Matt's notebooks on the 31st of March, 2004
Mar 31 2004 - roughly now

[This is a dream I can't tell in writing.]

"Some people know about us... but most people don’t. Don’t know that you’re sharing your world... with people who can never build hospitals, or stadiums, or banks. We’re forced to live off your scraps... find spaces for ourselves in the parts of your world that you don’t want. You’d hate us if you knew we were there; you tell your children stories about us to make them be good, but at the end, you tell them we don’t really exist."

"This is a good place," I thought. I scorched a whole Sandman tonight... well pretty much anyway. I thought it was time to go home but something told me it wasn't, so I wheeled around the block and ended up drinking coffee (which has thoroughly re-invaded my life) and reading, reading, reading. I found new voices for old friends and scared myself shitless at least once. But with my back to the wall and a very narrow angle of sight, I was more comfortable than I've been in a long, long time.

She smokes. Maybe she's twenty. She ain't thirty. She wears dark clothes and cool pants, always, and she's almost always done something to her hair... at best, some funky tightly-knit curls, but more often some sort of dye job. At worst, the bleached-beyond-recognition fuzz currently glinting at me from the top of this girl's head. Far from looking bad, it's the first thing I liked about her. Then it was the skin on her cheeks, and then her eyes, and then the way those pinstriped pants did nothing for her ass. Far from being a turn-off, the smoking is almost becoming a de rigeur element of this personality type that I've been slowly circling like a marble in a funnel, too high and slow to ever reach the bottom.

I watch her through the window like a hawk, like the vampire that mirrors me in my dreams. I know my eyes are betraying me, pulling her towards me, a silent angel perched on a high stool, surrounded by grey stone. "This is a good place."

"Gotta launder my karma." "Holy water in my lungs." "All my instincts." "Never turn your back on me."

There was this day last summer when I went to the cottage, and I slapped a CD together mere moments before heading out the door and listened to it all day. I've been trying to recreate that playlist dogmatically ever since I got my iPod, the CD itself long since gathering dust in a junkyard somewhere. Tonight I remember six more tracks and On-The-Go the hell out of them. It's the basis of a 23-song playlist that I eventually end up building, some from that original CD, some supplementing those tracks with new material. By the end of the night, I've played it five times.

They say go into the light. Follow the light.

I run into Felix. We talk about our bikes. Mine's still stuck in tomorrow and shrouded in dark. I run into Jerome for the second time in a week. He tells me about the cult of Jobs; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil starring Macintosh as Satan. I nod sagely. I know Mark's next. I run into him five minutes later. He warns me about that girl. For the first time I'm wondering about the origin of his name.

I didn't. I fought him. Grabbed him by the wings and pulled as hard as I could. But those six consecutive breaths when I could actually smell heaven... were almost enough to bring me the rest of the way.

"Little Miss Muffet, counting down from seven three oh."

I scour the city for Nausea. I fail to find it in four consecutive bookstores before I finally find a copy at Book City... and then leave it behind, deciding rather impulsively that it's better to be looking for Nausea than to actually have it. Yet I check two more bookstores. The smells of old paper, the grunt of the fat fucker behind the counter who doesn't even look up from his copy of the Sun when he tell us to leave our bags out the front, because stealing used books is so the "thing" these days.

"What I'm stealing won't fit in the bag."

In like kind, I set myself the challenge of finding a used copy of Hannibal for less than ten bucks... a reasonable price given that I don't want the movie, I only want the commentary. I fail, but I discover that Terminator 3 is mine for the taking for only $9.99. I leave it behind, too. Life's easier without it.

There have been exactly 2 days since then when I've wished I had. This is one of them.

[This is insane. But at least it's pre-meditatively insane.]

The music pulls me and guides me in surprising ways, even when I'm convinced that it's gone in the wrong direction altogether... it always turns out to be right. Example: the fairy dance at Bloor and Bay.

Tomorrow I won't be able to tell if I'm awake or still dreaming, because I can already taste the stale ashes in the back of my throat and the harsh light will only convince me that there's something wrong with my eyes. Yet it was all my idea, the only way to turn tomorrow into the anti-today, jumpstart the motherfucker and ride it till doomsday.

All I can hear is the music. All I can feel is the cold. All I know is that in a moment, I'll be walking through Chinatown, alone.

Oh, so that's what a Jedi can do
Mar 31 2004 - 10:57 a.m.

The Clone Wars are back on again, and I've just finished watching the second of two episodes featuring Mace "say 'what' again" Windu. I'm watching this and I'm thinking to myself, this is exactly why Samuel L. Jackson wanted to play this character in the first place... and he's not even slightly involved here. I just hope he's seen it. Might make him feel good to know that he's a one-man army.

Meanwhile, Warner Brothers has stunk up the web with the first pics of the new Batmobile, which looks like a cross between a tractor and the APC that Ripley was driving in Aliens. Come on, guys, even the one in Batman & Robin looked better than that! I remember when the Batmobile was so cool, I went to the Ex and waited two hours in line just to get my picture taken in front of it while wearing my Batman T-shirt. Those were the days.

Vast, wandering touchers
Mar 31 2004 - 12:38 a.m.

I've only just now learned that Peter Ustinov, Doctor Snuggles himself, died a few days ago at the age of 82. I should have put Doctor Snuggles on the list of DVDs I'd like to have. I really want to know if it's as messed up as I remember. I tried to tape a few episodes a couple of years ago but I never got very far.

Anyways. I hope Mr. Ustinov is enjoying a big, deep puff of the ganja with a stoner camel in the sky right about now, while contemplating ways to make the river stop fearing the sea.

Cue Tricky
Mar 30 2004 - 8:31 a.m.

The last piece of the puzzle has finally fallen into place, because Wonder Woman is coming to DVD.

I think that's it. With Survivor and Seinfeld on their way out this year along with the original Star Trek, Quantum Leap and even frickin' Jem, I can't think of a single old series that I'd want in even my most remote, wildest dreams that isn't hitting shinydisk sometime in the near future.

Hell. We're even getting an (admittedly mangled all to fuck) Star Wars this year, and Flight of the frickin' Navigator. Now that I think on it, I can't even imagine an old movie that I'd want that isn't coming to disk. The stuff I do want - Fisher King, Batman Returns, stuff like that - is already on disk, just bad disk. This is a golden age.

Wait, I just thought of it... Ally McBeal. I want Ally McBeal, all five seasons, and I don't give a fuck about music clearances or rights issues. Give me my dancing baby!

Buckle up, kids, daddy's putting the hammer down!
Mar 29 2004 - 8:40 a.m.

Guess what? Over the weekend, my biggest clients decided that it might be fun to bombard me with work in a way I haven't seen since the dog days at Swing Shoe. This is going to be a big, bad, long, impossible week! Yay fun!

Last night I dreamed I was waiting in line to be interviewed by Francis Ford Coppola. Lise and Amy were ahead of me in the line, and Mer was wandering around asking us why this was such a big deal. As I recall, I was power-loading Coke and Chips Ahoy in preparation for my meeting. This was all, of course, taking place at my cottage, which made for a pretty amusing scene when Francis came walking down the path from the Burgess' place, whistling and carrying a briefcase. He had Peter Jackson's body (and clothing) but Francis' head (and overall sensibilities). There may have been gifts of wine...?

Okay, OW?!
Mar 28 2004 - 11:11 p.m.

Some of us put together the first soccer game of the year today, and it was about as enlightening as these returns to physical activity after months and months of stagnation always are. In other words, paaaaaaiiiiiinnnnnnnfulllllllll. Fun though, and I've got my first wee sunburn of 2004. Still, after the game when I came back home to grab Adam's birthday present and a shower before heading up to 108, there was a good long moment where I just sat in the living room, completely dazed and exhausted, wishing I had the life of my cat: rolling around naked in the sunbeams scorching through the living room window, praying to unseen gods.

Kill Switch
Mar 27 2004 - 5:15 p.m.

Well, now I'm screwed.

More accurately, yesterday morning at about 11:00 I was screwed, but such is my life of procrastination that I'm only posting about it now. You see, I've long held that there's a specific point when someone is watching Buffy for the first time, an indelible moment that serves as a kill switch, a point of no return. Before they get to that point, they're still just dabbling, and can walk away from the show at any time. After that point, it's over for them - they are condemned to seven long seasons of hardcore Buffy fandom. It's going to eat their life. (That point is 2.17, the twenty-ninth episode overall, by the way. It's been true for just about everyone I've talked to about this... it'll happen to youuuu!)

Well, yesterday at 11:00, I hit that point in The Sandman, a.k.a. "The Sound of Her Wings." And now I'm totally screwed. It's going to eat my life. Appropriately, then, it was an issue about death (i.e. Death), an issue that caused me to throw down the book and fume at the sky and shake my fist and yell "God dammit his Death is better than my Death!!!" Fortunately, I later watched The Prophecy for the first time and found that his Death was worse than my Death, so I'm in the comfortable middle ground between Gaiman and Prophecy. I can live with that.

But yeah. Sharp fucking issue, and Gaiman continues to rise in the ranks of people I desperately wish I could be.

Anyhoo. Onwards and up, I always say. I seem to be completely wiped today; yoga damn near killed me and I stumbled home and fell asleep - on the fucking floor, mind you - for three hours. I guess my randy lifestyle is finally catching up with me... or would be if I had one. I'm going to watch Spy Kids 3 (no D, my head will hurt), make tacos, and work on my Death... er, script.

Meanwhile, Jersey Girl yanked a healthy 3 million at the box office yesterday, finishing fifth overall, pretty much as expected. I saw the flick last night and have reviewed it. The only thing I didn't do in my review was give an appropriate shout-out to the whole Sweeney Todd thing, which was just fucking awesome. Unfortunately, style took precedence in this particular review (how ironic) and there was no way to work it in.

After yesterday I wanted nothing more than to come in here and post that I'd dreamed about angels... but instead I dreamed about bread.

I shall not return
Mar 26 2004 - 9:26 a.m.

I dreamed I was a vampire. And not one of the cuddly, help-the-helpless kind. I dreamed I was a feral, kill-crazy vampire, and in my dream, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I have no doubt that at some point, I would have tired of the vampire lifestyle and undergone the demon trials just for a change of pace, but in the meantime, I was vamping it up oldschool at the east end of the U of T campus, prowling Bay Street between Wellesley and College, using that little half-height brick wall that borders the parking lot as an opportune spot from which to leap energetically onto unsuspecting prey... prey who uniformly gave me the "there's no such thing as vampires" stare before I took big bites out of their crunchy necks and let their hot, acrid blood run in rivulets down the stinking pavement. It was a whole thing.

This might be because I was devouring The Sandman yesterday and it definitely got into my head. It might be because of my current "I'll show you!!" attitude about all things about which I usually suffer crushing self-esteem. It might be because of any of those other reasons that I usually have to think myself vampiric, like the gallons-a-day Buffy diet I'm on. Or it might be because yesterday was The Day, that very holy day in late March when the young ladies of our fair city go to work in the morning overdressed for the weather, expecting cold, and by three o'clock, are stripping off their longsleeve shits and strutting around in ill-fitting tank tops. Yesterday was definitely That Day, and I was right in the middle of it.

Given that I'm not prone to violent dreams, I'm somewhat concerned about this; I should at least be concerned that I wasn't the cuddly kind of vampire if I was to be a vampire at all. But I'm not concerned. I'm too tired to be concerned. I've got that "am I asleep or awake?" thing those crazy Wachowskis like to talk about, where the tangibility of this morning seems to be at arm's length, even with all the coffee. But at the very least, I can be glad that I didn't have Lise's dream, with all the symbolism.

Sooooooooooooooooooooo.... now that I've laid all that out for you (and can feel a rather significant breeze around my privates), here's the big, bad, nasty, horrible, not-terribly-unexpected news. According to TV Guide, Sarah Michelle Gellar has officially run out of time to appear on Angel. Appropriately enough, the producers didn't want to include her in the two-part finale, as that episode really should be about Angel on his own, the Fang Gang on their own, and not about big special guest stars. But she was hopefully going to appear in 5.20 along with Michelle, and now... that episode is done shooting, SMG's still in Japan shooting Ju-On American Style, so that's pretty much that.

Now, as I say, I didn't really want her in the final episode. But losing the opportunity to have her in 5.20, the ostensible conclusion of the whole Spuffy/Spangel "thang," just basically sucks. Like me in my dream, but in a completely different way.

Well, in the good news, Mer's watching Buffy, and Matthew's burned through Firefly and is after a little Slayer lovin' of his own. One more convert, and I get the gold watch!

"That felt good...!"
Mar 24 2004 - 10:40 p.m.

The new Harry Potter site is open, and the new trailer is all good with the downloading! The gang's all here, and I am grinnin' ear to ear.

Pistolero!
Mar 24 2004 - 2:12 a.m.

Tonight was awesome. Just absolutely, unbelievably awesome. A poker game that got completely out of control, and soooooo much fun. I had a really terrible first few hours, whittling myself down to about four bucks and change by 10:30, and getting absolutely shit hands time after time after time. Then, for some reason, we just started playing Anaconda over and over again. In fact, I may have helped start this out by saying, "we're going to play Anaconda until I win a hundred damn dollars." That probably would have taken a couple of years, but three hours of unrelenting Anaconda later, I'd made back all but $2.75 of my original investment. I had bought in for additional money (which I never, ever, ever do) and made that back, too. And I was having ridiculous luck. At some point I hit on actually listening to my iPod while I played, and it proved to be the magic element, because I drew three four-of-a-kinds in the space of an hour, including the very last hand of the night. Just brilliant, man, this is what the weekly poker game is all about.

[Re-reads post; realizes it's the excited, incomprehensible babble of a gambling junkie on a bender. Meditates on this.]

I...

       ....

              ... but ... four fucking Jacks!!!

Burn the land and boil the sea
Mar 23 2004 - 5:45 p.m.

An long, frustrating day of redesign on one of our bigger web sites, but get a load of this, from the official Firefly forum:

Hello, all.

It has been awhile. I hope everyone is well, and flyin' under Alliance radar. As I'm sure you are all aware, the movie is a go and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief with the same lungful I've been holding since cancellation. Let us in this time of celebration not forget all the hard work that has made this possible. Not the least of which is the incredible support of you, the fans. Stay rabid. Also, allow me to take a moment to tell you that Joss is a dirty fighting bastage and will kick anyone in the nuts to get this beautiful baby on the screen. With the quickness and strength of Tiger Kung-Fu, and the grace and magic of Dragon Kung-Fu, he has made this happen for us. All of us.

Now that the movie is for certain, I find myself fulfilled and lacking of much wanting. But I have come up with this: In much the same fashion of your Shindigs and Firefly viewing parties, go to the movie. Bring a friend. Bring two friends. Bring people to the movies. Lots of them. Now, I realize that movie going is an expensive endeavor nowadays (Alliance plot), so in an effort to keep it affordable- BRING YOUR OWN SNACKS.

Keep flyin',
Nathan "Cappy" Fillion

PS Alan Tudyk says: See "I Robot and Dodgeball". My birthday just passed.

And I feel all better. I love my captain.

More Whedonverse news: Michelle Trachtenberg's looking increasingly confirmed for Angel 5.20, and now we're hearing that Julie Benz and Juliet Landau will make at least one more stab at the series before the end. Tom Lenk's going to be in 5.20 alongside Michelle, but still no word on SMG.

Reports from the frontier
Mar 23 2004 - 12:13 p.m.

Well it's stacking up to be a fairly busy work day, so what better thing to do than, just before taking my lunch break, sit here for a few minutes and procrastinate, blogwise.

I watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night. It's terribly unfortunate that I wrote what is, dollar for dollar, my single worst review of 2003 about that flick. Not worst i.e. the film was bad, but worst i.e. the review is just fucking terrible. Didn't express what I did like, didn't express what I didn't like. Missed the mark in both respects. Used sentences and phrases which I have previously used in other reviews. Poor, poor, poor. I may rewrite it. In fact, I shall. I have. Done.

Well, that took a moment so now it's 12:37 and I'm well overdue to start my lunch. Boy procrastination's grand. What I'd meant to do was come on here and talk about the casting announcements for Rodriguez's Sin City, especially Mickey Rourke as Marv, but now I'm just too frickin' hungry. But I will leave you this: who's my Miho? (Please don't say Lucy Liu please don't say Lucy Liu please don't say Lucy Liu)

Blood. Soul. Angel.
Mar 22 2004 - 5:42 p.m.

I've stayed out of it until now, but I have to admit, this is pretty awesome. Especially the big frickin' truck currently driving around Los Angeles. What the hell, I had some money in my Paypal account anyway, and there are days that I just love being a fan.

The World Is Not Enough
Mar 22 2004 - 10:30 a.m.

So I had a bit of a dark night of the writing soul last night, wherein I tried to ungummy my mental blockage on the fourth draft of subculture by writing a couple of pages of "mission statement" / "who/what/where/why" about the script. What I ended up doing was exposing every single flaw in the existing structure, followed immediately by a brainstorm solving of an enormous number of problems, and the exposure of yet more significant, ongoing, and unsolved difficulties pertaining to this whole meshuggenah. Result? I've eliminated a major character, reworked two out of three acts, and have to (yes) go right back to the good old 10-pages-a-day drafting board. Sigh. Where was the documentary crew when I was burning treadmarks in my carpet at 11:00 last night?!

The title page of the next draft will now bear the following dedication:

"For Melvyn, who didn't make it."

In other news: don't you just hate it when your favourite show gets cancelled? With Wonderfalls (watch Wonderalls you bastards!!) continuing to teeter on the edge of the Fox razor, MSN cooked up a nice top ten list of past shows that got the axe because they were just too fuckin' good. Two of my favourite shows ever are on there, and the endorsement was enough to finally make up my mind regarding whether I'll be buying Freaks and Geeks on spec next month.

Parody like it's 1999
Mar 21 2004 - 9:04 p.m.

The latest Star Wars sound byte from the me-and-my-brother-are-hilarious files, tonight while watching The Simpsons' strange, 8-minute Phantom Menace spoof, Cosmic Wars (directed by "Randall Curtis"):

ADAM: (bewildered) "Why don't they just call it Star Wars and George Lucas?"
ME: (equally bewildered) "Why didn't they do this five years ago?"

Before I come undone
Mar 21 2004 - 4:03 p.m.

I swear I meant to spend the afternoon working, but instead I just rooted around Quizilla for a couple of hours. In the plus column, though, I'm now fairly convinced that I'm a good person, since I always end up being an angel, a forest god, a white dragon, "you don't know the power of the dark side" in latin, and so on and so forth. When I end up as an anime babe, at least I'm usually a hot anime babe with minimal clothing. It's all good, except for in one quiz that told me, literally, that I am "shit." But I'll give it up to the internet for an overall percentage on the ability to make me feel good about myself. Yay internet!

Fine. Work. Yes. Good. Work.

Bid my blood to run
Mar 21 2004 - 1:16 p.m.

In case you were wondering:

Star Wars: Episode III
After three long years of relentless fighting, the Clone Wars are nearly at an end. The Jedi Council dispatches Obi-Wan Kenobi to bring the deadly leader of the Separatist droid army to justice. Meanwhile, back on Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine has grown in power. His sweeping political changes transform the war-weary Republic into the mighty Galactic Empire. To his closest ally, Anakin Skywalker, he reveals the true nature of power and the promised secrets of the Force in an attempt to lure him to the dark side.

So, there you go.

Hey, this is wild: I just did the first interview for the DVD special features of my first feature film. What film? What features? And for the love of god, what DVD? All of these are yet to be revealed, not just to you, but to me. But it was fun to get some work done. Thanks Matthew!

Well, that happened
Mar 20 2004 - 9:12 p.m.

Hey, it took just under three years, but I've finally got every single James Bond movie reviewed in my archive, with You Only Live Twice being the final entry (and what an entry at that!). You can go through the lot of them, if that's your thing, starting with Dr. No.

Running hot
Mar 20 2004 - 1:29 a.m.

Boy did I miss good movies. I went to see Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind tonight and it was like a long drink of water after a walk in the desert. Fantastic! Totally energizing. And really fun to see it with a packed house at the Paramount on date night, given that an easy 95% of my fellow audience members were apparently duped into thinking they were seeing the Jim Carrey follow-up to 50 First Dates. God bless everyone involved in this film for making it at a studio and actually tricking the studio into marketing it as a studio picture. Bloody well done.

And I'd forgotten how much I love Kate Winslet. I don't think I've seen her on the big screen since Titanic, and I've missed her terribly. I simply adore her. I love her face. I love how her limbs become so easily akimbo whenever she's not standing perfectly upright. I love the way her voice splits like an Indian throat whistler when she yells something really loud, because of all the smoking. Avoid the smoking kids: it'll make you turn out like Kate Winslet. And then I'd miss you too.

Hey, and everybody watch Wonderfalls! Don't take my word for it, do it because Tim Minear told you to. And because it's awesome. Four simple words: "Don't parse the blurb." Bryan (ugh, Voyager) Fuller may have created it, but Tim's running it, and this show exists for Tim Minear to write it. Fan-fucking-tastic, and smited with the Friday Night Death Slot by our old Firefly-killing friends at Fox. So swing in there and check it out. Give it some support. Without people like us, The X-Files would have been cancelled after the first season, and Fox never would have had the chance to make all the crazy money selling us DVDs and 12" dolls.

Booby traps and improvised anti-personnel devices
Mar 19 2004 - 1:37 p.m.

Somewhat based on an e-mail from Chad, here's the things I currently want most from the material universe:

• Two mezzalunas, one for each hand, so I can be a cooking warrior.
• A 6" Dawn figure, preferably from "Chosen" with lotsa weapons and high-heeled boots.
• A 12" Buffy figure from the same episode, with the scythe.
• 21 million dollars.
• Is a little thermal detonator so much to ask? Shiesh.

Thank god it's Friday. EXPECTO PATRONUM!!!
Mar 19 2004 - 8:55 a.m.

Sheldon: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
(i.e. his sister's vagina)
Mar 18 2004 - 9:58 p.m.

Seems like everyone is cranking out the goodness in script form these days. And by "everyone" I mean "Chris," and by "goodness" I mean "incest." Well no, not always incest. But Chris has certainly found his muse when it comes to writing sex scenes. We had a story meeting for The Objective World of Sheldon Manser, which was very decent, and Chris also sent me the draft script for his Obstructo-flick, which was very very decent. It's a whole big Chris love-fest on Tederick.com tonight! Yay Chris!

Thanks to his newfound scowl, old man Woogie has made his professional modelling debut on MyCatHatesYou.com. You can view Woogie's very own page right here. Cute! Other people can gaze at the horrifyingness that is Woogie! I think this is genuinely the best thing ever. Congratulations to Adam for creating the single spookiest Woogie image of all time. (Because the rotting face wasn't funny enough, he had to have Woogie framed by blazing hellfire. Perfecto!)

Also pretty cute: Zam has a fairly severe cold, and has taken to sitting on the windowsill. The only problem with this is that her nose is literally dripping, and every time a drop of snot falls to the ground below, she sees it out of the corner of her eye and goes chasing after it, thinking it's a ... well, something. So she's chasing her own snot around instead of getting much-needed rest. Because she's a dumb kitty. Also very cute!

Mbari Hogun is no hero
Mar 18 2004 - 12:12 a.m.

I must offer a belated round of congratulations to Dave, whose Überbaby was selected for production in this year's On the Fly festival. Couldn't have happened to a nicer, and more busier, man! I have no idea what Überbaby will be about, but it's sure to be fabbo. Between that and his Obstructoflick, this is going to be the Season of Tebby.

This also, of course, means that I Have a Hibachi At My Wit's End will not be part of this year's festivities, but perhaps I shall shoot it nonetheless. It's amusing and has a talking antidepressant pill. There's a role for me which requires me to bleach my hair. Those OTF folks are missing a bet.

Mark and I hung out tonight and ended up at the Snail at one point, wherein I got well and truly fucked in the hardcore, I-shouldn't-collect-toys-any-more sense of the word. Not only were there eight - eight - new Star Wars figures, but the 12" Buffy and Angel dolls made their appearances. Compromise was the soul of my decisionmaking process; I bought three SW figs, and the 12" Angel. I had some buyer's remorse on that last one, as I hadn't ever really intended to buy this, but now that I've got him home and out of the box... can you say best toy ever?! The likeness of David is a hell of a lot better in person, the clothes are awesome, and standing him next to my old 12" doll is pretty fuckin' sweet. The only problem is, it makes the old 12" Buffy look... old. She's way too pale (especially for standing next to a vampire), her clothes are unrefined, and she will almost certainly have to be replaced by her brand-spankin'-new counterpart within the next 12 hours. Such is the woe of my life.

See, the compromise thing almost worked. But then, so did the long conversation with the girl trying to sell silicone vaginas at half price.

A life without sex appeal
Mar 17 2004 - 3:20 p.m.

I've been thinking about the Gnap smurf. Put in context, it's simply astonishing that the smurfs got out of that situation at all. You've got one smurf, who gets bitten by an insect of unknown origin, and who then basically goes apeshit, turns purple, and starts biting all of his friends on the ass. With every bite, the bitten smurf himself turns purple, and in turn begins biting all his friends. An exponential contagion growth pattern immediately blossoms across the entire smurf genome.

Given that smurf village is a hermetically sealed environment and that the smurfs are a merry, friendly lot, and given that the Gnapism is 100% contagious and can be successfully transmitted on the first try, in a single bite, the purple plague should have run riot over the village like a surprise outbreak of fungal spores through their carefully-maintained crop of mushroom homes. How the fuck did the smurfs even have time to organize a defence against the Gnap smurfs? It should have been a rout. There should not be any blue smurfs left at all.

Of course, once again, credit must be given to the cool response of Papa Smurf, who refused to panic in the face of overwhelming Gnapism and developed the anti-Gnap serum quickly and effectively. But I must again call into question whether, realistically, this was even possible. He's Papa Smurf. He's bright frickin' red. If you were a crazed, foaming-at-the-mouth Gnap smurf, who would you go for? One of an endless coterie of white drones, or the guy who sticks out like a used tampon in a vat of steamed rice? Papa Smurf should have been target #1 on the Gnap smurfs' hit list. It actually took the Gnap smurf army till the end of the episode to even try to lay the smack down on Papa, and by then it was way too late. The cure had been perfected, and their actions only lead to the dissemination of the serum to the entire Gnap population.

Something doesn't track here. I find myself troubled.

My iTune has changed
Mar 17 2004 - 9:58 a.m.

So as subscribers to the Tederick.com newsletter already know, my iPod remote crapped out on Saturday. No biggie, right? There's that bulletproof iPod 1-year warranty in place to protect me from such evils, and I evangelize the goodness of the iPod like Swaggart on a bourbon tear, so this should be a great opportunity to prove once again that Apple is a great, great company.

Bah, says me. It has now taken me three and a half whole hours of my time to get these buggers to send me a new remote. Exceptionally poor customer service. How's this for an enlightening look at a world-leading computer company: their system crashed every time they tried to enter my postal code. Wuh-oh, six digits! This wouldn't be a problem if, legitimately, their system wasn't set up to handle Canadian complaints, but it claims to be. It's just that somewhere, in their infinite wisdom, the Apple monkeys never figured out that Canadian postal codes have one more digit than their oh-so-efficient "zip" codes. Stick it in your "zip" drive, says me.

Yesterday I was on the phone with tech support for forty-five minutes while the pasty-faced operator tried desperately to enter my complaint without shutting down the entire Apple mothership. He finally freaked and ran, leaving me on hold for fifteen minutes before promptly hanging up on me. Exceptionally poor customer service. Shame on Apple and all their fruit-shaped paraphernalia.

(I would like to point out at this point that I've been taking a lot of shots at Lucasfilm this year, but check this out: when their online store screwed the pooch last week and my order had to be cancelled, they called me at home and apologized. Not e-mail, not snail-mail. An actual phone call from an actual human being, expressing to me personally how sorry he was for the mix-up, and asking me if I had any questions or concerns. And then they sent me a $50 gift certificate. Now that is what customer service should be.)

I finally called Apple Canada's central office number this morning. They, of course, don't deal with tech support, but after explaining in a fairly calm voice what I had been going through since Saturday, the lovely young receptionist (her name was Christa, like the dimwit from Pearl Islands) agreed to patch me through. Another ten minutes with a Canadian tech support guy, another ten minutes on hold, et voila, they're sending me a new remote. And the smarmy-ass support guy actually had the balls to say, "it's just that easy." I had the balls to reply, "Ohhhhhh, I'm blogging this."

While the official reason I'm not buying a Mac this summer is that I don't have the money, I will now be telling anyone who will listen that the reason is that Apple is a company entirely comprised of stone-cold fucking evil. And if I have a mission in this life, it's to do what I can to combat stone-cold fucking evil.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The Scar
Mar 16 2004 - 1:31 p.m.

Now how's this: my stubble is currently failing to grow in one spot: a thin, vertical line on my upper lip, between the vermillion border and my left nostril. Result? I look like I am the survivor of a rather nasty knife fight. I'm actually fairly pleased with the effect, and am thinking of changing my name to Captain Bludd, but I am also significantly confused, as I have never injured myself in that area in any way. The closest I ever got was taking a desk to the upper gums when I was seven, which doesn't explain 22 years of unfettered lipdom, only to now be marred by this strange blemish.

Has this thing been here the whole time, with me just not noticing? Anyone?

Today's second X-File: everywhere I go, I smell curry. I mean, like, everywhere. It started on the subway an hour ago and then happened again on Queen Street, then in the Chapters, then again on the subway. For a while I thought I just got über-saturated with curry vapour on the subway the first time and was just re-smelling it, but the smell seems to go away for various intervals, only to reappear when I enter a new environment. And it hasn't tracked me back to my house. Is today Curry Day in Toronto?

It's March Break, though, that's for damn sure. The tweenies are an infestation of this city, more so than the dust mites I've been reading about in Jeff's book.

Also, good news: I saw a seven-year-old walking down the street with his dad today, and the kid was carrying Darth Maul's lightsabre. It ain't over yet.

Eww. Jeff's gross.
Mar 16 2004 - 8:21 a.m.

Big congratulations today to Jeff "You Can't Spell My Last Name Without a Lot of Consonants" Szpirglas, formerly subtitled "that weird kid I met on the first day at York," now subtitled "published author." Yup, Jeff's got an actual book in stores, called Gross Universe:

For the past couple of soccer seasons, Jeff would entertain us all with the latest tidbits he'd discovered in the research for this book. I'm going to try to slip out and hit a Chapters today to get my hands on one, after which it will undoubtedly take its place beside other coffee table books of curious subject matter that currently make up the public reading material selection in my home. Good work, Jeff, and good luck with it! I am not even slightly jealous of the solid accomplishmentedness of this.

Checking in at a mere fourteen thousand dollars, one of the all-time rarest Star Wars collectibles ever is up for auction on Ebay - a prototype for the rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure, which has been deemed apocryphal by Lucasfilm almost as many times as the Star Wars Holiday Special. (The big liars.)

More good news, Paramount Classics will be releasing Jeux D'Enfants, which hit #4 on my Top Ten list for 2003, this summer, under the severely mangled title Love Me If You Dare. And Le Temps du Loup should be released at the end of May. I love seeing things a year early: it makes me look cool.

You're in the matrix, Charlie Brown
Mar 15 2004 - 10:26 a.m.

Any fan of Classic Nintendo-based epic cinema of the Lord of the Rings scale should check out these two movies (part 1, part 2), wherein we see that what was really holding Super Mario Brothers back was the music (and the lack of digital crowd replication). I know this because watching part 1 was the first time I have ever heard the "charge up" sound and immediately screamed "YEAH MARIO KICK HIS FUCKING ASS!!!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOOGIE!!
Mar 14 2004 - 8:50 p.m.

Woogie the Unkillable Cat turned a whopping 21 years old today, which he celebrated by eating whole cream, nibbling at some salmon, and sleeping in front of the fire. With the swelling in his face subsiding, we're all now wondering if his missing lip is going to grow back next. It'll be an event-filled year for the crazy old man.

I'm fairly convinced I should write Woogie into subculture, in that he's clearly either a) part demon, or b) has successfully tangled with the Angel of Death and gotten away with it.

Here's me and Adam, explaining to Caitlin why the Obi-Wan/Anakin lightsabre duel happens:

ME: "He went evil, so Obi-Wan kinda went nuts on his ass."
ADAM: "Yeah, the Jedi don't have a lot of rules, but that's one of them."
ME: "Yeah. No evil."

Now we all know summertime ain't gonna flow with no doe and no broad and bodega sto's with no no'. The waves overflow fa sho. So hop on top the longboard and roll and don't go home till they all gone hooknose. Ya know...straight bodyboard struggling to get a shore. Watch them girls ride. Let em whip ocean ripples. When it hits,the tide has got a chicken soaked. Regardless the sharpness of these broads sorta like moses. They easily pull it apart kid. Them some sweet ladies. Keep letting em kill it. Like some true dank No way you can't feel it. They comin up skimpy with the coverup. I got a long joint for ya. Bug cover songs. Do what summer does and shine. Bright like the view of the sky inside the pipeline It's a cruel, cruel summer Leaving me here on my own It's a cruel, cruel summer Now you're gone You're not the only one It's a cruel, cruel summer Leaving me Leaving me here on my own It's a cruel, cruel summer Now you're gone
Mar 14 2004 - 12:07 p.m.

Forget it, Kaylee, those gorram strawberries made me think I was dying.

Here's this:

Yay that! Don't know if it's the real, final, in-the-theatres deal but I'm pretty much going wiggy over anything at this point. And wondering if there's gonna be a new, updated Hermione theatre banner I'll need to pilfer come June. Although my Chamber one remains fundamentally awesome with no need of replacement. Maybe this is Harry's year.

And at long last, my iPod is starting to show signs of wear. ("At long last"? It's only three months old!) The little remote doohickey stopped working yesterday, which now puts me in prime thievin' position cuz I have to keep dragging the iPod out on the bus to flip songs or adjust volume. There's the 1-year warranty thing, of course, and I'm thinking of paying the extra $60 to have the warranty extended by another year, on the assumption that come midsummer 2005, this thing's gonna be as useless as tits on a station wagon.

See how they get you? See how they get your claws into you? Man. Give your life a soundtrack.

Splashage is the key to badness
Mar 14 2004 - 2:44 a.m.

Mark the clocks, note the date, the Seinfeld record is broken.

It was kinda like I remember it. Natural feeling, and not at all bad. Only this time with more strawberries than Tang.

She's a recurring character in the sitcom of Matt's life
Mar 13 2004 - 4:48 p.m.

Johnny Mo and the Crazy 88 Killers have nothing on Sabrina and the crazy 85 sweat top. Can you say, ohhhhhh mannnn. Thank goodness I'm upbeat about my life. And I really am. I was a bit down a few weeks back - what with the Februaries finally hitting me and all - but now I'm back to good. I was in the Second Cup this afternoon and I made some jokey comment along the lines of "boy everything in my life is awful." At that exact moment, as if to specifically underscore the fact that I shouldn't even joke because my life is a source of endless entertainment for me and everyone around me, a light fell from the ceiling and exploded into a million pieces on the floor, not ten feet from me. And Bex looked at me and I looked at her, and I appended my statement with "but at least I'm not getting killed by falling lights, so call it an upside." And then there was laughter and merriment. See? My life is a sitcom with many interesting things going on it, but at least it's a funny sitcom that's a couple of years ahead of its time. Like Seinfeld, circa 1992.

SEVERE EPISODE III SPOILERS BELOW: Don't read it if you don't want to. Not fucking with you, kids, this is the bigtime.

Jason sent me a serious Episode III spoiler image just now, and it completely freaked me out. It's a Photoshop-rendered piece of production art based on various makeup tests for the film, and it shows what Anakin is going to look like after his date with the lava pit (but before that nice, cooling life-support suit gets strapped into place). In other words, it's a charred all to shit former Jedi in an unbelievable amount of pain. It actually made me sick to my stomach. If even a tenth of the intensity of that image makes it into the film, Episode III is going to be fucking hardcore. Rated R hardcore. And once again, will make The Phantom Menace out to be the biggest dark joke in town. You know that cute little boy who won the pod race and made his mommy proud? He got dipped in fire by his best friend and turned into a fucking human-shaped piece of charcoal. The prequels don't seem so wussy now, do they?

The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go
Mar 13 2004 - 9:48 a.m.

So is Wonderalls the best new show of the season like everyone says? Well, I can't really tell yet. But there's no denying that the pilot episode was mighty. Unfortunately its mightiness was based in equal parts on stuff that I thought was great and stuff that I thought was really annoying. And why can't they just admit that the show is set in Canada? What's with all these American quarters? We all know our falls are better, just fuckin' deal with it, folks.

I watched The Ninth Gate between 11 and 1:30 last night and went to bed hoping I would dream of devils, demons, and fire. Instead I dreamed of my father and sister playing a matchstick game and arguing with one another while my mother spilled raw Kraft Dinner all over the kitchen floor. Very disappointing. Or maybe the cosmos is trying to tell me something?

It's All True
Mar 12 2004 - 11:18 a.m.

Wait a minute... wait a minute... HOLY SHIT!!

Mark was right! Carolyn was right! Everyone was right except me!! NOW WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! ... and ...Why am I so angry??

I mean it this time
Mar 12 2004 - 10:56 a.m.

Remember about a year ago when I announced that with my viewing of "Kill the Alligator and Run," I had finally seen every single Simpsons episode ever produced? Well, I was wrong. I hadn't seen "Make Room for Lisa." But now I have. Now I am unstoppable! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.

(This is what blogs are for: confessions of this nature.)

I love you more than all the other fishes!!
Mar 11 2004 - 6:43 p.m.

Got the Angel spoiler of all time just now, and I am sooooooooooo happy about it! Okay maybe it's not the spoiler of all time per se (that would be finding out if she goes with Spike or Angel or neither in a "the most important relationship you'll ever have is with yourself" sort of way), but it's a great frickin' spoiler that makes me wish it were the beginning of May, right now. And it goes something like this: Gimme a D, gimme an A, gimme a W, gimme an N, gimme a bit whining and a dash of necessitated rescuing brought on by teenage impetuousness, and whaddaya got? Yayyyyyyyyyyy Dawnie!

Yup, looks like Dawn's going to be in Angel 5.20, along with much reference to the Buffster, although it's unclear whether SuperSlayer herself will actually appear in the episode in any form, even the blonde-haired, back-turned, shagging-Spike form she held in "Soul Purpose." But we'll see. If I remember correctly, it was either David Greenwalt or Tim Minear who staked out 5.20 for their very own, so either way, it's gonna be goooooood.

Meanwhile, on my immediate right is the picture of Jonathan M. Woodward that is the Jonathan M. Woodwardiest picture of Jonathan M. Woodward in the long, crazy history of pictures of Jonathan M. Woodward. God bless his bow-tie-wearing, death-faking, Fred-killing heart.

Hey, remember how last year when Buffy was ending, this site turned into all Buffy, all the time? Well guess what: it's that time again. So, just like last year, I'll issue a warning. If this is pissing you off in any way, not your "thing" as they say, please come back around about the 20th of May. We'll see you then.

Hey there, black-eyed girl!
Mar 11 2004 - 10:11 a.m.

I got to my parents' house last night and guess who was waiting there for me? Dark Willow!! YAYYYYYYY!!!!

Yep, best action figure ever. I can't even have Doppelgangland Willow in the same vicinity as Dark Willow, cuz Dark Willow just looks menacingly at Dopp Willow and makes her quivery and nervous. I moved DW over to the safety of the Buffy section of my DVD collection.

Speaking of DVD collection, Jason has gone down the rabbit hole trying to fix my DVD Profiler problems, and as expected, the cascade of evil has started and now my computer is being really annoying. It's working just fine right now, though, which is a blessing, but it no longer seems to like to deal with media files, so I can't work on Obstructicron nor even take a handy picture of my new toy, nor take any sound bytes out of tonight's episode of Survivor. For this, I apologize in advance.

Chad's been off sleuthing the Buffy action figure sitch and he's found good news regarding that previously-$100 White Willow figure I was after... gonna be able to get it next week for a measly $15.99. I love it when things work out, especially in the oft-expensive world of online buying.

Which raises another brilliant event: I was a doorcrasher at the new Star Wars online store yesterday, and ended up ordering about a hundred bucks worth of stuff (some for me, some for friends). Well, then something went seriously wrong with the store, apparently, and they shut the whole thing down yesterday afternoon and cancelled all the existing orders. While this is annoying, it comes with a cherry - everyone who placed an order yesterday will be receiving a hefty $50 gift certificate for the store when it reopens, which of course means I get to buy even more! Boy I love my credit card. I finally got it paid off last week, and now I'm beating the living hell out of it once more.

My mother is back from Cuba and she brought me some cigars... the same brand that Steve and I smoked when we finished Bone Daddy 1, that almost ended both of our young lives. I was going to take one out into the neighbourhood last night and have a nice long walk and a smoke, but then there was trauma and an unscheduled trip to the E.R. and I ended up watching Schindler's List until the news came in that all was well, and by then it was too late to go smoking, so I just went to bed. Momentum has been lost. Curses!

A walk in the woods
Mar 10 2004 - 1:28 a.m.

Schindler's List was released on DVD today, and for the past little while I've been fooling around with a review/appreciation for the film... here it is, definitely one of the trickiest bits of writing I've ever done. Don't worry, I'll probably revise it another dozen times before it's really, really done...

On the lighter side, Jason did some work on my computer tonight and we managed to recover by DVD database, so that's all good. The program's still fairly pooched and my computer remains doddery, but I've got my 302 disks listed in date order, and that's all I really need.

Great time at poker tonight, the most fun I've had just playing in a really, really long time. I won some big hands, lost some big hands, ended up about five dollars down on the night but just really enjoyed the hell out of playing. The problem with doing anything on a regular schedule is that it can become routine, but tonight was just a big poker roller coaster ride. Awesome.

Roughly Chris-shaped objects
Mar 9 2004 - 1:31 p.m.

Bex has asked that I become the Bosley for she, Tama and Jess, and I have accepted. Now I'm trying to determine how best to incorporate the comic styles of David Doyle, Bill Murray and Bernie Mac into one new mega-Bosley. All things being equal, I would have preferred to be asked to be Kelly Garrett, but all things are not equal, especially in the bikini department.

Charlie: "Bosley, I hope the angels aren't being too rough on you..."
Bosley: "Man, please, I date fat women."

In other news, I registered Tederick as an actual, honest-to-god, got-its-own-business-number-and-everything business today, owned and operated in this lovely nation state of ours. Because there's nothing I love more in the universe than filling out tax forms! Should have waited till 3/21, but I got too excited when I found out you can do it all on the internet now.

Hey, you know how Ted the evil robot said you should fry your mini-pizzas in herbs and olive oil after you bake 'em? He was right! Score another victory for evil robots.

Nonstop recurring aphid issues
Mar 8 2004 - 11:28 p.m.

I geeked out bigtime tonight, cuz I finally got to have a look at some of Genevieve Bujold's scant two days as the original Captain Janeway on Voyager, before she was mercifully replaced by Kate Mulgrew. Holy crap Bujold's shit is bad. She plays a scene with Tuvok... and the Vulcan is the warm, friendly guy in the room. All this time, I figured a good opportunity was merely lost due to artistic differences... I never knew Bujold's exit was such a godsend for a series with so many other serious problems already stacked against it. If they hadn't switched to Mulgrew, the unthinkable would have happened: Voyager would have been even worse!!

To geek out further, let us discuss the woe that is my DVD Profiler life. At some point about six weeks ago, for reasons that remain occluded to all who seek them, my computer simply decided, of its own accord, that it didn't want to run DVD Profiler any more. Opening the program caused Windows to immediately crash; not good. Stranger still, after uninstalling the program, reinstalling it proved impossible - the install dialogue would reach the point where it was actually building the executable file itself, and the system would crash all over again. I tried installing it in Win2K instead of 98. It worked fine for four days, and then began crashing Win2K, as well. Last weekend, in a fit of purgation, I got rid of every single file that could even possibly be associated to DVD Profiler, including my DVD database. This was before I discovered that the DVD Profiler website, which houses the online version of my database (and the only existing backup copy of that very, very precious data), had gone completely kaflooey. So now I have nothing, except thin promises from Intervocative that my database does still actually exist and will be retrievable, and a computer that won't be able to retrieve it, even if it comes back online. Woe is officially me.

In the "you've got to be kidding me" file, master film-rapist George Lucas is supposedly now in the process of digitally altering his THX-1138 with those newfangled special effects shots he's so fond of. I promise that if this rumour turns out to be false, I shall replace the word "rapist" with the word "bunny."

End geek-out!

My meat and your meat are now copacetic.
Mar 8 2004 - 9:17 a.m.

So as it turns out, Return of the King and Buffy Season Six are being unleashed on DVD on the exact same day, May 25th. What to watch first? It's a puzzle for the ages.

Further to the Grrr Argh front, no Angel till April frickin' fourteenth, and it looks like Anya's going to be giving Willow a run for her money on the variants front this summer. I want a big honkin' Anyanka with a sword sticking out of her belly. That would make me Happy Matt once more.

Does the "Together Forever" Willow/Tara two-pack come with lesbianism? As an action accessory?

In other news: there seems to be a threshold amount of laundrey-folding I can do before my brain reaches some kind of plateau and won't let me do any more. When I reach that point, I actually become angsty and dispeptic and world-weary. If this point falls after the completion of the entire laundrey pile, all's well, but if it falls before - as it often does, for I am the great laundrey-doing procrastinator, resulting in enormous quantities of required foldage all at once - then I'll be picking my socks out of a Hortaesque blob on my floor for a whole week.

....

       .... All right, all right, lame blog, but I really wanted to use the title.

The Third Obstruction
Mar 7 2004 - 10:40 p.m.

We're starting to crank them out fast and furious, getting Chris, Dave and Daniel started on their Obstructions within the space of 8 weeks. Since there's no determined end date for any of these, it could be decades before we see any of them... but at least things are moving. I, for one, am heartily looking forward to being re-Obstructed at the end of all this. I feel like we're only just beginning.

In any event, Dave was today. After a lovely afternoon of watching his entire ouevre of pretty things, we decided to Obstruct his most recent large effort, Sweetener. And the Obstruction goes thus:

The "no viewfinder" thing was mine, easily the single meanest thought I've ever had about anything, ever. Yay to the power of Evil Me.

The Obstructions are definitely becoming more aggressive and more involved as we go along, which is why I'm looking so forward to getting a second swing at mine. Firstly, because I don't feel like The Runner is something that functions as a film in its own right, but only in relation to the whole project, and second, because obviously, the other FORPers were wayyyyyyy too easy on me. Both Chris and Dave - and, presumably, Daniel, next month - are being forced to levy their considerable talents against stylistic and formal pieces that could end up being quite different from their bodies of work, and that's just neat. I'm really looking forward to what comes out of this.

More good news: the On the Fly festival has indeed resurrected itself, so I have submitted that old chestnut, I Have A Hibachi At My Wit's End, to the lottery. I'll know if it gets picked up by Tuesday night, so stay tuned. I think it could be quite a good flick if given a chance.

Hey guess what? After four months of frenzied Alias cramming on DVD and VHS, I finally got to watch an actual live new episode tonight! In fabulous Hi-Def, no less! And guess what else? I want to kill Lauren seven times!!! GRRRRRR. Although with the red hair, hottttttt. GRRRRRRRRRR. ARGH.

The strangest thing, possibly, of my entire life, was this: watching Dave's films today, we came upon A Two Line Pass. As Dave stuck the tape in the camera, I asked, "Hey, is this the Star Wars version?" Dave switched the inputs on the TV... and there was Obi-Wan Kenobi, handing Anakin's old lightsabre to Luke. I screamed and ran out of the room.

Well, it's been a crazy weekend. Up and down like a rubber ball, and I'm getting bloody sick of it. There's a level of calm, of mental discipline, that's just vanished in the past few days. I'm coming to realize that it's actually vanished slowly over the past several months, but the last week has just been completely horrid. Mark said that the Februarys finally got me, just a week or so late. I hope he's right, cuz then the answer's simple: bike, grapefruit, yoga, music, walking, tea, sleep. Easy.

Jean-Baptiste. Emanuel. Zorg.
Mar 6 2004 - 3:14 p.m.

I finally tracked down the song from the end of "Shells." Big mistake. It made me realize that Fred's really dead, which hadn't really hit me yet. And of course by extension, Angel's a goner too, and we're leaving the Buffyverse behind. Now I am Sad Matt. Don't listen to music, kids, it'll gut you.

Now I have all kinds of things to do and a strange emotional funk to do it in. Maybe I'll customize my new Willow into Illyria? Do I have enough blue paint?

Yeah, but she's our witch
Mar 5 2004 - 6:20 p.m.

Why didn't anyone tell me it's like a zillion frickin' degrees out?!!! Jesus Christ, people! I spent the whole day inside sitting at a computer, never knowing that a mere ten feet and 2 panes of tempered glass away, it was the middle of frikin' July!! Y'know, just last night, my father and I were discussing the rampage of seasonal affective disorder through our family. When you don't tell me that spring has sprung, you are specifically contributing to my downfall as a human. Damn you all!!

Well no, I don't think I actually have SAD but still, I am a guy who likes his seasonalism. When I finally did get out, it was like getting a B-12 shot. I figured on going down Snailwise, so I put on my coat and my sweatshirt and went out the door, and got hit in the face by a bloody hot wind. A hot wind. In March. This was when I determined that it was a zillion frickin' degrees out. I switched up for a single long-sleaved T, a pair of jeans, and that thing that officially signifies the onset of spring, my Raiders jacket. Which, if you don't know, is just about my favourite thing ever.

And it's still holding up brilliantly. I got it in the spring of 1999 as a very informal graduation present from my father... five damn years old. My previous leather jacket lasted about three years before it started to look ratty, and then another year or so before it started to look fundamentally pathetic. I was planning to be long into the Temple jacket, Raiders jacket's badass kid brother, by now. But nope... this one could go another three or four years, easy.

Once I got to the Snail I was treated to a gigantic surprise when I found a new Willow action figure that I never even knew existed. This was not dissimilar to my numerous dreams in which I either

1. Find a toy from a line I collect that I didn't know had been made;
2. Find an episode of My So-Called Life, Buffy or Star Trek: The Next Generation that I'd never seen before; or
3. in the case of my dream last night, hear an R.E.M. song from the mid-80s that I'd never heard before.

Somehow, this Willow figure got right by me. It's human-faced Willow from "Doppelgangland," a variant of vamp-faced Willow from the same episode. It also makes the sixth Willow action figure that Moore - in their infinite faltering wisdom - are releasing this spring.

Naturally, I purchased one, but now I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with all these Willows. Basically all this particular Willow has done for me is confirm in my mind that what I really want is White Witch Willow, in spite of the exorbitant price tag, and I only purchased this figure as a poor runner-up, kinda like when I kissed Connie Cardullo because I couldn't get my lips on Emma Kyle. I've got my Dark Willow on order, and now only White Willow can properly complement her. Second best sucks.

But I had a good day.

On the way home tonight I got off at Broadview station, as I am wont to do, and walked the rest of the way. As I came out of the station I was greeted by an eye-popping, Van Gogh-esque sunset - and then proceeded to have to walk home with my back to it. "I'm always walking in the wrong direction," I mused to myself. A few minutes later, lost in my iPodly little world, I was treated to a spectacular full moonrise. I just stared at it with my mouth open, the music ("Every Girl a Slayer") coinciding nicely with what was going on in my head. I guess I was walking in the right direction after all.

Disappointments for the great and the small
Mar 5 2004 - 4:02 p.m.

So let me see if I've got this right: in the same week, first they got Eisner, and then a completely different "they" got Martha. They've had some kinda week, yeah?

This morning when I went to get the mail out of the mailbox, I took Zam with me. As she stared wide-eyed at the road and the cars and the rain and the sky, I whispered in her ear: "Just showing you the world you can never have." It's fun to be me.

And..... scene.

"You're beautiful. Let's have sex."
Mar 5 2004 - 8:48 a.m.

For reasons known only to him, instead of doing a small, indie-style flick like he's been saying, Bryan Singer is tackling a remake of Logan's Run as his next project, before starting on X3 and X4. Does the world need a remake of Logan's Run? The thought is as unconvincing as the model trains.

Meanwhile... has it really been six weeks? I can finally post my Hidalgo review? Yay!

Like walking into my own brain
Mar 4 2004 - 10:22 a.m.

The endlessly-tantalizing JK Rowling held an online chat last night, which you can read here. Little hints but nothing too spoilery. Among the surprising revelations... Hermione's middle name is JANE. Bizarre!

Meanwhile, this is awesome.

Got up bright and early this morning to join the Insomnia Gang for breakfast; it was a lovely morning for it and I came home and wrote the first scene of an honest-to-god short film that I'm calling The Wreck, cuz god forbid I ever actually focus on a single goal and achieve it.

I apologize to everyone in the world for not titling yesterday's post "Serenity Now." I feel really, really dumb. Well no, not really, but I have been screaming "Serenity Now" endlessly for the past 24 hours, with the little voice-break in the "Now" to mimic the post-rose-squashing-incident inflection.

You step onto the road
Mar 3 2004 - 10:00 a.m.

It's official, Serenity has been greenlit by Universal for a June start, with release probable in 2005. Nathan, Gina, Adam, Summer, Sean, Jewel and Morena are all contracted, although there's no mention of Ron Glass - and it ain't a Firefly movie without the pistol-savvy preacher man. But I expect that was just an oversight. The plot - of course - deals with "two passengers on board the ship who attract trouble to the crew." Gee - wonder who that could be? The flick is reportedly set 6 months after "Objects in Space."

Can I get a big "woo hoo?!"

Since I've been so River-centric lately anyway, let's just throw it over to her:

"It's just an object."

Last night Matthew (look! incestuous blogback!) played the closing number for his in-progress documentary on the making of my first feature. It's called "I will talk and Hollywood will listen." Aside from convincing me that I need to own more Robbie Williams music, I really enjoyed it. It's absolutely hilarious, dangerously heartfelt, and pretty catchy, too. Kinda like me!

So, with DVD special features already underway on this beast, I really, really, really oughta write a better version of the script... but I'm caught in a kind of mental gridlock. I wrote out the whole script on cards on the weekend, which was kinda like running a system check on my computer, cuz I found about a zillion structural problems. (Look, my old life and my new life co-mingling in lingo! Co-lingling, as I like to say.) Now I'm taking the much-needed "Huh" break, trying to figure out where to start.

My food is problematic
Mar 2 2004 - 9:13 a.m.

Because it's fun to buy things three times: after the Oscars on Sunday night, Peter Jackson dropped by TheOneRing.net's Lord of the Rings party and noted that while he doesn't know about this trilogy boxed set that New Line has mentioned recently, he does plan to do yet another iteration of the trilogy on DVD once he's done with King Kong. Naturally, it'll be in Hi-Def, and feature yet more unseen bonus material. And far from being annoyed, I am happy as a clam! Boy, they got me by the balls, don't they?

And if you're just dying for some more Lord of the Rings right now now now, swing over to the Official Site and download the aptly-named Supertrailer. It's 75 megs so it'll take you a while, but lo and behold, you'll see the entire 10-hour saga condensed down into 7 handy minutes, proving once and for all that epic length has nothing on epic editing, and that pacing really is everything. Well, "proving" is probably too strong a word; "glufing" is more accurate.

On the flipside of the fantasy coin, there's a great new Harry Potter spot circulating, and everybody who's seen the film (of which there is a surprising number) is saying it's far and away the best of the three, and as good as Cuaron's A Little Princess. That suits me just fine. Although that "housekeeping" gag, and the kids' coolie-wear, are already past due, and the flick doesn't come out for another three months.

"And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."

In my plan, we are beltless
Mar 1 2004 - 11:21 p.m.

I am doing the fairy dance. Pretty colours. Nonsensical sensickes. Sentenny nomenclature. Nastylogisms forthspewing for truly, there has been a fine feshmollioning of me, right in the gonnectagazoink. All shall fear my loose nimble typey fingers and despair, for they are woefully inaccurate in all that they do. I cannot make the words come out right. Love makes the sun go turny, goodnight everyone...

Nun catches girl masturbating
Mar 1 2004 - 12:31 p.m.

So it turns out that DVDs really are the powerhouse on the planet, because The Family Guy has just been renewed for next season, after being cancelled about five frickin' years ago. Now, I've never been a FG fan (the man has testicles on his chin) but I can't help but smile when the Shinydisk scores this big of a coup. Maybe if a gajillion people buy the Firefly boxed set...??

I hope everyone had fun with their vaginas yesterday! There sure was a lot of wanking going on, regardless. Still, props to Bex for the idea, and props to the vaginas for everything else.

The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am that Best Actor and Best Actress weren't gigantic upsets, and given to Johnny and Keisha. It would have completely redeemed my night, pool results and LOTR victories notwithstanding. When Best Actor was announced, I was doubly infuriated, because not only did my pool choice (Depp) not win, but the guy I actually wanted to win (Murray) didn't win either, so I had to settle for watching Spicoli mug for the camera for his 90 seconds. And that made me mad.

Oh well, here's Keisha Castle-Hughes' adorable little Whale Rider hair thingie:

And just for the hell of it, here's my favourite picture of Captain Jack Sparrow.

All right, enough of this... today being the first of the month, it's Hell, and I've also got a Wednesday-morning deadline. And I've got a hell of a hangover, which is odd, because I haven't been drinking. I should fight through, and actually do something constructive.

But first, let's all give a big shout-out to Ron Weasley, who would be turning the big 24 today, provided of course that he survives Books 6 & 7.

It's a fucking shutout...!!!
Mar 1 2004 - 12:36 a.m.

Yup, it's record-books time. The previous record for a film sweeping all of its categories was 9 awards... and Return of the King just took home all eleven. Even I couldn't predict a landslide victory of this magnitude; I had Mystic River for adapted screenplay and was surprised and delighted when King won instead. It was a good night to be betting high on LOTR. Still didn't win the pool, naturally, but had my best showing ever, with 18 out of 24. There was a nice, long stretch of tonight where I felt as unbeatable as Jackson & co.

Of course, sweep notwithstanding, it was a hell of a boring Academy Awards. And there was a bit too much intent in the reborn conservatism that saw Michael Moore being bug-squashed by a rampaging Mûmak.

Still, all's well. The timing's just spooky enough to make this the next beginning. And I'm thinking that the beacons are lit in Gondor tonight....

The Deeper Well