Laserdisc is eulogized here. Funnily enough, I read that line in the last paragraph as "I'll always associate you with evenings of passionate love-making," and my brain didn't even flag it; of course laserdisc and great sex were related. I have no idea how: I was ten. But then, I didn't understand the sex in A View to a Kill, either. I just knew that it was important. When I was a fledgling(er) cinephile, I heard rumour of things like the Blade Runner director's cut or the three-disk Frighteners special edition; I had no means to ever see or encounter them, but I knew they were important, too. Porting all that shit to a DVD seems cheaper somehow. Laserdiscs are buried in the collective unconscious.

For Christmas I got Acme Novelty Library #19 from my mom; that is an utterly outstanding piece of art. The entirety of it can be read in a single day, and yet it wrecked me six or seven times. I want to read it all over again right now, and maybe make a movie of it, and maybe read it to my kids. Big, sad, and scary. How do people do that? Fuck, he marveled.

I owe about four emails back, though in the wake of last week's computer failure I am even more solidly committed to letting email go, altogether. People keep pinging me on BlackBerry messenger; I'm more certain than ever that there are more than enough ways to become instantly in contact with me, thank you, and the world needs no more. Solitude, clear-mindedness, the ability to think for eight seconds. These are the commodities now, though we're selling everything else instead.

Winter, man: it works its ass off to getcha. Something as simple as forgetting my security pass came close to unseating my entire day. Mindfulness, though; concentration; and don't let the door catch you on the way out.

Posted by tederick at 8:21 PM in comix & movies & poetical & shinydisks
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Last night I had a dream that I went back to 3QF, and found out that half my DVD collection was still there, along with Chris and Human Rights Lawyer, who were a) living there together in connubial bliss and b) surprisingly athletic. (This dream could not possibly be related to current anxieties about career, life planning, or the end of the world). The fact that I can remember this dream seems to demonstrate that I did in fact sleep, which does not tally with my recollection, but there ya go. I do recall shoving my now-22-minute Guy in the Sky assembly cut into a kind of rough order before retiring to the bedroom in a spectacularly bad mood, and after that there was a lot of tossing and turning and accidental punching of Zam. Which is fair, given her behaviour lately.

I watched Rhapsody in August the other day, which I rather enjoyed, and puts me within a single movie of getting to the end of Akira Kurosawa's rather significant body of work. (I do then have to do some back-catchup thanks to that Eclipse set of the postwar years that Criterion released recently.) I also redirected some Christmas Chapters money towards The Sinestro Corps War, which is shiny and absorbing and much more enjoyable than The Silmarillion which, Beren and Luthien aside, just ain't any fun any more. I also, after a treat of a date with my ladyfriend the other day, finally found that goddamned Joker, so I can stop prattling about that. I still wouldn't mind finding myself a pair of the socks, though.

Today, I am trying to ride out what has been a spectacularly frazzling work-week with a modicum of grace, before fading into the weekend. I may walk home.

Posted by tederick at 8:54 AM in 3QF & books & comix & dreams & j-o-b & movies & shinydisks & socks & tederick films & toys! & zam!
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Honestly, the entire gall-darned topple-the-Canadian-government dealio right now makes me shriek laughter right down to the toes of my pink pirate socks!

Super special extend-o-cut of The Dark Knight score available next week in time for the blu-ray which is, I just learned, actually being sold at midnight at HMV next Monday night. Because... why? So folk can run home and watch Batman until 3:30 in the morning on a school night? But extend-o-cut soundtracks are always fine by me, and that DK score grew on me like a heroin rush.

I guess, with the Hot Toys Joker also cruising into town day-and-date with the DVD, I needed yet another Batthing to spend money on. And on the same news cycle, it seems that three million shy of a billion is actually enough for the judicious souls at Warner Brothers. Good for them, resisting the temptation.

Today I took Zam to the vet, where she was very good. The most traumatic experience of the entire event for her was the ride in the elevator. My cat! Strange.

Now I'm at home watching The X-Files on blu-ray. Unsurprisingly, the new X Files movie plays better on DVD. (Somewhat surprisingly), it's actually substantially better. The thing's shit-hot-n'-pretty, and it's hard to feel underwhelmed when you're watching blu-ray snowflakes drift down around Mulder's face. Chris Carter's shots make sense. The venue seems creepier. Even Billy Connolly seems creepier / makes sense. Why did they release this flick in July? It's a winter movie.

Posted by tederick at 6:32 PM in batman! & goddamn politics & movies & shinydisks & zam!
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Gods but Stephen Harper's web site fascinates the shit out of me.

I just stare at it.

For hours. (Well, minutes.)

Time to admit to my nature and charley up to the fact that I am, indeed, so excited about the Matrix blu-ray release this week that I can barely speak when thinking about it. I tried looking at the films again earlier this year and it was the first time my brain clicked over and said "nah, wait for the BD." Those early-in-format standard DVDs (Matrix 1 particularly) are sort of wonderful, laughable relics of the pre-LOTR early days of "what can we do with DVD?" They're chunky, and awkward, and they don't know how to present special features except to know that they want to present a lot of 'em. The Matrix is now the only film I've owned in three formats, which doesn't just beeline nicely into the overall vogue around the film's technology/reality mishmash, but also serves me as a standing, unconscious tribute to those days early in 1999 when me and Steve woudl hijack screening rooms at York while slaving through the Absence cut and just watch the Matrix trailer a few times really loud, back when the majority of our peers were still giving the "Johnny Mnemonic? Fuck that!" line about the flick. Man. Good old days.

I've also got Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coming, which I kinda regret before it's even arrived, and I'm still crimping and saving to be able to get When We Left Earth, which basically looks like Planet Earth for NASA.

Anyways, it's too nice a day to sit around blogging about shit. Go enjoy the October! (season, not revolution)

Posted by tederick at 12:34 PM in goddamn politics & shinydisks
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Lots more stuff coming out of my house and potentially into yours over the next few weeks. Let's start with some DVDs:

• The Prestige, a film I simply cannot recommend highly enough
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
• Ginger Snaps II a.k.a. Ginger Really Snaps

Five bucks a head. That's right, FIVE. If you live elsewhere than here and cannot pick up the DVDs, we can also work out a shipping cost.

Now some books:

• The novelizations of Episodes I and II, in hardcover!
• Memoirs of a Geisha, also in hardcover!
• His Dark Materials
• The Making of the Modern Age, which many of you probably read in history class in high school
• Oscar Widle - De Profundis and Other Writings
• Shadow Moon, the actual novelized sequel to Willow
• Jean Genet - Our Lady of the Flowers

Books are FREE. I don't feel right charging for books. Same rules apply re: shipping if you don't have the ability to come get them in person.

Posted by tederick at 10:28 AM in books & shinydisks
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I am making chicken stock and watching the one where Spock pretended to defect to the Romulan Empire. That's right, Stock n' Spock. It's a lazy Saturday afternoon at 3QF. I am also muxing. I didn't know I could do that, but apparently I am able to mux.

Remember the DVD Wave? Readers of the site from back in the day will recall that during the Bearshark era, Jason and I made excuses to get there once or twice a week. (Didn't suck, having our biggest client 3 blocks south of the place in Richmond Hill.) Well: the Wave is closing. Like, this weekend. They're having their final blowout everything-must-go sale at the Markham location... sorta wish I could get out there one last time. It was a terrific spot. Y'know what killed it? Pirated DVDs at Pacific Mall. Think about that the next time you buy a copy of Flawless where Demi is spelled with an a.

It really is a gorgeous Saturday. When the stock's done, I'm going shopping. It's springtime(ish), and lusty.

"Yes! I have a hundred of the Earth dollars!" - Dread Rorkannu, Lord of the Dank Dimension

Posted by tederick at 12:26 PM in foodin' & pirates & shinydisks
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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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Chris got me the new My So-Called Life boxed set for Christmas, which I guess now replaces my old My So-Called Life boxed set, battles won notwithstanding. Really, sentimentalizing DVDs must be my worst feature. Or at least, the worst of my many "I oversentimentalize ________" bad features. (My nose still sucks more.) Well anyways, I'm glad to go up to v2.0 on this thing. It looks good, the essays in the book actually made me feel like a teenager again, and right now I'm eating pizza and watching the show on "play all," which is apt given how much I've been feeling like a stupid teenager lately anyway. It's a little piece of happy.

The booklet, by the way, opens with exactly what Winnie Holzman was going to do for season 2, which I've spent thirteen years studiously avoiding. (And it doesn't suck.) Oh well. I'll not spoil it, for those still hangin' on. So much fanfic rests on not knowing!

You know, I know it wasn't the sixties or nothin', but I was thinking yesterday while listening to some Nirvana and wearing a lumberjack shirt (OK, not the latter) that I'm fairly content to have been a teenager in the 1990s. We had our fair share of moral borderlands to conquer, and we did all right. The music didn't suck and the clothes weren't thoroughly embarrassing. The movies coulda been better, I guess. But yeah: good decade to call my own.

Posted by tederick at 6:07 PM in shinydisks & tv
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The events of the weekend did one thing rather brilliantly: they completely erased my memory of seeing The Golden Compass. Like, on Monday morning I saw the poster on the way to work and was like, "oh yeah, that movie." Now I'm (finally) reading Lyra's Oxford again, which is a dessert course that should not have been preceeded by the stew, but whatever, it's still lovely, if far too short. You know, someday someone should do all of these things film-wise. Three features, and however many shorts Pullman ends up writing (there's one about Lee and Iorek coming out in the spring), plus the apocrypha and the lantern slides. That would make one hell of a DVD.

(At this point I'm presuming that New Line will never in a million years bankroll Knife and Spyglass after the pantsing Compass took at the box office this weekend. If we ever get around to a Mamo, I might explain more. Meantime, here's a good bit about the scripts, including the Hollywood bullshit line of the year: “The aim is to put in the elements we need to make this movie a hit, so that we can be much less compromising in how the second and third books are shot" - way to go Chris!)

There is now a floating theory that I am in fact from a parallel reality. This replaces the previous theory that Daniel is the central hub of a web of alternate worlds that only he can interact with, because now not only does Daniel not remember seeing Antenna with me, but I have no memory of seeing Spider-Man 2 with Chris. Since I am clearly the common element in these divergent histories, I must be the one who tumbled in from an alterna-cosmos. Which is fine, but I do miss our old morning ritual of eating cake before breakfast while wearing knit caps. It's the little things that make a home a home, y'know?

It is dead terrific to be out of DVD bankruptcy, internets. Still feels a bit strange though, like I was doing something naughty yesterday when I bought Lost. I also picked up some shiny blu Harry Potter 5, which looks fan-frickin'-tastic. Looking forward to watching that again and seeing whether I actually liked it, or just liked it because it wasn't as godawful as Goblet.

For my next trick, I shall write an entire instructional design plan in just north of 150 minutes. SHAZAAAM!!!

Posted by tederick at 9:06 AM in books & h-pot & movies & shinybludisks & shinydisks
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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
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"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
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Hey, Dumbledore's gay! Really don't know what to make of that one. I guess it's all right. When a character is so utterly sexless as Dumbledore is, I suppose it's reasonably easy to make him gay... especially months after the fact, huh? Boy, the slash community is going to go fucking crazy on this one. Might as well reveal that Snape is actually a woman named Sheila while we're at it.

Much easier to enjoy on the newsfront is the revelation that Criterion will finally be dipping into the Kurosawa canon with their Eclipse series... series 7, to be exact, which will be called "Postwar Kurosawa." Interestingly they're actually calling Record of a Living Being by its original title, I Live In Fear - which is only interesting because they didn't bother to do it for High and Low or Throne of Blood.

I expect there still has to be an "Early Kurosawa" box out there to be made, containing Sanshiro Sugata 1 & 2, along with They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail. Drunken Angel is getting a spec ed release in November. But we're entering the unfortunate realm of film scholarship where, quite literally, there might be no standing prints of the early works to make DVDs out of. And we're talking about artwork of less than 65 years of age. How does anything survive anything?? We're such brutes.

I had a bunch of stuff I was looking forward to doing today. But I'm coming down with a cold and my energy level has completely vanished on me. So instead I'm attacking people on Facebook and trying to figure out if it's worth slogging to the IGA to get Kraft Dinner.

Posted by tederick at 3:42 PM in h-pot & shinydisks
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I think if you play this preview clip fast enough, the flickering back and forth between 14-year-old and present-day Claire Danes could probably give you a seizure.

The real dealkiller for me on the new My So-Called Life DVDs is whether or not they did a fresh transfer. The transfers on the original sets weren't great, but then, neither were the master copies. New special features (and Joss Whedon optional extras!) are tantalizing and all, but I already climbed and died on this hill in 2002. Where's my parade, Shout Factory???

Oh who am I kidding, I've already pre-ordered the bloody thing...

Posted by tederick at 5:53 PM in shinydisks & tv
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I AM EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, INTERNET!!! Wowsers. Only took two damn years but man that's satisfying. I used my corporate points to buy a 3-man tent. I was going to go with a gardening tool set that comes in an attaché case, because I figured it would be like I would be the gardener equivalent of a contract killer: I'd show up in your back yard and be like, "We are doing some fucking gardening, bitch" and then whip out my annodized grass shears. But no, I went for the tent instead because now when the apocalypse comes I can just lit out for the hills with my tent on my back. Aragorn-style. It pays to be forward-thinking on matters of the apocalypse; the post-apocalypstic wastes will offer little opportunity for gardening (due to soil atrophy).

I haven't even bought the Blu-Ray player and it's already giving me trouble by way of the format war. Two titles are out of my reach: the forthcoming Zodiac special edition, which is a Paramount title and therefore format-specific; and Transformers, which is a godawful movie but man fucking sweet pants do I want to own that on Blu-Ray. In fact, it was the flick that kicked off the entire Blu-Ray decision in the first place because who doesn't want ultra high definition splendourific awesomeness of Megatron trying to crush Shia LaBeouf like a bug? Stupid DVD companies and your wars! Don't you see it's your war, but our world??? Shame.

My new hoodie has thumb holes. Oh, I love it. But remember: you can't marry a hoodie. A hoodie cannot love you back, even with thumb holes. It can only keep you warm and make you feel awesome.

Iorek and Lyra are on the wall of the Scarborough Town Centre across the street, sixty feet tall. It's going to be a glorious winter.

Posted by tederick at 1:36 PM in hoodies & j-o-b & shinydisks & the apocalypse
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Now this is more like it. I swear when I left the house on this cold, drizzly, grey October morning, it felt like I was the only human in the world. I love this time of year... when it actually acts like this time of year.

Matty Price gave me my first Blu-Ray DVD this week. (We're going to have to come up with the Blu-Ray equivalent of "shinydisk" - suggestions? Shinybludisk?) He gave me The Fountain, which was an inspired choice, and I promptly went out and bought Pirates 1 and 2 to go along with. Yep: I am three disks in, and I don't even own the player yet. I'm going to get Casino Royale, 2001, and The Simpsons Movie while I'm at it. And maybe Fantastic Four Two, just to fuck with The Man. It's a wide-open field of needless spending. DVD bankruptcy has proven pointless now that the TV season has started anyway; just keeping up with the three remaining shows I watch takes up all my lingering DVD-watching time. I swear, there was a time in my life when I could support eight or nine programs through the year and balance it with tapes of stuff from the year before. Where does the wasted time go?

Meanwhile, the question of the ages is rapidly becoming To Beard or Not To Beard. The beard is getting an almost eerie volley of support from all quadrants of my life. I guess I've finally nailed the ratio of body fat to facial hair because this is the first time everyone hasn't been like "if you don't shave that off you will never get laid again." Plus, it is awesome for the pensive stroking. I've got the Obi-Wan Kenobi upper-lip curl down pat. Perhaps I will go all rustic till springtime and dispense wisdom from my lean-to.

OK there's a 3-year-old blonde girl giving me trouble, I gotta go. I've just had a spectacularly productive morning at the Starbucks, not writing-wise, but everything else-wise. (Hallowe'en party! Costume details! VCR 9 prepping! Personal development follow-ups!) I believe I have earned the right to read Spider-Man.

Posted by tederick at 9:07 AM in miscellaneous crap & shinydisks
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Wiimote meets lightsabre, in the long-awaited marriage of obvious applications of designed objects.

This review is so fucking funny, it actually almost makes me want to buy the Death Proof DVD. Almost. Actually I'd buy a Death Proof-only DVD quite gladly, if it were the cut I saw in theatres this past spring, but needless "deleted scenes thrown in" cuts just piss me off. Can we just for frickin' once let things be?

If you feel like saving the environment today, go here.

Otherwise, perhaps you'd like Jane Schoettle's job.

How pathetic is it that I've finally caved to the Facebook gods and can't get the fucking thing to send me a confirmation e-mail so that I can actually activate the gorramned account? Wow yeah, pretty fucking pathetic. Well anyways, I'll keep you posted; half a bajillion idiots can do this, so it follows that I can figure it out.

I'm becoming interested in wolves lately. Can anyone recommend any books about the use of wolves in folklore and the relation of wolf archetypes to psychology? (Hmmm... heavy request.)

OK... birthday ongoing, no time for jivin' suckah. Hit the road JACK!

"Take what you want. Give nothing back!" - Captain Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs

Posted by tederick at 3:54 PM in movies & shinydisks & the apocalypse & wii
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So I suppose I was tired. Going to soccer was clearly a mistake; in fact, signing up for the entire fall season might have been a mistake. But I went to the game intending to have a nice easy time of it, and instead ended up playing the majority of the game and nearly dying. I came home, watched Batman, and promptly went into a coma. Slept for twelve hours straight without moving, and wouldn't have woken had I not had to go to the doctor for a blood test. Which, on an empty stomach, proved an exercise in hilarity! I got screened for Hep due to the tat, and then had to slog out into the middle of buttfuck to pick up our gigantic new soccer net. You know, the one we're supposed to take on the TTC to the games in the middle of nowhere. Oh TCSSC. Why, why, why.

Oh: I lost over 20 pounds. Actually I probably lost even more than that, and then gained some of it back in the last two weeks. I'm going to get back on the horse with added exercise and better diet, pronto. I plan to be under the deuce by the end of November. Why not? Heroin is so chic again, and with the semi-beard I look like a dire individual.

As I've now been asked several times, I'll clarify: DVD bankruptcy does not apply to birthday presents. DVD bankruptcy, book bankruptcy, toy bankruptcy, and girl bankruptcy shall all be temporarily suspended for the next five calendar days. After that, it's on. I suppose the real goal over the next three months is to see if I can eliminate every single thing in my life. Just, you know, to see what happens.

Now I'm charting out my master plan on my bedroom wall. You know, like in Back to the Future II.

"Yes. Great. I wish you hundreds of fat children." - Inara

Posted by tederick at 1:15 PM in miscellaneous crap & shinydisks & sockey
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Well we didn't win. Got pasted, actually. But hey, fuck it: best season ever. Best team ever, best everything ever. I had a great time with this season, learned tons, and wish it could have gone on another ten games. But even now, some of the faces are changing and the fall season needs organizing. Thank god I have a loud voice.

It is quite the full moon tonight, Internet, if you're outside and looking around.

Giles says Ripper is happening. Well that's not really what he says, is it, if you really read it, but that's how it's being reported. For some reason I find the idea of a BBC-produced Buffy spinoff very comforting. Much more so than if it was an American-produced Buffy spinoff, for example. Perhaps it just feels like there is significantly less opportunity for the usual Whedon network fuck-arounds. Surely, the British don't fuck with anybody?

Thank goodness I'm bankrupt, because otherwise I would be sorely, sorely tempted to trade up to this, just because I like the packaging so gall-darned much and am tantalized by how much space it would save on my shelf. Man, I have a problem.

OK: malaise over with, because I now know exactly what my life is about, for at least the next three weeks. Here we go.

Posted by tederick at 10:58 PM in joss & shinydisks & sockey
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Now here's the thing.

It was hard to find a copy of the new Serenity DVD tonight. Had to go a few places, and when I found it, had to take the second-last copy off what had been a very full shelf. This is not because the movie has exploded into the popular consciousness in money-making bravado that will guarantee Serenity II (Serenity: The Wrath of Saffron) through IX (Serenity: Insurrection); this is not because of any particular signal that can or cannot be stopped. This is not because of anything more dramatic than simple underestimation - yet again - by the reasoned peoples of the world who look at the movie and see no stars, no box office, and thereby no reason to order DVDs. Compound this with the fact that in the Browncoats, Universal has found the one fan base that can be successfully double-dipped with likely a 90% retention rate, and you get some sold-out shelves.

But let's compound that, if I may, with the fact that the movie is just fucking great.

Come on, admit it. The fans are (at this point) annoying as fuck, and the box office was humiliating and whatnot, and Serenity is certainly not the greatest motion picture of all time. But it is fucking great. And like Firefly - which, too, was pretty fucking great, and whose quality attracted fans who never once saw it air on network television - Serenity has grown its audience after the fact, too. I know people who have only seen this flick on DVD. I know people who saw it for the first time at Can't Stop the Signal this past June and are out buying the DVD today (having been told to wait by sage Browncoats who flanked them out of the theatre). I know people who are currently in possession of my copy of the first DVD release, and if they don't like it, they'll pass it to someone who does. This isn't some big vindication or validation that the Browncoats want it to be; I'm just offering up the one small smile. This thing survived, man. Five years past its disastrous first airing on Fox, we should not be having this conversation at all. And yet here we are.

At the end of that canned intro he sent along to all the preview screenings back in early '05, Joss Whedon attains a beatific, understated joyfulness, when he looks back into the camera at the conclusion of his speech and simply says, "welcome to Serenity." In those three words he conveys every moment of muscle and sweat that got him (and us) there, and the almost indescribable explosion of pride in what resulted. I'm right there with him.

Tell you what: if this has interested you at all, go and buy it. It's only twenty bucks and if you don't like it, you can give it to someone who will. If you already own the first DVD, trade up. Pass the old copy on - send it somewhere it'll be appreciated. Take it from one who knows, it feels pretty good to give someone Serenity.

Posted by tederick at 6:45 PM in joss & shinydisks
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The format war just became interesting again, as Dreamworks and Paramount kowtow to the Microsoft megabucks by going HD-DVD-exclusive. Fuck, and here I was actually ready to call this war "over." Oh well. The first blu-ray disk I shall purchase can be peeped here.

Speaking of war, last night was the best soccer game ever. We were playing the same team we suffered a really frustrating defeat to last week - our team just basically disintegrated in the second half of that game, paving the way for them to come back from a 3-0 deficit to a 4-3 win. Well, none a' that shit last night. It was our first playoff game of the season and with the chips down, Yellow Wall really pulled it together. I mean, we were just on form. Great communication and teamwork throughout, excellent application of strategy to counter aggressive moves from the opposition, and just a general sense of fun without losing focus. I'm really, really pleased. And this means that yes, we are in championship competition for the first time since 2004, and yes, I'll be buying the drinks if we win next week. Who's the wall? WE'RE THE WALL.

Don't you hate it when your iPod inexplicably refuses to shut off in its resting state and just quietly eliminates your batteries over lunch? Of course you do! Because you, the reader, care about the issues of our time.

You know, if anyone around here actually understood what Fight Club was about, I think they'd have a serious problem with my space monkey.

Posted by tederick at 2:38 PM in j-o-b & shinydisks & sockey
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Last night Mark came over so he and I could fuck around with some revoicing gags. They never really went anywhere brilliant but we were having a good time lying around doing it, and then we hit on the idea of having him run down to Teen Girl Squad's back yard party in his underwear, pretending to be someone who had just stumbled in off Taste of the Danforth looking for a party. Me and D-Coc and Demetre and Chris and Brandy watched from the balcony. IT WAS GODDAMN TREMENDOUS. Naturally Rachel was up like a shot asking him to come join the party and have a drink; by that point Mark was humping Dana's scooter and singing Guns n' Roses at the top of his lungs. By the time he got back up to our apartment, he and I just collapsed on each other laughing.

It was around that point that I noticed that I've been taking very unimportant things seriously lately, particularly as regards girls, my life, and the general orientation of the horizon line. I then tried, and failed, to get the assembled masses to watch Symbiopsychotaxiplasm.

D-Coc spent about ten or fifteen minutes prowling around the edges of my DVD bankruptcy plan like a bomb-defusing robot, trying to find flaws; he was defeated by my magnificent brain. That's another thing: my all-Zim diet lately has resulted in my using phrases like "He was defeated by my magnificent brain!" and "Shut your noise tube, Taco Human!" with rather more frequency than I have before. Which admittedly is really only funny to me. But then that's true of just so many things.

I actually slept solidly - like really solidly - for the first time in ages and then woke up this morning thinking that the TGS party was still going on downstairs; I was gonna stumble down in my bedsheets with the rum and say "Excellent, are we carrying on?" but it must have just been an audio shadow in my dream brain cuz all was quiet as a millpond. Now I'm sitting in the Starbucks watching giant hose machines suck up the Waste of the Danforth. First of all, giant hose machines: awesome. Second: they gotta stop this TOTD thing before it gets any bigger; it's like a mega-sized alien paramecium that's eating my life. I even made a new arch-enemy out of the deal: last night Mark and I were trying to navigate through the crowd and ended up stuck in a bottleneck for like ten minutes; as we were finally getting out of it I said "hey, at least we made some new friends" and this tiny woman immediately behind me said "or enemies!!" in a menacing fashion. PREPARE TO MEET YOUR HORRIBLE DOOM, SHORT WOMAN! I brook no treaty with neo-nemeses. If TOTD brought out the best in people I'd be all for it but if it's stirring up a cauldron of super-villains then it must be stopped. Today, I fly the colours of Kal-El, last son of Krypton. Let them come.

Posted by tederick at 8:45 AM in 3QF & shinydisks
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Teen Girl Squad descended on the first pile of DVDs I'm getting rid of like the pack of locusts that they are (hot, hot locusts), so that's one of the DVD bankruptcy objectives well on the way. I've also returned (almost) all of the DVDs that I have on loan from other people, but I am loath to get rid of Invader Zim since I'm enjoying it so gall-darned much. Odd connection of the week: Aaron A., the man who designed this, used to be a character designer on that show. Because in my life, every single thing is connected to every other thing in a way that makes me feel like it's all just some big Holodeck fantasy programmed by Wil Wheaton. Or perhaps some really badly-written fanfic. Yeah that's it: my life is fanfic. About me and Wil Wheaton.

There is an appreciable bite of September in the air, and an appreciable need on my part to get out of the sheer emotional mindfuck headspace bullshit garbage ass damned hallucinatory haze that has been the overheated infernal last two weeks of my life. Holy shit, that came out expressive! I guess when the temperature drops and my brain ceases to liquefy, there are words inside.

Pretty though they be, I find it a bit hard to accept that Sideshow is charging $70 apiece for each of the hobbits (Frodo, Sam). I mean I guess the same amount of pieces and detailing go into a hobbit as go into a regular character... but... they're hobbits! They are smaller than the other characters! What is the fun of having hobbits if they don't come at hobbit-sized prices?

I'm so displeased with the editing on my Secrets movie that I'm actually dreaming about it. Which I guess means I should go back and revisit. Man it would be awesome if I just didn't give a fuck about anything.

Posted by tederick at 8:24 AM in shinydisks & tederick films & toys!
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By even a rough calculation, I now have between 200 and 400 unwatched hours of DVD entertainment in my possession. Today I compounded this by buying the tenth season of The Simpsons and the second season of The Muppet Show, each of which adds a tally of another ten hours apiece to the ever-growing pile of unenjoyed media.

I have therefore decided to declare DVD bankruptcy.

I, Matthew Brown, do hereby legally declare my inability to ever watch all of the DVDs I have purchased in the past 7 years. I extend this declaration to any and all ancillary DVDs collected and/or borrowed from outside parties. By this declaration I am seeking opportunities to discharge myself from any moral or ethical obligations contained hereunder, and to reassess the usage of my time along more coherent thematic lines than the ones implied by the ownership of 540+ DVD titles in various formats (movies, television shows, etc.). I seek the protection offered under bankruptcy terminology, most specifically that I will not be expected at any time in the coming period to watch any DVDs purchased or borrowed, or be expected to adhere to any timelines for the consumption of media properties, both alone and in groups. I must regretfully make public the understanding that any previous commitments made prior to this declaration are now, officially, null and void. Reparations will be made where possible.

Immediate tactics falling under this action:

• The divestiture, in whole or in part, of no less than 10% of the bulk total of my collection, including unwatched titles that cannot reasonably be expected to be viewed within the coming 2 calendar years;
• The immediate return of any and all borrowed DVDs to their original owners, unwatched;
• Mandatory 120-day DVD purchase probation;
• The cancellation of any standing viewing commitments, including Lost Wednesdays, 3QF Double Features, and so forth; and
• Entry into an addiction treatment program designed for DVD overpurchase.

Thank you for your patience and understanding in this difficult time.

"With God's help I'll conquer this terrible affliction." - Mark Renton

Posted by tederick at 12:30 PM in shinydisks
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Matt P: "It's free and easy under here!"
Matt B: "Oh, hooray for everything."

Key distinctions:

• America is the kid who moved out at age 15 as a loud, if needless, "fuck you" to his sires. Canada is the kid who lived in his parents' house until he had graduated college, found a stable job, and stocked away a bit of money "for emergencies."
• The current state of the Canadian dollar is the best kept secret, ever.
• There were lots fewer fat kids in Philadelphia than there were in Chapel Hill. Whether this is geographic, random, or an actual improvement is unknown. I only know that I saw less than three kids where I wanted to actually lead them away from their parents and check them into a foster home.
• The things that you aren't regularly confronted with about America - i.e. the stuff that doesn't come from Los Angeles, Washington, or New York - are the reasons the country is worth defending. I tend to forget that on an annual basis, but America is significantly more than cruel sexual and racial stereotypes, violently inept politicians, and a smoking hole in the ground.
• Matty Price and I will never be able to explain the "buttered loaf of bread" joke to you in a way that will make you understand why we think it is so goddamned funny.

Last night after I got home and unpacked, I grabbed my iPod and headed out the door... and ended up walking to Queen and Spadina (!). I was just saying to MP the other day that it's been a while since I've done a solid city walk... this one wasn't so much planned as that's just the way things worked out. I was at City Hall before my brain twigged to how much I wanted a burrito right then. So it all worked out.

Teen Girl Squad got rid of Vinyl! No General Grievous for me, at least not for a while. Honestly, though, with my 2008 fates as uncertain as they currently are, adopting a kitten might not have been the best idea anyway.

It is almost impossible to describe how much the DVD universe has changed since the release of the first My So-Called Life boxed set; little things like how getting a TV show onto DVD no longer involves a 1-year petition, a high price point pre-order, a small production house transfer overseen by a designated fan, a collectibles distributor, a 10-month wait, and filing complaints with the FBI. Now here's version 2. I don't know, the pieces are all there, but it just feels... a little easy?

And relatedly, in spite of any previous claims on this site, I am now thinking that I will be going hi-def at some point in the next year after all... and the winner of the format war is... Blu-Ray!! The reason for this is that there are actually only four titles that I would buy the player for: three that start with "Pirates of the Caribbean," and one that's about giant robots fighting each other. I'm sure there would be others eventually, but those are the forerunners, the decision-makers, the reasons I'm doing it. The idea of seeing Transformers or World's End in anything less than the best presentation possible hurts my brain and makes my heart go puppy-sad. So.... that'll be 'spensive. New TV, new player, new speakers, new living space... all so I can watch Optimus beat the shit out of Davy Jones.

What? The players don't let me do that?

Posted by tederick at 6:47 PM in 3QF & jedi antics & shinydisks
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"I never take painkillers from a beautiful woman. It's a little too 'on the nose.'" - me when offered free Advil by a babe on the street

No pictures today because I am too fat and lazy to plug in the camera.

Today we thoroughly explored the area of Philly I would live in if I lived in Philly: South Street. It's that neighbourhood - your Queen West-ish type place. Nicely endlessly busy and packed and fun and lots of good stuff in it, like a hatterer and a magic shop. And after some frustrating big box shopping yesterday we found Bay Street Video's opposite number here in town, i.e. the place we'd buy DVDs from if we actually lived here. And guess what? They were having a sale on Criterions. Like, Criterion disks for $25 American. Which works out to about $26.50 Canadian right now. I bought six.

I also rolled some videotape today. Not sure if anything in it will come to anything - I got some nice stuff in a graveyard and more than a few pieces of footage of the quasi-erotic art of Philadelphia, but the idea of doing the historical plaques movie sort of fell apart once we were actually on the ground looking at the things. I still might be able to squeak a shadow "secrets" movie out of the deal, or I might use the aforementioned erotic art for a Final Cut Pro editing experiment when we get back, but mostly I just enjoyed using the camera. It's been a while.

We toured the historical areas for most of the day. You know, real wrath-of-god declaration-of-independence midnight-rides-on-horseback type shit. I bought a replica Declaration of Independence to use as rolling papers when I get back although there's probably enough benzine in that fake parchment to flash-fry a buffalo brain. We were merrily entertained by a Jewish storyteller who gave us a Canadian-relevant tale of intrigue from the Revolutionary War, saw the house of the guy who invented soda pop, and walked all the way from the Rocky steps back to City Hall and then down to the Italian Market which is, like, the entire damn run of the place.

Oh: and Philly Cheese Steaks. We had two apiece as the day went on. The first was at Jim's and that was pretty fucking spectacular. Jim's is the place where the lunch-hour line is literally about 30-45 minutes, and it's the place that the locals go, so it didn't disappoint. Later in the day we went to Geno's which is the place that all the tourists go to, and I was significantly less pleased with both the food and the attitude. Actually that place really pissed me off. There was a noticeable racist vibe about the joint, a "never forget" style plaque naming an Arab cop-killer from a murder almost thirty years ago, and a gag photo of Geno himself getting blown by a porn star while two bare-breasted femmes looked on, which was proudly displayed on some of the tables - which, given the three little girls happily eating their sandwiches with their parents at the next table over, was sort of the last straw for me. I was not sad to kiss that fuckin' place goodbye.

Tonight I made what can only be described as a catastrophic gustatory error tonight, sending us out for dinner in spite of the fact that we’d each had the 2 philly cheese steaks apiece, along with a nice breakfast, and on my part anyway, a “peanut butter sandwich” chocolate square that might very well have been the Allspark. The good news is that staring down at a pound of pasta apiece, Matty Price and I proceeded to throw ourselves into a giggle fit that will define the art form for years to come. So that's good times.

Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, which will either be the best or the worst day we'll have here.

Posted by tederick at 10:47 PM in foodin' & jedi antics & shinydisks & tederick films
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New Ewan McGregor / Charley Boorman motorcycle road trip series! Yeeeeeeee!

No Lost on DVD till December 11! FUCK THE WOLD!!!! And I just gave all the tapes to the Mennonite. Fuck. The. Wold.

Posted by tederick at 11:34 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & obi-wan kenobi & shinydisks & tv
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It's looking strongly like I will owe quite a bit of money on my 2006 taxes. This has put Portrait of a Young Artist in my Bed in jeopardy, along with the Philadelphia trip, although I think I will be able to keep both of them on the boards if I move a few things around... and, obviously, spend a lot less money. This works out nicely because a) I'm spending a lot less money lately anyway, being as I'm not so much into "things" any more, and b) because I was planning to do an Operation: Annihilate for books anyway - i.e. I'm not buying any new books till I've read the seventeen that have accrued on my desk. If I get really ballsy I'll extend that and O:A my DVDs too - got about 37 of those to watch, and do I really need to own Pan's Labyrinth the day it comes out? No, probably not. Mmmmm consumer asceticism.

I'm pretty pleased with my physical state right now - everything just sort of clicked together after last weekend, and my last two yoga sessions have been the best I've ever had. I am really going to new places of flexibility and strength that I've never had before, and my breathing and mental focus have been similarly new-level-y. I found a little hill off the beaten path the other day and actually meditated, the first time in my life I've been able to slip into a state of relative selflessness and just be while meditating. I am kicking yoga ass! Yeah I'm proud of myself and gloating a bit. That's why I'm into yoga: the glory.

Posted by tederick at 3:44 PM in books & jedi antics & shinydisks
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Clearly I've lost my mind, because since the turn of the year I've let pretty much every domain I own, with the exception of Tederick, elapse. I had this rigid, razor-sharp system to manage my domains that I adhered to with near-subconscious fidelity for over seven years, and then for no discernible reason whatsoever I just stopped doing it. Bugger McFuck! So now I'm in the process of recovering some of the more important ones like the subculture domains and surviv.org, and there are others that have pretty much slipped away. I feel like a gorramned moron. "I am a leaf on the wind." Fah!! What happened to my brain?

Mamo #81: Jack Valenti is Dead. Wherein we talk at length about competing high-definition digital formats, and I come to a canny realization: I will buy a high-def player, the next time I upgrade to a larger TV, which would probably happen if/when I move out of 3QF. And I would do it, surprisingly enough, for exactly one title: Dead Man's Chest. When the fuck did that film that I was actually disappointed with last summer become the tipping point for my entire DVD collection? Zwuh-buh.

So because I have a pretty busy summer coming up (vacation's booked, July 3-6 and September 6-18, and in betwixt I shall be roughly fuckterpated for time altogether), I actually started a pull list at the Snail. Me! It's like I'm taking this thing professional all of a sudden. Like, today for example, my three favourite titles are all coming out at once... and I can just sit back and relax. Don't have to go running. (Probably will go running anyway, but the point is that I don't have to.) This is progress. Meantime I am enjoying the sweet living fuck out of Ultimate Spider-Man. The Peter/MJ relationship in that thing? The actual cutest thing ever. Makes Miss Kitty Fantastico look like dog poo!

Posted by tederick at 11:29 AM in comix & miscellaneous crap & podcastery & shinydisks
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I just finished watching Brick for the second time. I want to eat that movie. So fucking good. Actually given that my original review was an unabashed rave from start to finish it's surprising I was so surprised to enjoy it this much today. But picking through it in the post-party haze, the mood cut by the flick perfectly matched the mood in the 3QF living room. Like oxygen masks and chipped glass.

Hey, my DVD profile is gone! Looks like the good folks at Invelos/Intervocative/whatever finally decided to stop giving us all our profilin' for free. I can upgrade to the new version of the prog but I've gotta actually put cash in the machine this time or I can't have more than 50 titles. Man. Less than 10% of my collection. Anyways I guess with the PC folding I'll take the opportunity to install virtual PC on Molly and put the new version of Profiler on there, paid-for and all. No sense paying for a license for a comp that may shortly catch fire.

Must say, I had a sting-dang bitch-honkin' good time at the unattended party last night, and the cleanup today wasn't too horrendous, and boy those breakfast tacos re-heat well. I even got a few minutes this afternoon to do some focused reassessment of where things are at, and my musings were useful. Now I gotta run some clothes up to the addiction centre drop box at O'Conner. Gonna take Wednesday off to do some doctor's appointments and other stuff, so it's a bifurcated wang of a week coming up and I need to clear my head.

Posted by tederick at 8:23 PM in movies & shinydisks
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It seems that my DVD collection falls into three basic categories:

A) Movies and TV shows I watch repeatedly, almost compulsively. (Examples: Batman Begins, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Buffy, Six Feet Under)

B) Various "significant works" of the genre which I watch once or infrequently but keep for purposes related to scholarship, history, and/or snobbery. (Examples: most of the Criterion DVDs, Schindler's List, The Simpsons, various films where I have endeavoured to have the complete set of the filmmaker's work)

C) Contemporary or classic movies and television shows I enjoyed at the time, purchased on DVD, and will likely only watch once. (Examples: Borat, House, Charlie's Angels)

The obvious question being, why do I have any in category C at all. And the answer is "the lure of consumerism"

Posted by tederick at 12:57 PM in shinydisks
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