I got about 130 minutes of sleep last night and I was probably still a teensy bit drunk when I got to Starbucks bright and early this morning, and showed them my pink striped pirate toe socks:

which are my favourite thing. Well, favourite clothing item of the moment, anyway. Are they for girls? Oh definitely. Did I wear them to work? Very much so, yes. "Work" by way of "school" again today, but I am the Lord and Master of the Simulation Groups and won many prizes, none of which involved harps. Now I am home and would desperately like to be in bed but must go to an art opening of a friend of mine. I think I actually just fell asleep in the shower (standing up).

Oh look: more stuff for me to buy. I know what you're thinking: Will, Matt, really? But perverse as it seems I've grown rather fond of the miserable lump, especially when he's wearing his red "I'm so badass now" pirate shirt. That said, I cannot for the life of me figure why licensees are so certain that Cannibal Jack Sparrow is the thing we all want. There's gotta be versions of him painted up like that in every toy line and merchandising accessory deal in existence. Honestly: we've all painted eyeballs on our face and nibbled on toes. It's just not that interesting.

Ah fuck this is gonna be a hard slog down to the Gladstone.

Posted by tederick at 6:28 PM in j-o-b & jedi antics & pirates & socks & toys!
Permalink | Comments (4)

Today was downright apocalyptic, Internet. I was in a training room all day (learning how to be awesome) and the big bay windows looked out west over the highway and the city, and it was like something out of a damn movie out there. A movie where things were not okay in the world. A movie about us.

(That was supposed to read goofy, not serious, but if you got all kinds of insane meaning and profundity out of it, go with it.)

Guess what else happened: someone stoled five hundred bucks from me!! FUCK! And how did I find out? Via a debit transaction, that's how. You'd think if my major financial institution decided to shut down my card on account of how they suspected some dumbwad had illegally withdrawn five hundred damn dollars from it, they might place a motherfucking telephone call to my home or workplace to inform me. Nope: I found out three days later when I tried to pay for a six dollar dry cleaning job. Thanks for that.

So anyways I am now without cash or agency, or really any opportunity to deal with this in an intelligent fashion at all for at least two days, but I'm sure things will all be worked out soon. Well they'd better be because if they aren't my rent cheque is gonna do its Roger Rabbit impression, and that impression is tight.

Anyways I guess the worst thing that could happen is I don't get my five hundred bucks back and then that just ends up being the five hundred bucks I was gonna give to charity in December, and those kids will have to sleep on the streets this year, because of crime. Of which, truly, are those kids blameless? Of course not. They're stealing bank cards and huffing glue. So they earned their lack of deductable donations! SWAH.

Posted by tederick at 5:39 PM in j-o-b & jedi antics
Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally got my Return of the King complete recordings today, which yes is about as nerdy as I get, and yes is absolute fucking nirvana to me right now. Oh man I love this score almost past comprehension. And between this, the time of year, being within a hundred pages of the end of Spyglass, and my general stress level, I've got the emotional stability of a pre-menopausal camel. So don't fuck with me.

I am, on the other hand, exchanging pretty awesome emails with Mary Pants who guest-wrote the Powers letter column in the last issue. It's like being one degree of separation away from Bendis!

Tonight me and Admo went to a Wii party at Alena's house. To help us all vent our frustrations we made a Mii named D-Cert. D-Cert was fat, bald, and gender-confused. But stress relief was thin on the ground because D-Cert pretty much handed me my ass in every boxing match we fought each other in. It was pretty tight when I put Christina on the ground in like ten seconds, though. That was awesome.

Teen Girl Squad is no more: Dana has moved to Alberta, where all the cool girls live. The house is subdued and ghostly.

Posted by tederick at 10:57 PM in 3QF & j-o-b & pj's playground & wii
Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by tederick at 7:31 AM in extreme steve
Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by tederick at 1:25 PM in batman!
Permalink | Comments (4)

"We have the right to refuse to guide them if they lie, or if they hold anything back, or if they have nothing to tell us. If they live in the world, they should see and touch and hear and learn things." - No-Name

"When we were alive, they told us that when we died we'd go to heaven. ...And that's what lead some of us to give our lives, and others to spend years in solitary rayer, while all the joy of life was going to waste around us and we never knew." - the ghost

"I'm going to destroy Metatron. But my part is nearly over. ...We all know what we must do, and why we must do it: we have to protect Lyra until she has found her daemon and escaped. Our Republic might have come into being for the sole purpose of helping her do that. Let us do it as well as we can." - Lord Asriel

"The first ghost to leave the world of the dead was Roger. He took a step forward, and turned to look back at Lyra, and laughed in surprise as he found himself turning into the night, the starlight, the air... and then he was gone, leaving behind such a vivid little burst of happiness that Will was reminded of the bubbles in a glass of champagne." - The Amber Spyglass

"I wanted you to come and join me... and I thought you would prefer a lie." - Lord Asriel

The blogTO piece is still going strong; I'm enjoying sitting and watching the debate unfold (there's a great piece in the Globe this morning), even when I want to step in and start swingin'. I'm doing my best to not do that. A while ago I was carting HDM around downtown when one of the street corner evangelists tried to shove a Jesus pamphlet in my hand; I just held up the book and said "I'm on the other side." But really, that's inflammatory and childish. It's easy to get caught up in the glee of feeling like there is something important and interesting going on, and that something I believe in quite strongly is at the center. But I'm not much for being anti. I'm pro; I'm all for inclusion. For example, I am giddily pro-sin, enjoy watching battle formations if not actual battles, and continue to be terrified of animated mice but like having them in my movies. There's just so much neat stuff in the world, and nothing I believe in is so weak that it can't stand a little company.

Posted by tederick at 9:10 AM in blogTO & books & death
Permalink | Comments (0)

I have GOT to get those socks.

I'm becoming quite interested in socks, actually. OK, admittedly, it started with pirate socks. But then my mommy got me some striped socks and I started wearing them to meetings. And then I realized I was into socks but was being intimidated by my brother's formidable sock collection. But then I flipped over and said "WHY NOT ME?" and now my socks are on par with Adam's and in many cases, kick Adam's socks' asses. So there: another hill conquered.

It finally happend, people; a big Thanksgiving weekend markdown made me finally go starkers and order the complete Buffies and complete Angels on DVDs for no other reason than to save space on my shelves. Between the sales and the dollar, I'm getting both for under two hundred, and I can sell my old DVDs for something in that ballpark. It feels like a no-brainer, but then so many things do.

Can I just say for the billionth time how much I'm enjoying the scripted reality TV show that is House this season? I mean I guess I knew that Cameron and Chase and Foreman were always pretty extraneous, but I had no idea how much so till the new ducklings showed up. Fuck, were the originals even in last week's episode? I don't remember. Hey I hope Kumar wins. I love that guy.

Posted by tederick at 7:06 PM in batman! & dr. house & shinydisks & socks
Permalink | Comments (3)

Well there's no other way to say it, Beowulf fascinated me blind. I don't think it was a good movie, really, but ho... interesting. I actually wrote a review of it, because once I started putting the ideas together in my head, I couldn't stop. Like Die Hard 4 this summer, it's probably just another good example of a mediocre movie that unknowingly bears huge, huge, subtextual freight. But riding on that train of thought is just... well... wheeeeeeeee!!

But neither naked warrior (whose dick outdoes Bart Simpson’s for coyness) nor Rubenesque woman is anything more than the digital manifestation of what a programmer thinks those things should look like – a sin of animation for generations, so nothing new here, but one whose potential photorealism is about to give it a hell of a demented 21st Century subtext.

Rest of the review is here.

I like trains. The other day I actually said (well, wrote) "Narnia's cool and all, but I prefer trains." It was a hell of a thematic point in context, but taken out of context I think it's just a dandy sentence in its own right.

I have found a new home!! Unfortunately there are people living there who would need to be removed, so assassination may be involved. But otherwise I am deeply, deeply in love. I mean, 3QF is awesome too. And Teen Girl Squad? So fun. But 2008 is the future for at least five more weeks, and I am all about the future.

Posted by tederick at 11:56 AM in 3QF & movies & reviews
Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently a Worf action figure was the key to my heart today. It's a little embarrassing. Star Trek, really? But then I was like "they're gonna make Ezri!!!" and it was all sold. Now I can re-enact Worf and Ezri's awkward post-coital imprisonment conversation from "Tacking into the wind" and oh my god someone just snap my neck, please. Right now.

Still sorta drying out. Actually, more drying in: the next two weeks of my job-life are gonna be motherfuckin' complex, Internet. I've got an all-day onsite development meeting on Wednesday; I'm in a project management class on Thursday and Friday; and then all next week, my boys from Mumbai are in the house. After all that's done, December oughta flatline nicely and I can spend the back nine digging my way out of the holes I'm about to fall into, but yeah... it's psychologically challenging, knowing that you're gonna be fucked sideways for work for the imminent foreseeables, and there ain't nothin to be done about it.

So for the last hair's breadth of interim, I'm gonna go see Beowulf with Matty Price in a couple of hours and then go over to Kimba's for some board games. Right now I'm going to try to get another dozen pages of Spyglass done... and yes, there will be a burrito. I'm at the Starbucks right now trying to get the most recent Terra draft read and maybe do a bit of notemaking on Snapdragon. I sheltered at the Snail for a while. It was when I noticed that the air on the second floor was actually calming me down that I thought to myself, "hmmm... this may have gone too far."

Have added a Secret of String page here. Still have not seen this year's One Minute Film & Video Festival, at T+68hrs. As procrastination goes, that's solid.

We're 12 days out from the Compass flick, which is sort of owning me at the mo'. Oh, I do ever so much hope it does not thoroughly suck. Remember: the big betrayal that the Master prophesies for Lyra isn't what happened to Roger, it's what happened to Pan. Because we can betray others all we want, but it's when we betray ourselves that's the stuff that prophecies are written about. I could not have stated that any more awkwardly! But there you go.

Posted by tederick at 2:18 PM in 1MFVF & books & j-o-b & movies & tederick films & toys!
Permalink

Nothing to report.

Posted by tederick at 1:58 AM in 1MFVF & 3QF & movie night
Permalink | Comments (0)

New hoodie with thumbholes = the best ever.

I think the show went really well. In spite of it being a snow year (with a shut down TTC, to boot) there was a solid crowd on the floor. I was nervous as fuck beforehand - nervouser than usual, actually, which was strange. But it all came together. Wrote the script, practiced the script, did the script. Weird being that it was the first year where I'd seen none of the films - and couldn't stand to stick around in the auditorium and actually watch them live, either; needed to pace. And pace I did. After party was better than usual, though, and the big heaping plate of poutine afterwards was even better than that (if troubling). And all my people were with me. So yeah: I'm calling fest '07 a win. Another one for our side.

Hey check this out: Jeff sent me the link and I spun it out, and now it's turning into a nice bit of blogTO comment fodder. Shit like this, you don't even need to spin, you just put it out there and let the moral outrage drag your minor efforts down the gulf stream. I'm still trying to get a major hookup for one of my pieces through another, larger site - it hasn't happened yet (though I got close last week with the lightsaber fight) but when it does, I shall laugh mightily.

It's cold, Internet. Damn cold. Big moon you could cut yourself on. I've got a three day layover before the real shit start next week. Gonna lay low and plot.

Posted by tederick at 1:59 AM in 1MFVF & blogTO & books & hoodies
Permalink | Comments (0)

Sure, I still hold at arm's length the death of narrative that enterprises such as this represent, and think that the absolute worst thing you could do to the compelling suggestions of Angel's finale is continue the story... and yeah, Angel's still a git. But I have a big smelly hard-on for Brian Lynch and everybody (including him) knows it. So good god-damn, did I enjoy reading this. It's not as pretty as Buffy, it's not as clever as Buffy; the art is filthy and unrefined and use of colour is, quite simply, incredible; the writing feels like off-market Whedon rather than the genuine article - overachieving and underachieving at the same time - and the reach is huge. You know, just like the show.

So - Wesley's a ghost and Gunn's a vampire. (Already the clickity-clack of my feeble writer brain is telling me that, given his shape last we saw him, ol' Charlie mighta well got vamped by either of the Chosen Ones.) Betta George is hangin'. Right on. I know it's totally anti-what-this-thing-is-about, but where do the Spike series fit in the overall timeline? Did they happen during Season Five, or after this? A big part of me wants Spike to show up next ish with his Fanger Gang (i.e. Fang Gang But Better) and start kicking ass. But I imagine he's around here somewhere, being the clown prince of some harem or something.

Anyhooza. I enjoyed. I would like there to be more. Beginnings are easy. Issue 2s are tricky as hell. Now I'm home and tired and good freaking GOD the next three weeks are starting to look like the gaping maw of Hades itself. And I smell like old horse, and my ears are warm and tingly. Time for bed.

Matt: "Are napkins profound?"
Helen Anderson: [nods] "And tragic."

Posted by tederick at 10:41 PM in comix & joss
Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by tederick at 7:02 AM in extreme steve
Permalink | Comments (0)

"Holy god, that's a lot of zombie pants." - what I kept misreading on my own blog, every time I jumped into Tederick.com today

Well I just got in a fight I couldn't win with my own lightswitch. I mean honestly - people keep trying to assure me my problems aren't unique, but could that happen to anyone else?

Trying something new: comments are still moderated here on Tederick.com but they now publish immediately. (Well, actually it takes about 30 seconds.) My ability to manage junk has increased exponentially in the past 12 months so I think it's relatively safe to assume that only a couple of spam comments will get through, and that I can get rid of them within a few hours of their arrival. Soooooo... we'll see how this goes. If it chucks up, we'll go back behind the gate.

I am a new level of bendtacular. I had that day at yoga! The one where Gudrun (Yoga Instructor B) came over and said "you're pretty flexible!" Which, for me, might as well have been "I have never seen any human as proficient in the art and science of body-bending as you, Matt Brown, currently are." But yes, I was particularly flexisome today, and still feeling good about it 8 hours later. Stuff I couldn't do 3 months ago came easy as pie today.

Now get your nerd out and revel: someone (with the auspicious screen name of effulgent12) has done what I have long wanted to see, and Godfathered the Angel flashbacks in their entirety. Including Spike, Darla, and any other ancillary characters. 22 episodes at 8 minutes apiece makes a fuck of a lot of watching, so I haven't done it yet, but I watched a bit. It's pretty cool, and so painfully geeky! Oh someone needs to give that effulgent12 a big nerdy hug.

Will Mulder and Scully stumble across Frank Black in X-Files 2? I sincerely hope the answer is "BLARGGHHHH!"

Went out for a much-needed pair of beers tonight, and realized that it is in fact Tuesday, not Monday, which means it's technically my Wednesday. Ordered a buncha stuff off the internet to take advantage of the continuing fire sale that is Amazon.com vs. .ca. Must go and fold clothes and finish The Matrix now. New frogpipe: so good. Between this and the Pillows From God I'm calling my room the place to be nowadays.

Posted by tederick at 8:48 PM in joss & movies & tederickdotcomdotcom & zombies
Permalink | Comments (0)

"Holy god, that's a lot of zombie points." - me in mid Facebook zombie fight

GOOD FRICKLORD, this weather's depressing. This is the weather equivalent of that time in Pushing Daisies when Ned bit into a strawberry pie that he had unbeknownstingly made and the strawberries died and decayed in his mouth. Zombie strawberries. Yay, I name this zombie strawberry weather: kinda pretty and poetic I s'pose, but damn you don't want it in your mouth.

Now I'm all about the Catbook. Yeah: I'm that guy. I'm trying to maintain some semblance of sanity around the whole thing in that I don't friend up with cats I haven't met just because I know their humans, and I don't let other people be in Zam's family because she's mine all mine. Someone tried to co-own Zam last night and I REJECTED that shit. Just as, I feel, Zam would do if she had opposable thumbs and rudimentary computer knowledge. She and I are both fullsome in our casual disregard of the feelings of others.

Podcast re: 1MFVF with me as the guest. I realize that we owe the world a Mamo, and a (different "we") Suck It, and probably some other stuff too. But scheduling's been a bitch.

Slash last night: didn't work out. Apparently rock gods don't hang about in bookstores for long, like they did back in my day. These kids today! Consornit. But there was something mildly spiritual in me, Mark and Adam at least trying for it. Cuz who else would?

Me and the Cannonball just commiserated at length, because we're both fed up with every single thing about the now. But I'm sure it will pass. Really I'm only bummed about two things. And they can't keep us locked up in these bamboo cages forever.

Posted by tederick at 8:14 AM in miscellaneous crap & podcastery & zombies
Permalink | Comments (0)

Also: based on this and Spike: Asylum / Shadow Puppets, it is now readily apparent that every single Joss Whedon fan knows another Joss Whedon fan who is not British but can't stop pimping British slang. I am the latter, not the former, and my shame is boundless, yet I've no intention of stopping. Sod blimey codpiece.

I would dearly love to make a very, very Canadian zombie movie out of Zombies Calling, but I suspect Slave Labor is not gonna sell me the option for the three dollars in nickels that currently reside in my change purse. Even if I show them my winning smile.

Yeah I think I'm gonna go see Slash now.

"Norbert? I wish! My name is Gaylord Q. Tinkledink." - Not a quote from ZC but it's in my head.

Posted by tederick at 8:29 PM in comix & zombies
Permalink | Comments (3)

On its first ten minutes alone I'm about ready to call that Best Episode Ever. Recap:

• Born-Again Robin ("Holy Trinity, Batman!")
• Ya Ya Sophia
• The Passion of the Comic Book Guy
• Jack Black
• Japanese hard candy and Korean Tom Jones covers
• Jabba
• The proper resting place of Asterix and Tintin comics
• Comics for reading, not for hoarding
• Evidence of Homer's psionic connection to Bart
• The Mulk kicked a tidal wave into the sun
• Jimbo wailing on Kearney for no reason
• That's a Lost Girls poster, with Simpsonized Lost Girlsized Wendy, Alice and Dorothy
• "I really wanna draw Batman!"
• Alan Moore's Radioactive Man
• Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation
• Strawberry, who is almost too accurate to be awesome (almost)
• League of Extraordinary Freelancers
• Too bad about all that Marge stuff
• First tangible proof that Dr. Nick did in fact die in The Simpsons Movie (Dr. Nick's off-market Azaria-voiced replacement)
• The post-credits gutter-swipe at the studios who think they don't need writers.

I actually watched it a second time start to finish before the last credit had even dropped.

Whoa... two Strawberry titles in one day. Cosmic.

Posted by tederick at 6:00 PM in simps
Permalink | Comments (0)

Whoa. Where the fuck have I been? A three day absence - unheard of. I swear if you told me that I put my head down on my desk at around 2:30 on Friday and then woke up here this morning at 8:00 having dreamed the entire weekend, I would believe you, and not just because I fell asleep watching The Matrix last night after eating Jessi's magic muffins. I've been having anime dreams. I spent most of Saturday in a cottony haze having taken way too many painkillers in a nearly-vain effort to knock down a headache; I am now wondering exactly whose leg I have to hump to get some liquid morphine that I can carry around in my bag because honestly - this thing is no longer a skirmish. A full-on rage riot twixt body and mind with soul standing referee, and it all ends up looking like this: four thousand idiots crushing each other to get at a stack of cardboard tubes. What ever happened to defending peace and justice? Seriously.

In my dreams I'm the Sentry on Liberty Island, looking at the storm; and then I'm a girl on the edge of the desert with half a million bucks' worth of cybernetic enhancements in my body, waiting for my ride. I believe in instinct, I believe in a certain brand of destiny. I no longer believe in endings, just the grim and occasionally comforting fact that we will always be connected, and that nothing can ever be circumvented, only overcome. If you're not at the head of this ride, you're dust consigned to tow helplessly in the wake. And so yeah: the weekend was too short, and entirely too much, and there's a lot more to do before the next one which will, thankfully, be proportionately longer. But for all this and the inexpressible million other things, I feel like I'm getting closer.

"So I am troubled, having to do un-bearlike deeds and speculate and doubt like a human." - Iorek Byrnison

Posted by tederick at 12:50 PM in dreams
Permalink | Comments (0)

"The unique quality of the classic comic books was that their teenagers had ordinary adolescent angst and insecurity. But if you are still dangling in taxicabs [suspended 80 stories in the air by alien spider webs] at age 20, you're a slow learner. If there is a Spider-Man 4 (and there will be), how about giving Peter and Mary Jane at least the emotional complexity of soap opera characters? If Juno (opening Dec. 14) met Peter Parker, she'd have him for breakfast." - Roger Ebert, in his review of (still haven't seen it!) Spider-Man 3

Posted by tederick at 11:44 AM in comix & ebert & movies
Permalink | Comments (2)

I have a new stalker. This time, it's a boy! [glee] I haven't had a dude come crushin' on me since the Deep Space Nine incident of one double-nine three. Truly I am fabulous and everybody wants to know every nook and cranny of my being. Good thing I am so available, cyberwise.

In today's issue, we ask the question: Will Minx survive? I witnessed the birth (well, more of the coming-out cotilliion) of this strange creature back in the spring, with all the attendant anxieties that come with seeing someone create something marketed explicitly for girls when clearly, it's really for boys. Boys like me. Boys who like digest-sized graphic novels about teen goths working out their issues. This week I bought Kimmie66, because Aaron Alexovitch done it, and being as that I've got his art permanently inscribed on my arm I figured it was only fair that I should purchase and read every single thing he does for the rest of ever. 'Sides which he got married this week, congratulationsandrespectstohisnewfangledbrideperson. So truly, this has been a banner week in Aaron A.-land.

Now Minx, I like in theory but I'd like to see some figures on how it's actually doing. I know the manga numbers have thrown North American comics publishing all into a tizzy of late, but my question to you is this: is manga selling so well to girls Stateside because it's digest-sized and about teen goths working out their issues, or is it because it's, y'know, manga? So far I've liked what I've read from the Minx slate but I want a bit more from it; it's all very pretty and entertaining but light on bone density. (Kimmie66, into which I am currently 70 pages, may prove to be the first exception.) A bit more, Minx. Can't be all up in the street cred without getting a little artistically dirty.

Best thing o' the mo': Gone Baby Gone cracks serious skulls, Internet. Who knew B-Ffleck could direct. Fuck, who knew C-Ffleck could yet lay claim to a slot in the horse race for best actor of his generation? This movie's a brick shithouse, performancewise. And in a lot of strange, indirect ways, it's also the first true successor to the artistic victories of Good Will Hunting (and if anyone thinks that's damning with faint praise, they need to go back and watch Van Sant's movie again). Too bad it took a frickin' decade to get here, and too bad Affleck and Stockard's script wallows occasionally in speechifying and rhetoric, but otherwise this is a real son of a bitch on every level and I wanna see more from the boys from Southie. Highly recommend.

Ghostbusters gameplay: here!

Posted by tederick at 10:11 AM in blogTO & comix & movies
Permalink | Comments (0)

So I'm pretty much done with Terra. Issue 6 is in the can. I have some revisions to make tomorrow and then Chad and I need to take a step back and look at the whole picture and figure out next steps. But yeah, it's sort of amazing how well this thing turned out, IMHO. It just gained a level of narrative momentum in issues 5 and 6 that was quite satisfying - like, we'd started this thing rolling and put enough things in it that when we got to the climax, it couldn't help but be anything other than the awesomeness that it is. So yay for our team.

It all started here.

Meanwhile, the creative individuals responsible for the Ghostbusters franchise have rejected my proposal for Ghostbusters 3 (what's wrong, Hollywood? Scared of a little $200M script by a completely inexperienced unknown? You lack balls, sir) and have decided instead to continue the narrative in video game form. Zah! But at least they had the sense to get William Atherton back. I wonder if they'll have cottoned to the fact that they can't cast the EPA guy as the bad guy any more?

Been a big, interesting week so far. Haven't been sleeping much, trying to manage my anxieties, but things are trending in a generally good direction. And I'm crushing, Internet, more than I ought. But it's gonna be a big job to get to next Thursday's One Minute Film Festival, and after that, a flat-out fucking sprint to the tenth of December. So we'll see. Stand clear: I cannot control these boots.

Posted by tederick at 10:34 AM in the process
Permalink | Comments (0)

Strikewatch: yes!: Frank Darabont gonna go sue-crazy on Indy 4! Did the screenwriter of the very bestest Young Indy episode ever ("Young Indiana Jones and the Phantom Train of DOOM!") contribute more to the Crystal Skull script than he previously believed? With a title like that, would he even want this information known? Time shall tell.

Meanwhilst, Marvel to go webby. File that under inevitable, but if there ever comes a time when I'm reading my funnybooks offa my laptop on the counter at Burrito Boyz instead of manhandling a proper printed version, I am offically calling Joel Lopata and telling him to come snap my neck. (We have an arrangement on issues of snappings of necks that goes back a decade.)

In closing,

And now I am officially at the stage where I become teary with excitement when I encounter zombie pop culture. Like Zombies Calling, and not just cuz I had a crush on Faith Erin Hicks for a solid week after I met her in the spring. Nope: it's all about the zombies. Oh cruel, merciless fates.

Posted by tederick at 3:24 PM in comix & dr. jones & youtubery & zombies
Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by tederick at 6:19 AM in extreme steve
Permalink | Comments (2)

Last coupla days, I've foregone my usual subway reading in favour of listening to really, really, REALLY loud music on the way in to work. Very unusual for me, but something about these November mornings seem to require some serious brainfill. I'm getting up earlier and earlier - I barely slept at all last night, actually - and having now received Chad's final pages, I am trying to get Terra done by the end of the week. And how awesome would that be.

Meanwhile, the hottest woman ever named Jennifer Morrison is in the new Trek movie. With a jaw line like that I'm assuming they'll waste her playing a Romulan or something. Oh why couldn't she play a nubile hottie getting her Jamaharon on with a young Jim Kirk?

And the nerd beat drops now.

Saying of which, Strikewatch: whatever! Here's an interesting point (don't continue if you don't want some basic plot spoilers for the Trek flick): Harlan Ellison is all pissed off because he's not being paid for his ideas from "City on the Edge of Forever." Now, Harlan Ellison is almost always pissed off, and it's usually about "City on the Edge of Forever." But here, the basic claim he's making is that while Paramount owns all of the Star Trek "proper" elements that appear in that episode, the stuff that Ellison specifically invented (Edith Keeler, the Guardian of Forever, etc.) are still owned by him. And if they are indeed being used in the new Trek movie, he's owed.

I guess I'm with Ellison in spirit, although I doubt the legalities support his claim. I mean, if they're using the Kobayashi Maru scenario in the flick (as they seem to be), does that mean they owe Harve Bennett money? And owe Bennett for every single KM reference in all of the movies after Khan, and all of the TV episodes that refer to it as well? Fuck, there's even a novel (a really, really good one by Trek novel standards) about the Kobayashi Maru and how Kirk passed it. I seriously doubt there's any street cred for the idea that individual creative parties can retain some kind of authorial control over elements that they fed into the great Trek furnace over the course of the past 40 years. Still, this strikerly season has me thinking about the interests of the poor bastard writers more than usual, not least because I'm doing so much writing myself. I long ago gave up the idea that I could ever "own" an idea or even necessarily an artwork (other than the Bunny girl hanging on my bedroom wall), but it would be nice to think that fifty years from now I'm not going to be sitting in some old age home dying of lung cancer while Marvel gets fat off Terra gift mugs.

But as BKV pointed out last week, at least screenwriters are unionized; comic writers have no protection at all. As much as I have queasy feelings about certain unions ([cough] TTC! [cough]), I still think no protection at all is a pretty shitty state to be in, especially when your creativity is personally feeding the profits of a megacorporation as big and fancy as Marvel/DC/DarkHorse/whatever.

You know, a few years ago, an ad agency in Los Angeles wanted to get hold of the One Minute Film Festival movies. We didn't do it, but I've often wondered what woulda happened if we went down that road. But I guess all the naive enthusiasm I might have mustered at the time was essentially useless against the inevitable reality: they would have ripped us off, or ignored us completely, and not the third thing. I've Youtubed a movie and put pictures of myself on Facebook which, by a careful reading of the release on the site, means I pretty much no longer own them. And there's ten years of backblog images and Jasper screencaps from this site being used as signatures on forums and message boards all over the world wide Interwebs. We've come a long way from the days when I could bully that Kevin kid into stopping stealing my blog work for his Geocities site just by threatening to rat him out to Yahoo. I have an increasing feeling that we just might be coming up on a period where "ownership" will pretty much cease to exist. We're a pirate armada now, for better or (more likely) worse. The world is a mashup video, but the rum casks are empty.

Posted by tederick at 9:33 AM in movies & pirates & the process & tv
Permalink | Comments (6)

ITEM!: Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Oh see it see it see it see it. Seeing the flick on the big screen again (with BIG sound) blew the doors open in the back of my mind. Oh, to be the age I am now but somehow miraculously living in 1982 and seeing that flick for the first time having no foreknowledge of how it would rewrite the look of all movies for the rest of time. I may sneak back to the Regent to see it again (or thrice more) before it closes. It's just too goddamned incredible. Plus, potentially my very favourite final shot of any movie ever made. The entirety of the universe and the meaning of human life is in that one shot.

ITEM!: Caught up with an old issue of Tales of the Vampires last night and found that short story Joss wrote about the girl and the orcs. If you have the means I highly recommend reading it. For five pages, I think it's pretty much perfect. It's in TOTV #1.

ITEM!: What the fuck is the deal with iPod album name sorting. In iTunes, an album that starts with "The" gets filed under the first letter of the next word i.e. "The Lord of the Rings" goes under L, not T. On the iPod, it goes under T! Which is frustrating as fuck, but not even my main point. Here's where Apple has once again befouled the corridors of common sense: it works the other way under Artist sorting. (So "The Beatles" get filed under B in the iPod.) WTF. Figure your shit out, Apple!

ITEM!: It is so misty out, when I arrived at McCowan station, it looked like my office was gone. Tasty couple of minutes there.

ITEM!: "Am I cursed never to forget that I am two beings? Two beings forever at war with myself! With one hand I embrace life. With the other I wield pain! Heaven help me, I'm both human and spider, and as such - less than either!" - Spider-Woman #1 (c. 1978)

Posted by tederick at 9:28 AM in comix & i hate mac & j-o-b & joss & movies
Permalink

The best thing that can happen at a playoff happened today:! The other team didn't show up!! Because they feared us. Default win, wooooooooooo! So Yellow Wall is now aiming firmly for the middle of the standings in next week's final final. And I gotta say... spending a couple of hours this afternoon shooting at Chris and Stacey didn't suck either. (Hmmm... actual soccer practice. Novel idea.) I've said it before and I'll say it again: no matter what else, Wall wins on spirit every single time. Rah.

D-Coc and I went to see No Country For Old Men last night and I found that it was not to my liking. The evening also served as an impromptu celebration of the conclusion of our Secrets movie project, which was hatched on an evening very much like this one back in April. Hopefully y'all are still planning to come to the One Minute Film Festival in 9 days and will understand better what I am talking about at that time.

Teen Girl Squad's party was in full swing when I got home; I woke up again at around 3:00 because my toys were vibrating in time with the sub woofer downstairs. A brief but restive sleep later I bounded out of bed at 7:45 and went for my regular coffee, and ended up making a whole morning thing of it: coffee, crepes, reading Iron Fist and working on Snapdragon. It was sorta pretty much awesome. Oh, I love my little comic book that's not yet a comic book. I really think it's getting somewhere; it has a shape and a flavour and a meaning and at least one line that I think is genuinely, spectacularly funny. I'm doing some last revisions before I start passing it around to readers. And then... yikes! An artist? Could there be art? There could be art. Gotta get a few more pages done on Terra and then I think we could begin to call 2007 The Year I Started Writing Comics.

Posted by tederick at 4:15 PM in 1MFVF & movies & sockey & the process
Permalink | Comments (0)

So far, winter 2007/08: 1, Matt Brown: 0. I had what can only be described as a spectacular mental car crash last night. Lasted about six hours. Six long, paralytic hours in the prison of my mind. Six hours where at one point, I looked at the clock and said "hmmm, 8:30," and then a year and a half of my life later, I looked at the clock again and said "hmmmm, 8:41." Six lucid nightmare hours in the fading fiery non-light of the Eye. I'm better now. I've been in the postictal fog all day with a minor but unshakeable headache, and an overall feeling of strange distance from the realms of the tangible. I'm trying to take it easy and focus on simple tasks but there is gonna be one hell of a big Teen Girl Squad party tonight which might make quietude difficult: we are reportedly about to lose one of the Squad (So-and-So) to Alberta, and if Cheerleader and Whatserface have their way, 3QF will be a pile of rubble and ash by dawn. I'm actually not even that fussed one way or t'other.

Today I bought a new pipe (with a frog on it!) and a graphic novel and a Spider-Woman action figure, by way of coping. I would like very much to watch The Lord of the Rings now, but that's a commitment and with the continued buzzing in my head, probably untenable. At the very least, I should turn on as many lights as possible, order a pizza, and clean my room with the windows open while drinking plenty of water. Never underestimate the importance of solid hydration.

Posted by tederick at 4:56 PM in miscellaneous crap
Permalink | Comments (0)

This one is like that one, except way bigger and my friend Dave is in this one. So there.

Posted by tederick at 8:03 AM in youtubery
Permalink | Comments (0)

Like the big namby man-wuss that I am.

I wasn't 100% on going to the Snail this week, but then I noticed that pretty much every single title I read was being published this Wednesday. Here's what it was:

Astonishing X-Men #23 is freaking phenomenal. If it weren't for the crushing 3-month wait between issues and the complete disregard of existing Marvel continuity, I would be happy as a pig in slop with this thing. As it is, it's the best Scott issue I've read since... well, since the one where Emma went into his bug room I guess, which wasn't too long ago, but if there is one thing Whedon has consistently nailed in AXM, it isn't Kitty or Emma or Logan or any of the usual favourites: it's Scott Summers. He figured the guy out, man, and I am really impressed. The first panel of Scott getting tortured, and the last panel before The Big Reveal, are probably two of my favourite bits of Cassaday performance ever.

Buffy Season 8 #8 really only needs three words: SLAYER BUBBLE BATH. And those can be followed by ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And perhaps some retraction of my statements from earlier this year that I don't find homoerotic Slayer action hot. But I might also say that this is far and away the best issue of the Faith arc and probably the second or third best issue so far... in fact... thinking on it, I'm hard pressed to remember an issue other than perhaps the first one which was this well written and dramatically satisfying.

Uncanny X-Men #492 is a good example of how not to write Scott Summers. It's in unfair position being read behind AXM #23 above, but there you have it. I didn't like Brubaker's writing on this one at all - the Xavier dialogue was ham-handed and obvious, most of the plotting felt like "moving things along," and when the frick did Layla Miller go from scared 11-year-old to hot 16-year-old? Wasn't M-day, like, a year and a half ago?

Anyways I guess I'm in on Messiah CompleX until the completion, but I am reading begrudgingly. I know AXM's interminable delays have inevitably lead to it being considered the current non-canon rather than the other way around, but it is sooooooo much more fun to read.

New Avengers Illuminati #5 is part of the other big multi-book crossover dealie, the Secret Invasion, which I'm variably more comfortable with since it seems to fall largely on the Bendis side of the house. The timeline continuity of the Avengers titles makes AXM look like Workers Leaving the Factory, but otherwise Bendis still knows his way around the miserable psyches of most of your major Marvel higher-ups. The only problem is that I rapidly lose patience with anyone who does the "Changelings are everywhere!" arc from Deep Space Nine. The temptation to completely disavow continuity in favour of the "it was a double who done that!" logic is a bit large.

Hellboy: Darkness Calls #6 ends that storyline well enough, though as usual I'm sort of confused as to what the storyline is. Whenever Mignola goes all mythology-ing he goes to The Big Place and I prefer the little place where Hellboy just beats on demons. Very pretty colouring though.

Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus #3 was more in line with what I like from my Mignola: a big, brassy, Cavalier and Klay-ish adventure story set in the American WWII era, in New York. With evil secret societies and brains in jars. Rock on Mignola.

The Immortal Iron Fist #10 is my challenge to all comics fans everywhere (though kung fu fans would be advised to pay attention, as well): go and get it. Start with issue #8, and buy 9 and 10 on the spot. Read them. And if you don't eat your own fucking head with glee, then get thee from this place and come ye not back. I only discovered Iron Fist about six weeks ago; I'd been hearing great things sine the Brubaker run started but I jumped aboard at an awkward spot the first time (#4) and didn't dig it. Jumped back in with #8 and yeah, the three words by which Fraction sells the book to the unconverted (Kung Fu Billionaire) are indeed mighty, mighty words. He's a billionaire. In a wild green suit. Who kicks ass. And in The Capital Cities of Heaven (current arc), he's locked in a do-or-die competition against all the other Immortal Weapons, and showboating the prettiest art in any non-Cassaday title on the stands today. Suck it, outsiders! Danny Rand is your MASTAH.

Oh: and I want to have sex with the Bride of Nine Spiders. In full awareness that I wouldn't survive.

Emily the Strange: Be All That You Can't Be was the desert on this very long, very full meal. It's a nice thing to wind down with, because it is pretty, funny, and untaxing. Like jell-o.

PHEW.

Posted by tederick at 7:34 PM in comix & joss
Permalink | Comments (0)

Oddly enough, they both look so much happier and better-adjusted, post-fight. And so do I.

Posted by tederick at 12:09 PM in arcana & megatron & toys! & youtubery
Permalink | Comments (1)

Completely exhausted and mopey last night I drained the last of the 15-year-old single malt, and sat on my floor organizing comic books. (As with my mother, Rule #1: when stressed, organize.) It turns out I am one short box short of a box. Otherwise the experience was like a Matt Brown, This Is Your Comic Reading Life! episode. I think probably the most embarrassing thing I found was the complete run of Star Wars: Republic, which I didn't even like when I was reading it, yet collected every issue; the entire canon of the Emma Frost series (designed for, pitched at, and seemingly written by 12-year-old girls) came a close second.

I was in bed by 9. I vaguely recall waking up at midnight with serious pain in my lower back, but that might have been a dream; I've yet to find proof. I was certainly not on this earth but mingling in the dream-borne paradise the rest of the time; I was Jack Sparrow, becalmed on the Pearl, with not a lot to do besides sit and talk. I think you were there. Then a window opened into the other world, the world after, when we had already survived the apocalypse at great loss of life. Equilibrium, at long last, between us and it. Then I was Faith, soaking wet on the deck behind Gigi's mansion. Dawn was coming (the morning kind, not the giant kind).

Now I'm at the Starbucks for some good honest reading, though I should really be doing some good honest writing. But it's all part of the same back-and-forth, I guess. The headline of the Star this morning is "PM to Cities: Drop Dead." Oh I wish Space Robot had actually said it that way!

Strikewatch: day 5!: Joss Whedon likes Matewan! WTF. That is the movie equivalent of The Stone Angel, which itself is the CanLit equivalent of spinach.

Anyone notice that even the air is shivering? Whatever we're on the edge of, it's gonna be a sight.

Is there any way I can go to Burrito Boyz for lunch?

Posted by tederick at 8:01 AM in comix & dreams & goddamn politics & joss & the apocalypse
Permalink | Comments (0)

Strikewatch: Day 4!: Tim Kring apologizes to Heroes fans! But when does he apologize to Heroes non-fans like myself? When's gonna be my time, Tim Kring??

Boy I bet at this point you're starting to wonder how long I can keep up this strikewatch nonsense.

I am in a very... complicated mood. It's pitch black out and snowing for one thing, and for another, I barely slept at all last night; these things tend to alter the emotional awareness. There was also something that Helen said about getting to know another person's body for the first time... she was speaking metaphorically... but it shimmered on the inside a bit, anyway. There are a lot of long, dark corridors ahead, and a lot of rich, powerful things happening lately, and the combination of the two can be a bit groundshaking. Lots of good, a little bit of sad, and tons and tons of complexity, challenge, and free will. Hmmmmm. Focus and concentration, and eventually, mastery. That's the key.

Look: I inspired comic art! (with the lamest, most obvious joke ever.) Still, for my druthers, that's a high compliment. I wonder if Debbie might lend her pen to Extreme Steve?

Home now for bed and cookies.

Posted by tederick at 4:20 PM in blogTO & poetical & tv
Permalink | Comments (2)

I gotta say, as much as Timothy's scones are usually the cat's asshole, the one I had this morning was pretty decent.

So today I got up at QUARTER TO SIX, Interwebs. I blame everyone and everything, and mostly myself because I went out with Sandy last night and had martinis and salty food so the headache that roused me and wouldn't let me go back to sleep was probably my fault. And George Bush's. Now, the serious, serious upside to this was that I pretty much kicked the shit out of the fifth-and-final-for-now issue of Snapdragon. I revised the first twelve pages extensively, and wrote the remaining ten. That bitch is done. That said, I have some serious revision to do across the board. But once again I am just glee-filled at the degree to which I feel like I found something worthwhile here and managed to deliver it (to myself). It has a whole shape, and brings the story right back to the main character, from whence it strayed in issues 3 and 4. Oh comics. I could be happy as a clam doing this for ever.

Strikewatch: day 3!: Joss s'more. Boy it would be nice if Joss Whedon had a blog instead of all this shameless squatting. And while on the subject of strikewatch, E.R. might get extended cuz of this thing - which, to me, is like... they've done how many euthanasia shows on that series, and they can't see that IT'S TIME TO DIE??? I cannot believe anyone still watches E.R., and I stuck with that show longer than pretty much anyone. In its early years, in fact, it was pretty much my Very Favourite Thing. I've been watching some of the DVDs recently (seasons 4 and 5), and loving the shit out of it, so I tuned back in a couple of weeks ago and found it rather like going back to my old high school: same basic wall structure but fuck me if every single other thing has completely changed and left me behind. No series should go on to the point where there is no longer a single recognizeable element of what it started with, other than that it's still set at County General (a completely redesigned, rebuilt, no-more-opening-credits-at-all County General!). It's so inane.

In closing I'll just throw out a OMGWTFBBQ: BRFC!, and then guide your attention to the latest Teen Girl Squad! episode, which is so much more enjoyable than the ones that live downstairs from me.

"The Po Po! I can't do another nickel."

Posted by tederick at 9:52 AM in blogTO & foodin' & joss & the process & tv
Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by tederick at 6:01 AM in extreme steve
Permalink | Comments (9)

I bought a pair of boots offa the Cannonball today; boots for the liberal kicking of shit. I'm quite happy with them; they may someday soothe the still-gaping wound in my heart where my Uncle Paul's 40-year-old work boots once lived. Oh how I miss those boots.

Strikewatch: day 2! Joss does his rah rah thing. Teensy tinsy Dollhouse mention but otherwise mostly just rah rah and cough cough.

Whoa, the lights just flickered twice. This post might not make it.

I am pleased as a bitch with my six pages of Terra, newly minted this morning. They aren't as good as Chad's from last week but they make me feel like A Writer. Which, as you can tell by its capitalization, means a lot to me. Going to dive back into Snapdragon and try to finish issue 5 - that one is definitely not going as well as the space cowgirls one. Frick, I am behind on everything. Good thing nobody pays me for any of this.

Snow is coming. Snowboarding is coming after?

Posted by tederick at 10:57 AM in joss & the process
Permalink | Comments (1)

[sound of tongue hitting floor, rolling away on the carpet, finally flopping limply to one side and disgorging its drool]

There's also BEARFIGHTPOSTER!!!

Sorry. If you're not up with Golden Compass, you're gonna find the next two months of this blog dull as fuck. (More so than usual anyway.)

P.S.: Someone wanna tell me why Serafina's the only one who doesn't have her daemon listed on her poster? If Kaisa ain't in this movie I'm walkin' the fuck out.

Posted by tederick at 2:29 PM in movies
Permalink | Comments (2)

In support of my peeps in the WGA, I am declaring a wildcat strike here on Tederick.com! No new blog posts until this writer's strike is concluded!!

Nah of course not.

Here's BKV though; I adore him.

And over here, Morena Baccarin may or may not have spilled the big wooooooooo SECRET! of Book's past. Are you sad now that you know? I am. I was pretty good with "No I don't."

Hey guess what? Heath Ledger is gonna kick Batman's ass. In spite of the naysayers I remain pretty happy with the casting choice, and when I hear things like this:

It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much. “Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”

I get even happier. I am all behind dudes who look like they can really throw a punch these days, and Heath Ledger can really throw a punch. Can't wait to see that IMAX preview with I Am Legend. Yeah it's a spoiler. So what? I gots ta get my Joker on.

Posted by tederick at 11:22 AM in batman! & movies & the process
Permalink | Comments (0)

I took a blow to the head yesterday, Internet! I was going in for a header during soccer and the guy coming at me went in for the very same header. Our heads collided, pulverizing my delicate brainmeats. I tell ya, that is some full digital Dolby surround sound awesomeness when that happens. Anyways now I have a bump on the noggin (diagnosis? bad babysitting!) and a general unwillingness to move quickly or think deep thoughts.

Trying to get my leg over the list of movies I haven't seen yet, Matty Price and me went to see American Gangster last night; I was disappointed. It's not that it's a bad film, per se, just relatively unaffecting. The key to making the Goodfellas structure work (and it's not just for gangster movies; it usually also applies to rock biopics, or any other story where someone starts from humble beginnings, the going gets good, and then it all goes to hell) is that the on-the-way-up part of the story needs to be really fuckin' fiun. That way, you get to enjoy the characters and give a fuck that they'll be driving around with a bunch of cocaine in the car while being tailed by an FBI helicopter in the third act. Here, I weren't feelin' it. But between this, Grindhouse, and No Country, there's no denying that Josh Brolin's having a hell of a year.

I am using my bonus hour today to do some patchwork on Terra - haven't been into that script in a dog's age, so not exactly sure what I'll find when I try to set my mind into it, but I owe what I owe and there's nothing like a solid challenge on a cold Monday morning.

Oh and by the way: if I wasn't crushing like a fool before, I sure as fuck am now. Oh life!

Posted by tederick at 6:49 AM in movies & sockey & the process
Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night me and Matty Price recorded a Mamo about the forthcoming writer's strike, and then in classic Mamo style, as soon as the mics were off we rambled on for another five minutes about all kinds of movies we want to see and stuff we'd been thinking about. Man, we need to record those moments. (Or, more of them.) Anyways the upside is that this autumn seems to have a disproportionately large number of flicks I want to see, which sort of snuck up on me; I am way behind. I'm going to try to get my ass to the theatres a few times this week to catch up, cuz even more good stuff is freightloading onto the screens in the next seven weeks.

After the Mamo, a gang of us went to Avli for dinner - because Chris had evidently never been to dinner at a Greek restaurant on the Danforth in all the time he's lived here. I had bunny pie. I think it's important, in situations like this, to eat the bunny pie - because why else are you here, really, if you can't take on the opportunity to eat a pie made exclusively of bunny? Stupid bunnies. They thought they had a free pass.

Anyhoo, I think I've finally developed a solid appreciation for Greek food. I used to not like it very much, which is ironic given my 'hood. But I can definitely navigate my way around a Greek menu now and find any ten things I'll enjoy, which is sort of what we did last night anyway, only with wine and teasing. (About me. And someone. And something.)

And then after dinner we scuttled our Ridley Scott plans in favour of Across the Universe, which I am officially the last person on earth to come around on and I realize that, but OH MY GOD. The best thing I can say about it is that as soon as it was over (in fact, even as it was unspooling), I wanted to watch it again immediately. Listen, I am so painfully aware that the movie isn't actually all that good. But IT'S SO GOOD ANYWAY. A big, drunken makeout session with a strawberry-red happy face. For all the degree to which it falls apart almost as soon as Jude and Lucy have fallen in love, by the time Hey Jude is doing its rah-rah thing I was literally bouncing up and down in my seat in ecstastic glee. I want to give that movie a hug. But you can't hug a film! (Just like you can't hug a cop.) So instead I came home, took advantage of the duplicate hour, and stayed awake well into the New Time listening to Beatles music and playing with the light. It's all right.

Posted by tederick at 8:27 AM in foodin' & movies & podcastery
Permalink | Comments (0)

"Just tell me this before you go. What side I'm fighting for I cain't tell, and I don't greatly care. Just tell me this: What I'm a-going to do now, is that going to help that little girl Lyra, or harm her?" - Lee Scoresby

Lee becomes such a useful character in His Dark Materials because he so early and easily throws up his hands and says, I don't have one damn clue which side of this fight is the right side, so I'm just going to look out for the people I care for rather than spend all my time trying to muck out the delicate workings of the higher levels. That's the kind of reasoning that is both humanity's greatest strength, and greatest flaw, but it is just so perfectly human, that it makes Lee a singular and meaningful voice among the cacophany of witches, angels, shamans, and daemons.

Lee's final gun battle on the ridge just wrecked me today, partly because I could see Sam Elliott in my head when I was reading it, and it's so much sadder when it's a really old dude instead of just some guy in his late forties. All in all it was a good day for reading, cold and clear, and I found myself a really good cup of coffee and a nice hard bench. My dreams last night were troubled by whores and kings, but my new pillows are wonderful and I am rested. I have a new yoga crush, which helps. And my hoodies, as usual, are exceptional.

I am actually downloading all the raw footage of The Tracey Fragments. I don't have a clear idea if I'm actually going to use it for anything constructive, besides maybe teaching myself how to use Final Cut which I still haven't done after all this time. I just feel like if I'm so dead set on the idea that there's something valuable in that flick even if the final product wasn't to my liking, I oughta hitch up my socks and try to find it, even if only for an hour or two. But first, there's work to do today, and it ain't getting fresher for waiting.

Here's some good news: Hearts of Darkness will finally see shinydisk. It's the last film in my top ten of all time that is still mouldering on my shelf in clunky old VHS. That movie was just so damn instrumental to me when I was a teenager. Useful as hell.

I am in the midst of prepping up for winter. I went into H&M today and bought two hats, three pairs of pirate socks, and fingerless gloves. I don't know why I always fall for fingerless gloves; my fingertips are actually the part of my hand that get coldest fastest and are most in need of help. I should get fingers-only gloves. That would be better. But I am a whore for the look of the things. Sigh. Anyways, now I'm looking for a new fall/winter coat - a hell of a commitment, so I'm a bit stymied. I think it shall be grey, though, and hip-length. That is my current thought.

A truly immense collection of Golden Compass stills here. I'll be sitting pretty in desktop wallpaper for months.

Posted by tederick at 1:11 PM in blogTO & books & dreams & hoodies & movies & shinydisks
Permalink | Comments (0)

I bloody well hate that word, and not just because of its Grey's Anatomy references. Something about "vajayay" just screams "I'm trying to spin my discomfort into hipster sloganism." But then I've never had much of a problem with the word vagina (well obviously, but I mean apart from that, I kinda like it. It sounds neat).

But here's this Philadelphia Daily News guy weighing in on the positive brand identifications of the word vajayjay, and because he coined the phrase "vajayjay naysayers," I'm giving him this week's Vagina Fridays Humanitarian Award Of The Week. Call it whatever you want; I, for example, still think "vulva" sounds like something you find stuck to the bottom of a truck tire.

Posted by tederick at 6:00 PM in vagina fridays
Permalink | Comments (1)

Pencils down means pencils down, sayeth the showrunners.

Shows you can expect to be not seeing, circa Monday's near-inevitable strike:

30 Rock (Tina Fey)
Battlestar (my old amigo Ron Moore)
Family Guy (McFarlane)
House (David Shore)
Private Practice (only mentioning it because it's Marti)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Dan Sterling)
The Simpsons (Brooks, Jean, n' Groening)
True Blood (ain't even seen it yet, and Alan Ball's taking it away from me!)

and, of course, and most painfully,
Lost. (Those cunning rat bastards Lindelof and Cuse.)

It is what it is, team. I'm with the WGA on this one, and I'm old enough to remember the strike in '88. Time to get this shit sorted out, Hollywood. You're in enough trouble already. The last thing you want is people like me throwing even more time at the Wii.

Posted by tederick at 2:46 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & tv
Permalink | Comments (0)

In the futuretime, we will know this as the Week of Good Cookies. Everyone's been trying to buy my love with cookies this week. But they will be dismayed. Silly people: don't you know my love can't be bought? It can only be foolishly given to the demonstrably unworthy.

Based on this, I have decided to create a Clone Code so that people will be able to verify that I am really me. Her it is, please socialize this to your groups:

-----BEGIN CLONE CODE-----
Version: CCv1.0

Identity: Matthew Brown

Challenge: "What food product is a consensus mass hallucination of the human race?"

Response: "rice"

-----END CLONE CODE-----

It's been a relatively rough week, enjoyable with the Hallowe'ens but good for the knock-around. Tonight I shall do laundry and kill zombies.

Posted by tederick at 10:45 AM in foodin' & miscellaneous crap
Permalink | Comments (0)

Look! I found Tia Dalma:

After this picture was taken she became 80 feet tall, and then she turned into a bunch of crabs, and then it got weird.

I also found Hunter S. Thompson:

Which was like... well, you know that scene in Fear and Loathing where Johnny Depp sees Hunter S. Thompson? It was like, with less music, more drugs, and about the same amount of pink.

I joined a secret film society tonight. Shhhhhhh!!! It's a secret. We watched an old print of a film called Anguish. It was goddamned phenomenal. The first bit of the movie is about a psychopath who pops out peoples' eyeballs because his mother tells him to... and then we cut out to an audience watching the movie. Then the psycho in the movie-within-a-movie goes to the movies. Then at the movie theatre where they're watching the movie-within-a-movie, a psycho shows up and starts killing people. And then it got weird. There's hypnosis involved. Man, honestly, there was a high cheese factor in a lot of scenes, but it was an earned cheese factor. And in terms of inter-diegetic weaving, Anguish is the skullfuck of the century. For things exactly like this, I joined a secret film society.

From the screening I scarpered up to the Bloor line and calculated my time out to put me as close to Kipling by 11:13 as I could - because I was going to jump on the ghost train, which was headed back my way. I jumped out at Dundas West and switched over to the eastbound platform, where I made friends. Fuck, "made friends" is pretty much the subtitle of my day. Everybody loves the captain. Japanese schoolgirls took their pictures with me. But that's a tale for another time.

Here's me and Witch Baby:

OK, her costume wasn't actually Witch Baby, but this girl was Witch Baby. I was trying to figure out who she reminded me of, and then I realized it was Witch Baby and I started into a lengthy explanation of who that is because I figured nobody in the world has even heard of those books... and she was like, "oh yeah, I've read them all, I completely identify with Witch Baby in every way." It was odd and perfect and very Hallowe'eny because I shit you the not, this girl was as close as I'm going to get to meeting the real deal. Very cool, highlight of the night.

Here's me with Good Tinkerbell and Evil Tinkerbell, a.k.a. the slutterflies:

And here's me with a goat. Evil goat? No, he was friendly. But he walked on man legs:

And now here's the ghost train:

Which was just unbelievably fun. You know, back when I did Jack Sparrow for Hallowe'en the first time, I got caught traversing town on the Bloor subway at around midnight, and it was the first time the possibilities of the character really opened themselves up for me and I realized that this thing was bigger than I'd done it at that point. Closing it all off with the ghost train ride really solved the whole deal in a big, coherent, satisfying way. All in all this was a fucking awesome experience and I only wish the party ride could have gone on a lot longer. Which, I presume, it probably did, but I jumped off at Pape Station - one thing about parties on subway trains, they get motherfucking hot motherfucking fast. Plus, not exactly a sword-friendly environment; this girl Beth (here she is:

stole mine at one point but I got it back. And I really didn't mind because look how freakin' cute that girl is, but still. I didn't break character today (okay, once when I inexplicably ran into Chad, and nearly once again when I equally inexplicably ran into D-Coc) from 8 a.m. till midnight. By the time I was stumbling home down Pape, every single thing on my body had ceased to be a costume and had just become that thing I was wearing. The wig was my real hair, the swagger was my real swagger, and coming back out to this world was a hell of a lot harder than going into that one.

I climbed the stairs to my room, switched on the computer, saw the Joker picture and the X-Files confirmation and then my jaw hit the fucking floor.

JOSS WHEDON IS RETURNING TO TELEVISION.

Exclamation point.

We could make the obligatory jokes about how he's a) working with Fucked Firefly Fox and b) also Kiss of Death Minear, but let's not. Joss fucking Whedon is doing a television show. Like, it's actually happening. I can scarcely fucking believe the world that I live in. I really can't. That's a big statement, and much larger than any context of pirate costumes or television shows that might be intuited by its inclusion in this post. But I really can't believe the world that I live in these days. It is a supreme challenge, and a supreme pleasure, and the wonder of my very eyes.

Posted by tederick at 12:25 AM in jedi antics & joss & movies & photoblog & pirates
Permalink | Comments (0)