The Buddha masturbates like a monkey in a cage
Nov 30 2004 - 8:01 p.m.

You will not fucking believe this:

Yeah. My My So-Called Life lunchbox finally arrived.

This has been three damn years in the comin'. I ordered this thing in early 2002. After the eight month wait for the actual show DVDs, and another ten months of waiting for the lunchbox; after a multi-person IFCC fraud complaint in 2003 leading to the arrest of the president of AnotherUniverse; after giving up completely on the whole damn affair over a year ago, Jason Rosenfeld finally came through in August. He found a skid of the lunchboxes, unshipped, at the A.U. warehouse, and contacted everyone who was supposed to get them. Even though I put the odds at a decent 50/50 that this was yet another grab scam, I sent him my additional shipping fee of $10 and forgot about the thing all over again. Then, literally three days ago, I woke up in the morning and said "Jeez, I guess I never got that thing, huh?" And it arrived at my parents' place this morning, nearly four months after I sent in my money. Un-fucking-believable. I literally can't believe it's actually here. I'm in complete and utter shock.

But happy though.

More crazy: Toys R Us is giving up selling... uh... toys. Whaaaaa?? Just when Canadian outlets have got resoundingly back into the ring, offering new Star Wars product for the first time in two years, they're giving it up? Bloody strange shit, that.

I've started reading Star Wars: Obsession, the four-issue comic book lead-in to Revenge of the Sith. How it will fit in with the Clone Wars Animated lead-in to Revenge of the Sith, and the hardcover novel lead-in to Revenge of the Sith, is currently unclear. But issue #1 is pretty rippin' good stuff, and actually contains - I think - a scene set on the night that Luke and Leia are conceived. Wrap your head around that.

Does Obi-Wan know about the marriage? I'm beginning to think "yes." It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing pans out. (Obvious Statement of the Year award goes to...)

Fun with my Violet toy and the "Night" button on my video camera:

You should see what it does to my lightsabre.

And finally, apparently software developers can be wrong: Ken Jennings just went down like a chump on Jeopardy. I always figured that when they finally wanted to take him down, they'd bring in the Supergenius Hit Squad or Stephen Hawking or something. I don't feel sorry for Ken, though; I feel sorry for the third guy - the guy who isn't Ken, isn't the woman who beat him, but is just the hipster doofus who was there when it happened, but couldn't even scrape together enough cash to make it into Final Jeopardy. Sucks to be the third guy.

Wang-chung
Nov 30 2004 - 10:30 a.m.

I must have been tired, cuz I slept a couple of hours longer than I usually do. I vaguely remember dreaming about guesting in a Grade 8 math class being taught by an asian man who was also Mr. Jasper, my Grade 8 french teacher; I also remember doing dishes last night (for real, not in dreamland) and breaking not one but two of those glasses I was talking about - not across my wrists as feared, but on the floor, oldschool. They came apart with a downright beautiful shattering sound, like an angel farting or something. Then I had to change the cat food - twice - because of the adorable little shards of glass that were just waiting to kill my Zammy (and her Sammy). It was all quite comical.

The franchises did an excellent job with the haikus yesterday; I'll pick Brandy's one about the post-it notes as my favourite, just because it was the most Japaneseish. But really, everyone made good with their Monday-morning creativity burst.

A thousand software developers at a thousand workstations can't be wrong
Nov 29 2004 - 2:51 p.m.

Today Mer was invited down to the Alias offices here in Toronto, to show the One Minute Film Festival to a surprisingly large crowd of employees. One of the filmmakers, Jerome Maillot (who made the computer-animated "Time Flies," essentially as a personal-interest project to explore the ups and downs of the rendering pipeline of the company's Maya software) has been working for Alias for twelve years. Figuring this to be a brilliantly rare opportunity, I tagged along with Mer to get a glimpse of the inner sanctum, and I was not disappointed. It's freaking awesome in there, even without all the posters adorning every single wall on all six floors, detailing each and every visual effects film that Alias products have played a part in. Freakin' nifty, and a big thanks to Jerome for showing us around. I even got a peek at "the room" - a small conference room filled with white boards where, no doubt, the entire future of the visual effects industry is being charted in red dry-erase marker. I should have brought a camera.

The true hilarity, of course, came in the fact that the screening was delayed by over half an hour because nobody could figure out how to work the video projector, and we eventually had to move the screening to a different venue entirely just to get the thing going. It didn't make the Oscar downstairs any less shiny, but it gave the visit a handsome spin.

Meditations on a fleeting schedule
Nov 29 2004 - 10:43 a.m.

Inspired by Jocelyn, who really should have her own link in the blogs section but is a stranger so I am therefore afraid of her, here's a haiku or three about my day:

The faster I work
Time accellerates to match
This race can't be won.

---

The day begins fresh
An ocean of time before me
Now a dry puddle.

---

I cannot reshape
This wayward river of life
In forty-five minutes.

Get zen, blog-family; let's see something interesting by the end of the day. Tederick.com has spoken. Before you start, though, remember: nobody thinks you're funny. So maybe really try it?

Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
Nov 29 2004 - 9:39 a.m.

You can't know what it's like to actually be a bat.

I've been thinking a lot about Han Solo. There's been all the talk about Firefly being Millennium Falcon: The Series, but Mal's got a significant advantage over old Han, in that he's got a lot more help. Mal's got Kaylee and Wash and Zoe and Inara and Jayne and Book and Simon and so on, but all Han ever had was Chewie, and while Chewie was formidable, both men had to be real jacks of all trades just to keep things running on that tubby little ship. They had to be able to fix the mechanics, negotiate their jobs, fly the sucker in any condition, and keep the locals from ripping their lungs out when things went bad. I suddenly have more insight into Han. Ain't no games of basketball in the Millennium Falcon cargo hold.

Anyways. I can finally feel the holidays roaring up; I'm enjoying the first panatone with my tea and going over shopping lists, but that's not what's getting me excited... it's gonna be time to make nog soon! I loves the nog, horrifically fattening though it may be. And I think, as of last year, I have finally nailed down its creation; my most recent batch of homemade nog was fairly addictive. I'm not exactly sure when 3QF is going to bedeck itself for Christmas, but hopefully it'll be soon. My parents have shocked the free world by announcing that they will have no Christmas tree this year, and will instead be decorating one of the bushes that my mom keeps indoors for the winter. Seems sketchy.

Good, geeky news for Buffy fans: the seventh season box contains an easter egg that rectifies (for me anyway) a huge error in a previous set. Those of us who actually watched Buffy on television every once in a while will remember that at the head of "The Gift," the series' 100th episode, the producers concocted a great "previously on" reel that included a shot from every single episode thus far. This reel was cut (like all "previously ons") from the Season Five DVD, but is available on the Season Seven box as an easter egg. You do this to find it. Excellent!

Who isn't loving Joseph right now?
Nov 28 2004 - 1:47 p.m.

I have a bar mitzvah in a week and a wedding in two weeks, so I went out and got myself all kinds of the fine linens and other exotic clothe-types. I also got a new coat. It's a bit longer than my current set of wings but has a nice hang to it and a bit more flutter. I'm excited.

Last night at Reel Asian, the guy in the seat next to me kept turning to me during the movie and asking me questions about what was going on. I eventually just started ignoring him. After the movie he turned to me and asked, quite pointedly, "What, you don't talk to people you don't know in movie theatres?" He then tried to assure me that what he was doing was perfectly normal and that he does it all the time. I assured him that I attend approximately 100 screenings a year and have never seen or heard anyone do anything like what he was doing. We were apparently having a significant cultural clash, and we both walked away mystified by the other's worldview. Someone should write an anthropological paper.

Migrations in Prehistory
Nov 27 2004 - 6:39 p.m.

Observed today:

• At Yonge and Eglinton, I came around a corner to find myself granted a faceful of Darth Vader. I actually jumped in fright, before I realized that it was just a dude in a black leather jacket trying on a Vader helmet he'd just bought at Toys R Us. But for exactly one split second, all my dreams/nightmares had swarmed into real life. And I didn't have my lightsabre.
• At Yonge and Bloor, Donner and Blitzen were wearing Bay scarves in a small makeshift paddock outside the store. PETA hadn't arrived yet. A small crowd of gawkers was milling about, doing their gawk-thing. Stupid Bay.
• At Bay and Bloor, "Mexico" could be found on the back of a truck, in a cube made of glass which contained two underfed nymphets in bikinis, and a dude in a Speedo with a seriously small penis. Apparently "Mexico" consists of an unwashed wooden floor, two beach chairs, and an umbrella. Oh, and there were more gawkers.

I've been wearing a new hat that I only recently realized is actually the hat that Melvyn wears in subculture - yep, I've been dressing like a character from one of my movies, and it's a movie I ain't even made yet. My whole life is some fantastical illusion.

I bought two Star Wars figures at TRU; they were on sale and there was a bit of a fiasco when I was told that if I picked up a third fig, I could have a free Silver Vader exclusive... but then when I leaped over the counter and hurdled four small children to grab a third figure and bring it back, I was told that the deal in fact only covered purchases of $30 or more, and I was 21 cents short. I let the deal go, and walked away with just a Cloud Car Pilot and VOTC Vader. But let me tell you: these are freakin' awesome figs. The Cloud Car Pilot, to my very great surprise, is probably one of the best-realized figures I've ever seen - for such a minor character, Hasbro must have blown the bank developing this one. It looks absolutely spectacular. And as for Vader, quite simply... best - normal - Vader - ever. A figure that actually reminds you why you thought Vader was so freakin' cool when you were a kid. Worth every gorram penny, and on sale, worth a bit more.

And to stir the pot a bit more, Galactic Hunter has a full preview of the Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan figure I was gassing about last week. Now I officially can't wait till April.

I remember I was sharp, not even ten days ago, but I seem to have lost the way. No matter. "From the planet where I feel like I need to put a barrier around you, Willow-style." Watch this wad of flan turn back into a weapon.

Pink and Black
Nov 27 2004 - 10:10 a.m.

I love Tederick.com, and am happy with the design, but in my mind the site remains kind of like Sunnybrook Hospital - it's new stuff built on top of old stuff, and no matter how much new stuff I add, it's still ruled by the original design constraints that put the original structure there in the first place. So, every once in a while it's nice to step out a bit and do something new. Sure, it's a Tederick.com hack in just about every respect, and there's still a lot of refinement work to be done, but check out the new look for TexasGary.com. For something that's just a place to start, I'm pretty happy with the design. It'll get renovated and rebuilt a dozen times in the coming year, no doubt, but for right now, I'm strutting my Bettie Page street cred.

All right, off to yoga, and a big decision coming up about how and where yoga will continue to fit into my life. Actually, a lot of big decisions coming up, about just about everything. And also a very big wang. Watch for it!

Fragility (some days are all about the bum)
Nov 26 2004 - 11:20 a.m.

Last night I dreamed that Matt Damon introduced me to Kevin Smith, who had Jason Mewes with him, so in total I knocked off three of my Askewniverse must-meets. It's unclear how I met Matt Damon in the first place, but by the time he brought Kevin over to my table, Matty and I were pretty good friends, so who knows, maybe we saved a small South American country together or something. I'm sure this dream was brought on by the fact that Kevin Smith has been circling my life lately; not only was he at the Bloor the three nights prior to my appearance there for 1MFVF (and invited a member of the staff down to the Q&A he was holding across town while I was singing and dancing on the Bloor stage), but he turned up at the Snail a couple of hours after I was there last Wednesday. Do I have a big tubby man-bride stalker? I sure hope so. I love that guy.

There are some glasses in my kitchen that I'm always afraid to wash because I'm afraid that when I stick my hand in with the sponge to scrub out the inside, the glass is going to shatter and I'm going to slice my wrist so badly that there will be absolutely no hope of medical aid arriving fast enough. As a consequence, I never use those glasses, and rarely wash them. They are the scariest thing in my household, as far as I'm concerned.

It turns out that it's really hard to find a decent, non-pornographic picture of a penis on the internet, unless you want it covered in cold sores and lesions. This is some kind of Google neo-conservative polemic, no doubt: the only viewable penis is a diseased penis or a pornographic penis. Effect/Cause. Stupid Google.

Dance your cares away
Nov 25 2004 - 4:31 p.m.

As I have been prophesying to at least one unbeliever for about three and a half years now, The Muppet Show is headed to DVD in proper, seasonal boxed sets (rather than the silly "best of" disks currently on the market). If I'm not mistaken, I recently heard something about Fraggle Rock, too. It's a fine time to be fond of felt.

While we're on the subject, here's the Jim Henson action figure from the Muppet line, which is outstanding in every detail except that it doesn't have an appropriately-scaled Kermit puppet to stick onto Henson's arm. Maybe I can cannibalize something together using that little fucker Robin.

More death, more despair, but on Wednesday now
Nov 24 2004 - 12:33 p.m.

Last night's House (which I now pronounce "Hoose" in a Jasper-voice) provided the best explanation for the myoclonic jerk (those little twitches just as the body is falling asleep) that I've ever heard - sometimes when you're falling asleep, the body mistakenly thinks you're dying. So it jerks you to wake up the tissue. That put me in the zen zone for about five minutes.

Because I'm too lazy to come up with my own content (I had something to post but I completely forget what it was), visit Matthew's blog to hear the sound clip that he will trot out at Max's wedding, and Jason's blog to see the craziest DVD item of all time.

See ya later Vader.

Oh right! Vader!

Funny that a Vader figure that's basically identical to all the other Vader figures would seem so appealing to me when wrapped in a Revenge of the Sith gumball package.

I am going to listen to U2 now. Everyone please be quiet.

Bury the 12
Nov 24 2004 - 1:31 a.m.

2004 came in with a roar and smacked a lot of people's shit around, providing bigger challenges and harder falls than any of us were expecting, and early - an entirely new order of scary crazy, within the first couple of months. The year's going to go out the same way: I can already smell December eating through the world rock with cold hard teeth, I can hear the crunching and the crashing and the snapping of trees and limbs, and something tells me that the back 40 are just going to be hard, hard, hard. Maybe I'm wrong. But this feels like the flinch before the slap. Everybody grab a partner and hold on - when the spinning stops, you can leave. We're going to be okay, as long as we stick together.

Flying in the face of the impending apocalypse, Matty Price and I hit seven McDonaldses after a fraught night of poker, searching for Incredibles toys, the most sublimely ridiculous mission I've been co-opted into in a long, long time. We'd given up and bagged off back to 3QF when I suggested a final toss at the ring at Cosburn and Pape; not only was the restaurant indeed a 24-hour location, but it was fully stocked with the exact two toys Matthew was looking for - Violet and Dash. I got a Violet for myself, unwrapped it in the car, was already brain-loopy with delight at her spinning force-field ring, but stymied by the presence of a switch on her base that didn't seem to be able to move... until I finally shoved it over to the "on" position and Violet's force ring exploded into brilliant red light. Matty and I whooped and cheered like teenagers, tears of laughter streaming down our faces, and euphoria knew no earthly bonds.

Leaving home
Nov 23 2004 - 4:25 p.m.

I finally got a chance to watch House, and with a solid B episode, it advances to the second round of the "can I please be added to Matt's busy schedule" sweepstakes. Not quite the grand slam that made E.R.'s pilot so memorable ten years ago, but it could turn out to be an interesting show, if it keeps from becoming formulaic. Sorta CSI: The Human Body, the saving grace (naturally) is the sheer dickheadedness of Dr. House himself, which, paired with Bryan Singer's gorgeous blocking and photography for the pilot episode, made for some pretty nifty Hi-def. The presence of Robin Tunney damn near threw me out of the show after only thirty seconds - I really have a problem with that girl - but thankfully, she proved to merely be a guest star, and Omar Epps is fantastic in this thing, so I'll give it another go tonight, when I get back from poker.

I seem to be thinking about death a lot. It's been about eighteen months of this, and this ongoing (minor) preoccupation certainly gave my Six Feet Under viewage a healthy shot of fertilizer. Ditto for House, and its climactic dissertation on the messy ultimate decay of all human life. I'm not painting the bedroom black or writing bad poetry, don't worry; in fact I'm not really thinking about my own death so much as just death in general and its pull on every single thing that walks or crawls in the universe. It got dosed significantly by "The Sound of Her Wings," and by two back-to-back novels (Lovely Bones and Hotel), and ultimately had an important nourishing effect on the development of subculture, not to mention the way I look back at my brief dalliance with depression, so as far as I'm concerned all's good in the hood. I just also know that whatever I'm working out on this, isn't done yet.

I hear Oz saying "It's interesting," in that wonderfully blasé way of his.

I suppose everyone goes through this eventually. Hell, I'd be more concerned about the ones who aren't ...

You said it man: nobody fucks with the Jesus.
Nov 23 2004 - 2:06 p.m.

Counting upwards this time:

1. Version 2.1

A technical director's work is never done: the One Minute Film & Video Festival will have a repeat screening on December 12 2004, at 4:30 p.m. at the Bloor Cinema. Great opportunity to catch the show if you missed it on the first go-around. My flick, Leap, which you can watch on this here web site for at least another couple of days, remains prominently poised in the #14 slot in the show. And this time, I promise, the show will be so redundantly backed up in every format possible, that it's going to hit the screen wearing armour.

2. Sex and the Really Old City

There are no words for the genius of Bea Arthur. Or her pantsuits. Samurai Jack, on the other hand, needs a few words: I just watched Episode I, and I think it was just about the coolest thing ever. Fuck live action: I want to be an animator! Too bad I've never, ever, ever, ever been even remotely able to draw. Fuck.

3. Kick you in the face.

Those fucking pointy-toed boots that the skanks are wearing are on my last damn nerve. Those things are a sign of the apocalypse. I'm so fucking sick of seeing them I pretty much am ready to start stomping with my steel-toes. They are the stupidest, ugliest fashion accessory of the past ten damn years. Ladies: the only people who think your boots are hot are other women who are wearing them. Look around the subway, and contemplate how many people therefore think you look like an idiot.

Hey, I ranted!

This is not my best day ever
Nov 23 2004 - 9:33 a.m.

Serenity has been delayed to September 30 2005.

GORRAMMMMITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!

The only upside I can see to this is that now, I'll be able to see the film with all of my Browncoats instead of me and Chad sneaking a furtive glance in Indianapolis and then phoning it back to T.O. to find out what everyone else thought.

Otherwise, this sucks the balls that are large.

The words of Joss are here. Make sure you go down and read all of his replies, too. Meanwhile, the rest of us are hoisting a tall one of Mudder's Milk and praying we can survive near a whole damn year to see this fucker.

Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me...

I am 65% sketchy
Nov 22 2004 - 6:04 p.m.

What is it with these damn things? There's getting to be more and more of them. I'm able to filter the good ones from the bad by studying the varying complexity of the questions they ask. I make fun of the stupid ones. And yet when I get one that gives me an answer I like or an affirmation about my personality, I feel like an 8-year-old getting a pat on the head from teacher. Stupid internet! You are not teacher!!

I shot the proverbial wad at the DVD Wave today... bought Harry Potter, Golden Girls, Droids Animated Adventures, Ewok Adventures, and Samurai Jack. Left Seinfeld behind. Gotta leave something for folk to buy me for Christmas, right?

I used to be her Game Boy
Nov 22 2004 - 10:52 a.m.

Woke up this morning having made a mental breakthrough on how to upload a pancake to my web site and have readers be able to download and eat it; took a full three minutes to realize that this is in fact a) impossible and b) really fucking strange. For those three minutes, though, I felt like Doc Brown after hitting his head on the sink. The Flux Capacitor, man. It's out there.

It also took me until just a couple of minutes ago to realize that I saw Seed of Chucky on Saturday night; I had completely excluded it from my memory of the weekend. Kate and I were in St. Kitts and we were bored silly, so we took a lengthy walk out to the mall and watched that mo-fo. Can you imagine the desperate desolation in which we found ourselves, when that was the most agreeable moviegoing choice in an 8-screen theatre? But hey, you know what? I don't feel too bad about it. It wasn't painful-awful like Feardotcom or Pearl Harbor. It wasn't even the worst film of 2004. It was just really fucking dumb. And gooey with doll-semen, which isn't necessarily the way you want to go with these things.

Alphonso Cuaron has put together a new development deal with Warner Brothers, and announced that he'd love to do another Harry Potter movie... which anyone who saw Prisoner would agree is a very good thing. The "announcement" (subsequently knocked back down to rumour) that complete unknown David Yates would be helming Order of the Phoenix scared me pantsless; if they're going to give the flick to someone nobody's every heard of they oughta damn well give it to me. Giving the flick to Mira Nair at least made a kind of sense, but Cuaron would smack Phoenix out of the fucking park. Give it to him!

And I'm sorry Jim, but a live-action 3-D movie with a digital lead character based on an animé franchise sounds like the stupidest idea since... well... well since the 3½-hour movie about Romeo & Juliet running around on the Titanic, actually, so maybe I'll shut up now.

Counting backwards
Nov 22 2004 - 12:55 a.m.

7. Most people like straight lines. They like writing that makes sense, that describes events that they are familiar with in language that they can clearly understand. They like short and punchy posts, because a thick wall of text is just too much commitment for the casual browser. They don't like abstract language or imagery that they can't immediately link to the content at hand.

Their problems are only just beginning.

6. "We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty." I can feel the aching dark outside this hull, I can smell the cold kept only a few feet distant. I can hear every sound in the quiet, and see shadow demons dancing on the walls. I'm tucked in, back where I belong. Still flyin'.

5. Seven seasons on my feet and it's time to move on:

I remember when Mer mentioned that a friend of hers was starting a soccer team; I remember Steve and I signing up. I remember that first game in pouring rain out at Lawrence and Victoria Park and the feeling of my trainers sliding around on the grass, and how I marched into a Canadian Tire the next day and bought these cleats. From last place to first place, from sliding around in the snow to painting letters on our chests in the mud, I've seen a hell of a lot of things in the last seven seasons - and next year, I'm going to hit it even harder.

4. It turns out you spell St. Catharines with an "a." Some yonk actually claimed recently that I blog about my personal life; I don't. I have a journal. Bardanga that, biotch.

3. "Chosen" a third time; third time through the whole season and by far the most enjoyable trip thus far - my various complaints and comments of the past are now little more than a matter of historical record, because this viewing cleared up just about everything I've found wrong with Buffy's final year. Season Seven rocks, and that punchline can't be beat. It was when I was looking at the Guardian again, a character whose fit always confused me, that it all sort of swam together in my mind - the Slayer; the masculine oligarchy that created her by using and abusing an innocent girl; the feminine counterpoint that watched the watchers through all time and forged the ultimate weapon that would lead Buffy to break open the power and save the world by doing what the Shadow Men could not: give women a choice, give people the chance to share power. White Willow? Baseball bat girl? It's tears of joy now.

2. The One Minute Film & Video Festival goes really fast. I said that last year and I said it again this year. Let's get the uncomfortable bit out of the way right off the top: shortly into the second half, the show ground to a halt for the worst ten minutes of my life. What we're assuming is nothing more complex than gunk on the tape turned five of the films into digital data with nowhere to run. I'm told that the audience was unphased; I'm told that one of our filmmakers jumped up and played accordion music to pass the time. I'm told it's the least-memorable event of the evening.

It will haunt me till the day I die.

I'm not one to self-flagellate needlessly and I'm over it for the most part, really I am, but if I think back to those ten minutes in the booth I get a cold drip of fear down my spine that's strong enough to make me want to hurl. At the end of the day, it was bad luck, and a learning experience for next time; there was no real harm done and all of the films - for the most part - got screened to the best of our ability. But those ten minutes stomped me into a tiny square pellet and didn't let me up for a long, long time.

Moving on:

The show was better than last year. There were more people, the reaction was better, and let's face it, the flicks were better too. I'm unnerved by the straight-linedness again, the number of people who want their one-minute movies to be a convenient A-to-B narrative with a cutesy television-commercial punchline at the end. As a festival programmer, I can assure you that the only films that you actually end up caring about after the fifteenth viewing are the ones that are legitimately trying to do something creative with the medium and the concept and are not treating it simply as a chance to make the filmmaker look clever. Give me something to [think] about, and I'm a far happier festmeister.

So as I've said before, I like this year more because unlike last year, there are literally a dozen films that I'm genuinely excited about whenever I think about them, as compared to four or five in '03. Here are my humble opinions, which shouldn't be taken as anything more than that:

"L'eau" was originally my absolute favourite, but was usurped by Daniel's "Chicken/Egg," which I love more every time I see it; the same applies, ironically, to Brenda's "First Kiss," and with their films' complementary colour schemes and visual approaches, I'd call their pairing the most romantic bit of dual programming one could hope to make on the festival circuit. "First Time Driver" means a lot to me because it's genuine and sweet, which is the exact opposite of that other first-time driving movie, awards notwithstanding. "Incidence or Reflection" is a truly beautiful piece of impressionistic work and - a phrase I'm using a lot here - becomes more and more absorbing every time I see it. The "Prairie Girl Sue 2" team showed up for the show in custom-made "PGS2" t-shirts; their flick is The Empire Strikes Back to "Prairie Girl Sue"'s Star Wars. "Man by the River" really gets it done, without dovetailing into any kind of preachy melodrama, and I think the filmmaking team behind "Duplication Violation," "Stealing First" and "The Egg?" will go on to do great things - they show a flexibility of craft and a willingness to tackle a broad variety of genres and styles that will serve them well in a professional career. And you know what? The fact that Chris' "Prologue" actually demands that the audience take a moment to think is nothing short of a breath of fresh air in this rarefied company.

And then there's "Ratta Tooi." It's this year's "Cats and Pants," the one film that absolutely, inexcusably, unforgiveably has nothing at all to do with the theme. And as with "Cats and Pants," I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wins the viewer's choice prize. It's absolutely delightful. Anyone want to help me track down that song?

I love my movie. Success or failure, I think it's one of the most "me" movies I've ever made. I went through a long period of not even wanting to finish it, before coming back around and realizing that this thing is pretty much exactly what I wanted to say, exactly how I wanted to say it... I'm very, very pleased with how it came out; the reaction was not quite what I'd hoped, but I'll take what I can get. Now, in direct contravention of my own monologue sermon, I'm waiting to find out what next year's theme is, cuz I really wanna make a movie.

I had a blast hosting, more so than last year; I got to tell bad jokes, throw a shout out to Darth Vader, and toss t-shirts into the crowd - I even threw myself completely off my feet while firing a shirt up onto the balcony. Let's have one last round of applause for Mer and Amy - they run a tight ship, and more importantly a fun ship, and they let me come along to play. You can't ask for much better than that.

1. It's 4:00 on Thursday afternoon, and I'm at the Second Cup. At some point I really oughta write a monologue.

There's a killer in me
Nov 17 2004 - 3:46 p.m.

I found the missing piece of my armour at last, and hit the streets, painting the town orange with the last of the barbapoppas - my hair finally the right colour - and slowly making my way from midtown to downtown, from slightly overcast to foggy and drizzly. We can't be in a bad mood all the time. The discomfort slowly worked its way out at long last, and the sick blur, until everything was finally sharp and interesting again, even that guy handing out cards in front of Active Surplus. His woes are realer than mine.

2. My Boyfriend Taught Me Bionic Sex!
"Jenny orgasms as she dies. Airbursts of blood like liquid fireworks. Slow motion plasma, neutrophils, lymphocytes, several hundred million red cells, rich in hemoglobin, shimmering in the sunlight."

Entropy increases. Everything tends towards disorder, and some days this is good, and other days find me rearranging the remotes on the coffee table so that none of them are overlapping my notebook. Would a spilled bag of sesame seeds be enough to slow me down if I was coming to bite you? Untied shoelaces? An unkempt stack of books? Maybe.

Other times, I live by the Inevitability Principle, but even that guideline has never lead me to be so bold as to hope to find a $50 Future Burns exclusive marked down to a measly sixteen bucks. Which in my line of work isn't just fortunate, but quasi-miraculous. The apocalypse in yellow plastic. I shudder. I almost don't even know how to look at it, so I use it to mark a place in my book.

I fell in ass-backwards; I haven't sat on that perch in months and when I finally took a moment to do it, I saw visions Invisibles, and Kali unbound, and connected everything together with words in place of fingers, and it was so good. Scrumptious. A bit too much sugar in my coffee, and the fries were overcooked, but every other single element of this day has been neo-perfect.

The villains are about to get seriously stomped.

I am a dragon dreaming. And I finally know what I'm going to do.

There she goes
Nov 17 2004 - 11:09 a.m.

I had strange dreams last night which did, at one point, incorporate Daniel's Chicken/Egg: The Williams Equation, so I think it's fair to say that I've worked on this film festival exactly one day too many.

Which isn't too bad, cuz it's only a day away! Tomorrow night at the Bloor for anyone who still doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about, tickets are $7 at the door, show starts at 7:00 but get there early. There, that's the last plug I'm ever doing for this thing.

The master is run, everything's ready to go, and I'm litting out for a bit of downtime R&R. Eat that.

The dreams, by the way, also incorporated the fire-dancer-thingy from Daniel's birthday party, which is weird because I wasn't even there for that part.

Don't let the door hit you in the
Nov 16 2004 - 10:59 p.m.

One episode, and already there's a team that has me yearning for an imminent encounter with a speeding bus: washed-up Playboy model Victoria and her new-ageism spouting, ADD-addled hubby, Jonathan. They're no Myrna and Shmyrna - really, who is? - but holy cow was I hoping their Range Rover would explode in the middle of Iceland's highway 1.

And speaking of Myrna and Shmyrna, here's hoping that Bolo adopts Shmyrna's fondness for molesting Phil at the end of each leg of the race. I already think that poor guy deserves danger pay for having to let that vapid piece of trash smear herself all over him for seven episodes running.

Wow, this really is the only reality show that never sucks.

It's gonna be a long night in the laundromat
Nov 16 2004 - 5:25 p.m.

Thank god for PVR, or I would have missed the Late Show that was, evidently, made just for me: Jerry Seinfeld (and doing standup!), Jamie Oliver, Les Moonves, Alan Kalter singing "November Rain" in his midnight-blue Elvis costume, and some crazy guy knocking down dominos. Throw in Richard Simmons with his pants on fire and Bill Cosby scaling a fire ladder to the balcony, and I could have ended my life happily right there.

The work for the fest is pretty much done; I finished zeroing and syncing all of the movies today, and cut together the pre-show trailer, and rendered the whole megillah. Just have to run it out to tape and test the mo-fo, and I'm basically good to go. Pending any last-minute emergencies, of course. Which means I might actually get to watch the premiere of Amazing Race 6 live, probably the first time I'll have done so since about halfway through Amazing Race 3.

Yup, I'm feeling all right. It was a really beautiful afternoon, for one thing. This is the exact kind of November day I love - not too cold, clear but with a bit of cloud cover, and a ghosty phantom moon hanging in the middle of the sky as the colours go from blue to black. That's as good as it gets.

"So if you want to love me then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin' In the cold November rain."

The long way around
Nov 16 2004 - 9:40 a.m.

Probably the very last Obi-Wan Kenobi action figure that will hang on my wall:

Yep, this has me spinning back to a blustery pre-winter in November and December of 1999, when the first images of the Episode I toy line leaked onto the internet, the Mace Windu preview figure shipped, and the STAPs hit the store. That Christmas - and the subsequent spring - was the most fun I ever had collecting toys.

My very first POTF2 Star Wars figure was an orange-carded long-sabre Obi-Wan Kenobi; I bought him at Toys R Us on the way home from York in November of 1995. I open my toys, as everyone knows, but in the years since, I've also put together a very limited collection of carded Obi-Wan figures on my wall, representing the great movements of the line over the past decade. This one's still my sentimental favourite; I was never more hyped for any toy ever than I was when I saw that first image of the Episode I Obi-Wan figure, on a day not unlike this one in November of 1998. On my wall, I also have this one and this one (awesome!) and now this one, but not this one, which bothers me because a) it's becoming hard to find and b) is a big part of my Phantom Menace hype nostalgia, with the cool "flashback" insert that let you shift the image between Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor. Tying the trilogies together with toys. The alliteration alone gives me a boner.

Now, there's only one left. And I'm excited again. I might have to hold up a bank or two between now and May, but I'm damn well gonna shoot the wad, one last time.

Yay me, I caused proto-lesbian experimental fondlage
Nov 15 2004 - 6:48 p.m.

When all this is done and it's holidaze, I will watch the following sagas in their entireties in single marathon viewings:

• Alienses
• Godfatherses
• Lord of the Rings Extendo-cutses

That is my vow. Three more days of my life gone. But fuck it. I'm looking for light at the end of the tunnel right now, and DVDs are it.

Let's have some more quiz fun, for procrastination's sake. (I let Debbie find 'em, and then I do the easy part.)

You Are From the Moon

You can vibe with the steady rhythms of the Moon. You're in touch with your emotions and intuition. You possess a great, unmatched imagination - and an infinite memory. Ultra-sensitive, you feel at home anywhere (or with anyone). A total healer, you light the way in the dark for many. What Planet Are You From?

That works for me. This, on the other hand, would have caused me to break things if I hadn't got what I wanted:

It's amazing how much better I feel about myself after a quiz has told me stuff I already know.

Sound & Fury
Nov 15 2004 - 12:29 p.m.

Got off to a later start today than I expected but that's okay; I time things by CDs so I'm about one CD into my workload. Which basically translates into: calling people back, replying to e-mails, organizing my desk and my to-do list. It's nice being a working stiff again.

In a way that is entirely not.

No, it's fine, but I haven't just vegged out at the Second Cup with a stack of comic books in way too long. Once this festy madness is behind me, I shall do unto it. Yesseth I shall.

Cranking through Buffy Season Seven on DVD... we just finished "Showtime" this morning, which puts us at the exact midpoint. And y'know what? I always liked this season, but it plays even better than I remembered. I (of course) already know where all the blind alleys are, but the coherence of some of the writing - particularly little bits of dialogue - and the way it plays into the structure of the season as a whole is just awesome, much more so than I remembered. It's a far more detailed year than I thought, probably the cleverest of the seven seasons in terms of novelistic use of plot structure and overlapping, developing plot arcs. It's a hell of a mega-movie kind of year.

And obviously I'm a bit "up with Buffy" right now, but my problem is becoming the fact that I want all of these:

I can get away with only having "Fool For Love" and "Grave" Spike if I buy the vamp-faced one for the girl, but holy cow I want all five, which would turn my entire Buffy collection into a kind of besotted Spike-shrine. Which, in some circles, is just fine, but makes for a weird overall presentation.

Not only am I still trying to shake the same cold I've had for a week (and the cough I've had for a month), but now Zam's got a cold too. And Sammy is redefining his "Stinky" nickname. The litterbox smells like pig slop on a sunny August afternoon.

Chris just walked into my room and said "I can't handle this, no one is updating their blog!" This was a few minutes after a conversation this morning where he started to say something to me about something that was on his site and then we both just sort of stopped and said "why dialogue? why talk?" and I just went and read his site. Civilization, gentlemen. The question is one of civilization.

Shatterpoint
Nov 14 2004 - 4:52 p.m.

In perhaps the most overwhelmingly frustrating game of the year, Unstoppable Yellow Wall - currently ranked first in the league - just got defeated in a heartbreaking 5-4 first-round playoff game, and now, due to the unbelievable bizarreness of the league playoff rules, we're out of the running for first place altogether, and will be put through another excruciating double-header next weekend, where we will be playing for a rank anywhere between third and sixth. I was so pissed off I didn't even shake the other team's hands at the end of the game, which wasn't particularly cool of me, but I was really pissed off. They brought in a new player a few minutes into the second half - when we were ahead 4-2 - which completely changed the dynamics on the field and threw us off our game for a good twenty minutes, during which all the damage was done. It just frustrates me to no end.

A hearty congratulations to Topher, though, who defended the goal brilliantly in spite of the points deficit, putting out more brilliant saves than I've seen in a single game in a long, long while.

Aaaaaaaargh.

I'm all jazzed up about Return of the King, though. I finally peeked at the preview trailer on Friday and boy howdy, this is going to be awesome. For the uninitiated, this will be the third and final marathon Lord of the Rings viewing at my house - we watch the extended cut of the flick, and then take in as many extra features as we can before midnight. It'll be a crying shame to see the great tradition put to rest, but man it's been fun doing this for three years.

Amy's sent along a magnificently detailed schedule for the big day, and my mind's already two steps ahead in the formation of plans for this week's final work. It's going to be a tough week with a lot of little tasks to complete between now and Thursday night, but I'm looking forward to seeing this thing through to the end. Then it's off to St. Catherines for the weekend.

Stupid soccer putting a bad spin on my week. But fuck it: I got a girl wants to make me veggie shepherd's pie right now, and that's the bestest news in the world.

Still just a butcher
Nov 13 2004 - 10:51 a.m.

Kate and I went to see Mark in his performance of A Flea in Her Ear last night, where, of course, he completely blew everyone else off the stage in spite of having a relatively supporting-ish role. The show was at York (wedged into Vanier's studio theattre), and Mark was playing a jealous Spanish hipster named Carlos. As soon as he strode onto the stage, dressed in a silk suit and sporting the porno-iest moustache of all time, it was all I could do to keep myself from standing up and shouting "And whether you call him Doctor Zolo, Minister of Antiquities, or Colonel Zolo, Deputy Commander of the Secret Police, he is still - just - a butcher!!!

I didn't want to throw him off his game by bursting into uncontrolled laughter at any point, but it was damn hard. In some sort of bizarre fulfillment of our most ardent Charley's Aunt fantasies, the play's a mistaken-identity farce in which Mark actually gets to yell "in flagrante delecto" and rush onto the stage hollering "DEATH!!!" at the top of his lungs. He closes the second act with an astonishingly funny fight scene with a berserk hotelier. He must be having the time of his life doing this role - it's physical, it's stereotypical, and it steals the fucking show. Boy howdy, do I miss being in plays.

After the show, Kate and I gave him a big black cock for a job well done; I said "shake hands with your destiny" as I pressed the rubbery, jet-black mass of member into his waiting palm. Earlier, I had used it to pistol-whip some 15-year-old boys on the subway, who were under the mistaken impression that they were manly. The cock was purchased at 2:00 in the afternoon at CAYA, whereupon I also found a drawing of a naughty schoolgirl holding a teddy bear and a jar of peanut butter. If she had a Darth Vader mask somewhere in the picture, it would be the perfect image.

This is my first blog from Kate's computer, so if the formatting's all wonky, blame my ongoing uneasy alliance with the the Macs.

There's a bullet out there with your name on it
Nov 12 2004 - 11:10 a.m.

What's the deal with Now Magazine? Why can't they publish their shit on Fridays and avoid all these bisected movie showtimes every single week? If their magazine is called "Now," it should be about "now."

Last night's E.R. was hoary, clichéd, obvious, and melodramatic. And yet, it spooked the living hoo-haa out of me. Ray Liotta, man, I always underestimate that guy and he always goes way the hell above and beyond what I expect from an actor. And let's face it: checking into a hospital and dying 43 (convenient) minutes later is about as scary as it gets. Fuck!

There's no denying it, with all the sfoo viewage of the past couple of months, I spend way too much time thinking about my sfoo prologue: where it'll be, when it'll be, and whether or not it'll be funny. I really hope it'll be funny. Morbid much? Not really. But whoever said "let's make a show about a funeral parlour" was right on the damn ticket. That show draws together the corners of human experience in ways I didn't think was possible for television drama. I'm trying to find some peace with it.

Finally: what the fo-shizzel was with Chris' ninja move on Survivor last night? "I will burn them all, just let them open a door. This vote isn't against you, it's for you." That's the scariest goddamn thing ever. Or at least before 9:59. What's he planning?

Volume 1: Peanut Butter
Nov 12 2004 - 8:14 a.m.

I want to send the big birthday shout out to Babs Yuen, who may no longer exist, but is certainly celebrating her birthday somewhere in the spheres. Yo!

My mom's talking snowboard for Christmas, which is definitely something I salivate over, but I'm worried because a) it's a lot of money and b) I may not have sufficiently established my snowboarding street cred to be lugging my own board around Blue Mountain this winter. Also because given my druthers, shouldn't I just get one of these? Or anything with a giant frickin' dragon and/or teddy bear on it? Do I need a tattoo now? A Catholic schoolgirl outfit to wear under my snow pants? Meh. To be continued post-fest, when there's actually time to do stuff.

It's 8:00 in the frickin' morning right now. Good lord! What happened to "retirement?" I'm gonna go order naughty books online and whack off.

Perky, 19-year-old Mennonite tits
Nov 11 2004 - 11:00 a.m.

Today I picked up the last-ever season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD and yeah, I got a bit misty. Contrary to every single other fan on the planet, I'm genuinely convinced that the Buffyverse ended for good when Angel spun its last in May - I don't think there will be movies, or TV movies, or another show, or anything. I think the Whedon has definitely, definitively sailed. I can't even particularly feature Animated happening at this point. The story is over. And the last chapter is in a big, annoyingly-bright blue box sitting on top of my DVD shelves. A complete set. Wow!

One week till the fest, and the show has had its latest casualty - The Second Cup, my co-flick with Dave Tebby, which had already been pulled from competition due to delays, has now been pulled from the show altogether, which I'm not too happy about. With the final crazy days ahead of us, I just can't see getting it finished in time for the screening, with everything else I've got to finish up in time for Thursday. A mighty sigh is heaved. Making one minute movies shouldn't be this hard.

Good news, though: I'm just as gay as my girl.

Yay gay! (It's like Yo Joe, only gay.)

Observation
Nov 11 2004 - 11:00 a.m.

If you're not observing a minute of silence right now, you're a really bad person.

He's gonna do another strip-tease
Nov 11 2004 - 10:31 a.m.

Here's a blog that Kate found, by a guy who hates his roommate, and has created a blog for the express purpose of tracking every single stupid thing his roommate does. This is brilliant blogging. Find a topic and stick to it. These generalized blogs are much harder to read... although I suspect the specific ones get boring after a while.

There are, in my estimation, only really two significant things wrong with life at 3QF:

1. The shower is like a living expression of hell. It never, ever, ever, ever maintains a consistent temperature, and at least once in every showering period it will swing wildly from icy cold to scalding heat in a matter of moments. The rest of the time it just sort of wanders between lukewarm and "just too hot to be comfortable." Oh, and every once in a while, it shuts itself completely off. This happened to me this morning. The water flow became so low that the "turn the shower on" gizmo (does that thing have a name?) actually flipped itself back to "off." Fuck that jive, man, fuck it hard.
   
   
2. Our kitchen counter has stigmata. It's not blood stigmata, thank goodness, but rather water stigmata; the counter wets itself spontaneously when people aren't around. How it manages this feat is beyond me, but rest assured, you can wipe the counter completely dry at 10:00, leave the room, have no one go in there, and come back at 11:00 and find it covered by a gigantic puddle of water.

In the plus column, though, Zam will occasionally run sideways along a wall, Trinity-style, when she's trying to get away from me and/or Sammy. This makes it all worthwhile.

It's days like this that I really wish I could draw, or that I was heroin-junkie thin. This would solve many problems.

There was a title right here
Nov 10 2004 - 10:04 a.m.

Here are some images of Johnny Depp in his Wonka-duds, along with snaps of three of the non-Charlie kids, who are... forgive me, it's been a while... Veruca Salt, the really annoying one, and the fat guy.

Yeah, that's right. I just called a kid fat.

And here's a snap of the latest Narnia poster, showing that the boyz in Zee-land are continuing to get it 180° wrong. My inner 12-year-old is clutching at his chest.

Well, no. Does anyone really still feel like they're 12? I mean, I collect toys, sleep with a teddy bear, have been known to spaz out on Lik'M'Aid on occasion, and yet I feel exactly the age that I am: 28. I know this because when I was twelve I had fine hair, a better vocabulary, and my complete understanding of sexual intercourse was governed by a single cross-section diagram of a male pelvis mashed into a female pelvis from a science book that I had hidden under my bed. I feel absolutely, resiliently, nothing at all like I'm 12. And I'm fine with that. Aslan be damned.

Gonna go download vintage '80s McDonalds commercials and whack off.

Perspicacity
Nov 9 2004 - 4:48 p.m.

Not feeling particularly great, I finished my day's list of stuff to do by lunchtime, and bummed around the internet for a couple of hours before falling down on the couch (see, I knew I could do it) and watching about half of the Clerks X DVD supplements. I was roughly halfway through Snowball Effect: The Making of Clerks when nature and nasal drip took their course. I fell asleep.

Now I'm fucked.

I jumped back into consciousness a scant 30 minutes later, experiencing the physical effects of having my lungs slowly fill with fluid through a prolonged period of nonwatchfulness - kind of like an elephant sitting on my chest, sucking my flesh inward with his big phallic nose - and the mental effects of allowing myself to doze while Jersey's finest denizens contemplated their brilliant Hollywood careers on my television screen. I lived a lifetime in Jersey in those thirty minutes. I worked Quick Stop from sixteen to sixty-five, and checked out on my second-to-last day on the job, through the barrel of an automatic being brandished by another sixteen-year-old who was going to detour the whole Quick Stop career by yanking the till at three o'clock on a Sunday morning. Between the chest pain and the mental ennui that only forty-nine years under the glare of neon lights can provide, I feel completely wrung out and shredded.

So it's amazing to me that on a November day when I'm neck-deep in preparations for a not-small film festival enterprise in which I've been involved for two years, in a year when I've finished a feature script that I really do fully intend to turn into my own damn Clerks a lot sooner than you think, on a day after I've sent a friend a selection of short scripts that we might choose to bang onto the screen in the next couple of months, one week after I've finished post-production on one short film and will finish post-production on another short film, I feel like I've just wasted an entire 65-year spin on the planet earth.

It. Hurts. Like. A. Motherfucker.

I sprayed my youness with my being
Nov 9 2004 - 12:07 p.m.

I feel like ass. I've got this annoying minor head cold thing happening, which isn't enough to knock me out on the couch for six hours of uninterrupted Oprah reruns, but is more than enough to make today's list of relatively simple tasks seem harsh and uninviting. Fie! A pox on this!

I guess it's better this week than next.

I'll admit: the updates to the databank profiles on starwars.com gave my jubblies a jolt. Kenobi and Skywalker, Heroes of the Republic! "The Hero Without Fear" and "The Negotiator" rocket in from the Outer Rim Sieges to save Coruscant in its most desperate hour! This is the prequel movie I've been waiting to see since I was four years old.

Bushwhackin'
Nov 9 2004 - 11:23 a.m.

I was glad to see Aaron A. (Serenity Rose supergenius) apologize to the rest of the world for the result of the American election... and then I found out that a whole lot of other people are doing it, too. Man, if I were American, I'd... walk right off a damn cliff, actually, but the apology-picture thing would be nice too.

Joking aside, that page is gobsmacking. Just going through all the different ways people choose to express themselves... it hurts and warms, in a deep special way. It's quite the document. I could stare at it for hours. I hope it goes on forever.

C'mon, you know you want one too.

Everybody in blogs
Nov 8 2004 - 3:59 p.m.

As the greatest avalanche of new blogs among my circle of friends in history continues to build in scale and scope, Brandy's got a blog. Let's call her Morning Glory.

That's right. One household: three blogs. How long till Sammy and Zammy are co-authoring CatsWhoHateAndFearPeople.com?

So, points to Brandy for actually writing the sound of a tape rewinding, for referring to Kate as the "roomie-in-law," and for being the first blogger to define herself by the Bag Lady Translator in last night's newly-minted Simpsons ep. Which, let's face it, is brilliant.

Interestingly, this past weekend at 3QF can now be tracked across four separate blogs from four separate points of view. It's almost Rashomon.

And to everyone who is still resisting the inexorable lure of the blogverse... Get! A! Blog!! You're making yourself look "so nineties."

Land of Ice
Nov 8 2004 - 3:42 p.m.

See, I told you it would snow before the tenth. Nobody ever listens.

In celebration of the latter's return from Iceland, here are comparison images of Dave Tabby and Dave Tebby:

I'll let you decide which is which.

Watching 3-year-old Denny play with Dave Tabby was awesome, because at that age, it's kind of like watching a grown man wrestle with a polar bear. I wish I'd had my own polar bear when I was a kid. All I had was Tederick.

Things that I already know about, so you don't have to e-mail me:

• That Six Feet Under's fifth season will be its last
• That there's a new PVR at Rogers.

That's not a criticism of those who have let me know about these things. It's just that my inbox is hella full right now.

I don't brook with the bevans
Nov 8 2004 - 9:29 a.m.

Ever wondered what happened to Barb Evans after the disastrous Season of Pain '99 at York? Apparently, they digitized her:

Good.

Are you, like, stalking me menstrually?
Nov 7 2004 - 10:52 p.m.

Well. Where have you been?

It's Sunday night, and I've had coffee, and I've got a bunch of DVDs to burn and tapes to make and the night's already grown cold and mysterious. But that's okay. I had a kick-ass weekend, and I'm happy. And you know why.

I've been so busy, I never even blogged about Sheridan: Sheridan was Thursday, the sophomore appearance by Mer and I as guest lecturers in Martin's class, and it was a really enthusiastic group this year. We showed the 2003 programme and everything was well received. I didn't think my own performance was particularly brilliant but Mer was nicely complimentary afterwards, which gave me the warm fuzzies. And there's something tremendously satisfying about that long train ride back into the city as night falls, having done a good job. It's great creative stimulation.

Friday brought The Incredibles and a fit of depression and doubt in the first two acts, as I contemplated having to spend the rest of my life patiently explaining to disbelieving rubes that I just don't get Pixar, and that it's nothing personal, and that it doesn't make me a bad person but it's just the way it is. Then the third act kicked some serious ass, and I started thinking to myself, hey, maybe if great tracts of these movies weren't so "meh," I'd be on board with them from word go. "If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe." It's still my favourite leap of logic ever.

Just for a minute, let's all do the bump. Bump, bump, bump.

We held the line today in our long-awaited double-header soccer game; the first match was fairly disastrous at an unlucky 5-2 loss, but it served as a fitful warmup for the second game, which we won 4-1. It should be more than enough to put us into first place going into next week's playoffs. I got worked over pretty good in that second game; stomped on, kicked at, rolled over, and more running than I'd like to think about it. But it was a damn fun game to play, especially coming out of the really frustrating loss in the first set, where nothing we did (except for Mark and Linc's beauty goals in the last ten minutes of the game) seemed to be going our way. And it was fucking freezing today. But you know, climbing to the top of a hill that big and nasty can't help but make you feel good about yourself. We did it. We held the damn line.

The sixteenth season of Jasper Online kicked it up oldschool tonight, as one might expect. The "Dave Tebby" interjection thing is catching on in Gooloph. And Julian McMahon's mommy says that he won't be playing 007. So there.

And finally, Kate and I watched the last of the Six Feet Under tonight (now pronounced "sfoo," for any interested parties). And now I actually have to wait until the damned spring before I get to see any more. I can't believe how fast this has gone... from zero to obsession in just a couple of months. I'm a little irritated that Creepy Girl isn't David's illegitimate love child, and that they aged Maia from baby to 48-year-old in season four, but George's bomb shelter wiggins, bro-in-law's guilty suicide, and Nathaniel's final meditation for David gave the season a good close. Before I dump my lot of pirated files, though, I've gotta go back and watch Olivier plough Brenda's mom from behind, just one more time. That shit's too funny.

Ack. I'm actually out of space on 2 out of 3 drives. Stupid film festival!

All right, it's 10:52. This shit's taken me almost an hour to write. There's stuff to do, man.

Plant a tree, everyone. Your sfoo prologue is just waiting to happen, but (knock wood) it won't be for a while.

The patron saint of virginity, chastitity, and the willingness to eat mushrooms
Nov 5 2004 - 7:08 p.m.

A few days ago, my mother actually said to me: "Go to the market and find the mushroom man." This was reasonably within context so it wasn't out of the blue, but the fable-tastic simplicity of that statement tickled me down to the damn bones. I shall find the mushroom man. And I shall sell him my cow for some magic beans, yes.

This is my hair now:

Next week: green!

I've finally conquered the 1MFVF DVD beast by giving up on DVD Architect altogether; that program was raised by wolves. Or possibly Satan. Or Satan-wolves. Anyways it sucks. DVD Producer seems to be a much more reasonable affair, even if it's far harder to work with on a basic interface level... is this shit really so hard? Can't programs... oh, I dunno... not suck?

And I picked up Jeux d'Enfants on DVD today at long last, under its execrable American title of "Love Me If You Dare." [SHIVER.] I may have to print up an alterna-cover for the disk so that I can file it properly under "J" in my collection. Also got Flight of the Navigator today... it was a big day.

So tonight the Pixar ban ends, and I'm going to see The Incredibles. I'm not going just to see the ROTS trailer as previously reported; I've now watched that mo-fo about a dozen times and deconstructed it frame-by-frame with Jason. And I'm happy as a clam. I've been waiting for that lava planet since I was seven years old.

I got my girl the Bunny Anya action figure, and she likes it. All is right with the world.

Rise
Nov 4 2004 - 1:03 p.m.

........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sidious busts it out
Nov 4 2004 - 10:40 a.m.

Waiting for the Star Wars trailer. I might not be able to see it before I leave for Oakville, which sucks. But I remain ever vigilant.

Yesterday sucked. I'm doing the preview DVD for the festival, one copy of which has to be delivered today to one of our jurors, and the damn thing absolutely kicked my ass. I woke up this morning with my neck in knots because I had to leave the computer running all night to render the latest version of the file. At one point yesterday - say, around 1:35 in the afternoon - I was cataclysmically close to losing it altogether. I just shut down for about five minutes and started gobsmacked at the computer screen, completely paralyzed. But it got better, and now I'm off delivering the damn thing, warts and all. Maybe there'll be some trailer when I get back.

Last night Matty Price took me to task for my connection between George Bush and the Emperor. He's obviously missing the three key commonalities between the "President" and the Sith Lord:

1. Creation of an unjustified foreign war based on tangential, circumstantial connections with a prior tragedy, in order to promote a culture of fear and strengthen military power in the state while curtailing civilian rights
2. Hidden (phantom) presence of extreme, zealous religiousity in the highest levels of power, eliminating the separation between church and state that is so vital to a functioning democracy
3. And, uh... oh yeah, both of them are completely fucking stone-cold evil.

Duh².

Last night I found myself thinking about the next X Files movie. The big problem with the latter seasons of The X Files (besides the insipid plotting, weak character design, and overwhelming "been there, done that" factor) was that the culture of paranoia that spawned the show in the early '90s had been pretty much erradicated by Clinton's America, where the biggest government secret was how many inches of old Bill's cock Miss Monica had taken into her mouth on any given Sunday.

Well then. Now, as we trundle towards an inevitable Watergate-like governmental blow-up in the early 21st century, I feel a deep, lusty craving for the conspiracy-breaking vigilance of Agents Mulder and Scully, or a lengthy soliloquy from a Cancer Man standing in the shadows, explaining just how all the dots fit together.

Too bad it'll just be another bug-hunt.

Too goddamned something
Nov 4 2004 - 12:54 a.m.

...to blog.

"I love democracy. I love the Republic. This power you give me, I will lay down, once this crisis has abated."
Nov 3 2004 - 5:45 p.m.

I can't care about this any more. I can't. Already word is reaching me of American friends who have begun making plans to leave the country for good, as soon as possible. For so conclusively failing to correct a system that allowed this debacle to take place (for four years and counting), the blood of the world is on the hands of every single American citizen now. God help them to understand the only true certainty in this mess: all empires fall.

Yes. ...What?
Nov 3 2004 - 11:55 a.m.

Doomsday
Nov 2 2004 - 9:30 a.m.

This is it, yanks. Make it count. [Pun very, very intended.]

Ratatouille
Nov 1 2004 - 3:49 p.m.

[Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.]

[I've had too much cola.]

[Which chased a lunch that consisted of cheese, crackers, and an apple. Dumb.]

Boy, I hope being a technical director isn't permanently souring my love of humanity, because my response to every crisis these days is "people suck." Cuz you know what? Some of them do. They fuck up and make you eat it like it's truffles. But that's okay, because not all people suck, and seeing all the flicks together in one place today, I was again struck by just how many of the films this year I'm really, really happy with. And if that doesn't make the truffle-fuck worthwhile, I don't know what.

Mer and I did the preliminary order of the show today; first it was too pop-y in the first half and too cerebral in the second half, and then the second half turned out to be unnervingly good and the first half still needs some work, but it's coming together. Now I gotta fly out to the PO box again to pick up the last delinquent master tapes. We're booked into Sheridan on Thursday, and we've got an interview for Humber's TV station on Monday. It's all accelerating.

Speaking of acceleration: Adam sent in the music for Leap last night, and he pretty much nailed it. The look of the animatics made him think "Nintendo," so there's an appropriate Nintendishness techno-pop vibe to the track, and it's quite hummable and good, so much so that I'm putting it on my iPod right now. So I'm happy 'bout dat, y'know what I'm sayin' Dave Tebby?

Gotta give another shout out to Chris, a.k.a. Bloggy McBlogsalot, cuz boy, he blogs a lot.

I'm out.

[Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.]

I died
Nov 1 2004 - 9:32 a.m.

It's Monday and I've got the stinkiest workpile in the history of the world to contend with, so I'm going to live in Saturday night for just a bit longer:

There's something in those rubber pants. That's all I can say about it. I couldn't find Spike's voice for the past month, but as soon as I was strapped into the pleather, I was a completely different person. I was enjoying the effect so much, I almost went topless for the whole night - it's certainly in character - but I ultimately ended up adding the red shirt because it matched so brilliantly with my Drusilla's red corset. And yeah. I've never been so turned on in my life, and since I wasn't wearing zippered red briefs like Mark (though I probably should have been), there were occasional problems.

Chia introduced the Tequila demon in the kitchen while my back was turned and before I knew it, half the guests were on the ground; I spent the second half of the evening doing some slaying, but by then I was so rippin' tired anyway that it wasn't much of a bother. This party burned hot and fast for me - I was gone by midnight, and remembering that even back in high school, I had a reputation for never attending my own shindigs.

The evening's only major down note wasn't even discovered until the morning, whereupon I found that some misbegotten asshole had seriously fucked around with the toys on the TV. What a truly pathetic piece of passive aggressiveness. No 3QFers were in attendance during the crime, so now I have to spend a portion of my already-furiously-hectic week hunting the perps, so that we can discuss the humour they see in damaging $200 worth of my property. I'm genuinely curious.

Morning wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, just a bit groggy and icky, and the soccer game turned out gloriously well: we didn't just hold the line, we ripped it into small and tiny pieces... and off a beautiful assist by Linc, I got my first goal of the season, which felt just great. Well, for me anyway. I can't imagine it's particularly nice to be the team whose defencemanship is so bad, the "guy who never scores" manages to score on you.

I crashed and burned pretty hard last night; Kate and I watched Star Wars but I was on a zero pulse by the time our boys escape from the Death Star. We hit it, and I slept like the dead.

The Deeper Well