Brad Minton and the Shuttlecocks
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The last thing I did at my old place yesterday was watch the Closing Ceremonies. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am a rank Olympic sentimentalist. So, I watched the entire show, glued to the TV, and became significantly emotional when the little girl blew out the Olympic flame. I'm all pumped for the Beijing games and am no longer even slightly irritated that Toronto lost the 2008 bid. And I've got Torino to look forward to, in 18 short months.
Yup, I'm that guy.
I've got to take my hat off to CBC's coverage, which was uniformly phenomenal. On the whole I'm glad I didn't have Hi-Def during the Olympics, because if I had, I probably would have just watched the whole thing on the American channel and wound up angry and disillusioned at the supreme moral crappiness of their entire news industry.
Watching the closing was probably the single best thing I could have done to end my stay at the old place. I've still got to bring Zam over tonight, and a bunch of miscellaneous kitchen crap yet to sort through, but on the whole it feels mostly done. Bringing all the toys and DVDs and tapes and books over was like watching Isengard unleashed; now everything's in a large pile at the foot of my bed, with a solid six-day lead on the housewarming party to allow me to get it all together. Thank god I don't have to work.
Last thing: I was lying in bed on Sunday morning when it occured to me that there's at least one more candidate for the "Half-Blood Prince" that no one else has apparently thought of: Hagrid. Everyone's assuming that "half-blood" is the old wizard racism usage, but it could be anything, really. This would certainly explain Grawp's introduction. And on that note, check out who's at the head of the pack to direct Order of the Phoenix....
For now
Aug 27 2004 - 7:14
p.m.
The best minds at Rogers [pauses for effect... continues] tell me that I'll either have internet access at the new place on Monday morning... or a week from Sunday. You'll know when I do. Until then, e-mailing me probably isn't the best option, so try the smoke signals - that shit's a hoot.
Here's your assignment for the duration of my absence: masturbate vigorously at least once a day, as our scientists have found that this is the best way to fill the gap that Tederick.com leaves in one's life. Remember, use lube if you're concerned about chafing, and if you're at all uncertain about the procedure, there's no shame in having a trustworthy buddy around to serve as a spotter. Play safe.
Have fun everyone!
Wankers
Aug 27 2004 - 10:42
a.m.
And I only act like this when I'm watching porn.
Girlyparts
Aug 26 2004 - 10:01
a.m.
Them vegans put some kind of a whammy on me, because now I crave soy milk. In fact I may very well purchase soy milk before the week is out. Mmmm. Soy milk. [slaps himself] Stop it! Stop it!
Yesterday saw the greatest triumph of my move process. I loaded myself up with backpacks and boxes as per the usual... and then wrapped my AT-AT walker around my neck. I then strutted triumphantly down the street like a tricked-out pimp. Mine is the power.
Dakota Fanning as Alice? Are they pitching their adaptation as a fright-fest about spooky-ass blonde girls who talk like they're 40? If not, then "ugh."
And that's the whole story of the gun
Aug
25 2004 - 10:20 a.m.
To my enormous astonishment, I got an e-mail this morning from Jason Rosenfeld, the My So-Called Life fan who coordinated the creation of the DVD boxed sets... and then had to watch AnotherUniverse.com completely fuck up the release, with the final straw being their refusal to ship the bonus items, being a lunchbox and a disk of special features. The good news is that the CEO of Another Universe has been arrested by the FBI. The even better news is that at long last, I'm getting my frickin' lunchbox... Rosenfeld has been toiling all summer to get them into the hands of the people who ordered them (about two and a half years ago, I think?), so hopefully mine will be arriving shortly. Kind of a nice way to start my day.
There's a wild rumour floating around that Tom Welling will appear in Batman Begins as Clark Kent - they couldn't get Batman into Smallville, so they're putting Smallville into Batman. That's fine with me, but I still want to see him in tights for Singer's Superman.
And Matty Damon is all geared up about Bourne Ultimatum. Yay!
On the other side of the coin: "This is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas." - Ian Malcolm. (Or is it this, Ian?)
As posted on StarWars.com the other day, Revenge of the Sith will feature something that I never even would have thought of as part of the Star Wars universe: ballet. This, plus an intended discussion by Palpatine about the thematic undercurrents of an old play, has spun me: theatrical arts in Star Wars? Aren't these movies about ray guns and blowing shit up? Well. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
At some point today or tomorrow, Anthony Daniels may be wearing
the golden armour for the very last time.
But I fear I have nothing to give
Aug 24
2004 - 10:26 p.m.
Maybe it's all the Olympic fervour, but I think I just played the best damn soccer game of my entire life. I wasn't in my body at all beforehand, wanted to be ready to compete but thought my performance would be absolute gash. I was late for the game, too, which put me in a bad head. Once on the field, though, everything just made sense in a way that it never actually has before. Whereas I'm usually a couple of beats behind every action - a bit of a weird, shell-shocky disconnect from the wider perception of time that most of us humans generally enjoy - tonight I was a couple of beats ahead of everything I did. I could find myself mentally reviewing my options before making plays, thinking a few moves ahead... which, uh, helps. And I clocked a mad amount of field time, probably about 75% of the game. It felt fan-fucking-tastic. And a bit owie. But mostly f-f'in-tastic.
And what a day at the Olympics, too. Perdita Felicien's stumble was just heartbreaking, so difficult to watch... and cast a dark cloud on a day which should have been a major "plus column," given that we took well-earned gold and silver in other events. The hurdle hurdle, coupled with the devastating result of the bullpen switchup in the softball game against Cuba, made today feel like a loserish day for Canada, when really, it was one of our best. Let's all try to find the - *ahem* - silver lining here, peeps.
Astonishing's tomorrow... Today I read the Serenity Rose backissue I've been looking for forever; I'm saving the July ish for a nice fat X-Men/Sera read sometime tomorrow afternoon. That shit just kicks ass.
As I mentioned to Mer tonight, I am still in a warm glowy from the Sarah concert. That thing's gonna make all kinds of year-end lists. [Matt does the happy dance.]
Two directors: no waiting
Aug 23 2004 -
11:05 p.m.
Dave and I shot The Second Cup today, which was an enormous amount of fun. My "hurry up and just shoot the fucking thing!" m.o. was in occasional opposition to his studied pictorial perfection, but I think this helped the final product a great deal, especially when we had to think on our feet to work around a bit of a snag in our original blocking outside the Post Group. I learned a lot, got to drink dirt (fresh ground) and about eleven coffees, and somehow ended up acting with the two most reticent non-actors on the planet, Dave and Steve. Naturally, we have a pickup yet to shoot, and we accomplished the day in roughly twice the amount of time it would have taken me on my own, but only half the amount of time it would have taken Dave. So I think we all came away with something.
The flick will be released under the semi-optimistic production company tag, "The Glass is Half Full of Rage Productions," and is currently my leading favourite for this year's 1MFVF.
I did, however, take a minute to revisit Leap in a serious way. Finally got it down to one minute (it was lingering at the 1:13 mark). Gonna finish it, like what it has to say. There are too many things in my brain.
The fibre's going to give him an enormous amount of
strength
Aug 23 2004 - 10:34 a.m.
And we're off to the races again, another jam-packed week. I'm moving. I'm starting to move pretty much today... actually I guess I started on Friday, when I hung the Hermione banner in my room at 3QF. At some point during this process, I will have no internet, probably for a period of days. And with everything else going on, I think it's a good bet that the blogging's going to be thin on the ground for the next little while. I promise to make up for it during the film festival, which I'm becoming more and more excited about by the day.
Speaking of films: heeeeeeeere's River!
Yup, I've seen an ultra-shitty low-res bootleg copy of the Serenity teaser from Comic Con, and while I can't particularly claim to have understood all of what I've seen, it still made me all goose-bumpy. Here's hoping that Uni gets its head out of its ass reasonably soon and gets this thing out on the net in an official capacity.
I'm shooting a flick with Dave today, yet another Firsts movie and hopefully my last. I'm fairly close to abandoning Leap altogether, but that's mostly just me being a procrastinating fuckwad. Meh. It was such a nice idea, but I don't think the final version expresses it properly, and I don't really have the time or the mental headspace to deal with the final elements right now. Maybe I'll come back to it after TIFF, but that would be... uh... three weeks after my own "this time it's fucking final" deadline.
But today's movie represents my first co-directing effort with someone who isn't Mark Brown, and certainly the first one in about ten years, so I'm rather looking forward to it.
Uh... yeah. Weekend. Mark's cottage. Josh, Kim, Melissa. Good times, me with three vegans and a politician who had just given up smoking. Lots of fun though, even if my beloved Telefest shirt mysteriously vanished into the falls just prior to a hike up Pretty Channel which resulted in my becoming the new poster child for West Nile contagion. At least one four-person snuggle was attempted, but the jury is out on whether it succeeded. I ate and drank like a vegan for a couple of days because it was too much trouble to do otherwise, but I sandwiched this between a big McDonalds dinner on Friday night and three hot dogs on Sunday night, so I'm definitely not "with the team." Oh well. At least the shooting stars thing worked out.
All right, I'm outta here... happy Monday, everyone.
Sarah
Aug 22 2004 - 11:38
p.m.
I've been away, I'm back, I've got a lot to put up here, but I'm starting with Sarah.
I had my first Sarah McLachlan concert experience on Friday night, a phenomenon I've been hearing about in glowing terms since I was a teenager. Well, the glow was pretty much accurate: it was the best night of my life. Well, probably not really, but fuck it, I don't care... I was in a state of absolute ecstatic bliss for about two hours straight, and that almost never happens. So I'm marking the night highly.
The show was just phenomenal. It wasn't just a good concert, it
was a fucking brilliant concert. An every-song-is-better-than-the-last-one
concert, so that by about 10:30, the crowd is making a noise I've never heard
before in my life, and the only way I can react to it is by joining in. Kim was
surprised that I kept giggling during the depressing love songs, but I was just
so overwhelmingly happy to be there that I couldn't help myself. She not only
hit just about every number I would have wanted to hear ("Lost" was the notable
exception), but she actually redeemed stuff of hers that I've lost interest in
over the years due to the ridiculous overplay she gets on the radio, TV shows,
and in every freakin' coffee shop in America. "Sweet Surrender." "Angel." "Ice
Cream." ("It is time... for desert."
) Nothing's
ever going to bring "I Will Remember You" back from the morass of endless
Felicity episodes and melodramatic recap montages, but she came damn
close.
And then there's the stuff she just kicked the shit out of. Closing with "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy." Opening with "Fallen." "Building a Mystery." "Blackbird," man! "Stupid," easily my favourite track on the new CD, was a great lead-in for the first encore, "Possession" kicked ass in the second, and "Fear" just about took the damn roof off the place. That woman's vocal ability just boggles my fucking mind. She did two hours and fifteen minutes straight without breaking a sweat, and as per the usual, is such a warm and open performer that you just can't help grinning like an idiot through the whole thing. She can make it seem like she's performing for six close friends rather than a whole stadium full of shrieking fans.
The good news is, both Toronto shows were filmed for a concert DVD, so fear not my gushing... you'll see what I mean.
My heartfelt thanks to Kim for superb companionship for the event, to Chad and Andria and their mysterious sources for the tickets, and to Sarah McLachlan for reminding me of the first time I ever heard the acoustic version of "Possession," and how the whole world went silent for three and a half minutes.
"I've said too much... I just want to live in the moment and try to hold on as long as I can... "
Stuff
Aug 20 2004 - 10:16
a.m.
My DVD Profile wishlist is completely updated, for those who are shinydisk-inclined for the upcoming birthday. (Usual disclaimers about the unnecessity of gifting apply.) I won't buy anything on that list between now and then, except for maybe one thing, but I won't tell you what. Abstaining won't be too hard, given that I don't buy anything anymore anyway.
But I still mostly just want this.
Come on, do I not have even one rich friend?
Outwit, outplay
Aug 20 2004 - 2:15
a.m.
[Yeah. I'm this into the Olympics. It's a quarter after two in the freakin' morning and I've just crammed five hours of coverage.]
Boy, if you watch the American channels, you'd think the U.S. was winning every single event they're competing in. It's quite the blanket job they're putting up. Now granted, CBC is also putting an intensely optimistic spin on Canada's thus-far dismal performance at this year's games, but the NBC coverage puts that propaganda to shame. I bet if you did a survey of the average American right now, he'd tell you that the U.S. had already won a hundred and forty-eight gold medals, sixty-five silvers, and three dozen bronze by now.
The upset water polo match between Canada and the U.S. yesterday was a thing of beauty, man; I might actually have to give a more serious appraisal to that sport. Three goals in three minutes... fabbo. And let's face it, any time we can get a leg up on our friendly neighbours to the south, there's an added level of zest to the proceedings. But although I may have grumbled about it earlier this evening, there's absolutely no denying that Carly Patterson earned the shit out of that gold tonight. No one else was even close. What a spectacular performance.
What am I gonna do without my Olympics coverage for three days?!
Lost in the darkness of a land
Aug 19
2004 - 10:52 p.m.
Zhang Ziyi's playing Sayuri. You might as well just kill me now. Naturally, this put Gong Li as the only human alive capable of playing Hatsumomo, who has to be like Sayuri, only even more inhumanly beautiful. Fuck!
Bah. Too much happened today to talk about any of it. I finished
the script. There's a whole shitpile of other stuff, and lots going on tomorrow
through Monday, so... you're screwed. Sorry.
But I don't have a hold on what is real
Aug 19 2004 - 10:20 a.m.
Heh heh.
Drunk bear.
Gonna make a run for the end today, one more pass on subculture to make sure the t's are dotted, and then I think it's gone as far as I can take it this round. Then there's the big scary, but hey, I got a lot of beer between me and there.
Here are three abnormally gigantic pics of the Goblet of Fire cast shooting the portkey sequence, if you're after desktop wallpapers. (I used the first one.) And yes, Harry loves Hermione.
And just cuz it's the last one ever and I've been missing Buffy like you wouldn't believe lately, here's the cover for the final season of BTVS on DVD, streeting November 16:
Hey look! A season where Spike actually deserves to be on the cover!
Well there Mr. Brown-Ground, whatcha got for me?
Aug 18 2004 - 10:06 p.m.
Chris, Brandy and I spent the evening tonight cleaning up the new apartment, which we did an exceptionally good job at - the place could almost be fit for human habitation now. We sat around in the living room eating pizza and spitballing potential names for the domicile; it was Chris who hit the indisputable winner, when he blurted out "the Three-Quarter Fuckhouse." It may well take me years to get over that.
My big task was the fridge, which is a goddamn menace to society - a great fridge, but so incredibly foul that I went down there a couple of hours early just to tackle it head on. We danced all right, but eventually I beat it into submission. Now there's some pizza in there as a litmus test; if the pizza tastes like ass in a couple of days, we'll have to do some deeper cleaning.
Man, I'm freaking exhausted. Lately it's just been one thing after another... I barely have time to get done doing one thing before I'm wheeling around to attack the next one. "Reform the lines!" keeps ringing through my head. You think you're ahead, and then there's damned oliphaunts stepping on your horses.
Haunted
Aug 18 2004 - 4:04
p.m.
My morning got completely flipped around and I didn't get a chance to mention this in the previous post, but those who followed the Whedon link must, by now, be aware of my heartbreak. Joss spills the beans on how he wanted to bring Amber Benson back in Season Seven. In the third-last episode of Season Seven, he wanted Buffy to come upon something (a genie, played by Ron Glass no doubt) who would grant her a single wish... which she ultimately uses to bring Tara back for Willow. Oh hell I'll just let him describe it:
"In one of the final episodes, the third to last episode, Buffy was going to basically get a 'get out of jail free' card. One completely reality-altering things that she could have - she could bring Angel back to her, she could do anything she wanted. At the end of the episode she basically comes to Willow and says 'Look at these shoes I got!' and Willow's, like, 'What?' 'I got these really awesome shoes. I wanted them, and now I have them!' and Willow's like 'You... used... the wish... for shoes?' and Buffy says 'Of course not, you idiot,' and walks out of the room and Willow turns around and Tara's standing behind her."
That idea, and the way he describes it, is the most beautiful, heartbreaking thing I've ever frickin' read and I damn near burst into tears reading it. And it didn't fucking happen. Because of contract shit. Because of Amber's agent, or the WB, or the money men at Fox, or some other good godawful reason. And holy fucking hell, this thing is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I love Season Seven, I love Willow, I love Kennedy, I got no bones to pick. But this is going to haunt me for the rest of my frickin' life.
Based on Joss' description, I will now write the final scene for that episode. (And being that this will be the first time I get the "Story by Joss Whedon, Teleplay by Matthew C. Brown" credit, I've got a minor chill going on right now.)
INT. SUMMERS HOME - HALLWAY - NIGHT
Willow is doing something Willowish when Buffy enters, sporting a foxy pair of ruby slippers.
WILLOW
(not looking up)
Hey Buffy.BUFFY
Hey Will. Notice anything different?
Willow casts a glance at Buffy.
WILLOW
No, mostly you still just look like Buffy.BUFFY
No! Dummy! Look at these shoes I got!WILLOW
...What?
Willow stares agog at Buffy's shoes, her surprise rapidly turning to disbelief.
BUFFY
I got these really awesome shoes. I wanted them, and now I have them.WILLOW
You... used the wish... for shoes?!BUFFY
Of course not, you idiot.
Buffy sighs and WALKS PAST WILLOW, drawing Willow's gaze. Willow therefore does not notice that standing behind her at the front door of the house is TARA.
And then she FEELS IT.
Willow turns. Tara is crying, smiling. Willow sinks to her knees, overcome by unspeakable emotion.
And then...
FADE OUT.
Airwolf
Aug 18 2004 - 10:52
a.m.
Okay: did anyone actually think Harry would not survive to the seventh book? The number of news outlets that are reporting this story absolutely boggles the mind. You were expecting what, that they kill him in Half-Blood Prince and then call Book Seven "Ron and Hermione's Wacky (And Long-Awaited) Sexcapades?"
And since Joss Whedon has put "four" out there as the magic number of Buffy sub-characters worthy of a WB movie of the week, let's just get my choices out of the way so that we can move on to the disappointment when the announcement actually happens. In each case I'll name a sidekick, cuz let's face it, there's gotta be a sidekick:
- Spike, obviously, with Gunn (Charlie-boy!) as his sidekick
- Gunn leading, with Illyria as his sidekick
- Oz, on his own. He's a lone wolf.
- Dawnie, clearly, probably with Giles
And I wouldn't mind getting a little Lindsey action somehow, but we all know that that would be... complex.
Here's a Serenity report from Wizard World, by the way... Jayne in a kilt... yes. But there are big Buffy and Angel spoilers from the seasons that have not yet been released on DVD, so if that's your thing (Chris, Dave), make not with the reading.
It was nice to see Romania take the gold in women's gymnastics last night; for all the Americans' usual dedication to bringing a big game and a hell of a lot of hype to their gymnastics program, the skills just weren't quite there this time around, and were noticeably less refined than in the great regimes of the past. Romania, on the other hand, had a fantastic night built on a fantastic preliminary - a great performance, all around. I would have liked to see China get farther; they had some immensely bad luck that took them out of the running relatively early. A big shame, especially given how dominant China has been in the rest of the games.
If there's a human alive who can hear the theme from Cheers and not get even slightly nostalgic, I don't wanna know about it. And that goes double for the theme from Jem.
Everyone's a little bit racist (for porn)
Aug 17 2004 - 3:24 p.m.
I was listening to Avenue Q and rearranging my action figures when there was a minor claamity involving Padmé's flight helmet and Darth Vader falling over, and I improvised a six-line musical number with perfect rhyme and meter, about how endlessly frustrating it is to keep your action figures standing. I felt like Eminem, only not so much. Naturally, I got caught up doing something else and now can't remember a single fucking word of the thing. So it will remain a secret of these rooms.
I'm working on my Buffy Season Five review; these things always take months and months but I think I've got a good start on it. I'm working backwards seasonally, having already done Six and Seven.
Anyways. I spent four and a half hours today on the final tidying-up on subculture; I've brought the revised draft from 113 pages down to 108, and think just one more quick pass oughta do the trick. There's another scholarship I'll be applying for later this week, and then it's off to the cottage for the weekend to figure out the whithertos, the whyfores, and the WTFs.
On the various miscellanies of a workday
Aug 17 2004 - 9:52 a.m.
I came up with this notion yesterday to create a new smart playlist in my iTunes called "Please Play With Me, I'm So Freakin' Lonely." It's a playlist composed entirely of songs that have never been played before. As soon as they're done playing, they kick themselves off the list, and the list shrinks. I don't know why this was important to get done, but it makes me grin.
My best sources in the world tell me that Julian McMahon, currently strapping on Dr. Doom's doom-booties, will be the next James Bond. Also, the lovely Miss Cordelia Chase herself, Charisma Carpenter, will be guesting on the worst series still on the WB, Charmed, and will once again be playing someone cursed with the visions. Stupid WB Angel-cancelling die die die!
Does anyone still care about Survivor? Amputees and FBI agents and sheep farmers? Bah.
Stupid bug! You go squish now!
Aug 16
2004 - 10:21 p.m.
Today my cat was being an idiot so I put my hand on her forehead and yelled "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!!" to see if it had any effect. (It didn't seem to.) I know that taking the name of the lord in vain is generally considered bad, but how about impersonating an exorcist? Is that worse?
Today was a complete, utter, and irretrievable loss. I fear I may be coming down with something. There's nothing else to explain this blunt lethargy.
It was nice to see Canada finally get a medal, even if it had to be bronze. Actually, of the three medal colours, bronze is easily my third favourite. It's also the highest medal I ever received back on those Participaction days; I usually had to settle for the Participaction lapel pin. Stupid Participaction. They ruined my Olympic dreams.
Untitled
Aug 16 2004 - 10:58
a.m.
Do not adjust your sets; there really is nothing going on. I couldn't even find the quote I wanted to use to title this entry.
Well, one thing: I finished Rebecca's birthday present, the latest in the line of Bone Daddy action figures: Stanley in a Box.
The judicious use of power
Aug 15 2004 -
2:35 a.m.
When Blackout '03 rolled around, I was building Lego on my living room floor, and as such, didn't notice the power loss until Jason came by and threw a rock at my window. I commemorated the anniversary of the event by being on the patio at the Second Cup at 4:00 this afternoon, where I would not have noticed another outage were it to come up and kick me squarely in the balls. I was deep in conversation with an old Greek man named Constantine; our topics ranged from the development of chess and the Roman alphabet, to the geography of Corfu and the decline of the American economy. Appropriately to the scene, we also contemplated the correlation between Wolverine's profile on the back of my comic book, and the development of representational art as depicted in the Opening Ceremonies yesterday.
It was a little while after Constantine took off that I realized that I can no longer remember what Heather Anderson looked like; this is distressing to me because I was in love with her for five years. Admittedly, that was between the ages of 7 and 12, so a good deal of time has passed. More than half my life. Wow... space trip for a moment there. There's gotta be a picture of her around here somewhere... hang on.
...Okay I'm back. Yeah, she was pretty, I wasn't just making that shit up. She really was the prettiest girl in the class, a class which (with the benefit of hindsight) was presided over by a teacher who is the freaking spitting image of Bernard Hill. Yup: King Theoden taught me sixth grade. This one time, he whacked the Jewish kid for improperly sorting the Unicef money. He got in a loooooooooooot of trouble for that. Sure, it was 1988, but it wasn't the frickin' dark ages. You couldn't just beat up the students.
Anyways, Heather Anderson was called to mind because I spent a few minutes watching a very, very bored princess being indoctrinated in the ways of evil by two very, very mean-spirited queens. There was just a horrible restless boredom in the kid; the sheer filth being pumped her way by her two adult counterparts (her mother and her aunt) made me sick to my stomach. These women were literally teaching the kid how to be a nasty, elitist snot, and from what I saw, she was already well on her way. I got to observe this in detail because apparently, bud earphones (not even plugged in) and reflective ruby quartz sunglasses are as good as slipping behind an invisibility cloak these days. I was two feet away and they were talking shit like I was in another country.
I came home and read American Pastoral until the sun went down, whereupon I remembered why I should have bought candles. I took off for Lise's, who is one of the few people wise enough to commemorate this day properly; she had a blackout dinner on her deck. I used the opportunity to shoot a short film that I'm fairly excited about, and will try to cut tomorrow. Then once the camera went away, I just sat down and shot the shit for a few hours. Lise threw a piece of bread at a girl in a funny hat who was walking past with a phalanx of minders. It was the event of the evening.
All in all I got out of the blackout pretty much unscathed last year; maybe that's why I'm so desperate to recreate it. No blogger should ever be considered a Luddite, but there were about five minutes this evening when there was no electrical hum in my house, no music, no fan, no computer... just me and the sound of pages turning in my book. At least once a year, that's worth hearing.
Suicide Girls
Aug 14 2004 - 10:34
a.m.
I'm not sure why I used "The taste of blood on her lips" as a blog title yesterday, but when a minor fracas at Chad & Andria's Jack & Jill last night caused Kim to cut her lip and make with the bleeding, there were more than a few knowing glances. Mine is the power.
The party was great; there was firedancing, and live music, and
door prizes, and a raffle, and the single greatest cookies in the long history
of mankind. Everyone got a pair of raffle tickets on their way in the door,
which I didn't consider any great chance of success and was planning to augment
with more tickets, but I won on the first draw and picked up a pair of Norah
Jones tickets, which I later traded upwards for Sarah McLachlan tickets for
next Friday. Very happy about that; Kim and I are going. I guess I should pick
up the new album now.
So it's Blackout Day everyone; if the lure of Olympics coverage is too great for you to overcome, at least turn off the lights tonight and light a few candles. I've got a couple of things up my sleeve, too... more later.
Ready, steady, go
Aug 13 2004 - 7:03
p.m.
When it comes to the Olympics, I am a rank sentimentalist. I buy the emotion of the thing whole-hog. For some reason Sydney 2000 never really connected with me, so the last summer games I remember greatly enjoying was Atlanta 1996, the one with the pipe bomb and that crazy gymnast girl who broke her foot but kept standing. Winter games are an entirely different matter, of course, but as cold as it's been this year, but it ain't currently winter.
So, rather than get my nap, I watched pretty much the entirety of the opening ceremonies with my eyes glued to the set. Somewhere in my head a voice might have been saying that Greek statues running around to Enya music is horribly cheesy, but out loud all I was saying was "this is so cool." So it looks like I'm in for a long, emotionally overwrought couple of weeks.
The taste of blood on her lips
Aug 13
2004 - 11:59 a.m.
I barely slept last night. I just wasn't tired, so I stayed up until around 4 watching E.R., the end of the second season, the last time the show was the show I fell in love with. Unfortunately, I then had to get up at 9 to go to the new apartment, and with Chad & Andria's Jack & Jill tonight, the whole day feels inverted. I think I'm going to go back to bed now. It's rainy and dark out anyway. It feels like October.
Friday the 13th is going well so far; the good news is that the last two weeks of panic about the apartment have been largely unnecessary. Everything important (including Hermione!) is going to fit in the new room. The place is going to require the cleaning of the century, and it looks like the previous occupants got out of there in a damned hurry because their pimp jewellery was still lying around and there was some very, very, very, very aged brie in the fridge and a frozen bottle of wine in the freezer... but still, I'm feeling a lot better about this whole thing than I was last week.
This Obi-Wan figure was the first thing into my current apartment; I walked through the door on the first night and planted him right on the sideboard, and he's stood there ever since. When I move in two weeks, he'll be the last one out; this Aayla Secura figure is now sitting in my new bedroom, next to an empty Tim Horton's coffee cup. Chad said that I should come up with a movie to shoot while the place is still empty; I am mulling the possibilities. I'm also thinking of abandoning Leap in favour of a couple of other potential one-minute movies... but maybe I shouldn't be thinking about anything right now given that I can barely see the screen with my eyes continually closing themselves.
G'night...
I can't be arsed with any more of this walking around, talking
shite
Aug 12 2004 - 6:31 p.m.
There's the Other Writer, a guy who always looks like he's concentrating, who is always at the Second Cup while I'm there, and while I'm frantically destroying trees with the sharp edge of my black pen, he's banging away on his laptop. It occasionally seems to become a symphony of competitive creative output, as my pages fly up and down and around and his computer sucks power endlessly from the outlet he always makes sure to sit beside. (Sometimes I take his seat, before he gets there, just to mess with him.)
Today, for the first time, we found ourselves at the condiments stand at the same time. While dropping three bags of brown sugar into my second cup, I quarter-turned to him.
MATT: Are you a writer or a programmer?
THE OTHER WRITER: Neither.
MATT: I always see you in here, working on your laptop.
THE OTHER WRITER: I'm a grad student.
MATT: Fair enough.
Another beautiful illustration of the danger of assumptions. From my limited worldview - having been, really, only a writer or a programmer in my entire human existence - there were only two possibilities. From his perspective, being a grad student doesn't qualify him to either of those possibilities; he's a third thing, a catch-all, a non-descriptive descriptor. I'm inclined to suspect his perma-furrowed brow is a symptom of such a tragically misaligned sense of self. I returned to my coffee and tried not to think about the new, redder hair, and the sheer number of times the Other Writer headed me off today, without even knowing it.
I wrote the Mexican Standoff Argument scene over my coffee, which I left out of this draft entirely until today, but decided to put back in. It's always good to show that your characters are so fukked up and assy that they don't even know who to fight with any more. And besides, it was fun. The wolf's getting loud, and I'm becoming sorry I killed her. I'm dangling on the 99th percent, with the final short stretch being the longest I've ever walked. This should have been done weeks ago. I'm reading American Pastoral these days, and Philip Roth is definitely the writer no writer should ever read while he's writing. It's a bad joint, man, worse than all this fucking caffeine and the rot it's causing on my insides. That guy blends words like scotch and hurts my brain. It should never look that easy, not to anybody, and certainly not to me.
"And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible arms? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you."
A.P. p. 35
I mean honestly. That son of a bitch. I read that two days ago. And it occured to me this afternoon that I'm feeling quite a bit better than I did last week, and I even giggled about it, although it may have been the coffee or the wolf or the jarring futility of every single thing. But on the whole I think it was a good day.
And then I started The Invisibles, and now I'm utterly
fucked.
Ape Space?
Aug 12 2004 - 12:26
p.m.
I just tried to pull a banana off the bunch in my fruit bowl, and in so doing, somehow managed to peel all the other bananas on the bunch. Now I have a whole bunch of peeled bananas, and a longstanding desire to never actually eat a banana that isn't a) blended into a smoothie or b) cooked into banana bread. So I find myself in quite the conundrum.
Last night I dreamed a strange science fiction dream where I was part of an expedition, deep into a frozen planet's vast underground temple system. We were in these gigantic, Dwarrowdelf-sized halls that were covered with glittering ice, and everything was deathly quiet and very, very cold. I had Tederick in my backpack along with more traditional survival gear; he was a tight fit, but his presence was important to me, especially on an adventure so grand as this. In the largest of the halls, we found - of course - a working Pepsi machine, which seemed odd, because a) I don't like Pepsi and b) why would the aliens have Pepsi? I suspected that the Pepsi was a bad scene, Alice-style. So rather than drink my bottle of Pepsi like everybody else, I took out my Sharpie and wrote "Drink Me" on it, and left it on a small table near the vending machine. I waited to see if all the other members of the expedition - who were guzzling Pepsi with reckless abandon - would either shrink or expand, but they did neither. Then, a Chinese janitor appeared behind us, at the door to the hall we were now in. He exuded some sort of tangible menace, so we began quickly running away from him. Sure enough, a legion of Chinese janitors soon swarmed through the door behind us and gave chase. They were orckishly squirrelling down the sides of the room and flooding up the stairway we were now climbing; the chase became very exciting. Unfortunately, I then woke up in a Ridley Scott filmmaking master class at NYU. I had fallen asleep at my desk during his lecture. We spent the rest of the class talking about that startlingly effective chase sequence in his exploring-the-underground-temples movie.
Somehow, even as I was dreaming all this, I knew that this dream would be dedicated to Daniel Cockburn.
The girl's a ghost
Aug 12 2004 - 10:14
a.m.
It seems to me that there is only one reason to waste your money on the upcoming Matrix Trilogy DVD ultimaholycow gift set, and that is the fact that it may be the first DVD to actually contain an anti-commentary: the second track on all three films will be a commentary by three film critics who absolutely loathe the series. That's fucking ingenius, the sort of thing I look forward to doing with my own movies someday. (Anybody who really hated Bone Daddy 2 should let me know ASAP.)
Anyways, it sounds like a decent set, if any human alive can get over the ignominy of having to buy Revolutions twice. (I can't.)
More wild Hollywood: the increasingly-troubled M-I:3 has been officially delayed by a year, but when it resumes (next summer), it will be written and directed by the only person in the world who could actually get me into that theatre: J.J. Abrams. In the meantime, prettyboy Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg are off to make War of the Worlds. I shudder.
Looks like God's on John Kerry's side. (Well, what else were you expecting?) And yup, my interest in the election found its most natural expression... reading the Kerry/Edwards blog. Fuck The Daily Show!
Anyhoo, that's me. There's eggs to scramble, lines to cross out, keys to find. Enjoy your Thursday!
"I crossed the road and headed through the Carrot, and turned back as I got to the other side, and she was gone. I smiled again and said, 'the girl's a ghost.'"
Badger my ass, it's probably Milhouse
Aug
11 2004 - 6:53 p.m.
My cat doesn't like tuna. What in the sweet name of hell is going on here? What cat on the entire green earth doesn't like tuna? What horrific cat-shaped hellbeast am I involved with?!
In the best news of the day, however, Joss wants the X-Men. And we want him to have it!
Big, big trouble
Aug 11 2004 - 6:12
p.m.
Do you think I particularly enjoy having my entire critical body of work - which is becoming quite large, and of which I remain fairly proud - completely dismissed because I liked The Phantom Menace? Or because I despised the shovelful of hot ass that is Good Bye Dragon Inn? I mean the entire freakin' collection of 500+ reviews completely dismissed, without a second thought, because of a simple us-vs.-them polemic that I can never overcome because unlike just about everybody else I know, I actually publicize my complete responses in lengthy and often detailed reviews? Do you think this shit is fun?
The first thing out of my mouth after watching The Village today was "oh man, I'm in big trouble." Because I loved this movie. Loved it. And now, I'm going to try to tell you why, and although (hopefully) every word in the review will be spelled properly and placed in coherent sentences, every other person in North America and their respective grandmothers are going to use this review as proof positive that everything I've ever written on this web site can be utterly disregarded, because I'm daft enough to have loved The Village.
Sigh. Sob. Gah!
Here it is, and major, major with the spoilers. You probably shouldn't see the film anyway because you're going to hate it as much as everyone else who isn't me, but if on the off chance you're planning to catch the flick and don't want to be spoiled, don't read.
God help me if I like Alien vs. Predator...
Caught in a tunafish quagmire
Aug 11 2004
- 10:11 a.m.
Last night, Kate put the whammy on me and put a craving of tunafish in my head so massive, my brain almost ripped apart. Fortunately I survived. But today there will be some grocery shopping and some tuna salad making, and then maybe I will have my bloody satisfaction.
But man, something went wrong at soccer yesterday. The game just hurt a lot. I didn't do anything overtly painful but I'm in some massive pain today, particularly my back, which I must have wrenched on a bad kick... it's freakin' killing me. And I still think I'm way too young to be complaining about my back, like, ever. So I'm a bit bummed out about that.
Chris says the bedrooms at the new place were roughly 10x14. My mind is in a constant state of three-dimensional extrapolation.
Burn Fido down
Aug 10 2004 - 11:49
a.m.
So you remember two and a half months ago when I signed up for the City Fido cell plan, and its unlimited airtime flat rate?
The FUCKers at Fido never actually switched me. So, after the aforementioned two and a half months of using my cell phone as my only line and racking up a decent 500+ minutes per month, I got the bill.
And when I called the FUCKers at Fido, they were remarkably unable to solve this problem. They offered to switch me over to City Fido today, and then just have me pay my overtime bills. I said, "Uh... do you see why that is in no way a solution to this problem?"
So I told the FUCKers to get it solved and now they're making "an inquiry" and will get back to me. What's to fucking inquire? Eat shit and die slowly. That's all the inquiry you need.
Quantum Sleap
Aug 10 2004 - 10:16
a.m.
Wanna spend your nights in a coffin before you're even dead? Fearful that imminent terrorist attack will disturb your night's rest? You need the Quantum Sleeper! This scary-ass motherfucking device is basically a bed-sized panic room. It would certainly keep you safe from being knifed in your sleep by home invaders. This also opens up a number of movie scenarios, the best of which, I believe, would be Panic Room 2: Open Water. Goes like this:
INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT
MEG and SARAH ALTMAN (Jodie Foster and Kristin Stewart), our heroes from PANIC ROOM 1: PANIC ROOM, are preparing for bed. Meg stretches and climbs into their bed, the QUANTUM SLEEPER. Sarah nestles in beside her.
MEG
Goodnight, sweetheart.SARAH
Goodnight, Mom.
(beat)
...Mom?MEG
Yes Sarah?SARAH
They can't get us any more, can they?MEG
No, baby. We have the QUANTUM SLEEPER now.
Meg presses a BUTTON and the Quantum Sleeper ENTOMBS THEM WITHIN ITS MIGHTY KEVLAR SHROUD!
All is quiet, until...
MOSE, KEVAN and JONAS enter. They are THIEVES; we can tell because they wear black stockings over their faces. Mose steps up to the Quantum Sleeper and starts WHACKING IT WITH A CROWBAR.
But nothing happens!
MOSE
Dammit!JONAS
They're in a Quantum Sleeper, boss. You'll never get 'em outta there.MOSE
Or will I?!
CUT TO:
EXT. MOSE'S FLATBED TRUCK - NIGHT
Mose's truck speeds down the highway with the Quantum Sleeper in the flatbed.
EXT. DEAD MAN'S WHARF - NIGHT
The truck is backed up to the end of the wharf. Working in unison, Mose, Jonas and Kevan TIP THE QUANTUM SLEEPER into the inky black water. There is a titanic SPLASH, and then the brown coffin slowly floats out to sea.
INT. QUANTUM SLEEPER - THAT MOMENT
Meg and Sarah, sleeping peacefully, like Ripley and Newt that one time before the Alien killed Newt and made Ripley its bitch.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. OPEN WATER - DAY
No land in any direction, as far as the eye can see. The Quantum Sleeper bobs up and down on the waves like a cork.
INT. QUANTUM SLEEPER - THAT MOMENT
Meg wakes up, smacks her lips. She playfully shoves her daughter.
MEG
Wake up, sleepyhead.
Meg presses the button to open the Quantum Sleeper. HARSH SUNLIGHT blasts them in the face! Both women recoil in shock!
EXT. OPEN WATER - CONTINUOUS
Meg and Sarah sit up in bed, and stare, agog, at the sight before them.
SARAH
....Mom? Where's the house?MEG
Wait, just be quiet a minute honey, I need to think.SARAH
To think? TO THINK?! You said they couldn't get us!!!MEG
Well... I was wrong, baby. They got us.SARAH
I hate the Quantum Sleeper.MEG
Me too.
Shark fins appear on the horizon.
FADE TO BLACK.
Secrets Revealed!
Aug 9 2004 - 10:29
p.m.
I was at the Lakeview with Mer and Steve and Brigitte and I said something goofy and then I just stopped and said, "Boy, I always say the weirdest, most random things, don't I?" I was met with glum nods.
So, in the interests of not being such an incomprehensible dork all the time, here is the demystification of four of the things I say most often, that have no grounding in context for anyone who isn't me.
1. "It's gonna be a long night at the laundromat."
This is a quote from a fourth-season episode of E.R. In the episode, Carter is attempting to woo the lovely Anna Del Amico, and they are doing their laundrey together at her local laundromat. He has gone out and bought hoagies, but in typical Carter fashion, he accidently puts the sandwiches in with the wash. When they discover this, Anna turns to Carter and says with good humour, "Boy, it's gonna be a long night at the laundromat."
Usage: I use this in any context where someone would usually say "It's gonna be a long ___________ (due to unforeseen difficulties)."
2. "Maybe I will, Lois!"
This is a double-depth reference. It's a quote from the Superman episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry finds himself dating a girl named Lois. He therefore quotes various Superman sources throughout the episode, and takes great pleasure in using Lois' name as often has he can. So, it's a Superman-by-way-of-Seinfeld quote.
Usage: I will usually append any statement of "Maybe I will" with "Lois." I will even add a "Lois" to other peoples' statements of "Maybe I will." This tends to cause frowning and dismay.
3. "No, you're not talking."
Apologies to Matt and Leah if I get any portion of this story wrong, but this is a quote from their then-3-year-old son, Max. Matt was tied up at the film festival and was calling home to say goodnight to Max, and was giving him (I think?) instructions of the "go to bed, brush your teeth" variety. Max replied to these commands with the now-immortal "No... you're not talking," effectively shutting his father down forevermore.
Usage: Used in any statement of incredulity, i.e. when presented with something that stretches credibility, or something that runs against one's desires or intentions.
4. "And that's the whole story of the gun."
The most obscure reference I make, this is a line from the third episode of My So-Called Life, the gun episode. A gun has been fired inside the school in the episode, and the bulk of the story is spent trying to determine what actually happened, and more specifically, what Rickie's involvement was to the event. In the final scenes, Rickie reveals to Angela the real (and somewhat underwhelming) story, and concludes with "and that's the whole story of the gun."
Usage: I use this to conclude pretty much any lengthy story or anecdote, most of which have nothing to do with firearms. This usually kills the story outright as the audience becomes irritated with me for being so oblique.
Impending darkness
Aug 9 2004 - 11:31
a.m.
I was with someone last night whose prevailing memories of last summer's blackout were uniformly dismal. In fact, "Blackout '03" apparently got listed among the worst of the never-think-about-it-again bad memories of her adult life. I suppose in the entire almost-year since it happened, my memories of that night have been so overwhelmingly idyllic that I've never bothered to look at it from the other side. I learned very quickly that the world was not under terrorist attack, and given that blackouts happen at my family's cottage every other weekend, the notion of going without power for 24 hours was nothing particularly alarming to me. Some food got wasted, some toilets got backed up, some apartments got hot. Life went on. What I enjoyed most about the blackout was the overall good-natured response to it, the "let's make the best of this" attitude that drew the city together in a new and unique way. I know the blackout affected a large portion of the entire eastern seaboard, but the response - from my standpoint, anyway - seemed so fundamentally "Canadian." We're a good folk to be, and to be around, in an unusual spot of trouble. Not much with the panic.
The anniversary is this Saturday, and while I know that shutting down the city's power for a night isn't actually a feasible idea, I wish we could do something to make August 14th some kind of annual commemorative. I'll be blogging by candlelight that night, certainly.
Big Texas
Aug 9 2004 - 9:45
a.m.
Ewan McGregor never gets to complain about George Lucas, Hollywood commercialism, or Star Wars ever, ever again. Why? He's starring in a frickin' Michael Bay movie! Sellout! SELLLLLLLL OUUUUUUUTTTTT!!
Wanna see some Treksploitation? This trailer for the Star Trek Original Series DVDs definitely qualifies as the most extraordinary promotional concept I've ever seen for the franchise, ever. Worth watching just for that soundtrack.
Singin' in the rain
Aug 8 2004 - 7:29
p.m.
Today was supposed to be an island picnic to celebrate the birthday of a friend of Mer's; today was also supposed to be sunny and warm all day. When we got on the ferry, it was spitting; when we reached the island, it was freakin' Bangladesh outside. So, we quickly reversed course, and those of us with bikes (Mer, Felix and I) made a mad dash through the slicked streets, and we relocated the party to a back yard patio and ended up having a lovely old Canadian barbecue, which, I realized, has been something entirely lacking from my summer thus far: hanging out on the deck, drinking beers and enjoying the sunshine. I guess it hasn't been much of a summer for it, but still... I think I should have been chasing more opportunities than I have been. It's an important part o' the heritage. The new apartment has a deck on the second floor, so maybe I'll even have a chance to contribute before long.
Keira Knightley Nude
Aug 8 2004 - 10:16
a.m.
Cuz I needed to be wound up a little more.
Last night I went to see Collateral, which is a great movie, but I was comprehensively apalled by the audience reaction to it, particularly a young couple to my immediate left. This is a grim movie with a realistic approach to violence (and as in Heat, Michael Mann's trademark use of startlingly-effective sound design for gunshots), and yet every time someone got killed, these two pieces of shit were giggling like they were watching Garfield: the Movie. It's times like that when it really is a good thing I don't have adamantium claws, or a working lightsabre, or a concealed handgun, because believe me, if I had, there would have soon been a quick demonstration of the comparative comedic use of violence. Have these two idiots ever seen a gun? Seen someone take a bullet? No. So stop fucking laughing. Sometimes I despair the species.
Toyhunters
Aug 7 2004 - 5:16
p.m.
For about an hour this afternoon, collecting Star Wars toys was even more fun than it was in '99. Jason and I drove out to Hamilton to take advantage of a fire sale by a collector/retailer who was getting out of the business. I spent eighty-five bucks, and came home with north of $250 worth of stuff. I finally got my J'Quille figure, probably the Jabba's Palace figure I've always wanted (or maybe that's Yarna?), and given that I was getting him for around six bucks, I bought a second one to do a custom K'Kruhk at some point. I also finished off my collection of Clone Wars animated figures, a highlight of the line in any person's view. But the best part was the stuff I had never even thought of getting. I bought the Aurra Sing Masterpiece Edition book/doll set, autographed, for fifteen damn dollars. It's a hell of a good doll, and it looks great next to my Zam Wesell. (Before; after.)
But she's tied for gleefullity with the 12" Sandtrooper on Dewback, a ludicrous hundred-dollar toy with a bit of history behind it in my life. Y'see, it came out for a hundred bucks, which I could in no way afford, but I'm a longtime Sandtrooper fan and really wanted one. Then, one day, Jason and I were at a Toys R Us one day looking wistfully at them, and departed empty-handed, only to find out that they had been marked down to $20 that day... that we'd held them in our fucking hands not knowing that we could have had them for what was in our pockets at the time. Today is a great standing example of the Inevitability Principle of Collecting, because I finally got my $20 Sandtrooper on Dewback, a toy that's larger than my cat, and it looks great.
To formalize my exceptional geekiness, I took home an Obi-Wan Kenobi t-shirt for five dollars. I am one happy geek. And I'm spent. (As is my entire August budget.)
Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things
downtown
Aug 7 2004 - 10:20 a.m.
Did anyone else know that there's a freakin' Gozer action figure now? There's also a couple of terror dogs and (of course) a Slimer. And a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Which makes me think that the bulk of the human stars of the flick didn't sign their likeness rights.
Then there's also Kubrick-y Futurama figures, the best set being Bender and the Robot Devil. I like the Zoidberg mostly cuz it's Zoidberg, but I don't like his package-mate... was a little Amy too much to ask?
Happy Nini Day!
And THEN,
Aug 6 2004 - 10:26
p.m.
I am so proud of today's entry in my journal that I'm actually going to post it, in spite of the fact that I don't usually go in for blog/journal incest. It's not a very long entry, but I think it's the most perfectly expressive thing I've written in a very long time:
I'm gonna be all right, sure, but man alive I feel ass-whupped right now. I feel like someone came and beat the shit outta me and walked away scott-free. I'm not even "depressed," per se, more "dazed." i.e. "Did anyone get the number of that bus?"
Yes. That is exactly how I feel. Or felt, when I wrote that five hours ago.
I feel like I've been in a bad mood for about three weeks. It's a dark humour bad mood most of the time, but it does occasionally downshift to an out-and-out "I'm sick of being a superhero" bad mood. I'm not exactly sure when it started or why it started, but the sheer number of things currently pissing me off is a genuine marvel. I know a bunch of good things have gone down, too, but they aren't doing much to stem the frustration and disenchantment, not to mention the seemingly endless stream of things breaking under my tender caress (Big Fuckin' Hellboy, my iPod, and yes, I'm afraid to take a leak). I used to be such a laid-back fella... but then I had to quit my job and chase the dream and now everything is stressful. I utter a mighty "bah."
Dinner with Bex and some of her friends cheered me up quite a bit, and then when I got home, I swung the lightsabre around, and that cheered me up a bit more. And now, to seal the deal, here are five random things that make me unforgiveably happy right now:
- English Mark, who can be a tad bracing when he's shrieking play corrections from the sidelines, but who is now the guy I'd want watching my back in a bar fight. And the gag about my high kick on Tuesday has had me laughing all week.
- My guacamole remains a legend in this city. All fear its might.
- Staying in the neighbourhood. Wednesday night, I walked home from the movie and it was the first time I was doing so under the knowledge that I wasn't leaving the Danforth. I almost burst into song.
- The Darth Vader soccer jersey. I haven't ordered it yet. But hey, up here? It's already mine.
- The fact that I may like Mal the best, be consistently drooling over Inara, and cannot deny my strange affinity with River, but when it comes to the personalities in my new household, I'm definitely the Jayne. To which I say, "I'll be in my bunk."
They're not much, but they're there. I can see them, feel them, juggle them like geese. That's something. Think I'll take a wander down the block and taste the Danforth. (Like, with my tongue.)
And then,
Aug 6 2004 - 12:58
p.m.
I finally heard back from TIFF today regarding my press pass, after six lovely long weeks of silence. It was a resounding "try again next year," kinda like when you scratch those foil tabs on the instant game play tickets. Based on what I've seen of the accreditation process, it's on par with your regular Burger King Spider-Man prize giveaway promotion anyway, so I guess this isn't too surprising.
It's additionally brilliant that they've left this decision so long that the 30-ticket coupon book is now sold out, leaving me hanging between the Day Pass and the über-expensive Festival Pass. A fine trick, that. I'm so fed up with the entire thing that I'm not sure I want to bequeath any of the company funds upon this organization, let alone five hundred damn dollars. There's scythes for that, yes?
I am the all-seeing King of Procrastination
Aug 6 2004 - 12:17 p.m.
I decided to be good and not go see any of the six movies I want to see today, and stay here and work on subculture. And promptly went about measuring all the furniture in my apartment, and downloading a whole bunch of latin music, and of course there's the blogging, and now I think I'm just so wiped that I may have to eat and/or buy lottery tickets. There is absolutely no matching me for procrastinatory style, my friends. The only good thing about this is when it occasionally works in reverse, like the time Mark and I were going to go see Dude, Where's My Car? but started procrastinating and eventually ended up making Cobra Commander Is Gonna Buttfuck Homer Simpson as an actual procrastinatory event to avoid going to see the movie. By the time we were done, the last Dude screening was already rolling, and we had a new movie that is way funnier than Dude. Seriously.
About Damn Time
Aug 6 2004 - 11:20
a.m.
Seinfeld finally hits shinydisk on November 23, and they're making up for lost time by giving us all of the first three seasons, spread across 2 "volumes." Press release go herewise. Yay!
Also, I was exposed to my first episode of The Office yesterday, a show that makes Curb Your Enthusiasm go down like 20-year-old scotch. I am intrigued, but I don't know if my cringe faculties can withstand further abuse.
And in a final bit of tasty news, it sounds like the man that Bryan Singer most wants to be super is none other than current Superboy himself, Tom Welling. This is just fine with me, because frankly, I hate non-coherent film/tv franchises. And he just looks the part. But how far is Singer willing to go with his Smallville/Superman V connection? A little Lana with your toast? Pretty please?
Blue glow
Aug 6 2004 - 10:59
a.m.
Last night I couldn't sleep. The last three nights have been spent lying in bed staring at the ceiling and attempting to mentally calculate if there is any singe chance in the world that I can actually get my stuff into the new bedroom. I'm not talking about mountains of toys here, either, I'm talking about basic stuff like the bed and the dresser and the computer and things I really can't just not have.
Now, those of you who know me or read this blog regularly (the difference between the two having apparently lost all distinction) know that Eternal Sunshine rocked my world in a heavy, hardcore sort of way, so I'm lying in bed and thinking I'd like to be listening to the ES music while trying to get to sleep. Still-functional iPod to the rescue, and then I'm lying in bed with the iPod beside me and the screen lit up and the covers bunched all around me because it's so cold and Tederick is kinda staring at the iPod through no fault of his own... and suddenly I am the single greatest commercial for an iPod in the history of mankind, except that I am about twenty five years too old. I contemplated sucking my fingers, but then I do that often. And then I fell asleep and was not troubled by dreams of red rooms.
Globalization
Aug 5 2004 - 8:50
p.m.
subculture didn't make it to the quarter-finals of the Nicholl Fellowship, which isn't surprising, because the hack draft I sent them was so uniformly sloppy that it probably didn't make it past a single reader. Bad timing, and bad genre to try to sell to this sort of thing. Meh.
And thank you everyone for not telling me, I finally just saw a commercial for this Dead Like Me show. FUCK. I might as well go shoot myself in the head right now.
Potential subculture rewrites that don't involve a workaday Angel of Death:
- Five vegans get locked in their apartment by the local celebrity chef
- Five mennonites get locked in their barn by the local amish fellow
- Five mormons get locked in Future Shop by a couple of pothead teenagers named Keenan and Walt
- Five bacteria get stuck in the lower intestine of a very, very fat man
- Five humans get locked on their station wagon by the local desperate filmmaker, and then... put out to ... uh ... sea
- Wait, there's like this space cowboy, and he has a space ship, and a whole host of interesting passengers and funny homilies
- No hold it, maybe there's this kooky family that runs a local funeral parlour and they just have to deal with death, man, like every day
- La la la la la, la la la la laaaaaaaaa...
- Laaaaa laaaaaa laaaaaaa la la la la la, la la la la laaaaaaaa....
And because I love jumping on a bandwagon a month and a half late, the Saw trailer. Woweeeee. That's gonna be something. That, Open Water, the aforementioned Garden State, Collateral and Sky Captain are what make August and September interesting.
Mobilization
Aug 5 2004 - 11:02
a.m.
So although the formal move date is still weeks away, everything's gone insane in my apartment. It's not every day that you have to figure out how to move 500+ action figures, 300+ DVDs, and a mightily pissed off cat. Fortunately, my little plastic men know their business. One sharp command from me and they're grabbing their gear and double-timing it into the boxes. The Clone Troopers are the best at this, although the Simpsons figures proved surprisingly disciplined.
As usual, there's some small part of my brain that's saying, "maybe I oughta sell off two thirds of this crap rather than relegate it to another two years in unseen boxes buried at the back of dark closets..." Then, of course, there's the larger part of me that just goes "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"
What's really up my ass is whether/where there will be space for Hermione, which is of course my favourite thing ever. I suppose if a 9-foot theatre banner is pushing my luck, I can always buy myself a POA poster to make myself feel better.
Most people (notably, my mother) are downright livid at the non-summer that we've had here in Toronto this year, and based on the back-to-school smell currently wafting through my windows, it's looking like non-summer has given us a miss and we've gone straight to non-fall. I, for one, look on this as some sort of Festivus miracle: aside from four or five really nasty days, my apartment has been the model of livable temperature since about the middle of April. You can't buy this kind of climate control... my hydro bills have proven that.
Vapour trail
Aug 4 2004 - 11:43
p.m.
It's official; the most beautiful badass in the english-speaking world, one of only three males alive that I would actually have sex with if given the opportunity, Ralph Fiennes his own damn self is playing Voldemort in Goblet of Fire (and, presumably, the rest of the flicks). This should be damned interesting. Miranda Richardson is also stepping into the fray as Rita Skeeter. The casting wonks at WB never fail to impress.
And here I was gonna put Natalie Portman on the left cuz I went to see Garden State at a preview tonight, but the hell with that. Those eyes, man. Wow.
[blushes]
Yeah, I just figure enough people think I'm gay already, I'll go all Hank McCoy on the mo-fo, y'know what I'm sayin'?
Deep Sleep
Aug 4 2004 - 11:24
a.m.
I hope you will not think it boasty of me to say, but I got like eleven hours of sleep last night. I sacked out at midnight and woke up at eleven with only a handful of minor interruptions. I wasn't feeling particularly tired yesterday or anything, but apparently I was. And at some point in this uninterrupted field of white cotton, I dreamed about Ridley Scott calling me up at a friend's apartment, and asking me about what I've been writing, how things are going, and whether we oughta have a meeting. He was extraordinarily polite in posing the question of whether I'd ever be willing to let an outside director (namely, RIDLEY FUCKING SCOTT) direct one of my scripts. I was similarly articulate in revealing that in this particular case (RIDLEY FUCKING SCOTT), I'd be pretty well fine with it.
I'm fairly convinced that our brief contact was not because my name currently appeared beside his on an IMDB listing or anything, but you never know. Everything has to start somewhere.
Whoa. Good Bible.
Aug 3 2004 - 11:18
p.m.
I just realized that the title of the previous post should have been "another brick in the wall." Dammit.
Guess what? The good news is plentiful today. The apartment application has been formally approved, so we're in. Moving in three and a half weeks, and Hogwarts was but the first to fall. My apartment is slowly coming apart.
Also, Orange Krush won its first game today, a spectacular 5-0 victory thanks to some exceptional shutout goaltending from Mr. MacLean, and some heroic game-long play by the only two females who managed to attend.
And third and lastly, the iPod is doing okay, 48 hours later. Hasn't fallen apart yet. So I'll call that "groovy."
This is the kind of day for buying lottery tickets and/or mail-order brides.
The day Hogwarts fell
Aug 3 2004 - 4:48
p.m.
A mightily premature bit of packing up, but since Lego has absolutely no display space in my life any more....
Some people juggle geese! (The Process, pt. 7, and also other
things not process-related but of the newsworthy variety)
Aug 3 2004 - 1:09 p.m.
I was going over the previous drafts today to find stuff to put in 4dv2, and I realized that the back-alley conversation between Jared and Ashley is not in the current draft, nor needed in the current draft. It's out, like forever. This gave me pause, because this was the scene that, when I wrote it, made me want to write the rest of the script. It was the third scene I ever wrote for Jared, and the second scene I wrote for subculture specifically, and it was the first time I ever met Ashley, and it's just everything I wanted to do with the movie, boiled into a page and a half of dialogue. Now it's gone. I've heard it said that when you've cut out your favourite scene, your movie's done; this isn't quite that, but it's something.
The other notable thing that came to me today was the whole Melvyn / no Melvyn thing. Melvyn is the fifth roommate. When I started the fourth draft, I cut him out altogether. When I started the second version of the fourth draft (4dv2, the current version), I put him back in. In the process of cutting him out, I gave a bunch of his lines to other characters; what was amazing in comparing the different drafts was that without fail, when I put him back in, I gave him back every single line without even having to cross-reference to do it. I think this means that the character has a "voice," and that the voice could not be successfully applied to any character other than him. I call this a good thing.
Moving away from process-babble, here's another good thing: all the fingers in the world must currently be crossed, because we found an apartment and made a deposit on the spot. Barring any unforeseen snares, the deal should basically be done. Phew. And the good news? I am moving from Pape & Danforth... to Pape & Danforth. Yeah. I'm moving on foot. Four fucking blocks!
I am now officially wishing endless buckets of failure on Chris Weitz's attempt to bring His Dark Materials to the screen, because I just came up with a scene that I'm going to stick into my adaptation of the trilogy, and I will have no American Pie director gummying up the works. Will & Lyra will wait for me.
I've pretty much destroyed my copy of Astonishing X-Men #3, so much so that I will probably end up having to buy another copy. This is a first for me. I've read it six times in six days, and may just hand it off to the next kid who sees the cover and says "Cool! Wolverine!" This comes hot on the heels of the realization that Firefly is the only television series I would actually re-buy on HD-DVD, were it made available. I've burned holes in those fucking disks, I've watched them so many times. Beware the Whedon, kids; he has powers we know not of.
I have come to the late realization that my cat simply cannot be taught to stop being an asshole. This is only surprising to me because Woogie, with a little applied effort, was actually able to adjust his bad habits if properly disciplined to do so. Zam, on the other hand, is just a bad fuckin' kitty, and she's been that way since the day I met her. I don't mind or anything; I named her after an assassin and all, and I love her to pieces, but this is the way of things. The way of the Force.
I give hope to Men; I keep none for myself.
And in other news, I WON THE LOTTERY!!! I WON THE FUCKING LOTTERY!!!! SO LONG, SUCKERS! ME AND MY FREE TICKET WILL SEE YOU IN MEHICO!!!!
And it's been a while... a long damn while since anyone but me
took hold of my plough
Aug 3 2004 - 10:08
a.m.
Dave Tebby's moving up in the world.... (Click it while you can; this is bound to get sorted out eventually.)
Last night, while continuing my unbelievably slow crawl through
the DVD of the final season of The X-Files, I watched the last
X-File I've never seen before. It was kinda like the show was back on
the air again, for 43 glorious minutes. Actually, 41 of the minutes were
glorious, and then in quintessential late-season X-Files style, the last
two minutes torpedoed the episode. I miss Mulder.
I hate robbing banks... (The Process, pt. 6)
Aug 2 2004 - 11:50 p.m.
I got to the end of the draft last week - the "rough fourth draft" - and now, the end end is reasonably close. I went over the draft today - laughed myself sick at at least one point - culling it for elements that still need to be introduced, or throughlines that got started and then broken. Tomorrow I'm also going to be doing a quick pass over some of the previous drafts to see if there's anything really important (read: one-liners) that oughta be continued over. Once that's done, all the remaindering stragglers get rammed into the draft, I do one final polish for "coherence," and then it's all done and life goes on.
I've got three or four other scripts-in-progress that I wouldn't mind giving a couple of weeks to, just for fucking-around's sake, but don't worry, those who have been expecting the arrival of The Plan will not be disappointed. I'll get to it, I promise.
I am gigantically regretful that I didn't make like a Canadian and take this weekend as an actual outdoorsy-sort holiday. It was a mistake; I'll have to get something shaking for Labour Day.
I am the lizard queen!!
Aug 2 2004 -
10:53 a.m.
It is lovely and temperate in my apartment right now. I know that it's the calm before the storm.
I found this yesterday; it's a very decent Hellboy primer for those who are curious/uninformed. The article addresses something that I've discovered, reading HB comics for the past few months.... they've got their share of flaws. The movie's pretty neat in that it stays utterly faithful to the notion of Hellboy, while throwing out vast elements of the plotting, and improving greatly upon the narrative weaknesses of the source. That's a hell of a trick. I'm slightly dying for the DVD, but I'm waiting for a used copy to become available because I'm trying to make with the frugal. And there's that 3-disk coming out later this year to waste money on, too. Crap!
I find it kinda funny; I find it kinda sad
Aug 2 2004 - 2:03 a.m.
I might very well have killed my iPod tonight. I put my weight on it by mistake and heard the mighty "CRACK." Then the buttons didn't work any more and I couldn't get it out of unlock and it was responding very strangely to everything I did with it. Closer examination revealed that the casing had imploded somewhat; I managed to pop one side of it back into place on the spot, but the other side was still crushed in, which was probably why the touch pad wasn't working any more, a state of permanent overtouch. When I got home, the trusty butter knife sorted out the other side of the casing and relieved the pressure on the touch pad, and now everything seems to be okay... but this thing was dead as fried chicken for two hours, so it'll probably be weeks before I feel safe with it again.
Fortunately, my warranty lasts until December, and it has been my sincere hope that I find some way to get them to replace it before then.
But still.... fuck. What a way to end the weekend. In fact, what a way to end the month (or start the new one). Fucking hell. Bugger McFuck. These have been exceptionally irritating, nervy times and I am goddamn well sick of it. Hellboy ripping in half... iPod going down... The clitoris? Give me a fucking break.
"Dammit! You know what? I'm sick of this crap. I'm sick of
being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment,
it's over. I'm finished being everybody's butt monkey!" - Xander
"Check. No more butt monkey." - Buffy
Wandering Juvie
Aug 1 2004 - 11:46
a.m.
Natalie Portman and her dog on Letterman, talking about how everyone should vote Kerry. We live in interesting times.
Some folk have expressed interest/dismay in the "birthday greetings" policy here at Tederick.com. The answer is, there are only two people who get birthday greetings: Harry Potter and Babs Yuen. Everyone else falls under the "Hot Air birthday policy," i.e. no publically broadcast birthday greetings, lest someone be omitted and feel left out. I've been following this policy since I was fiteen, and I'm not going to stop now.
I woke up this morning thinking, "wow, I can't believe I watched two movies last night." It was a full two hours before I realized I actually watched three movies last night. This is not the normal run of things. But what the fuck, I'm on a timetable now, and I've granted myself the weekend off, in order to sort my head for those last three subculture changes I've got to do. And then it's done, done, done, done... I'm trying to figure out what other scripts-in-progress I might be able to polish off before the end of August. Since I'll have nothing better to do anyway.