Mr. Nihil

2010-04-27T13:25:00.001-05:00

Also, it is too easy to make the D-Bag / Tea Bag soundalike comparison, so don't do that.

2010-04-27T13:21:00.003-05:00

Say, D-Bags:
"I object to some of this, so we will not talk about any of it, so nothing can be done" is the same as saying "Please address me as 'D-Bag.'"
That is all.

2009-07-28T10:31:00.001-05:00

Did anybody else notice:
OK Senator James Inhofe has never provided proof that he was born in the US. His birth records aren't online, and, what is more telling, he has never published his credit card and utility bills in public forums to prove that he has been a resident of Oklahoma for anything like the requisite period to be a senator.
James Inhofe: Foreign spy? You decide.
Naturally, I only make this point to try to subvert the foreign agenda he's been pushing.
Sheesh.

2007-05-15T14:18:00.001-05:00

You, you, you,

You run and you run
and you stop

and then it's time for breakfast.
Mmmm grains.
Yeah.

2007-04-26T19:02:00.000-05:00

When I'm with you, I feel dead.

2006-10-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

She didn't come in from a car, but she did come in from the parking lot.
Her easy smile and crooked teeth looked like every girl down the lane that every boy knew when he was of a certain age, and began to become interested in such things. She was wearing a pleasing fish-net knit skirt of an aquamarine color which, again, was of that time when a young man first begins to know what it means when the older people talk about first noticing young ladies. Under the skirt, she wore blue and orange striped panties, clearly visible when she faced one directly and the sun shone on her. She walked with an unworried expression that said with certainty that she was enjoying a lovely day, and that nothing would spoil it. When she walked into the room, twelve heads turned to the door. It was as though the men with the keyboards could smell what had happened, and knew what they must do.
She paused, momentarily, in the portal, observing the gloom as her eyes adjusted. She sached across the stained concrete floor, and into twelve pieces of fiction as twenty four hands slapped keys furiously, trying to capture the perfection of the moment that had just occurred.

2006-10-18T14:41:00.000-05:00

It's that time again.

2006-04-22T23:16:00.000-05:00

I just finished listening to Anansi Boys (Yes, After Toshi, for them as is counting).
OK, so first, Let me say, the book was

***CRAPPY SPOILERS FOLLOW***

good. Lenny Henry is awesome, and the story moves, despite its large and sprawling nature.

***END CRAPPIEST SPOILERS EVAR***

I'm also going to see about getting American Gods on Audiobook, as Toshi thinks she'll be more likely to experience it (even if she doesn't read it) if it's on CD/Audiofiles. I'm a little afraid, though, that part of it is just that I want to listen to Lenny Henry reading for another four or five hours.
So, I can get it if I sign up for Audible dot Com. It looks good, but I can't actually tell if it is.
Anybody know? Anybody still read this thing?

2006-04-02T01:08:00.000-06:00

This is just too great not to link to. They suckered me in, I gotta say.

2006-01-17T00:33:00.000-06:00

Everybody fail to limbo!

2005-11-20T00:16:00.000-06:00

Wow. It's Saturday. Our show opens in just about two weeks.
The link to Violet Crown is here.

2005-10-25T23:42:00.000-05:00

Man, extra innings are really irritating.

2005-10-25T05:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, so if you have a link to a site which is selling viagra or cheap anti-depressants, you're wasting your time posting here. Nobody who reads this site is depressed, and nobody who reads this site will click on your link. Sorry. It's not personal. My friends are just kinda mean about that stuff. They write nasty paragraphs that say things like "my friends won't click on your stuff." They're mean. 'N Stuff.

2005-10-23T03:29:00.000-05:00

Hey Petunia! How's things?
Whee!

2005-10-23T03:06:00.000-05:00

If you walk around the back of the building, you can still see the scorch marks. They aren't really bad, but they are certainly noticeable. If you look closely, you can even see the outline of a pigeon. It wasn't a terribly bad burn, but it is the result of illegal action. In fact, it's about the best evidence of that same illegal action available. One cannot fault the neighbors for being somewhat angry. I dislike the birds as well, but not as personally as they seem to have taken it. They run into my windows during the day, with the only half-believable excuse of not having seen the glass. I, for one, don't believe it for a moment, but one copes where one can. If they hit my windows with malevolent intent, they have at least not caused any damage.
The neighbors, though, have caused actual damage. I'm not entirely sure how they managed to cause these long, black marks under the eves of my house, but I'm fairly certain they are the direct cause of the blackened avians in my yard.
I visited the neighbors. I suppose there are worse circumstances under which to get to know your near cohabitators. I have agreed not to press charges, and I will pay for the repairs. In return, they promise to explain the process by which they caused the birds' combustion.
I'm giddy with anticipation.

2005-10-23T03:04:00.000-05:00

I love bumping into something I didn't notice the first time. I just watched the Halloween episode of Freaks&Geeks. It has a great review of Crime & Punishment in it.
Is it good?
I don't know yet. Everybody's name is real weird and long.

2005-10-02T00:17:00.000-05:00

Huh. That's funny.
It seems that my angry is broken.

2005-08-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

When you’re tired of the same four blips over and over again, you’re tired of life. That’s what my imaginary friend always said to me and it’s what I’m contractually obligated to believe. You can’t take it with you, unless “it” is defined as “all the happiness in the world for some poor, sad loser.” Take it or leave it, it’s what you get. I like expressions like that, like “Believe it or Not!” They say “I’m lying. You can choose to ignore this fact at your own peril.”
When you’re tired of “Ain’t no Holla Back Girl” by the incomparable (which means, please, don’t compare her to anything or she might look bad) Gwenn Steffannii and her little Japanese chamber maids, when you’re tired of “Hip Hop” and its bastard clones, you’re tired of working for eight hours in a place that smells of sweat and health food. No, not a brothel, although that certainly has its upsides. No, at this point one is considering becoming bored with ones current nocturnal activities. One may already be sick of a loud woman with a thick New Jersey Accent calling one at midnight (OR SO) and saying, in effect, I know you’re already asleep, I know you hoped never to hear from me again, but godamnit, please, won’t you come in. Saying, You’re My Only Hope!
Backing oneself into a corner is a fine way to ensure the soft hearted something to do with our time. Ahhhh, to be a hard hearted bastard, to be the imminently hate-able fellow I can so often see in my Mind’s Eye, I can so often hear in my Mind’s Ear, I can so often understand is so absolutely right when he tells me to tell certain people to, frankly and simply, shut the hell up and go the hell away.
What could be worse than life? Well, says the resident wiseass, death. That’s a sentence fragment and it hurts to see it there, doesn’t it? Yess. Of course it does.
It’s always the end of time. It’s been the end of time since time began and it’ll be the end of time in a million years. Remember: don’t live life like this was your last second; this IS your last second, and so is THIS! Aaaaggh!! It never ends.
But that’s a fallacy, isn’t it? It ends elegantly and alone. It ends suddenly and with great gusto. It ends because that’s the natural order and no amount of nasty will change that, so why not be positive and admit that life is beautiful and, if not eternal, at least sometimes very, very long? If you want to realize precisely how long life can be, sit for eight hours and learn to look forward to putting bottles of fruit punch into a cooler for people far more fit than you to drink. This will teach you precisely how long life is. Christ, has it only been an hour? Well, money in the pot, as they say. Well, “they” don’t say it. My imaginary friend says it. And my contract says it, too. Making you sign a contract when only a few minutes old seems a bit harsh, but that’s one of the bylaws of the club. Life must seem a bit harsh until you look at it from another perspective. Then it needs to look very, very easy.
“Easy like a high school boy,” says my imaginary friend. He needs help, though. He’s got problems. I’m sending him to the imaginary shrink tomorrow.

2005-06-25T17:29:00.000-05:00

Batman Begins was a very pretty movie, and it goes ahead and plays Batman as a horror-type monster sorta character. And bully for it. The story is classic Batman and plenty fun. And now for the massivest spoilers of all.

Seriously, big, ugly spoilers follow.

If you want to be surprised and you read the next couple of sentences, you will fail.

I mean it.

**Spoilers An' Stuff**

Batman loses. Not as far as the movie itself, but the movie sets up all the ingredients for failure. When the movie ends, about (let's be conservative) three or four thousand Gothamites have been dosed with a powerful halucinagenic drug which causes irreversable mental damage, to the tune of homicidal mania, in the space of hours, with the possability of the first mass-manufactured doses a week or more off. Morgan Freeman took the antidote with him on the day that this large segment of the city was dosed, and said, in so many words, that he would need a week to set up mass manufacture. The next day, by the way, he isn't setting up mass manufacture. He's taking over the company.
That's OK, though, right? I mean, he gave the formula to the police for mass manufacture, right? No. In fact, they didn't. When the dose is given to Gordon, no instructions come with it. Also, what is given to the police is not the formula, it's dose of the antidote. They police labs still have to get it to a lab that can reverse engineer it and mass manufacture it. Let's assume they're faster than Morgan Freeman. if so, they're still looking at more than a day.
But that's OK too, right? I mean, it's just the poor people anyway.
It's too bad. Until Batman lost massively, It was a good movie. Hell, even after that it's good. It's just sad that he loses and his city is, if not destroyed, at least crippled.
That's not to mention that there is now no mass transit in the city.
Oh, yeah, and if anybody has a humidifier or a plant mister, you better watch the heck out. Or a tea kettle; or a coffee pot; or a propensity for having water go down ones esophagus. You get the idea.

2005-05-27T06:24:00.000-05:00

I can articulate my disappointment about Hitchhiker's Guide. In the scene in which Ford runs up to the soon ex-site of Dent's home with a cart full of beer, then takes Dent off to the pub, there are some jokes from the book which were omitted. These were taken out in favor of the joke "BEER! Huh-huh-huh." It seems to me that if you feel that "BEER!" is a funny joke, you can laugh your way through the movie quite safely. It contains many such jokes, among them "NOKIA;" "TWO-HEADS;" and "HE GOT NO LEGS!"
I say Americans are smarter than that. I say we've come very far since the stereotype was true and we would actually laugh because somebody had beer or a phone. I say as a society we're as smart as the British Disney jerks who wrote the movie, and probably as smart as the British jerks who laughed at the Hitchhiker's Guide when it was a radio play. Hell, we're among the smartest jerks on the planet, no matter what those other jerks say. We can handle a movie where the guy doesn't get the girl, and we can handle the idea that the government is out to get us and hard to deal with. I say Americans could handle a horrible bureaucracy scene in which the horrible bureaucracy was actually hard to deal with, and in which the forms did not take six to eight seconds each to fill out.
That's what kicked my ass about the movie. I think the average American moviegoer is capable of laughing at convolution and able to leave a movie without rioting, even if the guy doesn't get the girl.

"I don't get it, Maw. Sure, he was a whahny jerk, but whah didn't he get tha girl in tha end of tha movin' pitcher?"
"Don't worry, Hammie. Jus' keep laughin' about tha beer."
"A-huh huh. Beer. That's funny."

2005-05-27T06:23:00.000-05:00

Staying on top of the news is increasingly important these days and here on Public Television, we're trying to help. Tonight on Newswatch, we'll kill two daed frogs.

2005-05-26T16:49:00.000-05:00

I saw Episode III. Lord help me, I enjoyed it.
Bad stuff first: They need to make light sabers out of something besides Water Weenies. Something you can, y'know, hold on to. The question isn't 'will he drop his weapon,' it's 'who drops his weapon first?'
The names are stupid, but after "Dooku" who's surprised? I mean, sure, the bad guy is a Bond villain and his name is "Grievous." OK, whatever.

I-III are pretty. The paintings are good, the sets are neat and the people are movie stars. But, y'know, I like dirty muppets. I think that having a real actual thing is usually better than having a computer-generated thing. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I've seen the first two Terminator movies again since they were new. The effects are laughable. It's not that they are bad, it's just that they look crappy compared to what we're used to seeing now. Tosha pointed out, the star-fight sequence already looks a little dated and the technology is, what, as much as a year old? I don't quite agree with her. I thought it was pretty, and I enjoyed the opening scenes.
I just found that if I sat back and told myself "try to enjoy it," I usually could.
I think the move to go ahead and play off the revelation that Palpatine is Sith (I know, I'm sorry. I should have put a spoiler warning on this. Sorry) is either a really smart move or a really dumb one. I think Lucas is thinking like a Presidential candidate and so is worried about how future generations will view the movies. It's possible that, seeing the movies in order, a new viewer will be surprised. It does, however, kind of clash with the slow revelation of the emperor in the second, older trilogy.
You know what? This is still about the best series in movies (OK, it is if you count it as a nine-episode series with Indiana Jones as the third trilogy, which I do). Say what you will about Lord of the Rings, I love the pulp and this is the king of pulp.
They promised us "fell into a volcano" and they didn't give it to us. But they promised us "Darth Vader as a boy" and they delivered in spades. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman deliver moments of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher that show that at least somebody showed these kids the older movies and explained why these things were important.
And they don't let JarJar talk. That's good, right?
I dunno. It's a movie. You've already seen it. What am I doing talking about it?

2005-05-26T16:46:00.000-05:00

My Rambunctious, Influential brother has started upon the path to music production. He and Orville produced a 6-song EP for Hope Irish. It's really, really good. I'm in the process of copying a pile of them for her. Good stuff.

2005-05-23T00:40:00.000-05:00

Show was good.
King Kong for Christmas.
I gotta write a buncha songs this summer.
Oh, yeah, and that whole 'get married' thing, too.

2005-05-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

Hey. Songs of the Pogo's available in rerelease. There's a link on Amazon here. An stuff.

2005-04-30T22:15:00.000-05:00

Apples to Road Apples

Why Incredibles is better than Hitchhiker's Guide

Let's face facts. If you watch both movies, last summer's The Incredibles from Disney's Pixar studios and this spring's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from Touchstone, it's very hard to fail to notice that Incredibles is superior in every way. Why? Let's take a look.
To be quite honest, the jokes in Incredibles aren't that much better. Gazerbeam; Nomanisan Island; Syndrome; Dashiel "Dash" Par; Edna "E" Mode; these aren't classic jokes. They aren't jokes that people will repeat for decades to come. This ain't Who's on First. And yet the movie is damn funny (where appropriate) and damn tense (same).
Compare that to the source material of the Guide. People are repeating that stuff now, some decades later. People consider that a classic of twentieth century pop lit. An alarming lot of people spend an alarming lot of time reading and rereading the Guide series so as to have the lines memorized by rote. It's like Tolkein in that. People care a lot about the books.
And good on 'em.
But let's ignore the books (Yeah, I know. Why bring it up if you're going to ignore it? Why, to throw the hammers into relief). Let's look at the movie as a work on its own. Why does the humor in this movie fall flat and the action plod? Hammers and pride.
The Guide doesn't make jokes. It

tells you what to laugh at

laugh here

. It tells a joke which might have been a perfectly forgettable chuckle line in another movie, then tells it again, then reminds you that it told that joke, and then has another character tell the same damn joke again in the same way, just to make sure you understood that it a)was a joke and b)was something which the movie makers believed to be very very funny and witty.
I'll take the horrible arm joke, which will give you no plot spoilers, don't worry, as an example.
At one point, Arthur decides he needs a weapon and so says to Marvin, "Give me a hand." Cut to Arthur carrying an arm as a gun. Cut to Marvin walking alone with only one arm, saying "Give me a hand, well, I only have one arm, now I've only got one arm, cant even fly the ship with one arm, we'll see, give me hand, only one arm." Marvin makes jokes like this every time he shows up until the arm is mysteriously reattached and the incident forgotten. Before this, of course, we cut again to Arthur waving the arm right in the camera. See? 'Cause he's got this arm, and it's Marvin's, and he said "Give me a hand" and there was this hand he was waving in the camera, and it's 'cause he said "Give me a hand," get it, hand?
Compare this with the equally stupid "Nomanisan Island" from The Incredibles. That's a pretty dumb joke, honestly. I like the delivery, though, 'cause it's disguised in the movie. There's only one island in the movie and if you've seen it you know. If not, that's OK. This joke is delivered once over a radio and the word is pronounced "Numanasan." Most people don't pick up on the joke the first time they see the movie.
The Guide movie uses hammers. It drives every joke home as if it were speaking to an audience of Weimaraners (the slow but friendly dogs. I have no issue with Germans as a group). The Incredibles tells jokes as incidental to the story, the Guide tells jokes because it seems to feel some need to MAKE BIG FUNNY DID YOU NOTICE?
But the books aren't about the plot. OK, this is true (see why I bring them up?). The books are about carefully, lovingly, obsessively crafted dialog and humor which show an understanding that a joke need only be told once (OK, more or less) to be funny. The movie, though, is full of things which are clearly lines from the books and which were clearly jokes at some point, but which have had all the funny cut out of them. Let me give an example. Is this a joke:
A. What kind of sandwich do you want today?
B. Salami, but not if you got pickles!
A. All I have is Ham.
B. Ham's good.
No. It isn't. It's perhaps phrased like a joke. It is certainly a collection of statements. It is not, however, actually a joke. This is the impression the movie gives. For example:
A. The plans have been on display for a year.
B. I had to go in a basement!
A. But you did see them, and you are aware that we were planning...
This is played as a joke, as is Ford's giving the construction crew beer. Haha. Beer. That's great. He gave them beer. Haha. Oh, wait. That isn't funny. It's random. He happened to have a shopping cart full of beer and he gave it away.
As for the action: it isn't fair to compare the two, is it? One is a superhero movie about people alternately learning the nature of superiority and playing superspy, and the other is a nihilistic suggestion that sometimes the hero isn't the guy who saved everything, he's more likely the guy who the book is about.
And yet the movie tries to play off the story as containing action. The "rescuing Trillian" sequence is played for action and comedy. It falls flat on both. The jokes are still overwraught and the action consists of us waiting for the blank faces to stop popping back and forth on and off the screen and the horrible joke to just please, please stop. Yes, you have an arm. Yes, you are doing fucking paperwork. Hardy har har. The paperwork goes quickly (what? yes.) and the action plods.
Alright. I'll quit.
I'm just going to say again, The Incredibles is subtle and plays jokes as being, Oh, I don't know, a nice thing to add to a story. The Guide uses hammers to remind you that it contains jokes instead of plot or characterization.
Love conquers all. Sheesh. Grumble.

2005-04-27T02:17:00.000-05:00

Hey! Congratulations to Teya on the birth of her new baby girl. Yay!

2005-04-20T05:31:00.000-05:00

Let's see: also, Brother Machine fixed his web page again. It's pretty (link is always to the right). InFluInk are working on a new one with some kind of Rambunctious Entertainment kinda vibe going on (their new production company's name). Also, that last link (spamusement), I believe TheOctober has pointed me at it before, specifically because I remember very distinctly this one. I think it was October. If not, I'm sure the real person who pointed me at it will hop up and say "hey!" or some such.
Thanks.

2005-04-20T05:26:00.000-05:00

Oh, hey also: new stories are up. I'm not back where I should be yet, but I will be soon. Yay!

2005-04-20T05:23:00.000-05:00

Heeheehee.
Spamusement.
I like this one the best so far, although you can't go wrong.
Heehee. Making whoppy. Heehee.

2005-04-13T14:50:00.000-05:00

Did somebody lose their keys?
'Cuz I found some keys.
In front of the door to my house.
Aggie Keys.
Anybody?

2005-04-02T01:31:00.000-06:00

I feel sick.
Be careful what you wish for, people wiser than I say, as it might pound you in the head for two and a half hours late on a Friday night. Um. I left feeling dazed and havening absolutely no idea what I was doing. I am speaking of course, of a movie.
I am speaking of Sin City.
For those who have never read the comics, I can say with absolute certainty that you can watch the movie instead. The comics are entrancing, visually stunning and the clear work of a man who understands what Chandler was talking about when he said Doyle and Christie were wusses. For those who have read the comics, please understand that it will be held up for perhaps generations of comic fans as one of two things: Proof that comics cannot be made into movies verbatim without angering the world; or proof that it's already been done so it doesn't need to be done again.
This movie is exactly like reading the comic books for two and a half hours. If I read them for more than about twenty minutes, I get queezy and have to stop. I have, perhaps, too soft a heart. They are amazing, and they are exactly what they are supposed to be. They are hard to read. They are noire for a generation of readers who grew up with sixty years of the blackest literature the world could crank out with a typewriter, and eating it for breakfast. This is for a generation who do not understand the shock and horror of being exposed to something through media that absolutely stupefies you to the point you forget everything else.
It's a car crash for people who watched both "Gone In 60 Seconds"s.
I will not say this is a bad movie. It is a terrific movie. It is an awesome movie. It is a movie that set out to make a point and made it with a blackjack and a gun at the end of a dark alley, with a sneer and an unkind word.
You must watch this movie.
You must not watch this movie.
This is the precise and accurate cinematization (is that the word?) of a story in which Miller did for Crime pulp what his Dark Knight Returns saga did for Batman. It dragged it right into the real world and then about a mile past. It made even the hardest-core fans look away in disgust while screaming "Hell Yeah!"
This movie is very hard to watch.
A friend with whom I saw this movie said that Rodriguez (and Moore) is the director who could pull of Watchmen. I don't know if I agree with that yet, and I don't know if I could ever agree or disagree. I'd have to see it on the screen and it would have to make me cringe in awe and disgust. Rodriguez has, in this film, created an absolutely unsubtle stab into the animal state of the human condition. However, the careful, even loving subtlety with which he recreates the timing and vicious animal humanity reflects an understanding of both media that staggers the mind to attempt to convey. Could he make a movie of the epic proportions demanded by Watchmen? Maybe. Could he do with a finished product of less than ten or twelve hours? There's no reason to ask that quesion. Watchmen is currently reported to be in the hands of the director of the Bourne Supremacy (at least according to IMDB) and is unrelated. I just needed to think about something besides the wet squelching of black-and-white-and-yellow blood.
I have no idea what I think of this film. I think I would have to watch it again, and for the moment that thought makes me feel queezy and dizzy again. I'm afraid it was a really great movie that will define movies for years to come. It makes me afraid to go near a theater next summer. I shudder to think of the second and third teir wannabes scrabble for the blackest piece of filth they can find. The Matrix shaped almost half a decade of movies; Pulp Fiction is still having its name dropped in movies; perhaps John Hughes and Kevin Smith will never go away. There will be gore. I don't know how I feel.
No, that's not true. I feel a little sick.

2005-03-30T12:43:00.000-06:00

The computer is here. I'm still wrastlin' with it (and with a long work week this week). Normal operations will resume next week.

2005-03-18T20:13:00.000-06:00

PHASE 9

of 14

2005-03-08T04:00:00.000-06:00

I like these quick updates. I'll keep doing them until my newcomputer shows up.
Lessee: Still phase four; Nothing new from Brother; Show approaching quickly; Hi Lulu!; Work is good; I'll have training and meet Amy later this week; a friend tells me of job openings elsewhere, which I'll have to consider because I'm basically a mercenary individual with no scruples, as it were; my feet hurt.
Life is going along at the pace of 1 second=1 second, as it should.

2005-03-04T18:34:00.000-06:00

Only just the quickest of updates: Phase 4; backordered motherboard will impede progress past phase 6 until next, um monday or so; Mac fixed in record time; still behind on fictions, but will catch up when new lappy arrives.
I think that's it.
Take things easy.
Oh, yeah: Job is good, knees hurt, glad for a day off, a little sick of ice cream, training next week. Yay!

2005-02-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

Brother Flash got his callback. All our computers are broken, there will be no updates for about two weeks, +/- until computing returns to our house. Am updating from Kinko's at the moment.
Love and kisses,
-Mr.

2005-02-22T23:52:00.000-06:00

Oh, also, brother Tim visited over last weekend. Very nice to see him, and had pleasant visit. He seems to be doing well. He brought Courtney with him, which is always a pleasure, and they brought also a lovely lobster dip which went well with a big sandwich Adam and I made.
And my computer is still broken. I'll keep complaining until I find out what phase four feels like.
(grumble grumble grumble.)

2005-02-22T23:51:00.000-06:00

Finished the run of the show. Nobody died. Next show coming up fast.
Computer still dead. Working on new. Coming slowly. This is what phase two still feels like.
Working. Working. Working. Had first day today, promoted already, which is always nice. tips is funny things.
'N stuff.

2005-02-15T00:59:00.000-06:00

Ok, now don't panic.
Brother is alarmingly close to getting a callback for this. As I heard the story, he went and stood in a queue without knowing what it was, and ended up being the only singer that day whom the producer liked. Now, I have no illusions about him actually being picked as the new lead singer of INXS. He hates so much of everything, I'd be surprised if he made it through second round auditions, but he might get to fly out to LA, as I hear the story.
Happenings and stuff, right?

2005-02-15T00:32:00.000-06:00

Cri
Ma
Nee.
What a week.
We're five performances down, two to go. Recording's done on prelims for the CD of the current show. Half the band is unavailable for next show, so we're gonna start rehearsing early. TechDir is talking about canning most SndFX, which is just a stone's throw away from canning all music, which is a bad, bad idea, at least in my mind. I'm pretty sure we'd lose what little audience we maintain though Feb. if we cut out the only thing that makes the show better than having somebody read to you. I mean, if you don't have live music and sound, then honestly, what's the point?
My compie finally died forever. The motherboard is burnt, at least sez DellCertifiedTypes, which means I can choose to a)pay them close to 1K for the same old one, or b)be kinda sad and get a new one. In about three weeks, the solution should arrive in a big nifty box. I'll keep looking for viable solutions for resurrecting my little Inspiron, but in the meantime I'll go ahead and watch the process as I get a new box.
It's been a good computer. I heartily recommend it. My Dell was a trooper, and I hear that isn't uncommon for the breed. Poor Ratchet will be missed, unless I can find him a less expensive brain, in which case Toshi will have a new Solitaire box. In the meantime, I'm using her Mac. It's... odd. Like wearing somebody else's pants. It isn't alien, exactly, because they're still pants, but it's not right.
Also, her computer is only portable in the way that, say, a small sofa is portable, and I wouldn't envy myself if I were to try to type with it in my lap.
Ahh, hah.
Off I go, then, tomorrow, to wish Kirk a happy Birthday, and to purchase that most important of items, an external USB hard drive for Backing Up Things(tm).

2005-02-02T02:01:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday
Sher to tha Bie!

2005-02-01T23:00:00.000-06:00

Now, a Fish is an animal with dirt on his face
He can't write his name or read a book
Now you can be better off than you are,
Or would you rather be a star?

2005-01-31T02:26:00.000-06:00

On an unrelated note:
VCRP, with dates etc. for the current show.
I'm bandleading now. No time to talk. Must compose. Crap! Much to do! But good it'll be.

2005-01-31T02:25:00.000-06:00

There's this part of me that always wishes, just wishes I still...

2005-01-31T02:24:00.000-06:00

Now it's time to go home,
I been gone a long time
Squeaking by for lack of trying
busted faces, broken spines

Hitching rides through no mans land
Centipedes & fake sunrise
Picnic basket’s always empty
Smell the blood through my disguise

I know I won’t get lonely
If I get home & you’re not there
Sweep my love under the rug
Grin & see what we can bear

If I’m not home by Guy Fawkes Day
Baby please, Don’t wait for me
Turn your face into the sunset
Cut the ribbon from the tree

2005-01-25T07:37:00.000-06:00

The Light of Mercy hurts my eyes.

2005-01-21T02:45:00.000-06:00

Now I just need one of the twenty of so jobs I've applied for in the last three months to even acknowledge that I've applied.
OK, that's not quite true. GSD&M sent me a letter to let me know that they admit I exist, and ACC sent me one rejection. They sent one to Toshi as well. We applied for five jobs each, so I still hold out foolish hope.
Applying for media stations has been fun at least, as has the small amount of woodworking I've done. Hey! I get to do more tomorrow!

2005-01-21T02:37:00.000-06:00

Hey! Show dates!

Current Show:
February 4, 5, 11, 12, 13 (matinee), 18 and 19 (manitee).
The show on the 13th is a sunday afternoon show. All other shows are Friday or Saturday night shows, except the one on the 19th which is a water-dwelling mammal.
Hot Cha!
More dates as I has 'em. The next show, though, will be more or less the first three weekends in May, with the same pattern. The next after will be in September, same pattern, and the last of the year in December, same pattern. The idea is that this year we'll pretty much always do the first three weekends of the month, with a matinee show on the second Sunday (and a water-dwelling mammal...).
The only oddness that might happen is that there may be a sneaky extra-special show during the summer some time, but that hasn't even really been discussed.
Oh, and I think we've worked out our musiker woes. There aren't any musikers that I don't provide. This means I'll be forming a band for the current show, and for every show from here on out. I'm the VCRP music director and part-time sound effextor. Hey yeah!
Dana and I are going to build a washtub bass for stsngls tomorrow, I think. Lookout Wisconsin! Our intent is to do both the traditional, "punch a hole in ma's washtub" version and one made entirely of wood. That's right, wood! Ha ha ha ha!
Oh, and I have to write another ad. One of mine didn't take the first time, but the commercials are mine this time. I wrote for the show, I'm about to be the musical director, and Toshi & I are being inducted as "troupe members" Saturday. Hot dog!

2005-01-13T10:13:00.000-06:00

I find out tonight if I need a bunch of musikers for the near future.
I gotta do, like, four things in rapid succession today. I have to finish the creak box, make the clock box, finish/make the Cabinet of Curiosities, and write down this one suite of musics which I'm adapting as a sort of (lemme say, really damn clever) musictrack for the show. I'll post how that goes or something.

2005-01-13T10:12:00.000-06:00

Oh, also, I rejoined my Gym. Many tears were shed and many hugs all around. OK, not really.

2005-01-13T10:11:00.000-06:00

So, if I can draw about twenty or so more cartoons, I'm gonna need some goll dinged server space for uploading and whatnot.

2005-01-10T23:32:00.000-06:00

Is it fixed!

2005-01-10T01:27:00.000-06:00

OK, two things. The first one is this:
Right now, there's about a 70/30 chance of my being music director/band leader for VCRP. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Anybody wanna be a trumpeter? Hee.
The second: Man, George Carlin's new disc reeks. I have been a fan, I have been indifferent, I have been a casual enjoyer. I have spent the last several years repeating his witticisms and enjoying the fun that can be had in feeling as clever as he often is. But, man, I just got what seems to be the newest CD. It's called Complaints and Grievances, and it's the griping of an old, old man. Whereas he has always had a profane streak to him, this time there's no sparkle behind it.
The disc opens with a little fluff talk about September 11th which amounts to "The Government is dumb, 'letting the terrorists win' is a stupid cliche." Sure, there's a point there, but hasn't it been made a thousand times? Then there's a bit which is absolutely clever about traffic accidents, at least for the first few minutes of the bit. Track 3 is gross body humor, and sure, that's fine. Then it goes absolutely down hill. The next 18 tracks go by the following formula without varying at all:
1. Here's a [group] who should be [killed horribly].
2. People who [do normal things]. I hate them.
3. Fuck!
4. They should [be violated and killed in a particular and horrible way], as should [their children or spouses].
5. Fuck!
Just insert a series of more and more horrible deaths and violations, and a series of more and more banal offenses, and you've got most of the disc. His complaints include people who carry cell phones, those who pay for small purchases at grocery stores with credit cards, singers with one name, and rich people who go around the world in hot air balloons.
Ending the show is a bit about the ten commandments condensed into two which either is very witty and clever or is a huge relief after hearing him suggest that people who send pictures of their children with Christmas cards should be hit in the face with heavy mining equipment.
Now, I like Lenny Bruce, I like Bill Hicks, I even like George Carlin, but I'm afraid this comes across as technophobic bitching by a man who seems to feel that the world has left him behind.
Or maybe I just miss grammar jokes. Whatever.

2005-01-08T04:57:00.000-06:00

I geeked.

2005-01-06T13:20:00.000-06:00

Scarygoround may be the best comic out there right now. I don't know why, but the idea of pixies who need money just... works.
That isn't like the regular strip. It usually stars several young people who do things. This latest storyline is just really excellent.

Also, Ween's "12 Golden Country Hits" is just a kick in the head. I know, it isn't new, and it isn't even new to me, it's just come up again lately.

2005-01-05T16:57:00.000-06:00

I can't say how I know this (for nondisclosure reasons), but there's a radio in a classroom at the Texas School for the Deaf. Hee.

2005-01-05T07:10:00.000-06:00

I have to do something. Probably.
I guess it would be good to write, since I have time to do so.

2004-12-18T13:04:00.000-06:00

(0 comments)

2004-12-18T01:40:00.000-06:00

Is my literature escapist? I hadn't noticed.

2004-12-15T01:22:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or does everybody else forget to add stuff they do to their resumes because they think of it as just sorta something they do? So, slapping my forehead and cursing mildly (Geez, I'm an oversightful dummy sometimes) I've added VioletCrown and Green Muse to my resume. So, yeah. Maybe that'll help with my quest for employment.
Now that I've got that stuff on there, I'm gonna go back to the TV&Radio stations again and see what they've got for me. Maybe two years of sound crew stuff will look better than, say the zero years I was sporting.
Y'think?

2004-12-06T19:29:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine died Sunday.

2004-12-06T11:40:00.000-06:00

omfg

2004-12-02T23:03:00.000-06:00

Hey You!
Look which large fellow was On TV! That's right, it was ME!
W007 and all that.
And all because I'm part of Violet Crown. Also note that the page is currently updated by Toshi and will be redesigned by same in the near future. And so on.
OK. Back to your lives.

2004-11-22T03:27:00.000-06:00

OK. I'm a little over 35000 words in, and I've got about 9 days left. I can handle this. I've got a grip on it, and it feels like it's going to be finished before I can say "What? I wrote a book?"
My plan right now is to print up several copies of the manuscript and show it around to people to get something resembling opinions on it. I'm enjoying reading the stuff I wrote, which is probably a good sign, right?

2004-11-19T23:12:00.000-06:00

About the current book: I had this whole plot started, and I just kept looking at it thinking, I can't do this. I can't make this work for more than about ten thousand words, and for sure I can't make it good beyond about five. I still have the notes and the beginnings of the bad novel so that I can cold knock out that story, but I just started writing and what came out has been really good. I'm happy. I'm excited by the prospect of making people read it, at knifepoint as necessary, he said with his tongue firmly in cheek, as it were.

2004-11-19T23:05:00.000-06:00

Ok, first of all, it's been most of a month since I updated here because I've been damn busy. I haven't actually had time to write much of anything that wasn't scheduled. Today, right now is the first chance I've had. The book's going very well. It's a little over thirty thousand words old and growing steadily. By my math, that's pretty much exactly where I need to be right now, so I'm not gonna worry at all. I kicked the butt of my thirty thousand barrier, and I fully intend to go back to the other novels (Which, upon second glance look much improved) and at least push them to where I want them to be.
But that will wait. That's not until after I finish my History. I swear, this book has been bubbling up out of the back of my brain since about junior high, and getting it written has been like taking out a thorn that's been twisting in my back for the last twelve plus years. I feel like I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
I feel like this from time to time, and it feels great. I love it when I can just stop exerting the effort to stop being who I am and start allowing the flow of life to show me where I'm supposed to be looking. About half of the time, It's not like I'm writing so much as allowing the book to come out of my hands.
Well, back to it.
If you get a chance, check out my weekly fictions at NihilCentral Dot Com, which is secretly another blogger type page because I'm far too lazy to create a real one. Really. I'm actually that lazy.

2004-10-26T03:42:00.000-05:00

Also, regular Wednesday rounds at the Green Muse this week. It oughta be great!

2004-10-26T03:37:00.000-05:00

Hey! 43 Weeks! At least one a week! Hey, yeah!

2004-10-25T01:26:00.000-05:00

What am I gonna write about? I got something for tomorrow, but what about the month of November?
Ahh, well. It'll come.

2004-10-24T02:40:00.000-05:00

OK! Opening weekend happened! Yeah! Um.
We were the predicted 95% technically. Everybody did what they were supposed to. One mic that was supposed to feed back for a moment didn't, but we covered well and nobody knew it was supposed to. It's a good show, if a tad on the long side.
A friend put her finger on the problem I'm having with the show: It needs to end before the finale thingy. There's a monolog, a dialog and another monolog that could be cut, leaving in a great ending dialog (by our fearless director) as a finishing thing. Yeah. There's a bit that I find frankly a little boring, but it's a great show. Now you know.
I am tired.
I helped my friend Dana, who's getting married tomorrow (today. Ick) with a project she's got. She offered to help type out a term paper (for money). I had time, so I did a whole frikkin lot of the typing, but she offered to split the money with me.
This is no way to earn a buck. Maybe it's just the paper (27 pages of ALL CAPS is hard to read, much less hard to type), but my eyes hurt. My back hurts. My arms hurt. My everything is pretty much hurting. I have to drive to Waco tomorrow. I'd grumble, but what's the damn point.
I've signed up for NaNoWriMo again. I just keep getting closer to that goal. maybe this year. I can write a novel and find a job, all in the same month. Hey! Yeah!
I'm so tired and so excited about life.

2004-10-23T01:04:00.000-05:00

OK! Whoo! Yeah!
Opening night happened... um.
*nothing here will ruin the show for you*
Here's what I got: technically, it was about an 80-out-of-100. Tomorrow will be a good, solid 95. For anybody unfamiliar with theater, a 95's as good as 100 for an audience watching for the first time. There was one glaring level problem which I fixed by simply being really damn good at my job; there was one weird feedback problem, which I fixed while doing voice acting work; there was one tiny niggling sound-quality problem which I can guarantee you nobody in the audience noticed (because it had no effect on them, other than to make the feedback thing a little worse, which they wouldn't have noticed particularly since one second of feedback is still one second of feedback, even it it's got a funny little echo on it).
It's really a good production. It's funny how you can miss that kind of little detail when you're, you know, so close to it. We had a genuinely good time putting it on.
I found out today, though, that tryouts for the next show are next Saturday before the performance. It's the Christmas show. It sounds like it'll be at least fun to do. I need to write up my commercial idea...

2004-10-20T23:59:00.000-05:00

And, I didn't even have to use my A.K.
What can I say?

2004-10-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

Wow! Today was a good day!
The open mic was good: A couple who used to run an open mic at which Flash & I started were there and I didn't let their constant stream of crap bother me. It was fun! They kept kvetching and I kept smiling! Even through a terrible filk! W007!
And then, on top of it all, I got paid! Sure, it's only a stipend (like money, but so little of it they have to have a different name), but the point is, I'm a professional music... organizer.. thingy now!
And, to make things even more so, Adam and Dana are getting married this Sunday by a person whom several of us know and some of us even love! How 'bout them apples.
(Oh: I don't mean me, BTW. I can't legally perform marriages, as I'm not a minister, hint hint)
(and if the hint didn't take, Sherbie, call Meeker 'cuz she'll be in town this weekend to perform an arriage-may for some utual-may iends-fray, nudge nudge)
So, all in all, not a bad day. If I'd found a job, I'd be a proverbial pig in proverbial "mud-by-which-I-mean-shit." Now, where's that pesky portfolio of mine? I heard the Statesman is hiring editors...

2004-10-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

I'm just getting tired. I've only been looking proper for like two weeks, and I'm already tired. I don't know. Maybe I need to, like, drink coffee or something. I guess it would help if I hadn't quit smoking the same time I got really intense about getting a new job. Oh well. One day I'll have to look at that schedule.
Also guitar madness. Whee!

2004-10-14T23:56:00.000-05:00

Man. Zim is just a hell of a cool thing. There is no way it could have been other than short-lived. I'm just shocked it takes six discs to fit 'em all. There were 27 episodes made. I'm just so absolutely shocked there were more than 5, having seen them. 'N stuff.

2004-10-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

Looking for work is both fun and not. I'm not going through anything anybody else hasn't but it's interesting just the same. It's easier, as Toshi & October are doing the same, and we can sort of feed off the energy of the group. I think it was harder two and a half years ago when I wound up at BP, if only because it was just me looking.
So, yeah. jobs -n- stuff.
I'll write if I get work. And remember to hang by my thumbs.

2004-10-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

The band has been playing at Green Muse (just west of the corner of South First and Oltorf, next to the moneylender, where the old 503 used to be) on Wednesdays. We've had the open mic turned over to us. They trust us with this, and if this week is any kind of representation, they trust us rightly. We're getting, ugh, good at this.
Now I need a job...

2004-10-07T22:55:00.000-05:00

Changing the subject, the George Carlin collection, the Little David Years 1971-1977, outside of having seven albums of George Carlin, has record sleeves on the CDs. The discs are pretty much exact replicas of the old albums. And that may be the coolest thing about this. Somebody realized that when you bother to buy a collection of albums that you could have got on CD transfer, what you want is the feel of the old records with the reliability and ease of use of a CD.
Keen.

2004-10-07T22:53:00.000-05:00

It's like breathing again for the first time in a month. Ahhhhhhh. Try it. Try not breathing for a month. I dare ya'. See how good it feels to take in that first little puff of air. It feels good. So shut up.

2004-09-12T23:17:00.001-05:00

PS. novelnovelnovelnovelnovelnovelnovel

2004-09-12T23:17:00.000-05:00

Also, we're writing songs. Like, lots of them. I did one called "My Baby Don't Dance," and one about a train on MoPac. It's nice. I wrote a buncha novelty type songs, and now we're doing ones that mean things (or are sweet, as in the Don't Dance song). As a band, we're still looking for our voice, but it's hovering around jazz-swing and punk. We'll have to see. I love both kinds of music, and so seems my band to do.
I gotta quit saying "my band." It's Adam's and Dana's band. I'm just a member. Hell, I'm just a Mice. Adam's the Bunny.

2004-09-12T23:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a long summer, and the fall is screaming enticingly to me.

2004-09-06T09:11:00.000-05:00

It doesn't feel real yet. I resigned on Friday. I'm out of the business. How, as they say, about that?

2004-09-02T02:36:00.000-05:00

Double special thanks to Jon for his participation. Heehee.

2004-08-31T13:30:00.000-05:00

Do you know the feeling that you get when you're very thirsty, and you can smell water? The water takes on smells it could not possibly contain, silver and mars and happiness. It seems to call to you with a fishing line in the back of your head, pulling you toward it. That's the feeling. That's the one. It's something I'll only explain in person.

2004-08-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

Do you know the feeling, the one you get when you should feel bad but you feel really good instead? Yeah, me too! It's called Unexpected Pineapple Chunks! WooHoo!

2004-08-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

Do you know the feeling you get when you are about to break up with somebody you should have broken up with a year ago, but you stayed with them longer because you knew they needed you more than you needed them, and you knew that if you left you'd just destroy them, or at least make them very, very sad?
It's so hard to speak to the everyman, when you're just one.

2004-08-27T14:58:00.000-05:00

They tell me this might take 48 hours to work, but it seems to do OK right now: My Fictions!

2004-08-27T13:58:00.000-05:00

I'd like to try something. Chime in when you're ready:

Knock Knock...

2004-08-26T12:26:00.000-05:00

I've been too hard on the British, really, about their food.
Any culture that gives us the meat salad and the cheese salad can't be all bad.

2004-08-26T09:03:00.000-05:00

C'mon downtown & stay with me tonight.
I got a pocket full of Kryptonite.
-Spin Doctors.

2004-08-24T15:34:00.000-05:00

I used to be so funny. What happened to me?

2004-08-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

     I love Texas. I love Discounts.
     I feel that every time you get a discount, you've stolen a little something back from Death. No, I feel that every time I get a discount, I've stolen a little something back. Mark Griffin, American poet & musician, wrote a wonderfully evil piece about a woman who achieves this effect through fast driving. She feels that the ticking of yellow lines past her car is like the ticking of grains of sand in a hourglass. This way of thinking, it turns out for her, is backwards and she dies, perhaps before her time, but really before she might otherwise have died. He doesn't examine it closely, because the piece is a work of genius. He doesn't have to examine it. The point is made to his satisfaction and the rest of the world be damned.
     Texas is wonderful today. When I left work for a break and a constitutional, it was 95 degrees in the shade with a hot breeze barely lifting its weak little head out of the blacktop. The sky was mostly cloudless and threatened to turn into a Proper Texas Summer, here at the end of a gracefully mild one. I ducked into a store for a moment to browse, and stayed for nearly fifteen minutes. When I stepped out, the day was still hot, but a cool wind had picked up, probably here to avenge its sad little brother smothered by the heat, and the sky had clouded beautifully. Black clouds were collecting under the sun and the temperature had dropped five degrees. If you don't like the weather, stop and bug a shopkeep for a few minutes.
     I love Discounts. I love Texas.

2004-08-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

I'm glad somebody got a photo of this stencil before it was removed. They used to be all up and down the sidewalk here on sixth. They've been replaced, though, with ones that say "Your President Lies." A clever person came along and painted a well-placed "f" in that one, making it, and here I'll admit to an attempt at humor, SUPER!

2004-08-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

I have a pain. The only way to kill it is to leave work early. Who am I to argue with the best interests of my body?

2004-08-19T12:38:00.000-05:00

I've been writing a lot lately, just not much here. There are actually two better places to see fictions by me, if yer interested:
600 Seconds
One Story A Week!
And now you know...

where I'm posting the rest of my stories.

2004-08-19T10:50:00.000-05:00

You can dance if you want to.

2004-08-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

     I'm offended! I'm incensed!
     An author whom-I-won't-name contacted me to get an event order in the works, and the tone of the contact was just so intolerably derisive. The phrase "they are a large distributor and might set up an account for an independant bookstore such as yours" was used.
     Oh! Well! Your largesse is astounding! Goodness! For little old us? We're just a bunch of down-home nobodies, running the biggest goddamn bookstore in Texas. We're practically a lemonade shack compared to what you've been up to.
     Oh? You signed at Borders in Houston? THE Borders in Houston? Goodness. They must be, I don't know, world famous! I mean, the prestigious Houston Borders doesn't take just anybody, do they?
     Grrrrr.
     So, I called the publicist to whom I was recommended, only to find out the book is distributed through St. Martin's. The author didn't know this. The author was sending me through MacMillan, who are distributed through Pearson, although, the suggestion was made (kind of rightly) that the book was being distributed by Palgrave, which is true until you realize that Palgrave is just a subsidiary of St. Martin's. I found it puzzling that I'd have to go through all these hoops, but I've never dealt with a big-shot like this author.
     Oh, but wait! It gets better! I spoke to the publicist, who asked did we have an account with VHPS? The publicist corrected me when I suggested we'd just order them from the same person we order from for every other St. Martin's event.
     No no, said the publicist, this isn't through St. Martin's. It's through VHPS.
     Well, that's fine until you relize they're the same company. I don't expect the average person on the street to be able to say, "VHPS is the same company as St. Martin's. When you call one, you're calling the other," but then the average person on the street doesn't work for one of these companies.
     Anyway, back to the piddly-squat world that is my tiny sad little bookstore. I ordered the books. We're getting 40, but that's a huge order for a little place like us.

     Oh, and Brian Herbert and Neal Stephenson are signing near the same time. I hope they don't feel dwarfed by the titanic talent who bugged me today. Oh, wait, they won't.

2004-08-17T15:22:00.000-05:00

In order to succeed, you've got to try.
In order to try, you've got to believe.
If you believe, you've already succeeded.
If you've already succeeded, why bother trying?