Well, this rarely ever happens, but

It's just a blip, caused by my opponent and I both registering our scores so early after the game. But what a game. On no subs, we held a strong team to a shutout, and scored on them once per half. We played our standard roster in the first half and then changed it up to 1 offense, 1 mid, 2 defense, 1 sweeper for the second half, and it just drove the bad guys bugfuck crazy. I played offense - me! I literally stood in their half for the entirety of the latter of the game, waiting. I didn't connect with the one beauty pass from Dave, which otherwise would have got me my annual goal, but otherwise it was a stupendous game all around. Man, we are on an uncanny good ride this season. I'm missing the double-header next week for some cottage time, but I expect that works in the team's favour.

Posted by tederick at 11:32 PM in sockey
Permalink | Comments (2)

Spider-Man 1. It was Spider-Man 1. And now Danny Elfman will now be a selly-outy sucky wanghole for ever and ever amen.

Yesterday my soccer team won! Which is frickin' unheard of! And I (me personally) had an actual good play! Which is also fairly rare! So tonight's the night for betting on horse lotteries, folks. If it weren't for the TCSSC shipping us further and further into the hinterlands of Ontario on fields that can absolutely not be qualified as "Toronto" or "Central" (or even "Social" or "Club," so I guess really the league should just be called "Sport!" with an exclammation point), I'd say this soccer season is shaping up fine.

Meanwhile, the city of Toronto stole my blue boxes. All four of them. They were there, they were beautiful, they were mine, and now they're gone. We are reduced to pitching empties out the kitchen window at the upright bin in the driveway. Who do you call to charge the city of Toronto with theft? 3QF is going to make it to the end of our tenancy on fucking fumes. By August 31 the only things left in the house will be a broken kitchen faucet, the noise the fridge makes, and six floorboards.

Posted by tederick at 12:36 PM in 3QF & movies & sockey
Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, here comes a big motherfuckin' storm. Rock on, Toronto!

Being now quite thoroughly besotted with all things Scott Pilgrim, I went searching through the stacks this morning for the Free Comic Book Day issue I picked up back in '06... and found it undeniably gone. I AM SO PISSED. Admittedly, there was a "get rid of the FCBD garbage" comic stack purge earlier in the year, but being as Free Scott Pilgrim is one of the three FCBD titles I can actually specifically remember enjoying, I'm sorta irritated that it's missing and stupid shit like the Viper Comics sampler survives. Stupid piles of garbage and nonsuch! They foil me.

So what else is going on? Well, it was goddamned hot over the weekend, that's one thing. The natural answer was: barbecue. But the problem with that was: I don't know much about barbecues. So I did proceed to, if one is looking at it technically, purchase the briquettes that go with a non-gas BBQ, and then used them on a gas BBQ. The result was... er... significant. Fortunately, nobody got blowed up or died, and there were iced creams enough for all. Praise.

Plus! Soccer! It was a hot sonofabitchin' humid mosquito-infested oh-god-are-dinosaurs-coming-out-of-those-trees-to-eat-us? game last night, but we held a decidedly excellent 4-4 tie in spite of being outnumbered 148 to 1. It was our Crazylegs vs. their Crazylegs (ours won), Everywhere She Needs To Be Stacey like a goddamned psychic defensive dervish, and The Man With No Name Whose Name Is Actually Demetre with seemingly boundless energy and laconic squinting. The memories more than make up for the morning ouches.

This BlackBerry Pearl deal is crazy! Did you know I can receive my email while on the go? The world is insane, and sushi is delicious.

Posted by tederick at 4:27 PM in comix & foodin' & jedi antics & sockey
Permalink | Comments (3)

Da, da, Iron Man! Deedle deedle deedle-da Iron Man!

(Yeah. That's actually more fun than the movie.)

Free Comic Book Day was lovely, thank you, in rather the inverse of the normal way; it was raining and cold out, so instead of visiting all the comic book stores, I just went to my favourite one and hung out. This means I missed the weed march in Queen's Park and did not get huevos rancheros for lunch, but I did get throttled by the Joker. Plus, after three years of not a week going by where I didn't wish I'd bought the Takara Batman back in '05, they finally came back into stock, my Snailers did a little whamma jamma to secure one for me, and I bought the motherfucker. And... it's... i n c r e d i b l e . Razor-accurate and clockwork-precise. Big Fuckin' Hellboy's legacy is nicely represented in Awesome Fuckin' Batman.

One does not generally go to FCBD for the free comics any more, because they so obviously suck. So this year, I only picked up 2: X-Men and Hellboy. Well I haven't read Hellboy yet, but I'll tell ya... that Mike Carey issue of X-Men is a stunner. For one thing, it's an actual issue. I mean, it's not some 6-page cheat story or flight of fancy; it's a real one-off in the real X-Men world dealing with my other favourite new X-kid out of the last five years, the skittish, fairy-winged Pixie. It's drawn like a brick shit house, solidly told for a Carey story, and given that the whole Pixie character is just so clearly a love letter to his hopes and fears for his own teenage daughter, it's sort of... awesome. The whole thing has me paranoid: what if the freebies were all this good this year?

On Sunday morning, I had the best cup of coffee I think I've had in a year. Then I went to hang out with my man Jesus - the saviour! It's been about... what? Ten years since I've been to a Catholic church? It was Sarafina's goddaughter's first communion yesterday, so we all drove out to B-fo and made with the Jesus bread. Church was noisy. They actually did the reading (well, one of 'em anyway; I'm sure there's more than one) about making disciples of every nation. You know, the one that makes Dubya touch himself under the covers at night. Here it is in lolcat. I liked it because it made me feel like I was getting the complete experience, and took my mind off the endless stand!-sit!-stand!-kneel!-sit!-stand!-donate money! rigamarole. I felt like I was in a Koodo ad.

(Zing!)

After hanging out a while, we jetted back to T.O. so that I could rebuild the Wall for the seventh consecutive year. You know what? I think we had our best first soccer game of the season ever. We held onto a 2-1 advantage until 3 minutes before the end of the second half, then had to settle for a tie, but for a first game back after six months of apathy, I don't think it could have gone better. Soccer is hard, but I likes it. Goddamned freezing as fuck last night, but I'm sure I'll be missing it when it's 35 degrees and we're playing the flatlands in full sun.

Iron Man '10, Thor '10, Cap '11, Avengers late '11. Whatthefuckaretheydoingggggg.

My Black(Berry) Pearl is up and running... I've tarried here long enough... happy week everybody.

Posted by tederick at 8:00 AM in batman! & comix & jedi antics & movies & sockey & toys!
Permalink | Comments (0)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I started a new scheme this morning - a new, crazy scheme! Owing to the fact that I am always too tired to write when I get home from work, I am now waking up an hour earlier, and writing before I go. Holy madness and balls-ass shit that's clever. And the really good news (in terms of behaviour reinforcement) is that the first time out, I smacked it out of the park - six pages on Snapdragon including the key beat for the second issue and one sweet motherfucking My So-Called Life hommage on page 17. I'm using Snapdragon (comic) as the warm-up lap before starting Pandaemonium (screenplay). The latter has been knocking against the inside of my head rather fiercely since I thought it up a month ago, and yeah, it's time to put the rubber on the road.

And incidentally - Bendis is right, Final Draft is awesome for writing comics. One of my major challenges writing Terra and now Snapdragon was the sheer quantity of time it took to format everything as I went along in Word, which is not the friendliest program ever; it was seriously cutting into my mental flow and dropping my page count to a snail's pace. Well not so much any more, my people; I'm flying through the setups now. Oh Bendis. You have earned your egg.

Once again for soccer yesterday, nobody showed up, but after we had defaulted to the other team we had a rather rousing just-for-fun game, and fun it was. The Red Queen was in play, Stacey was teasing me relentlessly for everything, and Crazylegs... well, that man's got some crazy legs. I love my team. I know I say that a lot, but damn, it is just so freaking rare in my life to see a group of people who are just out to have fun and be decent.

And then Jessi cooked us a mighty dinner - she's handy to have around, that one - and we watched some of my flicks, including Bone Daddy 2 which I haven't watched in forever. Oh, and watching a total non-Star Wars person enjoy Far, Far Away as much as she did? Warms my wookiee-lovin' heart.

It is definitely time to move the catalogue forward, though. Looking at my tapes last night, I was struck by how old it all felt. I've finally got a shoot date on VCR 9, but I'm looking forward to moving stuff that is really not of the order of the rest. I've got a hunger on in a big way right now.

Posted by tederick at 10:59 AM in sockey & tederick films & the process
Permalink | Comments (2)

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
Permalink | Comments (0)

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
Permalink | Comments (0)

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
Permalink | Comments (3)