Old time Hockey eh?

The details of the story elude me. Often losing the details of a story can ruin it, can turn it into ‘we did stuff’. I hope that I have recalled enough of the story so that this is not the case here.

As I remember it, it was Stacy, Nick and myself at the Admirals game. I no longer recall who they were playing. What I do remember was that the Admirals weren’t winning. They were playing hard but couldn’t get things together. Their opponents were managing to fight off their intense attack and, despite not having the advantage on the time of possession, were winning.

We sat on the end of the ice that held the goal the Admirals were attacking two periods out of the three. We were tucked in the centre of the section known for cheering and leading the rest of the crowd in the cheers. Even in this area, Nick was the loudest of them all. Whether he was just wound up or sensed that the team needed all the help they could get, he was in fine form with his cheers, jeers and yelling. While he might have been rude, he was never vulgar, being aware of the families around him.

At one point, staggered by the ‘rage’ one gets during a sporting event, he demanded I get him a name. It didn’t matter which of the opponent’s team I found for him, he just needed someone other than the goalie to work on. I found ‘Smithikov’ (whomever, this being another detail that eludes me) for him. “Smithikov!” he announced, “you suck!”

About halfway through the game, Nick suddenly became aware of his volume as well as the presence of other people around him. As he was already standing in order to deliver his verbal assaults, he spun and began to apologize to those around us for his volume. As a group those around us not only politely dismissed his apology but he was encouraged to keep up the good work. So he did.

Despite Nick’s efforts as well as our efforts to assist him, the Admirals lost a close game. As the teams began to exit the ice, Nick turned to me with a playful gleam in his eye. He had been riding the goalie all night and had managed to get under his skin a bit. Should he run down to the glass and continue to sass him as the man left the ice? I said yes, he had to do so. Nick did, getting the goalie’s attention and repeating the comparison between a vacuum and the goalie. As he left the ice, the goalie acknowledged him, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing towards the scoreboard as if to note ‘who won?’ The man’s coach enthusiastically waved him in to the locker room, encouraging him to ignore us.

We laughed at the reaction. It was awesome. It was all ‘heat of the battle’ fun. If we’d have seen the goalie in the hallway afterwards, we’d have congratulated him on the game and told him he still sucked. All good fun, a great moment in sport from our opinion.

Around about a year ago, give or take a few days, Nick died. Cancer had riddled his young body and he had taken all that he could take. Hockey, like a lot of things, is not the same without him.

Normal Service to Return Shortly

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(I've got some stuff written but not yet typed up. My temporarily broken car is fixed and I'm really to roll again. First, sleep.)

(Soon, honest!)

Its a New Year, I suppose I should say something

Happy Belated New Year!

Lots going on but very little of interest. After spending so much time getting used to sleeping as long as I wanted to I had to go back to work. Didn't sleep well all last week. This week's starting better. Of course I also spent most of last week working on my year-end assessment for work. Of course, I knew when this was due a month ago and could have started on it ages ago. Did I? No, of course not. I was on vacation! I used to do the same thing in school so it's nice to know some things don't change.

Did some more work in the archive while I was off. Neatest thing I found (from my point of view anyway) is the original art for the cover of a story I wrote just after I got out of high school: 'Psychotic Reaction III: Homecoming'. I've had a copy on my wall for years but hadn't remembered where the original was. It's dated 1993. I feel old again.

I should have something interesting to say soon. Either that or I'll get addicted to 'Guitar Hero'. One of the two.

Defeating the Brand

Remember when a cable channel's brand used to mean that they played programming surrounding that brand? Right now on the Biography Channel they're playing 'Murder She Wrote'. Monday on G4, a channel that used to be all about video games and technology, they had an 'Arrested Development' marathon. The best one I've seen of late was a few weeks ago. Bravo, the channel that for ages raced A&E for snootest channel out there, ran 'Friday the 13th: Part VII - Jason Takes Manhattan'. Bravo played a slasher film and not even a very good one.

Now, apart from the Bravo item that I still don't understand, the basic idea is obvious. The channels in question aren't programming towards the brand of the channel or, if you will, the concept behind the channel, but they are programming towards the demographic they expect to be watching the channel. Both channels, and I'm sure they're not the only ones, no doubt have survey information handy that shows what demographic is primarily watching their channel and the other interests that demographic has. Presumably swerving from the brand in this way just increases the amount of time that demographic stays on the channel.

I still think it's a dumb idea. There are plenty of more 'generic' channels out there that can do this sort of thing. However, if you've done all this work to generate a specific brand identity, why throw it away? This would be like Spike, the 'Man' Channel, showing 'chick flicks' or Sci-Fi playing a Masterpiece Theatre period piece that lacks aliens in it. Or the NFL network showing a hockey game. It defeats the purpose. By making themselves more generic they make themselves more disposable and more easily replaceable.

And why would they want that?

Geekisode - Afterword

About halfway through writing the Crisis, I considered what I was doing and all the characters I was dusting off to play with again. It seemed weird to do this much revival for no reason but, to be fair, it is the sort of thing that I would do. Still, could I put a date to it? Or a reason? It would be a nice ‘cherry’ to top the sundae.

The beginning of the ‘Season’ Doctor Who series? That started in 1994 I believe. It’s the twelfth anniversary of that but, to be fair, I really didn’t produce that many stories in that series: only seven full stories, two side stories and a short story. The short story was published by another fan group but it’s still not that much to celebrate.

How about the beginning of the ‘Teen’ Doctor series? That started in 1990, right? So it’s the sixteenth anniversary of that series. More to celebrate from a completion standpoint but still, not quite right.

My mind clicked back even further, the time when my desire to write something went from a desire to an achievement for the first time. That was when I was in the sixth grade and when I wrote that first ‘Doctor What’ story for English class (as well as a two part ‘Sherluck Phones’ story, all truly rubbish). I would have been about twelve then. Now I’m thirty-two.

I’ve been writing for twenty years now.

Welcome to my twentieth anniversary story!

You would think I’d have gotten the hang of this by now.

Thank you. For everything.

Now I have another novel to work on. Excuse me.

-SMW 11/28/2006 (And lets ignore the possibility that I could have been eleven when I wrote those stories, hmm?)

Geekisode 6

The sky grew dark. It was as if it had reacted to recent events, darkening to reflect the danger involved. Clouds formed. It began to look like rain.

The Purge not only had prisoners but a headquarters to which to take them. While it crowed with joy, those prisoners were transported to said headquarters via Dalek transport. Daleks lined the streets, shouting insults and cheers. It reminded the Doctor of the French Revolution, like noblemen being taken to the guillotine. That had been one of the Doctor’s favourite periods of human history at one point. Not so much now.


- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘CoNIS Part Five’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 25-Dec-2006. -

Sick on vacation not sick of vacation

Been sick this week. It's one of those colds that started off slow as a weird sore throat and has mutated into a normal stuffy head, runny nose, sore throat sort of cold. Ya know, the sort of thing that most people call the flu now. I still don't understand that. When I was younger, a cold was what I just described and the flu was an illness that affected your stomach in some way. If there was vomiting involved at some point, then it was the flu. I'm not quite sure when that changed but it does seem to have done so. Maybe 'I've got the flu' still sounds better than 'I've got a really bad cold' when you call into work sick?

I didn't have to call into work sick. I've been on vacation all week. Yup, spending vacation sick. Feels great. On the plus side, I've got more time off coming so I should be able to enjoy some of that time. I had two weeks of vacation to burn up before the end of the year and we shut down for the last week of the year so I was scheduled to work for very little of December eitherway.

The goal for this time off was to get the Archive in shape again or at least a little bit organized again. One of the problems with having such a diverse set of interests is that I collect stuff from all over. It doesn't take long for this sort of thing to get out of control. On the plus side, finding stuff I forgot I own is fun. Found a neat Optimus Prime from 2001, stamp releases signed by Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) and Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), a recording of the Dave Letterman show from about ten years ago with special guest Brett Favre right after the Packers won the Super Bowl and a NES Advantage controller, amongst other things.

Things could be better but I'm glad that they're not worse.

Geekisode 5

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing, not nothing at all. It was just mostly nothing. A few people, a box and nothing else but white. It looked like nothing, nothing much anyway.

So, in the beginning, there wasn’t much of anything.

Then, there was a thought. It wasn’t much of a thought but, under the circumstances, it was the best thought available. “All this white is a bit on the annoying side,” the thought went, “shouldn’t there be something?” The land agreed with the thought. It filled in something from the brain that generated the thought, writing the something that he knew, something familiar. Slowly the nothing, the blinding white, faded, replaced by Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

The city formed. The box was now on a street corner. The people were on the street near it. The city existed but was inhabited by just a few. For the moment.

- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘CoNIS Part Four’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 18-Dec-2006. -

Life Lesson Learned

I believe that every day we learn something new. It may not be something life altering or anything of that scope. It may even be that we don't realize what we've learned that day but we are always learning something.

Yesterday I learned that mixing brandy and wine in the same glass is a prescription for a tummy-ache.

Ouch.

Geekisode 4

The weak image in the television screen flickered before altering into the image of the upper section of the Dalek Supreme. The iris of its eyestalk rotated as it worked to focus.

“PEOPLE OF EARTH!” it grated. “MANY CLAIM TO RULE THE WORLD. THEY LIE! THE DALEKS ARE YOUR RULERS. ALL OPPOSITION WILL BE REMOVED!

“PEOPLE OF EARTH! EMERGE FROM YOUR HIDING PLACES. YOU WILL BE FED. YOU WILL BE GIVEN WORK. THOSE THAT CONTINUE TO RESIST WE BE EXTERMINATED!

“PEOPLE OF EARTH! WE ARE THE RULERS OF EARTH! NOW AND FOREVER YOU ARE LIVING UNDER THE LAW OF THE DALEKS!”


- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘CoNIS Part Three’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 11-Dec-2006. -

Not-so-Special Editions

Have you ever re-bought some piece of entertainment? A CD or a DVD or what have you? I’m not talking about upgrading; when you replace a VHS tape version of something with a DVD version or replacing a cassette tape with a CD. That’s a totally different concept which, while still considered abnormal by some people, is reasonable to the average collector. What I’m here discussing is the rebuying of an item that you already have because a ‘better’ or ‘special’ version gets released.

Sometimes this makes sense, well, as much sense as anyone with the collector disease can make. Some movies were released early in the days of DVD and weren’t in the correct ratio or weren’t remastered or weren’t restored in any way or had no extra features or I’ve used 'or' too many times in one sentence. The same goes for some CDs. There are a few bands that had their albums released early in the days of CDs. Those CDs were poorly mastered and have never been revisited. The first two examples that spring to mind are the works of the Beatles and Anthrax. Neither sound as good as they should.

Just as often a movie is re-released on DVD just ‘cause. The release isn’t to ‘fix’ any earlier failings but it probably has some new extra features to encourage the ‘need’ to get this new release. Generally there is a logic behind the re-release; a reason for the new version beyond just releasing it for the money. Sometimes the new version is released to help promote the sequel to the original movie and the new DVD has a few seconds of the new movie on it. Sometimes the entire series of a film series is being re-released and this allows the studio to commonalize the packaging.

Why did I start this again? Oh yeah. I’ve gotten better at not automatically re-buying things. The re-release of ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’? Left it on the shelf. That new ‘The Punisher: Special Edition’? Didn’t even get near the store when it came out. And so on.

With that said, there are some things that I’d gladly re-buy if it were remastered or fixed. I mentioned the Beatles and Anthrax albums previously. There’s a rumour from Britain that work is being done on the ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ television show to get it remastered and restored to it’s original edit as well as including some non aired sketches. That would please me.

I seem to have forgotten the point of this discussion. Perhaps it was just to mention the Python rumour. Isn’t that enough?

Geekisode 3

The creature lowered its eyes. “Oh Guardian of darkness, hear my plea if it does please you. I well know that you are not allowed to interfere with events directly. Yet I know of your desire for chaos and you know of my desire to achieve your desires. Assist me please in locating the devices I require to do your will more fully. If you provide a hint, it will be well worth the investment. As you will so shall it be done.”

This done, the Purge smiled. “Excellent.” Having been granted the information it required, it faded from view, off to achieve its new goal.


- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘CoNIS Part Two’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 4-Dec-2006. -

Comedy is...

Comedy is going to a ‘Toys R Us’ the evening of Black Friday and acquiring an empty PlayStation 3 box. Then, after getting said box, walking around the store while George holds the box, occasionally looking at it, and Chad and I act like nothing is special about the item in his hands. The comedy comes with watching at least a good 75% of the customers immediately find an employee so that they can ask if there are more in stock, only to be told that it was an empty box. Best yet, having an old lady get grumpy about it but not want to confront us as we sat outside the store for a moment, so she spoke up as she complained about us to her family, like we cared.

People are fun.

We still have the box.

Geekisode 2

Insanity.

They had just defeated the tyranny of the Golden Monkey Mob for hopefully the last time when it appeared from nowhere. Tired from the long battle, they were no match for the creature. Freeze Pop had fallen first, knocked to the side with a minimum of effort by the thing. He had checked on Pop right away, concerned by the way he’d fallen.

Freeze Pop was dead. Despite all the arguments and the fighting amongst themselves, he hadn’t wanted that.

Chaos Fist had grown quite angry upon hearing the news. Rapidly he attacked, charging the explosive blasts from his hand and driving them directly into the creature. The blasts knocked it back for the moment and he’d added his own bioelectricity to the mix. For a few moments, he was angry, looking for revenge on the creature that had killed his friend.

Then, the tide turned again. The creature gritted its teeth and viciously backhanded Chaos Fist. He flew back sharply, snapping his head against the wall. The creature stabbed him for good measure but he knew Chaos Fist was already dead.

Under the circumstances, he did what was most logical: he ran. The events of the last few minutes made no sense to him. They couldn’t have been real, could they?

It was all madness.


- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘CoNIS Part One’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 27-Nov-2006. -

One wonderful morning

As I drove to work this morning, I was briefly distracted by the rising of the sun. The partly cloudy sky was tinted red and looked amazing. I sought to describe it, for the practice if nothing else. Was it a cranberry colour? No, the red wasn’t deep enough. A cranberry spritzer colour? Sure, with a splash of ginger ale that would be about right…

That’s when it hit me. As I inhaled I smelled skunk. The choked expression on my face must have been entertaining but there was no one else around to laugh. I quickly started breathing through my mouth. One of the worst things about the scent of a skunk is that it seems to stick with you forever. Miles away I still wasn’t safe from the odor. It drove the beautiful mental picture of that sky away from me.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor about life or love in there somewhere but I’m feeling too lazy to find it right now. Maybe later.

Book at Bedtime

Last night I was editing on the story I’ve been working on for months. I have the first half of the story completed and the second half is a few scenes shy of completion. Since I wanted to start releasing the story next Monday, I decided I should do some editing.

This is more work than I normally get to put into a release. The last few things I’ve written I’ve dumped out to whatever public will have them as soon as the typing is complete. Some of these have been shorter works and not needed any real work to shine them up. Some were written sequentially and I jumped each part out as soon as it was completed rather than finishing the story and tightening it up. All these are interesting ways to get a freshness from the text but it can lead to a lot of scrambling and wrong word choices and unintentional repetition and bad spelling and too many uses of the word ‘and’ in a sentence.

For this, the ‘finish’ story, I wanted it all done (or mostly all done) before I started releasing it. Not only would it let me polish it up like I’m doing but it would prevent a cliffhanger from sitting out there for months until the next part is done, a problem I had with ‘Hell Comes to Irish Fest’. Waiting for a month or more on a story like this can allow the interest to cool too much.

A problem that I have when it comes to editing or even just proofreading is that I read very fast. As a result, I tend to see what I expect to see in a sentence, not what is actually on the page. In order to slow down my pace and see the errors, I read the first half of the story out loud to myself.

This is not the first time I’ve read aloud to myself. Sometimes I do it to see if a sentence flows the way I expect it or if it sounds right coming from a specific character. Sometimes I do it for the entertainment value. I think this is the first time I’ve even done it to this degree and for this reason. It helped. I noticed a lot of simple little typo errors that the spell checker wouldn’t catch for me as they were misspelled to other words. I added some words and I deleted some words. I questioned the flow of the first episode yet again and noted a couple areas I might still need to tinker with. All in all it went well. It also tempted me to do an audio book version of the story but that won’t happen. I do enjoy reading aloud.

I’m looking forward to reading aloud the second half of the story. I wonder when I’ll have time…

Geekisode 1

The parking lot was noisy as the people cheerfully exited their cars. It watched as they walked, giggled, carried, played and entered the hotel. Once they were inside, it was quiet again.

It stayed in the bushes. Now was not the time. Now there was too much chaos, bad chaos. Soon there would be chaos but good chaos. It would generate this chaos.

Then things would be better. Understanding would be returned. Happiness would come with it.

Now was not the time. Soon. For the moment it stayed in the bushes. Waiting.

- The preceding is a preview of the novelization of ‘Compound Geeks’ episode ‘Wilderness’, which is scheduled to appear on the KTNE forums on 20-Nov-2006. -

--------

Confused by the text located above? You can be less so. The approaching story is the last in a trilogy that is a sequel to another trilogy.

First came the ‘Notes from Japan’ stories: ‘Go Go Godzilla’, ‘By a Waterfall’ and ‘Monsters of the Daleks’ are all available on the Python Lord website at www.spectraldesign.com/pythl

The second set of stories begins with ‘Hell Comes to Irish Fest’ and continued with ‘The Scasnyville Horror’, both of which are available at ‘Steve’s Cozy Literary Folder’ found on the KTNE.com forum (www.ktne.com/forum). This is where ‘Wilderness’ is scheduled to appear on 20-Nov-2006. The remainder of the story is scheduled to appear each Monday after that until all six episodes have been ‘broadcast’.

There’s a Crisis coming…

But what does it mean?

On one wall of my living room I have posters of the animated cast of the Simpsons (as of 1999), two related to beer, one for the first full length album from the band Therapy? and a poster for the Dave Clark Five.

Apparently, I like to listen to music while drinking and watching cartoons.

Or is there another way to interpret this? It didn't seem weird until I looked at it last night and this wall has been like this for years.

Perhaps it's a sign that I don't like redecorating...

'Then there’s the blood…'

‘The Monster Club’ is an old style horror anthology movie. The extras are proud to note that it was old style when it was made in 1980. It lacks nudity, sex and gore. It does not lack suspense or atmosphere.

The framing sequence concerns Vincent Price’s vampire character and John Carradine’s author. They bump into each other and Carradine is invited to the Club of the title to hear some stories. And listen to some music. And watch some people in rubber masks dance badly.

The first story involves a Shadmock, a creature with a sonic whistle of mighty power. This particular individual looks like John Schuck (it isn’t) dressed like the Phantom of the Opera. He’s not very monstrous. Mostly he’s lonely. When a team of con artists try to rip the rich monster off, it doesn’t go well for anyone. Effects are minimal but when flesh melts like a marshmallow it does look good.

The second story is much more amusing: the tale of a boy and his parents. His dad just happens to be a vampire, a count from the old country. When the boy gets followed home by the anti-vampire squad, things don’t go well… for awhile at least. It’s a fun little story with a couple of good twists in it.

Traditionally the last story in the anthology should be the best and this movie is no different. A movie director looking for a location to film at comes across a deserted village bound by a strange mist. The creatures inside the mist leer and pull at him. They are ghouls and they feed on flesh, dead human flesh when they can get it…

It’s the matter-of-fact quality to this last story that makes it so eerie to me. It’s not so much the ghouls, although their makeup is good (Patrick Magee took out his false teeth to play the Innkeeper, now that’s dedication to a role!). They drag themselves along and scramble as necessary. It’s the director’s interaction with the young girl, the humegoo (human and ghoul) that has never lived a life other than this one, that makes this work so well for me. When she speaks brightly and cheerfully about everything coming from boxes: clothes, wood, food and you realize the boxes are coffins, it’s a quality moment.

All three stories work. Even when meant to be silly, these are taken seriously. The framing sequences are less so and therefore don’t always play out well. The cheap rubber masks look even cheaper with the clarity of DVD. The musical acts are okay but don’t add much of anything to the film. They’re fun and make the place feel more like a club I suppose but I’d rather have had another story.

The framing sequences, even when they don’t work, are fun. Price and Carradine appear to be having a good time and, as a fan of their work, I enjoyed watching them be amused. With the movie’s style and relative innocence, it comes across as a good natured coda on a style of movies that would never be made again. It’s scary but not scary scary. It’s the sort of creeped out that you could enjoy being as a kid. You know, when the Frankenstein monster was the coolest thing. Not that he’s not anymore.

It’s not the best movie in the world but I like it.

Creatures of the Night

I dreamt of the ghouls last night.

Ashen faced, clothing tattered, dusty and wounded. The ghouls were everywhere, seeking human flesh to feed their need. They may be slow, unable to take full strides to catch you, but they are everywhere. There is no rest, no hiding place, from the ghouls.

They ooze from the shadows, their eyes dead, their bodies dead but yet they stumble about, seeking the warm flesh I possess. I fight them, push them down, do my best to trap them but they continue to find me, wherever I go. Their hands reach out with their last bits of strength, seeking to pull me down and make me one of them.

I dreamt of the ghouls last night.