Wasn't a bad week, all told. Started good; stayed that way. Today I spent the afternoon working at Starbucks, which makes it sound like I got fired, but actually it just means that my job is occasionally portable (available open WiFi ports pending). And I've got a good "constant," to use the new Lost term. That time travel shit was crazy - and Desmond is just awesome. And being in love is fun, the vagueries of having to hang on to a phone number in London for 8 years just cuz an ex-boyfriend told you to notwithstanding. Sure, I'm a big shmaltz, but was that not the most emotionally satisfying love moment ever in the history of "sustain sustain sustain" TV ever? Finally: no bullshit.

Here's some bullshit: censoring what movies get funding in Canada, before they get funding. Not that any of those fucktards ever give me funding, but they might give some to someone I like sometime. And when that happens, there had damn well better be plenty of bareback gay sex in the flick. Or I'll be pissed.

Right, it's getting dark out there. I'm gonna sort out yet more of my departing toys.

Posted by tederick at 5:10 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & galaxy far & goddamn politics & j-o-b
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All right, I'm gonna give you a clue here now: there have been exactly three great achievements in Hollywood movie scoring in the past decade, and they are: the Zimmer/Howard mashup of Batman Begins, the Zimmer/Badelt mashup of Pirates of the Caribbean (supporting Zimmerphilia: here; outdated Zimmerphobia: here), and the stunning exercise in musical propulsion that is John Powell's scoring for the three films in the Bourne series.

Now, Powell's score for Bourne 1 was goddamned competent. It gets the job done, setting tone and mood and moving the action sequences along with a degree of "oomph" that one would expect from any action movie. It's only in the Bourne 2 score that I started using the word "propulsive" in association with the music. Once mated with Paul Greengrass' masterfully orchestrated visual kineticism in the second film, Powell's music starts working at an energetic level that is not just supporting the action, but is in fact enhancing to the action, the way a good sound bridge can make a harsh cut seem seamless. This is particularly important given Greengrass' chop-socky approach to editing. I have argued that Greengrass' editing approach is dynamic and well-constructed, but the more I listen to the Powell scores, the more I think that maybe, the Bourne action sequences only work (or at least, only work as well as they do) due to the gliding sweep of the near-endless nervous strings and pulsing synths of the musical score.

This all comes to a head in the Ultimatum score, which is as much of an evolutionary leap over Supremacy as Supremacy was over Identity - while still using virtually identical musical syntax and introducing absolutely no new themes. That's mind-boggling. It's like with three kicks at the can, Powell just kept improving on the same basic premise until he'd achieved what could actually be called "the perfect score:" a clarification of musical and dramatic intent at such a minute level of detail that, for all intents and purposes, it is the movie, rather than just being a piece of the movie. In the course of three films, the Bourne music goes from being enjoyably poppy underscore to being as close as movie music comes to being cinema: all the movement, sweep, and pseudo-visual enervation that the films themselves are capable of achieving. Honestly: have I missed something here? How has John Powell not won an Oscar for this yet?

Posted by tederick at 6:11 PM in movies
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I've decided that I consider the people who register typo domain names (i.e. Facbeook.com) are clever people rather than jerks as I'd originally determined. There is nothing wrong with having a comprehensive understanding of human foibles, nor having a working knowledge of how to transform those foibles into an opportunity for assplay.

Boy this post is gonna get spammed all the way to Christmas, isn't it?

I trolled around the internet this morning looking for some sweet X-Files 2 action. The best I could come up with was this. Still, the ratty bootleg trailer was enough to convince me that I am potentially more excited about seeing Mulder and Scully reunited onscreen again than I am about Indy and Marion. And that's crazy! Y'know, it might just be the whooping from the Wondercon crowd in the cllip, but for a show I didn't even watch till its fourth season and didn't enjoy more than moderately for the rest of its run, The X-Files has sorta become my favourite thing in a lot of ways. Or at least, something for which I apprently have disproportionate affection. A comedown must be in the mail.

Speaking of comedowns, Demetre sent me the Lost time loop theory, which I would like a whole lot more if it wasn't actually headache-inducingly complicated to read. There's certainly interesting ideas in there but if this is actually what Bad Robot has to lay out in the next 40-odd episodes, I'd rather go with Bex's dino-natives jive. (The time loop theory does have a rather stupendous glance at the Tunisian polar bear issue.) I do remain, of course, firmly convinced that Ben is in the box.

Also speaking of time loops, D-Coc sent me this, which is proof that you should never go back in time and fuck your blind grandfather. I think.

My DVDs are selling like hot cakes! I've already made a hundred bucks - without even setting foot out the door! (More than I usually would have, anyway.) Sell your shit, Interwebs. It does the job.

"I can't believe you're telling Jeff about the god of wheat now! The entire second half of the fourth season is about the god of wheat!" - Carlton Cuse, in this Lost interview I rather enjoy

Posted by tederick at 12:45 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & miscellaneous crap & movies
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Oh what can I tell you - it was the best weekend ever. Two days of Blue Mountainy goodness where the gloves always matched the bindings, the BBQ chicken could be eaten sandwich-style by the roaring (well, hissing) fire, the tandem lift dismounts never failed, and every single one of us could snowboard. My Hamtaro-hatted ladyfriend even tried to teach me how to 360. Which I very nearly almost did once. Actually what I did was, go into the turn, then scream out a perfect Bender "OH SHIT!" and fall flat on my face. But everything else was so darn much fun, I almost didn't notice.

The Facebookers in the crowd have probably already seen the pictures in the album that is technically named "I snowboard. Well, that's not actually true," but has subsequently been renamed "adorability squared" by several lookers-on. It's a hell of a thing. Tell me the pic of Sarafina sitting in the snow isn't actually the cutest thing ever. EV. ER.

Here's another! and I don't want to hear any guff on this point, so listen: when we got home on Monday night, Sarafina and I had a powerful craving for margaritas, and no real desire to either make or purchase ice, so we used snow. Clean untouched snow from the vasty reservoir that is my back deck. And I'll tell ya, a snowgarita makes for just about the best damn drinking experience you can have north of the border, IMHO. If you have the means (i.e. you live in Canada), I highly recommend trying it out. It's a fun-filled way to use our countries natural resources to our best advantage, and when taken in combination with a couple of days' worth of winter adventuring, almost makes the abominable chill worthwhile. Snowgaritas: get drunk off your ass, eh.

Yup, I'm pretty happy with things. With the overall scheme, you could say.

Posted by tederick at 4:27 PM in foodin' & jedi antics
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...will return in a minute. In the meantime, here's Burt pleasuring a hippo.

Posted by tederick at 8:46 AM in photoblog
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Working from home today to swing a lieu day for Monday, naturally today's the day that Rogers once again kowtows all of my services including internet. It would be today, of all days. Not one of the other bajillions of Saturdays when I am not mobile-officing from home and in dire, dire need of web access to complete my work. It would be today. Because that is how the gears grind.

While we're on the subject of telecommunications conglomerates I hate, I got my first spam text message today. No ground is safe.

Irritations aside, today was probably one of the most professionally satisfying days I ever had. I was, for lack of a better word, in "the zone." It all just made sense - I was making connections, seeing pathways I hadn't seen before, pulling all the threads into the middle to make something work in a way I had never thought of before. It was pretty exciting, actually, which makes me quite the geek. But it's been a tough slog lately, and I'm even working on a damn Saturday, so it is not utterly without value to suddenly realize that what I do can still be surprising and fun.

Last night when I got home I started the big spring purge - you know how there used to be 6 red bins of toys behind my bed? Now there's four. You know what I realized? Shit gets old and breaks, and then it's pretty much useless. There's stuff out in the trash right now that I really loved quite a lot when I got it whenever I got it, but now it's just gunged up and gross. So it's gone.

Also in the process of getting rid of a fuck of a lot of DVDs. If you want to buy any of these ($5 a feature, $15 a TV season), all you have to do is ask:

Angel: Seasons 1, 3, 4, 5
Buffy: Seasons 1, 2, 3, 6, 7
House: Season 2
The Golden Girls: Season 2
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Season 4
Family Guy: Season 5 (a.k.a. vol 4, don't ask me why)
GI Joe: Series 1 and 2

Clerks
Star Wars trilogy
The Last Waltz
Sleepy Hollow
The Day After Tomorrow
Boxcar Bertha
New York, New York
3 Extremes
The Kid Stays in the Picture
The Ice Storm
American Pie 1 & 2
Blue Crush
Mirrormask
Lila Says
After Hours

**be sure to check the comments for the latest on what's been taken.

I knocked off work around 4:30 and drowned myself in a Starbizzle, finishing off Black Hole. You should really read it. Then you should check out some of the historical documentaries on the Young Indy DVDs, because they don't suck.

Posted by tederick at 6:15 PM in comix & j-o-b & shinydisks & toys!
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So after two or three years of solid use, I decided to get rid of that Jack Colton scream button on the side of the blog. I've replaced it with Jack Rebney going nuts. Which is, unfortunately, silent (although I guess I could have overlaid any of Jack's excellent sound bites). But still very entertaining when you're bored.

Here is an open letter to Joss Whedon:

Dear Joss Whedon,

Matt

This was prompted largely by the fact that I was so pissed off that Runaways 29 was months late that I was determined not to like it... and then it turned out to be pretty much the strongest issue of the 5 he's done so far. So now he's an asshole for exiting the book after issue 30, and an asshole because 29 was months and months and months and months late. The latter thing is really starting to cheese me off. The man released four issues of Astonishing X-Men in 2007. Four! This goddamn thing has been going on half my life! And now his short run on Runaways looks to end up taking a solid year or more to release, which is playing merry hob with my ability to keep the story going in my head. (The incomprehensible recap at the head of issue 29? Utterly deceptive twattlespeak, says I.) The Buffy issues have been chugging right along, but one imagines it's only a matter of time before he gets bored with them Buffy grinds to a Fray-like halt, too.

Is this my first anti-Whedon sentiment? And is it about punctuality?

Shieeesshhhh.

Posted by tederick at 3:07 PM in comix & joss & tederickdotcomdotcom
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Having now caught up on regular Lost and V-day Lost, I can allow that a) this is the best season since season 1, b) Kate episodes just don't work, largely because Evangeline Lilly looks so goddamn freaky-deaky in heavy makeup, and c) time moves more slowly on the island, which pretty much explains everything, or at least, many noteworthy things. (1: the amount of time it would take to fake the 815 crash. 2: Walt's turbo-puberty. 3: Dr. Richard A. Guyliner, wandering around lookin' as healthsome as he did when Benry was a boy. To say nothing of Benry's swank airport threads!) Actually, when nervous little Jeremy Davies first flicked his annoying lank of hair back over his forehead and started setting up gizmos, I exclaimed to myself: "Finally, the only way the writers are going to get themselves out of this narrative trap: a scientist!" Because finding out how and why there's an Oceanic 6 is one thing (no matter how many times I see that "the Arab is a hit man in the future!" gag, it never ceases to bring a smile to my face), but if there isn't at least some god's-eye view of why the island is the island, the Fans Who Don't Get What The Show's About (i.e. the majority) are gonna go a' Cuse-huntin'. With their Lindelof spears. And their Abrams... hat.

Season 4's three to one to the good, so I'm pretty happy.

Posted by tederick at 7:50 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42
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Today Brenda described my single secret game of Scrabulous with Sarafina (which, aside from being alliterationally awesome, is the only game of Scrabulous I deign to play) as being like "intellectual footsie." Which is adorable, accurate, and unintentionally significant. Like my pants. Today I am wearing all brown. Why? Because I'm Matt Brown? No. Because I simply lack the foresight to realize that a) by wearing brown boots, brown socks, brown pants, and a brown shirt, I will be wearing all brown; and b) because I am Matt Brown, this is going to draw attention.

Also today, Chad posted the thousandth Tederick.comment. Huzzah for bloggeratunum, miscellany, and their unholy unions.

Last night at the exact moment in Zathura when the two boys realize that their house is floating through outer space, Sarafina exclaimed "Isn't tonight the eclipse?!" and jumped up and ran outside. The problem with eclipses being, they take a really long time and don't look like much until the very last second. In the context of this very cold February, I greatly preferred fluid-medium starfields and bad kid acting.

I am using the expletive "what the bleepin' F!" rather a lot this week, both because I enjoy it and because it regularly applies to every single jink and weave in this crazy old everything that's happening, from my cell dropping calls repeatedly, to figuring out how to use a new LMS. (To finding Rebecca.) I am very tired and my belly is disturbed. But I'm on my feet, in love, and I'm gonna get comics and then Lost and then Lost and then bed. Thursdays are just easier than the other days.

Posted by tederick at 2:46 PM in miscellaneous crap & tederickdotcomdotcom
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The major deliverables for the project I've been working on since before the beginning of recorded time are now green for launch, so I am mustering the cavalry for the second charge. Above my desk, I have hung a screencap of the e.learning with 2 zebras fucking that I recently spoke of. And of course, there's no shortage of pirates or the DS9 Wild Bunch, or rum. Or trumpets signalling the charge.

Having completed my canvas survey of the Most Notorious Pyrates, I am now reading Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker, which is about how dumb we are to presume intent behind complexity. (That's my kind of dumb.) Already on the second or third page I think I found the germ for the entire concept of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, if you can believe that. (I could, of course, be wrong.) Last night I met with D-Coc to discuss the more "philosophical" elements of his script, which we reviewed on the weekend on more tactical terms. In asking him whether his character Alan was meant to be representative of the many-worlds hypothesis, I then made a leap of creative logic that is somewhat fundamentally insane by proposing that rather than having his universe branch apart into infinitely multiple Alans of ever greater number as each moment passes in the film, the character should coalesce down to a single representative Alan who is more Alan than anyone else, "as choice overtakes possibility." This idea is insane, or at least contrary, because it suggests that choice reduces the number of possible iterations of existence, rather than increasing them. Perhaps this is a neo-Darwinist thought. After all, before the beginning of recorded time there was probably an unquantifiable infinity of possible variations of my major deliverables, and now, there is only the final product that is sitting right in front of me. Sure, in another frame of the multiverse these modules I've just built could be backwards or pink or Japanese. But I choose to presume the supremacy of my own personal Alan-ness, which does not jibe with the many-worlds hypothesis, but is more comforting than the troubling thought that no decision I've made in the past month lead to anything more definably "right" than any of the alterna-choices made in any of the alterna-cosmoses that litter creation with mindless, meaningless entropic muck.

Posted by tederick at 2:11 PM in j-o-b & miscellaneous crap
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Yes, the first thing I thought of when I read that a huge chunk of Queen West has been taken down by fire was "oh fuck, I hope the Snail's okay." It is, but the Queen location of Suspect is reportedly a goner. What a way to start a Wednesday.

Also: if you visit this post, you can see firefighters doing their thing in that awesome bit of alley we used for a shot in Bone Daddy 2. (Which might have ended up in the deleted scenes, now that I think about it.) That was the wettest I've ever been in my entire goddamn life, and I've jumped into a lake with my clothes on. Oh Bone Daddy 2. You were supposed to be easy. I suppose nothing ever is. In spite of this, I have a strong, pervasive desire to actually make Captain Napalm and the Legions of Havoc, even though as recently as a month ago I was pretty convinced I was never going to make a movie again. Just another thing to add into the pot of "where the fuck am I going to find time for this" items.

Still, it feels good to want to make a movie because I actually feel like there's something I could bring to it, instead of just doing something to do it.

I'm trying to de-clutter this week. Selling DVDs, giving away books, tossing a few bins of toys and putting some stuff on the Ebay. Spring cleaning has huge psychological gains for me - particularly when I feel as weighed down as I do right now. Selling stuff always runs at odds with my natural inclincation to put big stickers on things that say "free!" Like I'm going to do with my TV, someday. But in the meantime, I've got two 3-foot columns of DVDs to drag over to Sonic Boom, just to have them snarl at my scratches. February's a rough month.

Posted by tederick at 9:52 AM in blogTO & tederick films
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Last night Sarafina and I made ratatouille and watched Ratatouille. You know, the one with the rat who wants to be a stand-up comedian. Brad Bird continues to be the best shooter in Hollywood who never shoots anything - the "camera"work in that flick is pretty damn terrific. I found the fact that certain of the animated elements (the water, the book pages) were photorealistic while others (the rats, the city) were not fairly interesting; there's the beginnings of a good idea there. But poor Remy still lived in the valley for me. I will happily grant, though, that this is goddamned adorable and makes me actually want to see that flick. I never learn.

Meh, I'll believe this when I have my Blu-Ray monkey kong. Until then, I will say that Disney makes the worst Blu-Ray disks ever. Not because they are lower quality than any of the others, but because of the 45 minutes of trailers and bullshit that inevitably start every single disk and can only be skipped one at a time on players that need to think about the entire skipping process, at length, for several minutes before deciding to do anything about it.

I know, I know. Early adoption. Now that the war's over I'm about to be shown a chump for my player choice, aren't I?

Posted by tederick at 10:17 AM in movies & shinybludisks
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Happy Love Day, motherfuckers! As previously reported, my federally-regulated employer decided not to give me the day off as per Dalton McGuinty's crack "Family Day will get us elected" scheme. This has caused me to hate Dalton McGuinty, hate my employer, and hate families. Was that the goal, government?

Speaking of families, my sister adopted a cat last week. His name is Burt. I met Burt last night: he is very appropriate. This would be the fourth cat in the Woogie line, and I am looking forward to scheduling a Burt / Mojo / Zam play date in the near future, for doing so will horrify all three of them. Perhaps we'll bring Woogie's ashes along too. That would be even funner.

A Tederick.com no-prize to the first person to Lolcat that picture.

Let's talk Toyfair! The fat lady has officially sung: here's the last Star Wars figure I will ever buy. In fact, I may buy this and then throw out the lot of them, so I can put Yarna on my monitor and say "Look, they made the Fat Dancer. What else would I ever need?" So end it: there is a contract between us, Internet, and I am a man of my word.

Sideshow Gandalf: weak. And at $90, a pretty terrible price point for weak work. Armoured Obi-wan: much better, didn't see that coming, if I was still buying these things I'd probably buy this thing. But I'm not so I won't, so there.

Yup, it's getting very near time to sell off a big swath of the last ten years of my life. It was fun for a good long while. Now most of it's just stuff in boxes. (I will indulge in Colonel Kira in the Starfleet uniform, because... well... I mean c'mon.) Dear me, a sense of priority is a strange thing.

I'm working six days this week because Sarafina and I are doing an overnight at Blue Mountain next Sunday/Monday. Eat that, Family Day!

Posted by tederick at 11:20 AM in galaxy far & j-o-b & toys! & zam!
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"Captain Teach assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face and frightened America more than any comet that has appeared there a long time.... In time of action, he wore a sling over his shoulders with three brace of pistols hanging in holsters like bandoliers, and stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face, his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a Fury from hell to look more frightful."
         - from "The Life of Captain Teach" in A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates

I went all the way up to the yogashoppe only to find it unceremoniously closed for this three-day weekend that all Ontarians but myself (and 60% of the rest of us) do not get to enjoy. Curses! So, I came back home and played Super Mario Galaxy. That thing is crazier than hell. It makes me wonder: does Mario even remember that he used to be a plumber? Or is it all just comets and stars and the ability to turn water into ice just by the consumption of a mushroom?

Gaining purchase on level 1, I switched over to a little classic Super Mario Brothers, and as my score was so greatly improved over my last similar co-venture, I must forcibly conclude that my previous weak performance was because girls have cooties and cooties inevitably destroy a boy's ability to play video games. This latter statement was the most important thing I learned in Grade 4.

I know it's a big awesome Internet and all, but when the guy who designed the tattoo that is on my arm actually comes along and joins in on the Tederick.comments, I get minor Saturday morning goosebumps. Now if I could only get Bendis to comment on my plan to throw an egg at his head and the subsequent ignominy (1, 2, 3), I'd call myself well-connected.

Right. More peanut butter cookies, a bit more Wii, then off to D-Coc's to deconstruct(Coc) his brain.

Posted by tederick at 12:18 PM in comix & galaxy far & pirates & tederickdotcomdotcom & wii
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Ah well. I'd held out vague hopes that Sideshow would somehow come through in the clinch and become (in spite of their own track record) the first company in history to be able to sculpt Harrison Ford's face. The proto, after all, showed some potential. And you can't argue (much) with the costume detailing on the final piece. But it still ain't no Indiana Jones.

You know what'd be great? A 12" Mola Ram. I bet those sunzabitches could sculpt the scary walkin' shit outta Amrish Puri.

Posted by tederick at 5:01 PM in dr. jones & toys!
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Gorgeous as the revised site is, it's more than a little disappointing that Goodbye Crestfallen will be web-based instead of good, old-fashioned I-hold-this-book-in-my-hand-therefore-it's-real published-stylie. If only for the sentimental reasons that first drew me to Sera Vol. 1 back in '03, and thus sealed my fate as a comics fan for the rest of time. But who knows, the future is a big wide open somethingorother.

I should really go eat something that isn't a peanut butter cookie. Valentine's Day was scrumptious - nay, incalculably decadent - and I hope yours was too.

Posted by tederick at 1:07 PM in comix
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I hauled ass today, Internets. You were lucky you weren't directly between me and the things I obliterated with awesomeness. After a week that was nothing if not claustrophobic and no-traction-y, it felt pretty good to make substantial hay on at least one of the ass-kicker projects that has been demonizing my life. And if tomorrow never comes, well, at least I died a free Englishman.

I am officially the Valentine's Day Hypocrite, and I'm fine with that. Any previous snide smarm on my part was shown the lie by the early-morning sight of me skipping around my office floor delivering Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Valentine's Day cards (with temporary tattoos!) to every single person I could think of. Plus, I look plenty manly when sucking on a giant chocolate heart lolly. So for all the haters and the humbuggers out there... well, I been there. I just not there right now. There may have been a Roxette song on my iPod this morning. I'm just saying.

One time, I made an e.learning with 2 zebras doing it on the front page. True story. Soul ninjas and pirate hearts of the world, enjoy your V-day.

Posted by tederick at 7:36 PM in j-o-b & jedi antics & pirates
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...Indy's back.

It's possible - it's just possible - I'm becoming cantankerous in my old age. I'll tell you what I like most - the single-frame hint of a smile after he delivers "part-time." That tells me more about this movie than pretty much all the rest of the trailer... although the hat gag, the old age gag, the magnetic resonance field gag, the jeep gag, and the whip gag are pretty cool too.

Posted by tederick at 9:32 AM in cantankerous & dr. jones
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Points against Indy IV: 11**
Points for Indy IV: 5

**forgot to tally on the last 5 posts.

Posted by tederick at 1:37 PM in dr. jones
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The problem with the TTC status page is that now I'm relying on it. Looking at it every single snow-scuzzed day before I set off to work. But if "a section of the Scarborough RT service is currently shut down from Kennedy Station to McCowan Station" - which means, the whole thing, by the bye - do I really want to know? All this means is that the next 90 minutes of my life, as I struggle to get to my egg-carton job to do work that is large and overwhelming, is going to be hateful and difficult.

But I suppose I would have found out shortly. At least this way, I can stuff a pocket taco** into my coat, which in today's climate would take the form of a white chocolate blueberry scone from Starbizzle.

And I'm reading Captain Johnson's book of Moste Notoriouse Pyrates. That'll keep me warm.

______________________________
**definition, "pocket taco": About a year ago me and the Cannonball were having lunch at Taco Bell, and he got five tacos for some low low price. He scarfed down four of them and then stuffed the fifth in his jacket pocket. He saw the quizzical look on my face and said "It's a pocket taco. For later." Thereby "pocket taco" has come to mean any pocket-bound food that is purchased at one time for eating at another, although extra points are given when the food in question is hot, drippy, or Mexican, as it honours the Cannonball's original gambit in storing and saving a Taco Bell taco for later use. We never did find out if the Cannonball actually ate the pocket taco, or what shape it was in when he did.

Posted by tederick at 7:37 AM in foodin' & j-o-b & pirates
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Or no-reason phone calls, or neon green midnight martinis, or quips about ear infections. Or somethin'.

Everybody's suing everybody! All the awesome movies are fucked! Doctor Who is playing Destro! Phew, what a morning. Money is not important, Hollywood! It only matters when it's coming to me to spend money on stuff and rings and whatever, NOT HOBBIT-BLOCKING PROFIT-MONGERING you bastards!

Y'know, oldschool Destro would make a hell of a Hallowe'en costume. If you could figure out a way to do the head. And have a big yellow bubble that reads "Destro THE ENEMY!!" floating over your head at all times.

These days I receive what can only be called a stupendous quantity of penis enlargement offers. In and around all the "beat her womb with your massive erection" and "impress the entire football team when your shlong hits the shower room floor" subject lines, however, there is a thin curtain of need that makes it all seem so sad. Thing about the teensy, tinsy penises on all the miserable little men who write those junk mails. Theirs is the real pain.

Posted by tederick at 10:42 AM in movies & pj's playground & sex (theoretical)
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El Dorado Finest Demerara 15-Year-Old rum. Just roll that around on yoru tongue for a minute and enjoy it; I do. So, y'know, someone buy it for me or something, because of how wonderful I am. I have a Jar Jar Binks on my desk, and a laissez-faire attitude about my work.

In the meantime, I am working on moving the world away from e.learning, and straight into f.learning.

Posted by tederick at 2:05 PM in j-o-b & the rum diaries
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You know what cures up the winter holy-fuck-me-it's-so-cold blahs right quick? TAKING ACTION! Tony Robbins style. Yeah, as we all well know, I am a huge, huge procrastinator. But I also hit occasional Monday mornings where it's all GO TIME. When these Mondays occur, the entire back burner's worth of inane plans gets moved into gear, and forget it: it's a headier tonic than holding life and death in the palm of one's hand. True story.

Speaking of death, per my script revision notes to D-Coc this morning, the following shall adorn my grave: "YOU MIGHT GET LOST"

Or I might stick with my longtime go-to, "Don't everybody thank me at once."

And speaking of heady tonics: the WGAF attitude, once one has formally moved into "Bay of Pigs" mode on all the impossible projects, is not a bad one either.

Actual stuff people have searched for on Tederick.com:

• "Elisabeth"
• "Hug a cop" (which must refer to "YOU DO NOT HUG A COP!!")
• "squad"
• "thriller"
• "Matt Brown hates his ex-girlfriend"
• "zomb"
• "heart problem"
• Six, I shit you not six, variations of the spelling of "Sarafina"
• and, of course, "boobs."

"I'm gonna go ahead with... whatever the hell I want at this point, and that's gonna be fine." - me

Posted by tederick at 11:02 AM in j-o-b & jedi antics & tederickdotcomdotcom
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Roy Scheider is chumming some a' this shit in the company of the almighty right now.

Well, the old dude was pretty goddamn cool. I actually saw him in person once: shooting SeaQuest, the day my family and I visited the Universal backlot, back when I was still young enough to think that Star Trek: The Next Generation + underwater + produced by Steven Spielebrg = good. I liked him when he popped up in other shit, because the guy was just enjoyable on screen. But mostly, with very little guilt about it, I just liked the dude cuz of Jaws. Jaws is about as close as you can get to a perfect movie where that much shit went wrong with it during its creation. And a huge part of it is just the degree to which Scheider sold the entire show with his bad-hat-harry fish-out-of-water(-fighting-a-shark)-ness. The face of a thousand summer days and eyes like Hemingway. Dreyfuss got the funny and Shaw got the cool-ass, but Scheider made that movie work.

As a final commemoration, here's a magnificent delivery of a magnificent line. Rest well, Chief.

Posted by tederick at 9:54 PM in movies
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I got promoted at the Starbucks this morning. They said, "instead of calling you Pirate Matt from now on we're going to call you Captain Matt." Then they gave me free cookies. I know what you're thinking: there's no way my life is this excellent. But it is.

Ewoks are shrinking. If you put my Romba next to my Teebo it looks fucking odd, to say nothing of the fact that Wicket looks like he could consume Chief Chirpa whole. It is for reasons like this more than any other that I think my enjoyment of action figures has come to an end. They're not even playing by the rules any more. The rules are: all toys must be able to play with all other toys. You know how Shatner is like a head shorter than Picard over in the Star Trek line? That is fucking bullshit, man.

Speaking of Shatner, the man's a pimp.

I was reading the last couple hundred pages of Deathly Hallows this morning while the storm raged outside the Starbucks, and was quite comfortable all stuffed into a comfy chair and wondering if Voldy ever knew that people like Snape could conceal all their duplicities inside a tiny bubble of perfect, selfless love for the long-dead witch with the green eyes. Boy, it all just comes up to a whole new level in that book, doesn't it? You'd almost think JKR planned it all out.

Posted by tederick at 2:16 PM in galaxy far & h-pot & pirates & toys!
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Strikewatch: day! It's over. Kinda. Whatever. You know, this whole thing really was like that Simpsons episode where TV went away and everyone went outside. I watched a couple of episodes of House back to back last night which was, aside from the two new episodes of Lost, the first time I've watched network TV since November. It felt strange and unusual, and I began to get a glimmer of the feeling of what it would be like to not watch television at all. Not so bad. If those episodes of House (and Lost) weren't so darned scintillating, I'd say to hell with the whole thing.

Now let's gripe about Indy IV. When I found out that Shia LaBeouff's character's name was Mutt, I started to feel like really, we all oughta just not go see this movie at all. I mean, I know we will. But think about what we're putting on the line here: I genuinely love all three of the flicks, albeit in completely different ways apiece. How much would it suck to just have to deal with the fact that the fourth one was jive, with characters named Mutt in it? All right, it's the most obvious point to make. But it was really drilling into me over the past few days. My jacket's in the UK, the Sideshow announcement is coming soon, I've got Last Crusade spinning in my DVD player right now. I love me the Indy. I don't want change.

Had a terrific day which involved, in no particular order, watching the last great Tim Burton movie (cuz fuck Tim Burton!), welcoming D-Coc and B-Gold back from G-ny, eating cold chicken, and lolling around in bed for like a near-criminal quantity of hours. If all days were like this, I'd need no other sustenance.

Posted by tederick at 12:11 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & dr. jones & tv
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Posted by tederick at 7:56 PM in photoblog
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And why that is, shall remain my burden (and one other's).

Stress leave day: which mostly involved being in bed for a really long time, visiting many Starbuckses, seeing Juno, and carrying the girl across puddles. Really, I should flip out more often. Like Jeremy Davies, the most nervous man alive. I don't know, after last week's Lost epilogue I thought Davies might finally have escaped his own twitchiness. No such luck. That man's jumpy as a ferret and twice as scrawny. Anyways: that's apparently me as well. Or was, before today's loveliness. It's amazing what puddle-carriage does for the soul.

Y'know, it's pretty nice that I've got this girl on the one hand, and still time and tide enough to order me up some Davy Jones on the other, and a pretty solid summer (and year) ahead of me to boot. (Barnacled boot.) Life, she good.

Someone wanna tell me why they couldn't just go back to Wested to make Indy's jacket this time around? That smacks of filmmakers being too cool for their own shit.

OK, I gotta go cook something complicated.

Posted by tederick at 6:42 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. jones & j-o-b & pirates & toys!
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Time we got the big engine working for me, instead of the other way round. Yes?

Yesterday I came to a decision about the next couple years of my life, one of those "closer to the middle" moments where the pieces all line up in a way that track and make sense and have their own weird inner logic. Life, never without its sense of dramtic irony (at least in the blocking), then saw me immediately stumble through a student film crew's hot set in the middle of a shot. What can I say? It was snowing a lot, and I was preoccupied. But last night was lovely, even with the blizzard. There were beerpetizers and Indian food and maybe one or two glimpses of a bright and promising everythingever. So yeah: things are feeling pretty solid right now, at least on my end. Hope that's true of you as well.

Speaking of Doom Patrol, I should really read that. And Y: The Last Man. And at least one novel. But this morning it was far better to ride the subway the long way in to work, sip my coffee and catch up on the Marvelverse.

Posted by tederick at 11:20 AM in comix & j-o-b & joss
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and I pity any one who isn't me (tonight, tra la la la la la la la la la la).

What are you doing today, Matt? Oh, y'know. Hanging around, making e.learning, eating Cracker Jack. Lemme tell ya something, Internet: Cracker Jack gets it done. Things aren't quite as hellfuck at the office as they've been for the last few weeks; it's probably just an eye in the storm, but it's a welcome eye. What I would really like to do is go on some serious vacation. It's on my mind a lot lately. Too bad I suck at organizing things. This is for why I need a large staff. (Of people, not wood. I have the latter already. And that's not even trying to be a double entendre - I literally have a wooden staff. For defence.)

The last few months have pretty much lame-ducked every single writing project I've had, though I am now within 30 pages of being done Snapdragon for the immediate nowness. And I've got a 3-issue dealie called "Today's the Day" that I'd like to start next. I tell ya though, that get-up-at-6-to-write thing was a lot easier before winter hit. Now it just seems like suicidal anti-sleepdom.

Strikewatch: day 2! If the whole thing gets concluded this week, does that mean they'd actually be able to finish out the Lost season? I really liked the premiere, with or without Spooky Christian in the chair. Here's my guess on the Oceanic Six:

• Jackwise J. Shephard
• Evangeline Katey
• Jabba
• Benjamin H. Gale, The Man In The Coffin
• Sunny Sucksalot
• and, oh, let's say, Moe.**

**Moe = one of the freighter people, a.k.a. the "he" in "he'll be waiting for me". Romance ahead!

I'lll tell ya something: Indiana Jones should not find proof of alien intervention in the dawn of the human race. That would be Dumb. Sure, a golden box that the Hebrews carried into battle to prove themselves God's chosen people which, when prompted, melts Nazi faces, is sorta dumb in its own way. But it's also classy.

Yeah, I'm pretty lame right now. But I feel like I'm improving.

Posted by tederick at 1:39 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. jones & j-o-b & the process
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Not to keep stressing the point, but what a godfucking terrible week. The illness gave way on Thursday or Friday and in its place, a big gnawing depression. I'm completely wiped out and run down. I can't even look at the world right now, it's so stupendously dismal out there. I guess I did all right making it this far without any other major incidents. But still, I would support the destruction of our planet in a heartbeat if it meant a fiery yellow sun burned through this grey bilge and scorched the earth with light.

I am filing this entry under "miscellaneous crap," because that's what my life is right now. The one area in which I am excelling is in finding and framing bits of art for my walls. Everything else is gash.

Hey guess what, zombies? YOU WIN!! I cannot fucking stand playing Resident Evil 4 any more. I'm just not up with the skill wit da vidja games. This Illuminados-killing suicide mission long ago ceased to be entertaining and became merely time-consuming, so I'M GIVING IT UP. Let the zombie hoards overtake this goddamned horrible world. I don't care any more, man. I am courting apocalypse.

And science: I'm tinkering around with something I call the Law of Facebook Status Response. It goes something like: the amount of time in which a Facebook "friend" replies to your status update as though it's a personal message to them is inversely proportional to the degree to which you have no desire to hear from that person whatsoever. Suffice to say, I shall shortly go on a Deleting Frenzy.

I, too, am fucking Matt Damon, and he's tight.

Posted by tederick at 4:42 PM in miscellaneous crap & the apocalypse & wii & zombies
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Fuckin' sick, fuckin' working on crap I hate, fuckin' nearly got stuck at the office (permanently) today cuz of the goddamned class-3 kill storm, fuckin' lunch went bad on me so I didn't eat till 4:00, fuckin' shouting match breaks out between two people next to my cubicle, fuckin' can't go nowhere, can't get a car, fuckin' god damn whatever man. Fuck. Sarafina's stuck in Brantford, I'm stuck in this crazy one-horse shithole town (I call it "Toronto in Winter"), no comics, no burritos, no point in doing anything besides cleaning the goddamned house and slogging through the above-mentioned kill storm to do laundry and mope. Cuz yeah: fuckin' mope. That's it.

Fuckin' Indiana Jones with a goddamn bazooka, man. Whoa.

Posted by tederick at 5:52 PM in dr. jones & j-o-b & miscellaneous crap
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