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. -

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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.

Steve: Barrow Killer

Time for a little catch-up. How’ve you been? Excellent!/Sorry to hear that. (Delete as applicable)

Concrete work on Saturday went well. It rained before and after the project but not during. This was nice as it means I didn’t get soaked while toting and lifting. It was bad because it meant that the backyard was nice and slippery.

We had a number of different wheelbarrows that our buddy had brought over for use. Somehow in the rotation I ended up with the one wheeled barrow, as opposed to the rest that all had two wheels. It got filled a little too full from the truck. I started off having a hard time balancing it, hit a bump heading into the backyard, lost the balance of it, regained the balance of it, hit and bump as well as a muddy patch and lost it, spilling concrete onto the lawn. This was more of an annoyance than anything else, apart from my concern that I’d pulled something while trying to keep the wheelbarrow from falling.

I cleaned up the spill as best I could and then had a little sit-down. I removed my hat to cool off. Once the cool October air had a chance to hit my warm head I started sweating madly. It also made my hat cold when I put it back on. This was pleasantly weird.

I continued on. Nearer the end I started pushing the two-wheeler I was then using into the backyard. I got it in there fine, made the turn and then it became difficult to push. Very quickly it became impossible for me to push. As it turned out, I wasn’t tired; one of the tyres had popped. We scooped most of the concrete out until I could shift it again. After that, I was done with wheelbarrowing. I made myself a scraper instead.

The slab turned out nice in the end.

Even fun work can be work

At the moment I’m in the middle of at least three projects, four if you count my fight to stop starting messages with the word ‘so’.

There’s the ‘assisting with the patio’ project for my parents which involves toting and lifting, both tasks that my body is telling me I don’t do often enough. The plan is to pour concrete this Saturday so hopefully that’s almost done.

Then there’s the ‘old series’ informational section I’ve been working on for the web page. It’s an attempt to go back to the ‘Doctor Who’ fan fiction I created during and just after high school, summarizing the stories and commenting upon them. I think it’ll be an interesting addition to the text already on the ‘Python Lord’ site.

Not to forget the new story I’ve been working on that appears to be hitting the home stretch. It’s hard to judge exactly how much I have left to write page wise (despite the fact that I keep trying) but I have a feel for how many scenes I have left to write. It’s getting close. Fun time is about to start! 

The problem with getting near the end of a project is that I want to kick everything up a gear to get them done. I don’t know if I have three gears but I’m trying. So, if it gets a little quiet around here for the next week or two, that is probably why. I’m gear kicking to at least get a couple of these off my plate (that and the toting and lifting will probably knock me out for most of the rest of the weekend). To put this in some sort of perspective, Chad ‘twisted’ my arm into going out for a couple drinks last night after picking up my comics. I had a good time but I was annoyed at the same time because I felt I should have been using that time to type.

For a lazy bum, I seem to be getting a lot done. That can’t be right.

Bringer of joy?

It’s nice to be able to make people happy just my being around.

I was at Chad N’s concerts Saturday night and my presence to the end made him happy.

I was at the Compound on Sunday and it made two-year old Kara pleased enough for kisses.

I’m at work at my temp site and I’m told it would be cool if I could stick around by those that are assigned here, not that they feel they have that much to say about it.

I must be doing something right. Maybe I’m just not doing something wrong at the moment…

So, do I bury it in the backyard or flush it?

I believe my iPod is dead.

I bought an iPod Shuffle, the 1GB size, when they were first released. It isn’t an item I use constantly but it is certainly something I’ve used regularly since I bought it. It is the awesome.

A week or two ago I went to use it and nothing happened; no lights flickered, no music played, nothing. I figured that the battery wasn’t charged and placed it on its USB cable to do so. When I came back later, the battery light flashed red at me and nothing more. Crap.

I checked into battery replacement with Apple. It turns out that replacing a Shuffle battery costs about as much as a new Shuffle. Crap.

I think my iPod is dead. I really didn’t want any incentive to look at a shiny 80GB video iPod. Unfortunately, now I have a little of such incentive. 80GB still isn’t enough to hold my entire iTunes library, so what’s the point?

Still against it

I got so excited there, I forgot the point of my rant! So, to quote the Cos, I told ya that story to tell you this one.

My more recent 'anti' Lucas conversations surround a proposed movie: 'Indiana Jones 4'. For some time now I've been of the opinion that this movie will never get made or if it does Harrison Ford won't be in it (he is a little old now, he won't last forever). Some retort that the movie is greenlit and that means it'll get made. I recall hearing that the movie was greenlit in 2000 and it would be released in 2001. So, it being greenlit doesn't phase me.

Last week I read a clip from an interview with George Lucas where he noted that he and Steven Spielberg were still working on getting a script in place. To be fair, this could have been a misquote or it might have been old information resurfacing again but, most everytime I see a quote about Indy 4, it's followed with 'we're still looking for an idea'.

Don't get me wrong here. They should take their time if they need it. Movies can be expensive and the last thing I think they should do (or should have done) is to crank out movies for the sake of cranking out movies. My attitude here is not 'you guys stink and should never make another movie' but is rather 'make a movie when you're ready but if you're not ready, don't'. I'd rather there be no Indiana Jones 4 than have another movie emerge from George Lucas that is received poorly. Of course, I'm not that big an Indiana Jones fan either so I guess it's no skin off my nose in that respect either.

The problem with George Lucas now is that people have expectations. With the original 'Star Wars', there were no expectations. Everything was bright and shiny and new. Then he waited. And waited. Books sprang up and comics and games and cartoons and people had time to figure out what 'Star Wars' was so that, when he did say 'It's time' people had expectations of what was going to happen. They'd dissected the movies, determined the history, they 'knew' what had happened and what they were going to see.

And it wasn't what they'd expected.

Whether it was good or not beyond the expectations, well, I've already said I thought they were 'okay' and Pete's all for 'great' but a surprisingly high number of my 'Star Wars' friends turned on Lucas for some period of time. They found fault, they found hypocrisy but, more often than not, they didn't find the joy they wanted. The joy they expected.

Many of those who turned away turned back for 'Revenge of the Sith'. I remember discussing the third movie as it approached and one of Henry's friends, Chris I think, likened the situation to a physically abusive relationship. 'Maybe this time the movie'll be good' he said, comparing that statement to 'Maybe he won't hit me this time'. Over the top? Certainly. Did it have some truth in it? I think so, maybe just a little.

So, George Lucas, don't rush Indiana Jones 4 just to make another movie. Wait until it seems right, feels right, comes together like it should. If it doesn't, don't continue.

...and if you don't start making it by the end of 2007, I'll win my bet with Dave and he'll owe me dinner. Take your time George! :)