!!! :D

I Think I'm Getting Over It...

It's Tuesday before I'm supposed to go back into work, and I think I'm actually going to be able to.

So yay there. :)

I report this with cautious optimism, though, because I came down with this junk (a sort of persistant chest cold, not a full-on flu, thankfully) New Year's Day, and I thought I was just about over it when I went into work last Wednesday.

I stayed at work for 2 1/2 hours. :(

Then I called-in for every day last week. :(

I started feeling a bit better Sunday. Like I really am on the other side of this. The "getting well" side.

We'll see.

But I've been writing the last 2 days. Before Sunday, if I even tried to write my brain just didn't function.

See, when I write -- even just a blog entry or an email -- it feels like there is some not-physical substance that resides inside me, and like I'm tugging this substance out.

Imagine a closet door that is jammed and can't be opened very wide, and you've got a huge, puffy comfortor in there. You reach in, grab a handful, and just tug! You pull out as much as you can until you've forced the whole thing through that narrow opening.

That's what writing feels like for me. (Like, when I sit down to start writing. There are different ways to describe the feeling when I'm actually writing.)

Before this shift happened Sunday, I couldn't get any of that comfortor through the closet door. It just wouldn't come.

So, I think I may actually, genuinely, be on the mend.

At the very least, I hope I'm well enough to get back to my job. I'd hate for them to realize they don't really need me there, lol. ;P

DUDE!!! LOST!!! :D

Brian and I have watched the first 5 discs of Season 2 of LOST! We're waiting for the last 2 discs, as well as the first 3 from Season 3, to show up in the mail now.

And check this out: I discovered tonight that we don't actually have to wait for Netflix! You can watch episodes from all 3 seasons of LOST online!!!

How cool is that?!! :D

We have the first season on dvd, though, so we're just rewatching Season 1 for the time being.

Oh, and speaking of the genius that is J. J. Abrams... CLOVERFIELD!!! I've been obsessing about that, too. I did a little research into the Dharma Initiative, which lead me to researching LOST more generally, and the LOST EXPERIENCE, and it turns out that CLOVERFIELD is being marketed in the same viral fashion that Abrams & Co. market LOST!

Check it out: Here are some viral promotional websites for Slusho, Tagruato and TidoWave. The first 2 are fictitious corporations (that have something to do with the events -- or the events behind the events -- in the movie) and the third one is a fictitious group that is protesting the activities of one of the corporations.

How friggin' COOL is THAT?!!

The Tagruato one has an update about "an altercation" that happened "at the Chaui Station", but assures us that "Tagruato is taking every measure necessary to ensure the safety and well being of all staff and crew." :) I'm guessing this is setting up backstory for the events that will unfold in the movie.

Then the TidoWave site has a post from 1-5 that warns:

"Do NOT return to The Farm. It’s crawling with agents on Tagruato’s payroll. It’s a set up!!!"

I mean, how cool is that?!! No idea what it means, but then I'm not suppose to! I'm just supposed to start imagining things and asking questions.

And I am! :)

What's insane to me is that my friend Kelly and I have been talking about cool ways to make a story (a movie, a novel, whatever) this cross-platform experience that sort of engulfs the person experiencing it. We've come up with some amazingly groovy ideas, too!

But then I discover that Abrams & his collaborators ARE DOING IT! These cats really are spreading their stories into these deeply textured psuedo-realities! :D

Very cool!

Okay, I'm rambling now.

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! :D xoxoxo

Okay, going away now.

PEACE!!! :D

What Color Do Hallucinations Taste Like?

I don't think I'm currently living in the real world, lol.

I've been in bed since this past Monday, getting up long enough to try to go to work Wednesday, but only making it for 2 and a half hours. I've been doing the hand test, checking my forehead with my hand to see if I have a fever, and my face is never hot enough that I think I do have one.

But I feel REALLY trippy at the moment!

I woke up this morning in straight-up pain, coughing and hacking as though my lungs had dissolved overnight, but now I'm just in this weird state, where reality seems to be behaving in a way other than what I expect it to.

I mean, I'm not talking to my deceased father or anything, but reality isn't acting entirely real at the moment.

I WANNA BE WELL AGAIN! :(

You hear that expression "At least you've got your health" and you SO take it for granted! But even if you have bills piling up that you can't pay, you really have a lot if your body's working correctly!

I keep a few music videos on my iPod, one of which is Pink's "U + Ur Hand" -- (1) because she's hot, (2) because it's a bad-ass, rockin' song, and (3) because it, for some reason, reminds me of my baby, who is the one that introduced the song to me -- and I swear the video kept changing tempos on me as I watched it. :( I can't possibly be in my right mind at the moment.

Or... Perhaps Reality isn't behaving correctly at the moment... Maybe Reality has a cold...

I guess that's equally possible...

Maybe...

Maybe I should return to bed and stop pestering you with my madness, lol.

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! :D

Peace!!! :)

Bloggin' From The Sickbed...

I'm taking a break from fevered dreams and going to sleep freezing and waking up covered in sweat...

Night before last, I wanted to write a quirky blog about what I like about being sick, lol.

It would have entailed the sensation extravaganza of being too hot and too cold in one's bed, and the sort of fun of trying to find that balance.

But then I went to work last night... and came home... And now I'm sort of lost in the uncomfortable-ness of being sick.

So I can't write that blog entry anymore. :(

See, when I was young, back in school, and I would get sick, it was kind of like playing Hooky, only with more restrictions. I could lay in bed and watch movies on the VHS, and that was kind of cool.

And the last time I remember being this sick was a year or two ago, and while I tossed and turned in bed I watched EVEL KNIEVEL and SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. I even watched HIS GIRL FRIDAY on my ZVue!

So when I spent 2 days tossing and turning and jumping from freezing to sweating bullets, I blissfully thought I was simply processing a cold.

Then I went to work...

It was the first day I was scheduled to return after my 2-week vacation.

I thought "I've been in bed for 2 days... I'm surely on the upside of whatever this is."

And hour and a half into my shift, I discovered I was not. :(

NOW I remember why it sucks so much to be sick. :(

When I got home last night, after 2 1/2 hours of my shift, I popped PRINCE CASPIAN into my CD player to help me drift off to sleep as peacefully and pleasantly as possible...

I had THE STRANGEST DREAMS!

I don't remember much about the narrative of the dreams -- and there were many -- but I remember that they all had to do with going to sleep freezing beneath sheets and comfortors, and waking up -- literally -- soaked in sweat!

And there was a lot of confusion about The Way The Kingdom Was Back Then and The Way The Kingdom Is Now. But I don't recall the particulars.

See, I've got a strange relationship to illness because, from my perspective, it's just part of being a human. However... DAMN it hurts! lol

This New Years Eve and New Year's Day was mostly me laying on the couch and Brian & me watching TWILIGHT ZONE episodes.

And that was fun! Please don't get me wrong.

But if I had paid more close attention to my body and what it was telling me, I might (MIGHT) have noticed that it was descending into a cold. :(

Still...

Okay, sitting upright in a chair is making me all kinds of dizzy at the moment, so I'll bring this to a close...

One thing that SO helps the human body's recovery process is contact with those you love... My baby called me today after work, and it was SO AMAIZING!!! For those however-many-minutes she and I chatted, I felt just fine! (Besides the odd gut-wrenching-cough from time to time, lol.) My baby ALWAYS makes me feel better than I did before!!! (Bless her!)

Another thing that helps one recover, I believe, is a decent dvd library, lol. Brian & I are watching the second season of LOST, but while I've been recovering, I've been falling asleep to the first season of LOST, as well as THE COMPLETELY MENTAL MISADVENTURES OF ED GRIMLY and (less successfully) THE CHRONCLES OF NARNIA audio books.

Now, granted, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA didn't help me out a great deal... But I believe that's because of the episode I picked, rather than the series as a whole.

But I wouldn't have answered the call from My Baby if I hadn't been home, sick...

So I have to conclude that -- whatever the inconveniences -- being ill DOES play an integral part of being ALIVE. :)

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!