One year later...
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At some point, I'm going to have to possess Pizzazz. I was thinking I might try to bag all three Misfits, but that's gonna cost me like a hundred and fifty bucks and I'd rather spent that kind of scratch on sex toys. But yeah, at some point, I gotta try that whole Pizzazz vs. Megatron thing live and in person on my desk, where, in this toy universe at least, Pizzazz has a significant size advantage.
But Megatron's a fucking gun.
Saying of which, I may stumble into a CAYA visit with the Box girls this week. The details of that are still being decided, but I've been craving some CAYA for a couple of weeks now, in spite of the fact that I have no money to spend. Sometimes, just being in the presence of a Fleshlight Anus can have a calming effect. I was watching a SexTV doc on sex toys on the weekend, which, among other things, explained the evolution of the vibrator: apparently, back when "hysteria" really was believed to be a disease of the uterus, doctors would regularly wank their female patients off, under the assumption that a good O-gasm would release all the evil spirits or whatever from the holiest of holies. They got sick of having to do it by hand all the time, so they invented the vibrator as a medical apparatus. If you see some of the pictures of turn-of-the-century vibrators, you'll not last three seconds before deciding that pink silicone is the leading invention of the past hundred years.
Took the girl to the 'rents to eat various burger-meats and non-meats, then crashed a poker game where I managed to hold my head admirably above water for a couple of hours, suffering no bad beats and taking a few minor wins. Then I was outta there before the paint dried, Sith on the iPod, and stars above. Can't say fairer than that.
"'Mons veneris' means 'mound of Venus' in Latin. Venus was the name given to the Roman Goddess of love. Hence, 'mons veneris' has come to mean 'Mountain of Love.'" - The-Clitoris.com
El listo de blisto
May 30 2005 - 12:39
p.m.
Sith narrowly took its second weekend over strong competition from Longest Yard and Madagascar, so à la Matty Price, here's my prediction for the summer season's top grossers. What the hell, I threw in estimated grosses too:
- Revenge of the Sith - $360M
- Batman Begins - $290M
- Madagascar - $200M
- Fantastic Four - $190M
- War of the Worlds - $180M
- Mr. and Mrs. Smith - $175M
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - $170M
- The Island - $160M
- Cinderella Man - $130M
- The Longest Yard - $90M
Eat that and then eat it.
What are you, fucking retarded? What did I just say?!
May 30 2005 - 9:42 a.m.
Lessee: scored a goal, got a mirror for my bike, saw Star Wars, went to a party where absolutely no one asked me anything about Star Wars (hooray!), damn near fell down from migraineyness, saw the new Crash flick (not to be confused with the old Crash flick), got behind Brad, ate more Mexican, read books, almost bought books, resisted buying books, got invited to a wedding, masturbate-a-non-thonned, laughed uproariously at the same dumb joke for about six hours off and on. Now I've just got to finish the Lang work, revise the treatment, schedule Nuns That Fuck, cast Sarina, push an egg up a hill with my nose, do a pledge drive, get directions to Hi Mom!, trick out my bike with slicks, go grocery shopping, assess my future, find a producer, finish the Jedi review, sign the lease, watch Doctor Who, see my parents, buy milk, and shower. Really, how hard could that be?
Can't stop the signal
May 30 2005 - 9:12
a.m.
Saw Sith for the fifth time. Currently bugging me the most: the continuity switch on the lightsabers when Anakin is throttling Obi-Wan. And also really wanna see the first scene between Obi-Wan and Padmé, which I suppose is probably grist for the DVD at this point.
Meanwhile, because there always has to be something to look forward to, Indy IV just got greenlit by Spielberg and Lucas - waiting on Ford's approval.
Star Wars Expanded Universe pundits who, like me, are trying to make sense of the massive variance of continuity in the pre-ROTS era between the comics, TV show, and books, will enjoy watching the debate unfold on TheForce.net - although, as merely fans themselves, the writing is entirely speculative. I'm still standing behind Labyrinth of Evil, and my own personal need to have K'Kruhk be alive. So basically: I'm chucking the cartoon, except for the Grievous chest-squeeze and the Hammerhead bellow, because that shit's just too good.
And finally: hee hee.
Obi-Wan's last adventure
May 27 2005 -
5:48 p.m.
Revenge of the Sith continues to kick ass and take names, tying Spidey 2 for fastest to reach $200 million domestically (in 8 days). Already made triple its budget in the worldwide box office. Honestly, I never expected this one to do this well. At this rate, it could be into the three hundreds by the end of next weekend.
Soooooooooooooooooooo... go see the flick again! (I did, on Wednesday.) Plenty to see if you missed it the first time. The ref to Master Vos is actually my particular favourite, although it would have been even cooler if he'd actually shown up in the flick. Whie's back-to-the-camera non-appearance is somewhat more disappointing.
Bought a boga this week. How could I not have a boga? It's Obi-Wan's last adventure as a Jedi knight! And when that hit me last night, I actually had to take a five-minute break.
But I'll tell you what, strangely enough, has become the most surefire marker for the fact that Star Wars is over - the presence of the Sith score on my iTunes. Where once, for the whole history of my having the program, the episode numbers went 1 2 4 5 6, it's now a complete sense. And that just screams "this shit is done" at me, every time I listen to music.
Break me a fucking give
May 26 2005 -
12:46 p.m.
About a decade ago, Alison La Placa showed up on The John Larroquette Show as a new character. She'd been "tried out" on a few different sitcoms before that, and in a sly admission of that fact, La Placa's Larroquette character admitted that she'd been moving around a lot lately, and said "people just don't 'get me.'"
People don't "get me," either, or at least don't really know where the margin is between what I find funny and what I find upsetting. I've got this folder on my desk, for example, filled with rejection letters. I don't keep acceptance letters; I keep rejection letters. I rather enjoy my little rejection collection actually, and dust it off every once in a while just to entertain myself. (The letter rejecting Bone Daddy 2 from TIFF is my personal favourite.) I added another rejection to the pile this morning, in fact, when the entire Kiwi nation shot me down for my various Leap submissions. See, this, to me, is not tragic, it's funny. And keeping the letters next to me while I work, ostensibly, on my "future," is even funnier. Similarly, Matty Price just called me up to mention that different mapping sources give varying drive times for our trip to North Carolina next week - meaning that we may arrive in time for the Cobra Commander screening, or we may not. And I had to tell him, as funny as it is to drive all the way to North Carolina to see Cobra Commander is Gonna Buttfuck Homer Simpson, it's even funnier to drive all the way to North Carolina and miss seeing Cobra Commander is Gonna Buttfuck Homer Simpson. That's my sense of humour, in a proverbial nutshell.
We're gonna have a Locke problem
May 26
2005 - 9:37 a.m.
Well that sucked. After a whole season of teasing us with little tiny bits of new information on an episode-by-episode basis, the producers of Lost apparently forgot that they were doing a season finale - because they completely failed to give us anything substantial to chew on / worry about over the summer. In fact, aside from Arzst blowing up (followed by a much-celebrated Rain of Meat!) and annoying little Walt getting Walt-napped, I don't think anything notable happened in the entire 2-hour-palooza. We know that even Sawyer did catch that bullet, he'll be all right, because there's no way they're messin' with Sawyer. The promised "second death of the season" either ended up being Arzst, or no one at all. Opening the hatch was a completely wasted opportunity, because you know what? After half a season of wondering what's in that thing, condemning us to a summer of more of the same is just not good storytelling. Boo-urns, Lost! Boo-urns.
I've got quite an appreciable dollop of work to do today. Not completely insurmountable, but appreciable. This is good, because I've spent the week getting over the hump and have finally done so with an end in sight, and bad, because today really feels like one of those days when I just want to sit around and watch TV. Especially Deadwood. I'm sure it's more important to be constructive. Right? Isn't it?
Check out what Rodriguez and Tarantino, the Kenobi n' Skywalker of filmmaking, are up to next. Super!
Excuses, excuses
May 25 2005 - 11:06
a.m.
Massively overwhelming even the frequency of Dave's "I'll be in Iceland" excuse for missing various social gatherings, is Mark's "I'll be performing burlesque" excuse. That dude whips this one out on me every five frickin' minutes. Like, I literally cannot schedule a single function without that damn Strip Till Ya Christmas or whatever the fuck it's called getting in my way. And you know who's responsible? The Amazing Mesmeronic, that's who. He's put some damn juju on my partner to make him think he's performing burlesque every single damn night of the week. Stupid Presto Magicko and your stupid stupid face! I SAW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WITH YOUR OTHER HAND, "ILLUSIONIST"!!
And then there's that whole "Becca sux caucus" situation, which I can't get out of my frickin' head for some reason. Stupid turns of phrase and their inherent rememberability. It's just not fair. It's worse than "Bouge de la" from Kate's blog, and that was pretty bad, given that I ended up calling Zam "Bouge de la" for a straight week.
Bah!
AFFLECK YOU DA BOMB IN PHANTOMS YO!!
May 25 2005 - 9:28 a.m.
Dave and Chris and I went to the Blue Jays game last night, which turned out to be an incredibly solid game, far more satisfying than (I think) any of us could have hoped for. Jays took it 9-6 at the bottom of the ninth off a three-run homer, after an appreciable quantity of the nail-biting back-n-forth. You gotta have conflict.
We sat in the nosebleeds. Actually, we sat in the second-highest row you can physically sit in, in all of the Skydome. A row above the nominal ridgeline for the 500 levels, in a special section that climbs about a dozen rows higher, just to do it. A row so high that by the time you've climbed all the way up there, you are cursing any thought that ever existed in your head that even had the insoucience to suggest that you were in shape. That's where we sat. It was like when I was in high school, except that when I was in high school, Evelyn had the sense to get us 500s that were, at least, in the first three or four rows.
B-Ffleck was at the game, and in spite of my recent defense of Ben n' Matt, I'm beginning to think I don't like Ben. For one thing, his curt wave to the Jumbotron last night was pretty fucking smarmy. For another thing, his Jersey Girl commentary was one of the most self-serving things I've ever heard, notable only in its freight-train-like inability to stop itself from careening onward into further irrelevance. I wish Matt Damon was at the game.
I can't believe it's been a full decade since my senior prom.
Some people are just so unbelievably stupid
May 24 2005 - 3:43 p.m.
Come on, everybody, play safe. You're going to give lightsabres a bad name.
The Fido Letter, sent to Fido Customer Service upon the
long-awaited conclusion of the entire "Fido Affair" (2004-2005)
a.k.a.
I HATE FIDO, AND WILL NEVER STOP HATING
FIDO
May 23 2005 - 11:44 p.m.
Dear Fido,
Thank you for finally sending me the $55.60 that you have owed me for approximately the past seven months. With the arrival of this cheque, the seemingly interminable chain of Fido errors and incompetencies, which now stretches back almost a full year, to June 2004, is finally at an end. I can't wait to attempt to deposit my cheque, to see if it will now, in fact, bounce. This would be in keeping with the service I have come to expect from your "company."
To refresh your notably short memory on what has transpired thus far:
- On June 2 2004, I visited the Fido flagship store at the Eaton's Centre in Toronto. While there, I arranged to have my 20/200 plan cancelled, and to be put henceforth on your then-new "City Fido" plan. I also arranged to transfer my land line phone number to my Fido handset. I was told by the staff member that I dealt with that both changes would go into effect on or around the 17th of June. I agreed to pay my $50 activation fee, and left the store.
- On June 12 2004, my land line phone number did indeed switch to my Fido handset, roughly as expected. I began using my Fido phone as my exclusive phone, as your advertisements had repeatedly suggested.
- On August 8 2004, I received my first bill from Fido since the switch in my plan, whereupon I was charged over $100 in additional airtime, for a plan which had been advertised to me as having absolutely no upward limit in airtime.
- On August 10 2004, I contacted a Fido agent by phone to discuss the error in billing. On that date, this agent informed me that I had never been put on the City Fido plan at all, and was still registered under my original 20/200 plan, thus explaining the gross overage charges that had been added to my bill. Your agent was unwilling to discuss remunerating me for the additional airtime, and seemed to suggest that it was, in fact, my fault that I had not been switched to City Fido, in spite of having been told by one of your company's representatives that the plan upgrade had been completed. Regardless, this phone agent was now willing to initiate my City Fido plan, effective on or around the 17th of August.
- On August 11 2004, suspecting that your organization was, in fact, completely incompetent, I arranged to remove my credit card from preauthorization status in my billing system. In spite of the damage already done to my credit card balance prior to this date, I am tremendously glad that I chose to make the switch when I did, for reasons you will soon see.
- On September 8 2004, I received my next Fido bill, which once again showed a vast billing for additional airtime, and continued to show me as being on the 20/200 plan. I once again contacted a Fido agent, and this time, demanded to speak to a supervisor. Your agent agreed to put me through to a supervisor, put me on hold, and then instead, simply put me in touch with the agent I had spoken with on August 10. This had not been my request. The original phone agent now explained that he had just returned from vacation, and had forgotten to put me on the City Fido plan as he had promised. He assured me that he would now do so. On this date, I stopped paying my Fido bills, for reason which should (by now) be entirely obvious.
- At the beginning of October 2004, I began receiving text messages from Fido, ordering me to pay my previous bill right away. These messages were obviously ignorant of the fact that at this time, Fido had already overcharged me erroneously in amounts that more than covered any unpaid balance on my actual account.
- On October 15 2004, I called Fido to cancel my account. On this date I had to speak with three different agents, for a total phone time of over an hour, before I was even "allowed" to cancel my plan. In fact, I was not even "allowed" to cancel my plan outright; instead, your agent told me that my phone plan would be suspended, in case I should choose to resurrect it at any point. On this date, I also (finally!) spoke with a supervisor, in an attempt to balance the previous overcharges against the current owing balance on my Fido bill. She told me that I would be sent a final bill, reflecting the remunerations, and that I should pay it, thus concluding my transactions with Fido.
- A couple of weeks later, I received a bill from Fido, and paid it.
- A couple of weeks after that, I received another bill from Fido, and did not pay it, assuming that the system simply hadn't yet reflected my prior payment.
- A couple of weeks after that, I received yet another bill, now indicating a positive balance of $55.60. It seemed, now, that the first bill I had received was in fact yet another erroneous bill, and that I had overpaid my account (reflected on the second bill) by the $55.60 in question.
- In January 2005, after having received a second bill indicating a positive balance of $55.60, I called Fido and asked what I needed to do in order to cash out the positive balance on my account. Your agent informed me that because my phone plan was merely suspended and not cancelled outright, I would need to formally cancel my account, and would then receive my $55.60 in under three weeks. I cancelled my account.
- In February 2005, I received another bill with a positive balance of $55.60.
- In March 2005, I received another bill with a positive balance of $55.60.
- On March 10 2005, I phoned Fido again, and asked to have my money sent to me. I was told that my account was, in fact, still suspended, and not cancelled, and that the prior agent had joined the lengthy ranks of Fido personnel who had lied to me outright in the past year. I once again asked that my account be cancelled, and that my cheque be sent to me. I was told that my cheque would arrive within three weeks. By now fully aware that all Fido agents are liars, and that I would almost certainly not receive my cheque within the next three weeks, I wrote in my day planner that I should call Fido again on April 15 and demand my money.
- On April 15 2005, I called Fido again and demanded my money. When the agent that I spoke with told me that I would receive my cheque within three weeks, I asked him: "Would it surprise you, Eric, to learn that I've heard these lies before?"
- On May 16 2005, I received my cheque for $55.60, just two weeks shy of the 1-year anniversary of my having foolishly signed up for the City Fido plan in the first place.
It seems to me that there are two significant problems at work here.
The first is that your agents are liars. On multiple occasions, I was told that one of my requests was being honoured, only to discover later that it never had been. In fact, three separate events - my switch to the City Fido plan, my cancellation of my account, and my remuneration for the $55.60 positive balance on my account - required that I repeat myself twice or three times, in order to achieve the goal I had requested in the first place.
The second is that your company makes absolutely no allowance for customer satisfaction. Gross negligence of the kind described above should have, in any reasonable situation, resulted in your organization bending over backwards in an attempt to meet my needs before losing me as a client. Instead, I was treated - repeatedly! - as though all of these errors and oversights were somehow my fault. None of them were. Your pathetic, misappropriated company and its gigantically incompetent staff was responsible for every single one.
Every single one of you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Sincerely,
Matthew C. Brown
Did I say anything?
May 23 2005 - 12:06
p.m.
The girl and I made with the bicyclettes over the w/e, doing a quick tour of the downtown bike trail on Saturday and then riding to soccer on Sunday. It was all very life-affirming. And soccer? Kicked its ass...! Yeah sure we lost, but I got pulled into playing offense (which I usually hate) and found myself not just knowing what I was doing, but doing it reasonably well. Me and Chris (who came out of goal in the second half) even had a bit of Kenobi & Skywalker action going on. And that just makes you feel good about yourself, y'know?
And here's the Revenge of the Sith review, polished and brassy. Mother these things take a long time to write. I hope you enjoy it; though tough (just the revisions before posting it today took an hour and a half), it was a lot of fun to put together, and crystallized my thoughts on the film rather nicely.
On to the next big thing (not really): I watched about four minutes of the Batman Begins teaser footage that played with Smallville last week, and then I stopped. But I stopped for a very good reason: the footage was impressing me immensely, and I was drifting into territory of "I want to see this for the first time on the big screen." So I turned it off. The stuff I saw was largely Bruce's training in Asia, and the tone that Nolan and Bale (and Neeson) were pulling was just pitch-perfect. There's hope for the bat-franchise, after all. But really, do we need Batman?
Last bit of good news from the weekend: Muppet Show, Season 1, announced for August 9.
Later today: the Fido letter, at long last.
Spring the trap
May 22 2005 - 9:03
a.m.
Revenge of the Sith bagged an astonishing $16.5 million for its Wednesday night midnight screenings alone, followed by another $35 million each for Thursday and Friday. It's thuswise on track to hit about a hundred and fifty million by the end of the weekend, which doesn't just surpass the record, it damn well obliterates it. I did not expect to be particularly energized by the grosses this time around (the last time I found grosses particularly... um... "engrossing" was Philosopher's Stone vs. Fellowship of the Ring in 2001), but this has me all kinds of excited. It's just nice to see Star Wars do some ass-kicking every once in a while. And since word-of-mouth on this flick seems to be pretty damn good, I think we can all expect it to have the legs that Clones never quite had.
I'm still working furiously on my review of the film; it's going quite well, but is turning out to be fairly lengthy and detailed, so it might still be a while. (Phantom Menace took me three whole months, after all.) Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow... not sure. In the meantime, just like last time (although less bold-facey), here are my immediate reactions to Revenge of the Sith, cobbled straight from my journal on the night in question:
This is about as good as you could ever expect this (i.e. Episode III in all of its potentialities) to be. • The sheer brazen speed of the opening battle n' rescue sequence • All of the actors really brought their "A" game this time around. And on the whole, the writing was actually very nearly superb. • R2 does remember the prequel trilogy, as I have long surmised! Only Threepio has his memory erased! • The sheer ferocious pain of Anakin's immolation. He actually catches fire. He actually screams and shrieks at Obi-Wan. All of that. "I HATE YOU!!!" • Ki-Adi-Mundi, going down like a chump in the snow-like ashen wastes of Mygeeto. • Whie busting out on the Temple landing platform. • The end. The moment I realized that this really was the end. We were somewhere on Alderaan, I think. • The seductive intricacies of Palpatine and Anakin's entire onscreen relationship. Somewhat redundant in places but on the whole, surprisingly fresh and interesting. • The temple/verandah moment mentioned below, with its haunting music, a moment like the Gungan sub scene in TPM in that it is like nothing I have ever seen in Star Wars before. • Palpatine's "pleading" after his fight with Mace Windu, and Mace Windu disappearing like a speck on the horizon after Palpatine's final barrage. • When Yoda loses his lightsabre in the Senate, I wanted there to be a later scene where he says something along the lines of "I shall never build another. Only a teacher am I now." • Being inside Force visions for the first time. • The Darth Plagueis story. The suggestion that Plagueis could cause Anakin's "virgin" birth. • The frustrating cheesiness of Darth Vader's "noooooooooooooooo!" But it's interesting - the writing is perfect for Anakin; it only fails because it doesn't mesh with any version of our notion of how Vader should act. • They're already building the Death Star? What? It takes 18 years?! • Anakin killed the younglings. Repeated use of the word "younglings." • No Mon Mothma? No Qui-gon, no Yoda fart.... • Threepio was awful; Artoo was great! • The Anakin-POV of the Vader helmet, with those awful red eyes, closing down on him. • After two films of it being a pet peeve of mine, finally seeing why jumping at an opponent during a lightsabre duel is a really bad idea. "High ground," indeed. • Yoda clonking the two red guards on his way in to fight Palpatine. • As Adam pointed out via voicemail when I got home, Palpatine screaming "unlimited power!" as he's bringing the final smack down on Mace. • Yoda scrambling up Chewie for a shoulder ride actually drew a very audible "Yeaaaahhh!" out of me.
After the film, Daniel, Dave, Chris, Steve, Matthew and I retired to the Golden Griddle to hold the final Congress Of A New Star Wars Movie. (No vaginas sullied our congress.) The discussion was fast, furious, and delightfully enthusiastic, especially given the disappointment that several of the members had expressed towards the prior prequels. It's official, folks: this sucker's a hit. And to a Star Wars fan, it's apparently a hell of a lot more than that. I know roughly where everone else fell out, but officially, and for the record, or at least until I see the film again, it is indeed looking like my hierarchy for the Star Wars films will be entirely episodically-numerical, from worst to best: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I like Sith more than Clones, but what surprised me was the degree to which the film really drove through to me the fact that nothing will ever, ever, ever, ever, ever actually topple the sheer, fundamental joy of the original trilogy. And this is not damning with faint praise: Sith is astonishingly good. But then, as far as I'm concerned, they're all astonishingly good. But there's no denying that Sith is new and fresh and good in ways that none (!) of the other films have been. As a closer to the saga, we've been given a real treat here.
I'm reading the Sith novelization right now (in tandem with the Making Of), and let me tell you, it's pretty spectacular so far. Matthew Stover, whose work I have not read before, is really taking the opportunity to do something interesting with the material. It's a crackling good read so far, but then, it's a crackling good source. I may have to go back and read some of Stover's other Star Wars books... I've always heard nothing but good things.
I saw the film at midnight on Wednesday, and twice more on Thursday. I promised myself the weekend off, but the craving is already deep and foundational in me. I'll see it again tomorrow, or die trying...
The Return of the Jedi
May 21 2005 - 9:28
p.m.
The sun's setting on Coruscant. Anakin is alone in the Jedi Temple, and Padmé is a hundred miles away, looking out the window of her apartment. She is looking towards the Temple, and he is looking towards the apartment, and they are looking at each other, across vast distances, but (as usual) barely a hair's breadth apart. Anakin is crying, because he finally understands what he has to do, and more importantly, he understands what it's going to mean. He's not remorseless, he's not immune to the horror of the deeds he will commit, he's just at a place in his life where such an awful choice really is the best one available to him. The scene is almost completely silent, save for the swell of a truly bizarre piece of John Williams scoring, a processed human voice singing a kind of wordless lament, which is completely unlike anything else in the entire canon of Star Wars music, and rightfully so, because I'm getting the tingles for the whole scene, because it too is unlike anything in the Star Wars saga. I had a similar experience watching Phantom Menace, when the Gungan Sub broke through the Otoh Gunga force field and descended into the watery depths - this is like nothing I've ever seen in Star Wars before; this is like nothing I ever expected from Star Wars before. This has surprised me.
Kate has fallen asleep by this point, not all the way out, just dozing, after a very long day and a very long 40 minutes of sequences of Anakin's slow, inexorable seduction to the Dark Side. She is resting on my shoulder, perfectly safe and content, and I am lost in the Star Wars galaxy, but out of it at the same time; it is the perfect expression of just how much Star Wars can mean to me, and yet just how easily I can leave it behind.... because the real world is the world I live in, and is the place where I am happiest. It is both before me, and behind me. I am here. I am right now.
And with the girl on my shoulder, and Star Wars surprising me for the last time in front of me, it hits me: this is one of the happiest moments of my life.
Star Wars Line, episode 3
May 21 2005 -
9:04 p.m.
Not a member this time around, breaking the tradition set for Episodes I and II, I nevertheless popped by the official Toronto Long Line (note the picture of me in the banner on their web site) on Wednesday afternoon to say hello to some of the friends that go back as far as 1999.
The line folk, posing with the third and final "The Line Starts Here" road sign.
What a long way we've all come: me with the girl who started it all, Debbie Isaac. Her costume's better than mine.
You can see my chair in the middle distance, conspicuously empty, because I really hadn't earned the right to sit in it. There would be a picture of me stretching out in the sun, if Star Wars geeks weren't such inept photographers.
Dawn
May 19 2005 - 4:58
a.m.
Dusk
May 18 2005 - 9:01
p.m.
One, two, three...
May 18 2005 - 8:59
a.m.
I am here. I am right now. I am standing on this earth on the day that I've spent almost a lifetime picturing, wondering what it would be like, wondering what I would be like, wondering if it would be sunny or cloudy (sunny), hot or cold (coldish), sad or happy (happy). This is my life right now.
[Inhale.]
[Exhale.]
By accident I saw the sun rise on the last day of the world, and then got back into warm bed and got snuggled. I walked down the street I used to live on to get to the street I live on now; I climbed into my room while the house was still quiet, to confront the inevitable miscellany of tasks that I unintentionally treated myself to on this ludicrously over-booked day. I wrote in my journal and talked to my cat. I put on my Star Wars shirt. I'm writing this now, and trying to figure out how to finish it.
This is where I am.
Here we go...
Landscapes
May 17 2005 - 12:26
p.m.
One hand on the bright orange bottle, one on the tall tube of water - it takes two swallows to get the pill down, which lodges somewhere between my left bottom molar and my cheek. The lottery ticket at last, five days of delayed expectation, crumpled in the garbage can. Retrieved for the four, which has value. The death's head on my shirt, the texture on my arms, the shoes I'm still ripping my way out of on my feet, and out, into the cloudy world where everyone is going about their day without looking up, a simple song on the trendy white box, a garbage bag over my shoulder. Something inherently depressing about finding clothes still damp in the dryer - another quarter, another seven minutes, a walk to the bank and two plus two equals forty. The phone call, the right bud tangling around my crotch while stuffing the last of the clothes into the bag and letting the man and his kid scrape past me in that too-narrow corridor. The bag too heavy to lift, over my shoulder again, ripping my hand, the stride is purposeful, the people are dancing in my head - Jared, Sarina, Ashley - and I'm as happy as I've ever been, because this is the world, and this is me, and this is all of us, and knowing that I'll be out the door again as soon as I'm in it, and that she'll smile when she sees me.
Everything. Everyone. Everywhere.
May 16
2005 - 10:38 p.m.
Holy sonofabitchChrist I didn't need anything else to be excited about. Go here. Click trailer. Holy sonofabitchChrist.
Not as good as Season 4's Nina Simone-powered masterpiece, but sweet googly moogly I can't wait to get on the road.
Maya's fuckin' twelve or something. I knew it.
YMB (Yet More Blog)
May 16 2005 - 9:17
p.m.
Hey check it out Tederick.commies; you're caught in one of those lucky eddies where I blog every single stupid thing that comes into my head for a few hours running.
E-mail to Mark, just now: "I'm going to burn you some IBP DVDs tonight - if I don't see you tomorrow, I'll try to remember to bring 'em on Wednesday. Although god knows by then I'm going to be so freaked out that I'll be lucky if I remember to wear pants...."
Heh heh. Pants.
The little things
May 16 2005 - 8:59
p.m.
And footnotewise: To The Simpsons, for casting May 19th 2005 as the date of the end of the world in last week's episode, and to Family Guy, for aping the medal ceremony from Star Wars last night with enough fidelity to actually almost bring tears to my eyes (because I'm a big geek).... thank god you guys are as excited as I am.
May 16 2005
May 16 2005 - 7:58
p.m.
 |
Today I went back to the pubescent well and bought myself a Playboy - because (and please correct me if I'm wrong) if I'm not mistaken, it's the very first time that Star Wars has been featured on the cover of this particular magazine. Now, Bai Ling has long since been cut out of Sith altogether, and she never would have been anywhere near a lightsabre in the first place, but still, a collectible's a collectible. Now if only Playboy could be anywhere near as exciting as it was when I was thirteen. I yearn for the pornxuberance of yesteryear. It's horrible to have arrived at a point in your life where you really are buying it for the articles.
Naturally, the week in which I want to do absolutely nothing but pray at the altar of Lucas is the week in which the work shitstorm kicks up yet again. But there's lightsabres need payin' for.
I'm 50 pages from the end of Labyrinth of Evil (for the second time). The girl and I watched the last ten minutes of Attack of the Clones this morning (because she fell asleep when we tried to watch the whole flick on Thursday). The Simpsons is over for the sixteenth time, Star Wars is over forever in just two short days, and for the first time ever there's a Survivor winner I've never even heard of. I've been on this earth for a long goddamned time.
I surrender to the current. Nothing left to do now but wait.
Twilight of the Jedi, part whatever
May
15 2005 - 10:55 a.m.
My brave/foolish efforts at reviewing/appreciating the Star/Wars sa/ga continue with my thingie for The Empire Strikes Back. This one was harder/easier. At this point I suppose it's highly unlikely that I'll get Jedi done before Revenge of the Sith, but hey, who knows. These things come in spurts, like the ejaculations that they are.
Man. Three fucking days. Man alive.
and glue-huffing Nigerian orphans
May 14
2005 - 10:48 a.m.
Didn't shoot Nuns that Fuck yesterday, because ultimately, since it was going to be me standing at Pape & Danforth in a wet nun costume, and with a wind chill near the freezing point, it was my call. We'll try again for later. Right now I gotta put a kit together to go shoot heroin with Mark.
The other day, the girl and I made a merry sport of refusing to try clothes on, but buying them anyway. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. We rioted across the downtown shopping complexes, laughing mirthfully the whole way, because it's just so funny to fuck with the system. ("Can I help you find anything, sir?" "Not only do I not need your help to find anything, my fine homosexual friend, but I shall stride out of your store having never even tried these garments on! Your oligarchy is broken!! You walk alone! You walk alone!!")
Then yesterday, we balked at going to the real Timothy's (same weather conditions as cited above), so chose instead to make a Timothy's in her living room. It was just like a real Timothy's with the comfy couches, mint tea, and reading material, except that ours had better music, was serving ice cream, allowed one to fart at leisure, and if at any point one of the patrons chose to bed down for a quick nap, it wasn't frowned upon. The real Timothy's should watch its ass: clearly, we have the better establishment.
And Thursday night saw the long-awaited big-screen premiere of Chris' Tera/Tori, at a show called Show Me at the Redhead Gallery. On the whole the programme was exceptionally well-curated, except for one truly horrific piece of filmmaking that included, among other things, a black pregnant woman being fucked by a white man while apparently either dead or asleep, security camera footage of a schoolbus full of children toppling over, various bestiality images, and to top it all off, a single shot of a man washing a baby's bum with water, over which an ejaculating cock had been superimposed, creating the effect that the baby's body was being washed with cum. I was so upset and nauseated by the whole thing that I actually had to begin to calculate exactly how much longer I would be able put up with it before walking out. Fortunately, Chris' film (which immediately followed the offensive one) remains my personal favourite among his canon, and really calmed me back down after that fucking assault. But man: shit like that film just shouldn't be allowed. I recognize that when going into a series of experimental films, one should provide quite a bit of latitude to let the filmmakers do what they're trying to do, but this sort of thing should come with an explicit warning beforehand. This isn't freedom-of-expression ground; it's don't-fucking-show-me-child-pornography territory. The bullshit self-entitlement of "artists" like that never ceases to amaze/apall me, along with exhibitors' willingness to provide venues. Fucking grow up!
And now, to the heroin.
Stars' end
May 13 2005 - 11:38
p.m.
Got drunk off my ass and watched the last episode of Star Trek; by which I mean, the last new episode of any Star Trek series for the foreseeable future. For the life of me, I can't understand how they got "These Are The Voyages" on the air. What I'm saying is, I can't understand how the entire Star Trek: Enterprise cast didn't walk off the set the moment they received the script. The episode is an unabashedly anti-Enterprise cock-suck; it's essentially a Next Generation episode, starring Riker and Troi, and only vaguely featuring the crew of the show it's supposed to be sending off. As such, however, I cannot deny that it took me way back. I got absolutely nipply when the old fashioned yellow-and-black holodeck grids appeared, or when Data called down from the Bridge. And at the end, when Captain Archer's crew was assembling to witness the founding of the Federation, I was gone from this earth for a little while. I was at the Skydome, it was eleven years ago, the Enterprise-D was sailing off into the sunset, and Amelia and I were clutching each other with tears streaming down our faces because Next Gen was finally going off into that big goodnight, and we knew nothing was ever going to be the same. And it hasn't been, even if it's sometimes been better, but more often been worse. Maybe Star Trek's been dead for me for a long damn time, but there's no denying that I felt the final nail go into the coffin tonight, and for a few brief minutes, I mourned again as though I were a teenager. It's hard to lose something that meant this much, even so long after the fact.
And then there's Wars. As anyone who was around me for either the release of Episode I or Episode II will already know, I am taking a decidedly low-key approach to my anticipation of this, the final Star Wars film. I am gladly giving it the soft push off into the darkness, because that's the easiest and most honourable way. But I was digitizing the last of the video footage from Celebration III on Wednesday, and the sadness finally hit me. It's a transition I've been looking forward to for a long time, but there's no denying that something old, something significant, something foundational is slipping out of my life forever. I don't know what the next thing is. I don't know if I want to know.
"I'm on my own for this one. No one will be where I am."
Dog days
May 11 2005 - 3:31
p.m.
I ended up cycling around town for most of the afternoon today, picking up various items for the Nuns that Fuck shoot, which is currently dangling precariously on the schedule for Friday, weather-dependent. (And it's not looking good.) I suspect we'll end up shooting Heroin instead. (Yeah, I italicized it. Enough's enough.)
It was a nice day for so much riding, but an even nicer day to
plunk myself at Timothy's and read Astonishing X-Men #10, which blew my
socks clean off. Haven't enjoyed an issue this much since #3, actually, and so
(just as I did back then), I've written a letter-to-the-those-guys. And they'd
dang well better print it this time.
Almost ended
up buying a diamond-variant Emma Frost mini-mate, too, but them things
'spensive. But seriously, Astonishing is the title to read if you're
looking for anything comic-related to do with your time these days. And if
you're not... well, bully for you. It's so damned sunny out! (Except over the
Danforth. Honestly, it was sunny everywhere else in the city today, except
where I live.)
So, creepy nun dolls, a few miles of fabric, and a whole stack of porn. Being your own propmaster is some fun shit. And I finally found the Red Royal Guard action figure I've been looking for, because it's such a direct callback to one of my favourite figures when I was a kid. Gorgeous, actually. And yes, I realize that Sith is a single week away.
Hey, when Uchenna and Joyce are in the sack, does she ever call him "Uchie?"
UCHENNA!!!!!
May 11 2005 - 12:39
a.m.
I told you that little dipshit Rob wasn't going to win The Amazing Race!!!
But yeah, close one. I never thought begging for cab fare could be such a stress thing. But on the whole, Amay-Ray never ceases to impress with the sheer spasm-inducing tension of their final episodes. I never get this worked up for any other show. It felt like I was watching porn: every muscle in my body growing steadily more and more tense, until I thought I couldn't take it any more, and then.... "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Good stuff. I am a believer in reality TV storytelling; I am a believer in the idea that if you have a woman shave her head and go to the trouble of telling us that such an action is a blessing, she will eventually win the game. I've been disappointed before, but thank goodness it all came through this time. The other options were just far too distasteful.
So let's wrap this up, because no one is as surprised about this as I am: here's the best of the TV season, from where I'm sitting. The answers may surprise you. From the top down:
- House. Yup, without fail, this is the series that I
looked forward to the most each week, and it wasn't just the company. I'm still
fairly sure I'll be sick of it within a year or so, but for right now,
House owns the house. It's far and away my favourite series of
'04/'05.
- The Amazing Race, vols. 5, 6, and 7. The most apalling
thing is being fully aware that a year ago, a six-month break between Races was
totally normal, but when the series shot through the stratosphere in popularity
this season and they started cranking Races out with mere 3 week intervals
between games, I got spoiled. Waiting till September for my Tuesday night fix
is gonna be a bitch.
- Lost takes the bronze, which would have completely blown my mind back in September, but there's no denying that as the year wore on, I was enjoying House and Amay-Ray far more. Lost's still great TV, but some major changes to the formula are going to have to bust through soon in order to keep it from falling into the X-Files abyss.
Additionally:
- Holding their courses without really impressing nor
offending: The Simpsons, still going strong in season 16 but only
cranking out a real classic once or twice a year; Alias, better this
year than in season three but still struggling to find the rhythm of the early
years; and This is Wonderland, which finally connected with a hell of a
season closer after a second season that was merely average.
- Old mainstays finally dead: E.R. loses Carter next
week, and me along with him, after a season that was just interminably
difficult to get through; Survivor lost me when I realized that after a
hundred and forty-eight castaways, I no longer gave a fuck about any of them;
and Enterprise got its long-overdue walking papers stamped when the
Paramount brass finally caught on to something that we viewers have been aware
of for half a decade: Star Trek died with Deep Space
Nine.
- Bound to make the summer enjoyable: Family Guy, praise Jebus Hallelujah; and Doctor Who, finally making a fan out of a guy who swore he'd never be one. And I'll be watching the final season of sfoo with the girl on my arm, and if that ain't just about a perfect idea of heaven, I dunno what.
I greatly prefer to be naked.
May 10 2005
- 10:39 a.m.
It just takes me way too damn long to get started in the morning. This is becoming increasingly clear, day by day. I mean it's a quarter to eleven now and I'm still not dressed.
I wake up at 9, after an hour of listening to them re-roof the houses on the next street over, through a window too inviting to keep closed on days where the air smells this sweet. Quick survey of the important web sites (starwars.com, theforce.net, comingsoon.net) and check of the e-mail (without answering anything) before I stagger downstairs to make tea. Emphasis on the stagger - I seem to be duck-walking down the flight of stairs more and more these days. While the tea is boiling I check last night's Letterman on the PVR to see if I want to watch it; today I do, so I'm keeping it for letter. Ditto for some doodad I PVR'd off SexTV last night, having to do with the Everything About Sex show here in Toronto. Water is boiled; tea is brewing; answer a phone call about Sifo-Dyas, talk for fifteen minutes, take tea back upstairs.
Read all pertinent movie/TV/DVD web sites, check in on the Serenity board, check out corrected Goblet of Fire poster, post bit about Baldy McHotHot below. Check the main blogs - three or four of my friends who (except for now, apparently) tend to post semi-regularly, and three or four strangers whose work I cannot find anything less than intensely compelling. Check up on Kevin Smith, and yesterday's Watch With Kristin chat. Muse upon the possibilities of Son of B-Ffleck.
Answer the e-mails, of which there are six. End up checking all of my various addresses - reconnoitering the rim - just to make sure they all still work. They all do; the junk mail is fine. Take my now-empty teacup downstairs, do a small load of dishes and jump in the shower with the bathroom window wide open to express my pleasure at the quality of the day. Begin mentally organizing my day's tasks while scrubbing my hot naked bod. Today I have to prep Nuns That Fuck for a Friday shoot that will probably get cancelled, begin digitizing Far, Far Away, research butterfly wing-flap cycles for my one-minute movie, continue working on the subculture treatment for Harold Greenberg, and of course, do work that actually pays... providing I can decipher the latest long chain of back-and-forth e-mails between myself, my partner on the gig, and our client. I begin to wonder if I should be writing professionally, and how I would go about that. I shave. Try to figure out how many of the tasks of the day I can accomplish while baking in the full sun on my back porch. Realize I don't have enough beer in the house. I get out of the shower and find out that the only toothpaste in the house is Brandy's decidedly frosting-like Vanilla Crest. So miffed by this, I accidentally use Kate's toothbrush, which I realize after the fact isn't really that much of a problem on a practical level.
Dash to the room wrapped only in a towel because bathrobe is scuzzy. Find some Bob Marley on the drive and tune it in; watch roofers and old geezer through my bedroom window, bare-ass, cuz I know that with the daylight reflection, they can't see me. Blog. And now, to begin:
Mmm... Deltans.
May 10 2005 - 9:58
a.m.
It's the first time I've found former-pinup Ms. Portman hot in about two or three whole years, and it's because she's bald. Does that make me icky?
Yeah bald. And she goes and ruins it by saying "Some people will think I'm a neo-Nazi, or that I have cancer or I'm a lesbian." Mmm neo-lesbians.
It just occured to me that I don't do nearly enough droning. My
didgeridoo has lain didgeridormant.
May 8 2005 - 10:34
p.m.
The idea here is for me to pick one trait from each binary pair, which I feel best describes me (between the two), and see if you (the general public) tend to agree or disagree. O'course, not having comments on this blog (and I never will), it's not like you can actually respond. So mostly, you just get to sit wherever you're currently sitting, and either laugh, or stab your own eyeballs out with unquenchable rage.
Remember, this ain't a choose-your-fave. This is a which-I-think-describes-me.
- dominant or submissive: Dominant
- logical or intuitive: Intuitive
- social or loner: Loner
- kinky or vanilla: kinky
- cute or sophisticated: sophisticated
- kitten or puppy: kitten
- warm flannel sheets or sleek satin: flannel
- leader or follower: leader
- quiet or talkative: quiet
- spontaneous or planned: planned
- teddy bear or porcelain doll: bear
- hiking or window shopping: hiking
- tequila or vodka: tequila
- top or bottom: bottom
- bare foot or shoes: bare foot
- jeans or slacks: jeans
- tender or rough: tender
- aware or dreamy: aware
- nerd or jock: not even going to dignify this one.
Mmm, some of those even surprised me. Do it on your own blog if you wanna! Cuz life is interesting.
And on that score: as far as I'm concerned, every pregnant person should do this.
Right now it's all about Springsteen. And that ain't been true in a long while.
Versal
May 8 2005 - 4:57
p.m.
c/o the Dault.
To the kids next door
May 8 2005 - 4:42
p.m.
Yes, we stole your soccer ball. Yes, we hate you just because you are young and noisy. Yes, we're those old people.
Furthermore Rebecca, Rebecca
May 8 2005 -
10:18 a.m.
And that Narnia trailer?
Nope.
Nice try though.
Flesh Fair
May 7 2005 - 10:36
p.m.
Take a walk on the Rouge side, and see Queen Street bedazzled, and a billion free comic books floating in the air. My lightest FCBD yet, sun-soaked and enjoyable but ultimately light on content. Only picked up the Star Wars book and some damn thing that actually has the audacity to call itself Ronin Hood, and then not be anywhere near good enough. I bought the Jeph Loeb-scripted Batman/Superman graphic novel reintroducing Supergirl to the DC Universe, and read it cover-to-cover; it's good, not great, but I'm still looking forward to Loeb's inaugural run on the new Supergirl title starting this summer. It's high time someone cracked the right tone for this character. Ectoplasmic being from a parallel dimension? What?
Rejoice in ye bums, people of good faith, for the posteriors are mighty and biteable today. All blue jeans and green apples and honey in the sunshine. It would be damn frustrating if not for the chestnut: my girl's got the best one going. Sigh. [Of contentment.]
Today it was Sprockets again and The Colour of Milk, a... Danish? Swedish? can't remember / foreign film for kids. Into the theatre I went, not having thought (until that exact moment) that kids can't read subtitles. First, I worried that I would have to endure a legion of parents whispering subtitle translations into their youngsters' ears. Then, I became concerned that someone might have gone to the lengths to overdub the entire picture in English. And finally, I got whammied by an intrusion of language enforcement so massive that I never even could have imagined it myself: a woman on a loudspeaker reading the subtitles to the audience throughout the film. Mercy of the saints! But it's the Toronto International Film Festival For Children, and my multi-focal mind was deleting the reader's voiceover by the 10-minute mark, so I hold no grudges. The world remains surprising.
The girl and I sat on the patio at the Fox & Firkin and toasted our success in the desert, and then had ice cream, and then had dinner, and then had Human Traffic, and the best post-high Star Wars comedown ever put to film. The sun went down the whole time.
Home. The Goblet of Fire teaser leaves me decidedly ambivalent. Maybe, but probably not. Mine, mine, mine.
I - AM - SUPERMAN!!!
Fresh air and exercise
May 6 2005 - 5:14
p.m.
Having submitted 4 separate films to Hi Mom!, I am in the enviable position of having received three rejection letters at almost the exact same time as my acceptance letter. Neat!
I rode up to my accountant's office this afternoon to sign my tax return, a distance of about 30 kilometres there and back. I did it in just over 2 hours, which was the first time I had any serious hope that, four weeks hence, I'll actually be able to do the 50 km Ride for the Heart. Basically, I have to ride all the way to the DVD Wave and back to do a proper time trial on this thing... tentatively planning to do so on the 17th.
Everyone's seen Serenity, everyone's seen Revenge of
the Sith. The internet is aglow with people crowing about having beaten me
to the punch.
The Bart wants what it wants
May 6 2005 -
9:59 a.m.
I just got an e-mail from the Hi Mom! Film Festival, which operates out of North Carolina. I sent them Leap, Sensitivity, and VCR2 as submissions back in December, and just for the fun of it, included Cobra Commander is Gonna Buttfuck Homer Simpson... and wouldn't ya know it, they chose the latter. Yup, Homer's gonna get buttfucked on the big screen! Tastefully renamed Cobra Commander, the film will play in the Midnight Madness series on June 3rd. More deets may or may not be available on the festival web site.
Yeah. Three of my favourite films, and they pick Cobra Commander. Yowzahs! My mother might be proud, but I doubt she'll like the doodle I drew of her on the festival application.
Sith Happens
May 5 2005 - 9:53
p.m.
Jesus fucking Christ have you ever had something take wayyyyyy longer than you thought it would? I started an article about the Star Wars prequels back in, like, December, and finished it yesterday. Then I went about posting it at 6:30, and it's taken THREE AND A HALF FRICKIN' HOURS to get everything together. Man alive!
Here it is, and it's not small.
And that notwithstanding, here is the creative achievement of the week, the names I spit out while trying to recall the name of the Great Mysterion while talking to Mark yesterday:
- The Amazing Mesmeronic
- Presto Magicko
- Bill the Magic Guy
Okay. Man I'm exhausted. I wanted to post a whole thing about seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation yesterday but y'know what? It was good. Leave it at that.
Triumph of the Sith
May 4 2005 - 2:42
p.m.
I bought the Revenge of the Sith score today, and no, I'm not listening to it, although my plan to avoid "Battle of the Heroes" pretty much failed utterly. It was playing on a kind of loop in Hall D at Celebration two weeks ago, and now it's stuck in my head, and since I've been downloading the A Hero's Fall music video repeatedly over the past few days just to listen to it, I figured I might as well buy the CD, rip it, and listen to that track just about as much as I can stand it. Damn, that's some good Sith music.
So here's this thing that I thought might never actually hit the web site. I've been working on it for... let's see... about eight and a half months, and it's still not really done yet, but it's done enough given that it's May already and it should be published. Yup, my review of Star Wars. Call it more of an appreciation than a review, but there you have it. It pretty much means I can stop reviewing right now, and have done everything I should have done in that regard in this life.
Okay fine: Empire, Jedi, and of course Sith should all follow in the next two or three weeks.
Need even more heavy lifting? Got something in the works for later in the week that is long.
My definition
May 4 2005 - 11:19
a.m.
fo·ley n.
1. A technical process by which sounds are created or altered
for use in a film, video, or other electronically produced work.
2. A person
who creates or alters sounds using this process.
[After Jack Foley
(1891-1967), pioneering sound effect editor at Universal Studios in the
1930s.]
mac-lean v.
1. To create, by various digital means, a level of unavoidable
distanciation between a film's audience and its subject, so that the audience
is never quite able to actually "watch" the film in the conventional
sense.
[After Chris MacLean (1973-2008), pioneering experimental filmmaker
of no studio in particular in Toronto in the early 21st century.]
Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooole
May
4 2005 - 10:52 a.m.
I just nearly shaved one of my moles off again. This happens every 5 or 6 months; I'm taking an illegal turn while shaving, or going in the wrong direction on my face and not paying attention, and zip, I nick one of the damn moles and it starts bleeding all over the place. Blood on wet skin in the shower just looks so gall-darned cool.
When I was a kid, the four prominent moles on my face (three on my upper lip, one on my chin) were, essentially, the bane of my existence. In my humble opinion at the time, they (in devilish collusion with my glasses) were the reason I was ugly and unpopular. I used to fantasize about buying gadgets out of comic books that promised to magically remove such blemishes, and once, when I was 11 or so, I took my father's electric razor to the chin mole in an earnest attempt to sort of "sand it off," to see if it would go away. (It didn't.) This was prompted by the added indignity of the fact that my chin mole started sprouting hair at least a year before I hit puberty, and a good three or four years before my facial growth would warrant regular shaving... meaning that I had to shave just the mole, every other day or so, just for the sake of not looking like a freak. It is my least favourite mole ever.
I think I realized a couple of years ago that I don't even notice them any more. If I drew a quick self-portrait, I probably wouldn't even think to include them. I'm not sure when this happened... possibly the first time I found that I could grow a full beard and thereby cover them forever, and then chose not to. (I think I was 18.) I'm also amazed by the number of times I've had to point them out to people when telling stories like this - the sheer number of "oh, I've never noticed those before!" I've received. If only they'd told me when I was ten.
Darth Clitoris
May 3 2005 - 10:33
a.m.
Now would be as good a time as any to once again urge you to sponsor me for my Heart & Stroke ride next month, if you haven't already done so. In this case the sponsorship opportunity is made funny by the fact that I'm nowhere near in shape yet and may therefore fail!
Man, I am so hydrated lately.
WAIT A MINUTE: If the radio message that Boone heard was "We are the survivors of Flight 815," then... then.... HOLY FUCK!!
And now he's dead.
The new underground
May 2 2005 - 2:56
p.m.
Back when I was with Bearshark, the first work day of every month would be spent sending invoices; I termed it "hell." Now, I spend the first work day of every month sending out film festival submissions, which, though tedious, is a hell of a lot more satisfying than the old thing. Today I got really fancy and took my scribbled list of festival deadlines - cobbled together from multiple sources, including the internet, various e-mails, and Dave Tebby - and put it all into one humungous Excel spreadsheet. Over a hundred and thirty festivals in all. (I'm entering seven today.) The real issue at hand that drove me to this was not being able to track the submissions I've already made, because there's just so gall-darned many of them; the spreadsheet has helped with this. See? Business skills applied to my post-business career. It almost feels like kismet.
Meanwhile, the deadline for this year's One Minute Film & Video Festival is roading towards us. Get your stuff in by June 30! (I should talk, I haven't even started mine.)
Oh: and cruising around all of these festival web sites has made me feel damn good about my 1MFVF webmastering, because man alive, half of these sites are atrocious. They look bad and are generally indecipherable. If you can't reach the submission information within 2 clicks of the front page, why are you even running a film festival?
[Checks 1MFVF site to make sure this is true; relaxes.]
Yeah.
I come to keep the peace
May 2 2005 -
12:41 p.m.
Sung to the tune of "It's the End of the World As We Know It
(and I Feel Fine)"
May 2 2005 - 10:40
a.m.
All of the programming on my Rogers digital box stops at 8:00 on Wednesday night. After that time, there is nary a television show on the air on any channel in the world, at least according to the box. This is worrisome, because a) it means no new Lost this week, and b) it is potentially indicative of imminent apocalypse. But then I have to comfort myself with the understanding that if the end of the world were coming, the last people on earth who would know about it are the Rogers wags, because they can't even tell the difference between a cable line that works, and a cable line that has been completely frozen through and nearly severed. So I'm mostly just waiting to see what fabulous new TV wonderland will explode onto our screens at 8:01, two evenings hence.
Besides, the world is sure as hell not going to end during National Masturbation Month! Yup, this is the one month a year when you get to make the world a better place, just by grabbing hold of your favourite part of yourself, and jiggling furiously. There's even a Masturbate-a-thon on May 28th, and if there was ever anything well-suited to a good old-fashioned thon, it's masturbation. Solo efforts, partner events, even tag-team, the possibilities are endless. ("I'm getting a cramp! TAG OFF!!")
For the boys, I still recommend Jackinworld.com as the best online resource for tube-tuggery, particularly for young people just starting up. For the girls, it's an even split between the ever-vigilant MyVag.net (which should be nominated for some kind of Nobel Prize, IMHO) and the more masturbation-focused Clitical.com. Enjoy the month.
Chris is off doing something like work, except that as I understand it, he's paying them. Anyways, it leaves the house gloriously empty all week... gonna go do some naked yoga, most exquisite of all transgressions.
It's good to have land.
May 1 2005 -
10:15 p.m.
I watched that stupid opening credits sequence that I hate, all the way through for the first time since the first time I saw it, because... yeah. We're lucky.
There ain't no cure for love
May 1 2005 -
4:22 p.m.
One of the nicest things I got to do last weekend was interact with a number of the members of the staff of Master Replicas, including the co-founder of the company himself. These guys are really smacking it out of the park for me these days. It's actually a good thing that I don't have any kind of an income, because if I did, I'd have an addiction to shiny metal prop replicas that simply wouldn't be healthy.
The big news out of the convention is that the company is planning to do replica costumes starting in the fall, a classic example of bad timing. Had they managed to put a detailed, materials-matched replica of Obi-Wan Kenobi's costume on the market for under a thousand bucks in say, February of this year, I would have bought one without hesitation; unfortunately, October will be far too little too late. But I admire their continued dedication to the saga and to the craft of making their pretty little duplicates.
(The really amusing adjunct to that story is that the founder told me that as the company isn't technically a licensed costumer, they may not be legally permitted to make anything other than exact replicas of the film costumes, i.e. they will only be able to make the costumes in the actors' exact sizes. Anyone know offhand what size boot Ewan McGregor wears?)
Are you telling me that your father's name is Sylvester
Stabone?
May 1 2005 - 1:08 p.m.
I was waiting for my tea to brew yesterday and I ended up sitting on the couch, flicking through the next three or four days of programming on SexTV and recording everything that looked interesting. So this morning, hangover fully in place, I watched Losing It, a special about that shifty non-entity of human social interaction, "virginity." I particularly liked the part where they compared Britney Spears to a low-rent pole dancer. On the whole the documentary (probably unintentionally) paralleled societal tropes quite effectively, giving only a passing glance to the importance of virginity to males, before chunnelling straight on through to an exhaustive study of the cultural and historical significance of female virginity. There was even footage of teenaged girls in Africa getting their biweekly hymen inspection from an old woman - and when they were given a pass, they'd uniformly stand up and start dancing like someone had just told them it was their birthday. (And notably, we're still locked in that space where it's okay to show a 15-year-old girl dancing topless, so long as she's tribal, but heaven forfend attempting it with a white American girl. Some days, I'm not even sure what planet I'm living on.)
Then, to carry the theme, I watched that Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode about circumcision that just aired, at the behest of the 14 people who have told me about it in the past week. (I like Kate the most, so I give her the credit.) Boy howdy, I didn't think I was going to go any further up the Hating Circumcision Scale... but then, I'd never seen the Rack before, either. The Rack is a baby-contoured piece of plastic that they bolt the poor infant into, so that he can't move around too much while a piece of his wang is being cut clean off. Shouldn't the obviousness of the visual imagery be more than enough to turn a few pediatric heads down in the U.S. of A.?
"If you masturbated, that took away from your love for God
and for Christ."
- Sexologist
"It sure worked for me!" - Penn
She is showing me her anus
May 1 2005 -
11:07 a.m.
It turns out that blogging while drunk is absolutely the most hilarious thing ever... at least to the people in the room at the time. Probably somewhat lost in translation for the whole rest of the internet, but if you can't occasionally do at least one thing that's just for "you," what on earth is the internet for?
The floor is strewn with confetti and bits of dried refried bean; the ruined carcass of the bourro/toro hangs suspended from chains from our ceiling - he will bleed no more. I did not come to hit the bourro; I merely came to keep the peace.
While I was out of the room last night someone was shrieking about how I needed to blog so that everyone would know what their night was all about. That was... strange, and fairly shitty actually, but the night was soaked with too much booze, and most people don't make sense anyway.
Now her'e's thje hting.
May 1 2005 -
12:56 a.m.
If "inebriated" means drunk does "ebriated" mean sober? Because I am NEITHER ONE RIGHT NOW. Yes. Except that I'm probably inebriated.
Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!
1.
Rebecca said...
May 1 2005 - 12:51
a.m.
"Inapoperiate."
Brilliant.
[I'm a bit tipsy now.]