As it turns out, doing yoga with a scab the size of a baked potato on your left arm is a study in compromise. Yeah.

I am very nearly done Order of the Phoenix. That means I'm a day behind, but Teen Girl Squad had my Half-Blood Prince until just now so there's not much I could have done about it. Stupid girls and their poisonous reading habits! Marrr. But anyways, I just read page 698, which serves as the basis for the story I use whenever asked how obsessed I am with Harry Potter. Goes like this:

Cast your mind back to the summer of 2003, when Phoenix came out. After a marathon weekend reading session that had got me into the climax at the Department of Mysteries, and in no fit state to deal with whatever "main character death" Rowling had been advertising for months, I happened upon the following passage on page 698:

"But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand; a streak of what looked like purple flame passed right across Hermione's chest. She gave a tiny 'Oh!' as though of surprise and crumpled on to the floor, where she lay motionless."

I turned to page 699 to continue... and page 699 was blank.

It's not actually blank. I'm looking at it right now; there are words on it. But on that day, after reading that paragraph, my brain turned page 699 white, just in case page 699 contained the confirmation that Hermione Jane Granger was, in fact, dead.

So that's how obsessed with Harry Potter I am.

All in all I'd say seeing the Phoenix flick this week was a mistake because it totally torpedoed the last act of the book for me. As a cautionary measure I'm going to leave off seeing The Simpsons until well after I'm done Book Seven. Just don't have enough room in the brain right now. It's a shame, though, because there will be Batman.

Posted by tederick at 12:30 PM in h-pot & miss hermione granger & movies & simps
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• Renee Zellweger
• Cuba Gooding Jr.
• that retarded kid with the glasses
• Elizabethtown and Vanilla Sky
• a 38% increase in Tom Cruise's "serious movie" cred

Yup when you're flicking through the telly at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon you figure out a lot of things.

Look, it's like porn for Tozerphiles! Boy someday me and Matty Price are gonna take this thing to the next level of detail and actually watch that woman perform.

Yeah I'm feeling better. I guess it was a 24-hour Garbage-Witch-induced malaria. I spent Friday night trying to solve a very serious problem in 1955 Hollywood, and a large part of yesterday feeling very floaty and out of it, but I was back on food by evening times and I watched Shortbus and that made me feel terrific and now I feel all right except it's like "where did my weekend go?" because I was sort of looking forward to this whole weekend. Holy shit so much for sentence structure.

Emma Watson IS Hermione Granger! OK I never seriously believed she was going to leave the franchise but it's been damned entertaining to watch all the Potties freak out over the past 2 months while that nasty Rupert spread nasty rumours. (Rupmours? nah that doesn't gel)

Frank Welker IS NOT Megatron! First I was a bit pissed off but then I actually listened to the man's voice again and yeah... I guess that wouldn't have worked. Now I'm just worried about Optimus.

Right.

Posted by tederick at 8:46 AM in miscellaneous crap & miss hermione granger & movies
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Let me see if I've got this right: on The Simpsons, Lisa pretended to be an Indian and Bart married a pregnant chick, and then on Family Guy, Peter did crack while Stewie begged Lois to step on his cubes. Oh and the pregnant chick was played by Natalie Portman and yes, the fact that the animated character's hair was blonde made it fundamentally impossible for me to guess whose voice it was. ("Britney Murphy...? ...Drew Barrymore?")

Well anyways. Here's the rundown:

• Debt: under a grand.
• Terra: under a grand.
• Steven Spielberg: under a grand.

I am determined to run this laptop clean off the road. The indicator is telling me I have 7 minutes of power left. I will watch this pansy bitch go dark, my friends. I will be here when it happens. Incidentally this pisses me off - not the Linux joke but the ad campaign generally. It took me a few passes to figure out whether the ads were supposed to be pro-Mac or anti-Mac because the Mac guy is so clearly an example of what you get when you hire a marketing company to come up with the exact white male who represents Macdom, i.e., a shithead.

Here's Miniature Fuckin' Hermione by the way, for those keeping score.

Well whatever. Today was a good day. I updated the Tederick Films section of the site for the first time in forever, and my bio, too, which seemed to predate my I'm-over-Bearshark period in some ways. I finished sending Standoff to both On the Lot and the Worldwide Short Film Festival. My project at work sailed through its brand review, Chad and I got the second issue laid out, and my work for '07 is crystallizing both at actual work and at home (work). So... yes. Aside from the fact that I am hungry and tired and have had little besides cheese to eat today, things are on the up and up.

"I don't know what to do! It's like Hamlet only inconsequential!!" - Matt Brown

Posted by tederick at 9:08 PM in i hate mac & miss hermione granger & simps & tederick films & tederickdotcomdotcom & toys!
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In one way or another I've been doing toy reports for most of my life. I did one with Geoff MacDonald when I was about ten years old where I espoused on the virtues of that year's Transformers, G.I.Joes, and Sectaurs. (Yes, Sectaurs!) In latter years, obviously, I've also been doing a year-end wrap of everything I really enjoyed putting on my shelf in that calendar year.

And then there was 2006, the End of All Things. The year I pretty much decided to stop collecting Star Wars action figures which were, are, and always have been, the backbone of my entire toy collecting hobby.

Now, I didn't stop stop. I bought a clone trooper just the other day (and he's lovely). I will totally buy this guy when he comes out. But given that last year I bought about a hundred of the things, and since "stopping" I've bought three, I'd call that a pretty significant change in the way we do business on the Tederick.com shelfspace.

Anyways. BEST TOY OF THE YEAR:

Well, obviously. I mean in spite of the sheer ballfucking awesomeness of Sideshow (I'll get to that in a minute), Hermione squeaked ahead because I just love her so much. But please don't make me choose between my dollies. There was also:

Who, by the tiniest plastic nose, gets ahead of:

and

Which is my way of saying that Sideshow Collectibles is the best toy company, pretty much, I have ever bought from. What they've done with the Star Wars license in the past 12 months almost defies description for someone who has grown up ("matured" if you will) with Hasbro. I'm a man what likes his on-screen perfection represented in toy form, and I have three perfect miniature Star Wars characters on top of my desk right now. (And Anakin, a rare miss.) I'm very much looking forward to Boushh, and Boromir from Lord of the Rings, and hope they won't be dawdling in Expanded Universe characters for long in '07 before getting back to the good stuff. I really wants me a Cody.

Most of the other stuff released this year - the Lost toys, the Pirates 2 toys, the Superman toys - were pretty much flash in the pan, amusing for a minute or two but eventually just space-wasters. I will mention Medium Sized Fucking Hellboy, however, as an honourable. He's fun to have.

Posted by tederick at 1:40 AM in miss hermione granger & toys!
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Remember the Chuck Norris facts? Chuck Norris is now officially rebutting them in his Official Chuck Norris Column. How is he rebutting such undisputed laws of the physical universe as "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live", you ask?

By talking about Jesus.

This week has just flown by. Fahlowwwenn. I'm taking tomorrow off though probably accelerated matters. They call it a "balance day." It is so that you can get the rest of your life in balance with your work life. I call this a swell plan. I've also booked some vacation time for December, not at the end of the month when all the pansies do it, no sir. I use the hard stuff: the first week of December, rip yer roots out! If there's snow on the ground I'll go snowboarding. If not, I'll write my memoirs.

Things at work are going swimmingly at the mo'. I am getting a taste of project management and I am liking it, so I am gobbling up more and bigger. Leadership is the watchword. I also got a bunch of feedback from my colleagues today on my job performance to date and it was really sweet. No big surprises in the developmental needs, and lots of swell comments. I seem to be saying swell a lot today. But how else would you describe a comment that described me "Human and fun?" I think "swell" nails it. Little do they know I am in fact a superhuman... and girly.

I did my Lois Lane thing on the phones yesterday to research my first Tn'O column at blogTO, which is going to be about the current embargo on Lost Girls at Canada Customs. And I went Supergirl crazy this week for no seeming reason; it's still a hit-or-miss book but I just love looking at it. Saw Prestige last night after a huge plate of sushi; went home hungry because, of course, rice doesn't exist. That's why people always complain about being hungry again so soon after eating Chinese food; it's the rice, and it extends to any dish with rice in it. Rice is in fact a consensus mass hallucination of the human race. But there's not anything there.

The hunger or the wasabe contributed to poisonous dreams where Emma Watson was playing the pregnant girl in Children of Men. A two-coffee work day today and then I went to a preview of Catch a Fire tonight, and watched Lost. At this point I think they should stop with the "LOST" title card at the head of each show and replace it with a curving-rotating-whirly-card of the same order that says the name of the character that the episode will be about. Like SAWYER comes floating towards the screen all spooky-like. Or DESMOND. Right now Desmond is This Year's Sayid, even more than Mohinder on Heroes or Eko on Lost last year. I want a Desmond belt-buckle that says brother on it.

Mimoco Chewbacca. (God bless you!)

Up and away.

Posted by tederick at 9:38 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & comix & dreams & foodin' & galaxy far & j-o-b & miscellaneous crap & miss hermione granger
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I went to see Pirates again tonight. It was one of those rare occasions in my life where my opinion remained absolutely unchanged from one screening to the next. My review? Nails it. First act sucks, second act better, Davy Jones awesome, Keira Knightley talking about "tasting it" bringing the single most vivid cunnilingual imagery to my mind that I have ever experienced in a movie. Yadda yadda yadda, so there. It seems I have picked my man of summer, and he is Super.

Bruise check: hour 72

You might not have noticed, but I'm sort of obsessed with body processes. I am literally taking ten photos of this thing per day. Sometimes I reach down at my desk and finger it lightly. It is a mighty companion on my strange voyages, and I shall be sad when it has gone on its way.

Love this, but Big Fuckin' Hermione might be jealous. But 12" Davy Jones that talks? Might kinda hafta.

Posted by tederick at 11:17 PM in miscellaneous crap & miss hermione granger & movies & toys!
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I'm tempted to keep that picture of Hermione in the sidebar on the right for the rest of the site's existence. I love the sweet kibble outta that shot.

Posted by tederick at 4:21 PM in miss hermione granger & tederickdotcomdotcom
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Ladies and gentlemen, Big Fuckin' Hermione is bigger than Big Fuckin' Hellboy.

Mississippi god damn. I am like a giddy super-somethin' over this whole scenario. My dollie is so pretty.

Posted by tederick at 6:58 PM in miss hermione granger & toys!
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Wherrrrrrrrrrrrre isssssssss sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? Commmmmmmmmme onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!! WHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE!!!??

Posted by tederick at 6:31 PM in miss hermione granger
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As much as HP4 sucked - and boy did it - I still derive an enormous amount of pleasure from adding the flick to my stack of H-pot shinydisks, for a simple reason: it remains endlessly fascinating to watch these kids grow up on screen. I'm rather impressed with them all, actually, and particularly Daniel Radcliffe, who has matured alongside Harry with a surprising amount of grace. He's quite the little man now. I think when the series is all done, it's going to be as much fun to watch the behind-the-scenes material all in a bunch as it will be to watch the movies. The story behind the story is no Tales of Weta, to be sure, but it's bloody charming nevertheless, because the leads are charming. (Well, Dan n' Em are charming. Rupert's turned into a bit of a recalcitrant goon.)

And I'll happily admit that when Ems started talking about how much she loves His Dark Materials, I went away for a little while. I went to the private place.

Ralph Fiennes also impresses me endlessly; I actually think there's a better Voldemort performance on the cutting room floor than is in the film, because a lot of the stuff he was doing on set was so much creepier than what ended up in the flick, and much more in line with the character in the book. Is Gobby just the victim of bad editing? Mebbe.

Meanwhile my Big Fuckin' Hermione has yet to arrive, which is annoying, because it's March already and Big Fuckin' Hellboy is horny as a jackrabbit. All of the toys are giving him a wide berth, even Chewbacca, who usually takes absolutely no shit off anyone. But that's how it goes in my room: a finely-held line between reluctant peace and all-out explosive chaos. And the balance threatens to slip every single day.

No really: my sabre technique has genuinely jumped up a notch. It's notch-worthy.

Posted by tederick at 4:37 PM in h-pot & miss hermione granger & movies & toys!
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All right, I did it, I ordered Big Fuckin' Hermione, the dolliest doll I have ever, will ever, could ever own. She will stand proudly next to Big Fuckin' Hellboy. I will wed them, and then Big Fuckin' Hermione will have to see if her Hogwarts jumper still fits while she's pumping out endless streams of ugly, mewling, pinkish-red demon babies, provided (of course) that she's even capable of surviving the passing of a baby Right Hand of Doom at all. Human doll-wombs are so fragile these days, and holy crap I've gone insane.

Posted by tederick at 11:40 AM in miss hermione granger
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Posted by tederick at 9:38 PM in miss hermione granger & toys!
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I spent yesterday trucking around Toronto with a day pass in my pocket, dropping off the press reels for the festival. This was the first year in which the DVD reel actually worked perfectly on the first try - usually I spend days or even weeks chasing bugs out of the render - which I choose to look at as proof of my changing luck. But then, in my experience there's no such thing as luck, so I 'unno. Still, between all that and dropping my TAC application off, it felt like I was getting something done. And I love strolling around town in my urban camouflage. Makes me feel significant.

Still, it's no pillow fight in Dundas Square. Stupid soccer final! I would much rather have done this. And I could have done it in my newfangled journalistic capacity and been all Important! Dang.

I've got a brand new idea in my secret project which might turn out to be The Idea. If so it'll probably happen before the end of the year. If not, then, well I'm a big ol' cock-tease.

Got about fifty e-mails to sort through, some honest-to-god paying work to chew on, and twin New York daily show appearances by Emma Watson draining into the PVR as I write. Mmm, sweet Hermione porn. (Hmm, that'll make for some mighty fine Google indexing.) Now every time I see a picture of her I slip into my talking-to-cats voice, so I must think she is VERY CUTE! Or possibly very fat.

I'm not yet excited about Potter. But everyone else is...

Posted by tederick at 8:54 AM in 1MFVF & h-pot & jedi antics & miss hermione granger
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