Invest in Yourself

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Normally that sort of question makes what's left of my hair curl. In a job interview, it's a difficult question for me to answer. I'm good at seeing possibilities but possible, best possible, and realistic can muddle all together. As I was talking to a buddy of mine, I answered it realistically from a creative point-of-view: two books done and released with a few short movies also to my credit. As I said, realistic based on how I tend to work. It gives me room to overachieve.

Our discussion made me realize that how I've been approaching my writing of late has been an investment in myself. Other jobs may come and go but my love for writing should always stay, always progress, and the more I have to show for using that skill, even in limited ways, is for the best. He started showing me some of his investments in himself. He's even drawing again. I think it's been years.

How are you investing in yourself?

Active for a Change

It's been a busy week. I've got a little more power on this end and I'm still trying to find ways to use it properly. I want to play a bit. All that fiddling takes time.

First I've got one of those weekends where I've got stuff planned for every day. There's hockey tonight, a wrestling show for tomorrow and the Midwest Gaming Classic on Sunday. I should get a story or two out of all that, hmm?

A Few Thoughts on Comics from This Week

Dark Avengers #3 gets first billing this week. Much of the issue is Norman Osborn talking to the Sentry. "You know what," Norman more-or-less says, "you might be crazy, but you're not the only one in this room that is. Me am too." The scene goes on for pages, makes sense, finally makes the Sentry make sense to me, and accomplishes a lot. The rest of the book is good as well. Bendis' dialogue sounds real here for a change as opposed to the clipped, snappy 'real' he sometimes uses. The book may not have a long-term future but it's existence is worth it just for this issue.

Amazing Spider-Girl #30 is sadly the last issue of the regular series. It goes out with a bang, wrapping up the big storyline and setting the characters up for their briefer appearances to come in Spider-Man Family. It was a good book. I shall miss it.

Ultimatum #3 is a bit of a breather of sorts. This big, blockbuster, changing everything event is indeed changing things, in ways that would be less likely to occur in the 'mainstream' Marvel universe. This specific issue has a lot going on in it and yet feels like a breather at the same time. The characters involved are starting to get a moment, to regroup, and the issue ends with a 'let's go get him' moment. We get some confirmations of deaths, some craziness, some heroics, and some more deaths. Oddly enough, I don't mind Jeph Loeb here like I do on some other books. We're not getting the identity of Red Hulk until next year? Boo. Here, Jeph can do what he wants. It's working for me.

Night of the Living Dead - New York has the best art for one of these NotLD spin-offs yet. Story is suitably dark. What's it like being in a major city at the beginning of a major ghoul outbreak? The answer is 'not good'.

Tales of the TMNT #56 also had some really good art in it. The story brings the Han character from the most recent cartoon series into the Mirage universe, explaining his history with Casey Jones. Good stuff.

Issues #5 and #6 of Vincent Price Presents both came out this week. This is the only book I get from Bluewater Comics and, despite Vinnie 'hosting' it, it's been very lackluster so far. These two issues have redeemed the book a bit in my eyes. The story in #5 was calm but very interesting. I didn't care much for the weirdly painted style of the art at first but it grew on me and suited the story. The story is #6 was okay but the art was less so. A brief back-up story held my interest with the best art I've seen from Bluewater to date. The story was more of a prologue than anything else so I shan't judge it.

Amazing Spider-Man #588 and Amazing Spider-Man Extra #3 were both good as well, wrapping up a number of different storylines while prepping some new ones. I still don't like the story that got us here, but I do really enjoy the stories I'm getting.

There were a couple other books, but these triggered me to write.

Puzzlement

Of late, I've been dreaming a lot about almost being out of work, being in the last few days of a job. This is odd. I experienced that and those days were... uncomfortable. You'd think if I wanted to flash back to something positive, I'd flash back to the early days of my unemployment when the days were warm, the severance fattening my wallet, and baseball was there to be attended.

If I missed my job, why wouldn't I just dream about being at work? Seems odd to me.

Oy

The only thing more tiring than doing your own work is helping someone else do their work. I'm beat and my back hurts.

On the plus side, I'm writing this on my laptop via the wireless running in the house now.

Which is nice.

Fiddling and Thinking and Looking and Cleaning

I moved some equipment around and got my old iMac set up in a new area. It still runs. I started looking for a picture file and it turned out that it wasn't on the hard drive. Bother. I started going through old floppy disks to find it.

There's a thankless task.

Most of them will read but can't see all the files on the disk. I've been tossing whatever reads onto the hard drive for movement onto my newer computer systems for backup. I've gotten all too used to hearing the whirring click that indicates the disk won't read. Annoying.

I did find the file I was looking for so it wasn't completely worthless.

I do have better things to be doing. I think I'm writing something in the back of my head as I do this. This happens a lot; subconsciously working on something while I tinker with something else.

I wonder if my even older Performa will still boot up?

DRUMS! DRUMS!

If we could go back and ask seven year old Me what he wants to be when he grows up, the answer would be either 'baseball player' or 'drummer'. The reasons aren't complicated to understand. Playing baseball is fun. Animal on the Muppet Show is awesome. Done.

Apart from occasionally whistling, I have no discernible musical skills. I've had the opportunity to fiddle around with instruments in the past but I had no real clue what I was doing at the time. It always looks so easy so I never understood why I couldn't at least get some sort of rhythm from my head to the bass guitar or drum or what have you. I didn't expect to pick it up and rattle off a song, just two sounds together that seemed like they went together.

When I first started playing Guitar Hero my respect for people that play guitar for real increased. I know that playing the game and playing guitar are really nothing alike but I figure that if medium on the game kicks my butt, then real guitar playing is probably even more complicated. I huzzahed the true guitar heroes with all due respect.

I got to play drums on Guitar Hero World Tour last night. The same huzzah goes to the true drum heroes. My buddy has some real drum playing experience and the game frustrated him a bit. I got the hang of it a little. Considering it was my first day, I felt good about what I managed to do.

Maybe I can be a fake drum god, in the living room anyway.

Working Confused

One problem that I've had over the years is looking too far ahead into a project. The one story I'm working on gets multiple sequels and then story-arcs occur to me and this and that and pretty soon my energy to write the first story fades because the third story seems more interesting. Soon nothing gets done.

I'm fighting that urge right now, in a much more limited way than previously. A story idea has occurred to me for the character I've been focused on of late: El Hombre de Silla. For the past couple months, I've been working on collecting a few shorter stories together in order to have enough text to generate a book. I want to mark that off my list as a thing that's done.

I'm not sure this story will fit in this book. It might be best served in the next collection, or possibly on it's own, I'm not sure yet. It will involve research to do properly. I found a book that will likely assist me with that yesterday.

I'm concerned all this will distract me from the goal of finishing the current work. So far, I've still been making progress on the current story, both in my head and on 'paper'. It just seems... weird to be using my creative powers and trying to fight them down at the same time.

It makes my head hurt a bit. Nothing new there I suppose.

A Few Thoughts on Comics from This Week

Very few thoughts this week as I got very few comics. Very light week.

Transformers - All Hail Megatron #8 (of 12) continues to keep my attention as have the earlier issues in the story. The art is clear, clean, and crisp. Characters are easy to identify by their appearance and their actions are well defined. The story progresses nicely here, apparently resolving a mystery or two and sets up more things to be concerned about. I've really been enjoying this as it's not just the standard Autobot/Decepticon battle that's been portrayed over the years. New York is in ruins and is in Decepticon control. It's a heady political thriller with action and robots. Mmm, robots.

Punisher (MAX) #68 - part three of the 'Six Hours to Kill' storyline. Frank has been poisoned and is expected to die in 6 hours. Rather than take on the mission and get the 'antidote' that he doesn't believe exists at the end, he's just decided to take out as many bad guys before he drops. The criminal element in the city, including corrupt politicians, try to stop him before he can do too much further damage. Action and gangster intrigue. So far, so good.

Invincible Iron Man #11 - part four of 'World's Most Wanted' storyline. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is on the run, a wanted criminal after failing to foresee the recent Skrull Invasion and protect his technology from this invasion. The story is making clear that Tony foresaw possible failure, perhaps not this specific failure but a failure, and took steps to prepare for what to do next. This is good business. A lot of little things happen in this issue. I'm still not sure if this is going to be a short-term storyline or if this is setting up the new setting for the book's foreseeable future. A few minus points to the artist, who's normally quite good, for making Norman Osborn look nothing like how the character is normally drawn. I didn't recognize him until the dialogue identifed him. Not good.

Besides that, I got an Index and two magazines. Very light week.

If there's a Third World, where's the Second World?

I don't like to complain about the physical comforts around me as I know that, relatively speaking, I have it very nice in America. Grousing about the availability of hot water at any given moment seems petty when compared to people in countries just looking for some clean water with which to help stay alive.

That said, you get used to things being a certain way. Certain cities are a bit different from others and certain states are vastly different from others. At the same time, living in a prosperous nation like America is, even at this specific economic point, you begin to expect certain things.

Like power. Energy.

I've lived in this neighborhood on the Northwest side of Milwaukee for almost fifteen years now and it's odd how frequently the power goes out. In the past five years, this has been especially the case. I imagine some of it is due to the new construction in the area. Not long after I updated the blog last night, the power dropped for four hours. I know when it came back on because I forgot to turn off the light switches (the lights were off, my brain didn't connect that the switches were still on because I had no light) and was woken up when the power, and lights, came back on. I think the last outage was in last December. It was morning so at least there was light to read by. Luckily it wasn't too cold a day but it was chilly by the time the power kicked back in.

It just seems odd that this is becoming more frequent. It was a minor outage and could have happened at worse times and at least my computer doesn't appear to be damaged but still.

And don't get me started on the pothole riddled roads!

Stinker from U.N.C.L.E.

I hate to criticize something that was quite possibly done as a last second thing but the last book I have in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, book #21, sure was a stinker. It could have been repurposed from the juvenile line of books and meant for a simpler audience. It may have been written in a weekend to fulfill a deadline for a book that didn't come through. It could have been heavily edited at the last second. Forty years later, who am I to say?

I just know it didn't read very well.

Awkward dialogue on a regular basis. The bulk of an early chapter is the standard U.N.C.L.E. organizational details that may have been slightly written from the series bible. No real transition from scene to scene or location to location. Loads of characters that get titles but no names.

Perhaps the author was young? If I had written that at 18 or 19, I would have been quite proud of myself. At my age, all I could do was edit it in my head. It lacked a lot of the wit of the other books, the well described locations, the clearly delineated characters.

I suppose, I paid my dollar years ago and took my chances. Only one didn't pan out. That's still not bad.

Brief Encounter

There had been enough walking for the moment. There was a bench around the corner, just past the escalator, in at the tail end of the 'Rocky Mountains' exhibits that would be a nice place to sit. As the bench was unoccupied, this would make my sitting easier. The whole area was quiet apart from the tape playing the sound of bears yelling and water crashing. I sat, leaned against the nearby replica tree, and started fiddling with my phone, responding to text messages. It was relaxing.

"Mind if I sit here too?"

It wasn't a squeaking voice but it had a squeaky quality to it. Sort of. It was hard to describe really, certainly unique. Momentarily annoyed that my peace had been broken, I looked up to observe the individual that had joined me.

There was no one there.

Before I could become too confused, there was a gentle cough. Looking down slightly, I could see the ... creature that had approached me. He was only a couple feet tall, green, and slightly fuzzy. He smiled. "Hi ho!"

I nodded towards the open end of the bench. "Sure. Go ahead."

He hopped up, literally, onto the bench and worked to make himself comfortable. "Thanks. Walking takes a lot out of the old flippers."

He raised a flipper attached to a skinny leg. "I can see that." This was an opportunity that couldn't be passed up. My phone could wait. "You're not from around here are you?"

"Nope. Just passing through. What gave me away? The accent?"

"Not really," I noted. "Just a passing familiarity with the Felt-Americans living in the area."

This got his attention. "You're a Friend of the Felt?"

I tried not to overstate my position. "In passing. I've met Albert at a few parties and we're friends on Facebook. It's not like I'm that close to the scene."

He grinned. "I've met the Alleycat before. Nice guy. Good deal."

"Do you want a tour? I've been coming here for years. I'm pretty familiar with some of the subtle details of the place."

"That would be swell."

I got up and gestured towards the main area, towards the Bison Hunt diorama. "C'mon, I'll show you where the rattlesnake button is hidden."

The green fella cheered, a "Yaaaaaaayyyy!" of pure enthusiasm.

Good times.

'Yellowbeard' Review

Synopsis:
Captain Yellowbeard may well be the most feared pirate of all time, on his way to a career unmatched by any when he is captured by the British and convicted of tax evasion. He survives his 20 year sentence but escapes immediately upon being told that his sentence is being extended, all part of the plan to get Yellowbeard to reveal the location of the treasure he hid before his capture. The British government, former crew mates, the Spanish from which he pillaged the treasure, all chase after Yellowbeard and his team. Who will end up with the treasure in the end? Just remember, a Yellowbeard's never so dangerous as when he's dead!

Thoughts:
Over the years, I've read many opinions of this film, most of which express disappointment. This is understandable. The cast is a 'who's who' of comedy geniuses from the 60's and 70's: Graham Chapman, Cheech and Chong, Peter Cook, Eric Idle, Peter Boyle, Spike Milligan, John Cleese, Nigel Planer, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman, who died just after finishing filming his role. It should be a laugh riot from beginning to end. It's not really. A lot of the humour expressed is subtle, leaving stretches of time for giggling rather than guffawing. I think people over the years have expected this to be a pirate version of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and it's not.

I do feel it's funnier than people have reported it to be over the years. Yesterday was the second or third time I've seen the movie but it's been years since I watched my ropey, edited, pan and scan, taped from TV copy of the movie. Since that last viewing, I've gotten and read a book about the film. Last night I watched a crisp, colorful, letterboxed, DVD copy of the movie. I knew more what to expect going in to the film this time than I did before. It's better than I expected and not at the same time.

Graham Chapman's Yellowbeard character needs to motivate this film, to take charge of it, and he does. He's a crazed man of action that can be barely reasoned with when necessary. Everything revolves around Yellowbeard. The problem is that, when Yellowbeard is not on the screen, the energy immediately flags. This is necessary, to give us a break, but also makes things feel boring when it shouldn't. It's not unlike the boredom some feel when Captain Jack Sparrow isn't on screen in the 'Pirates of the Carribean' movies, if Jack was nigh-invulnerable and was threating to rape Keira Knightley every five minutes.

I have to compare pirate movies as they are all the same in a lot of ways, aren't they? There's a treasure, there's a trip by ship, there's a sword fight or three, ship fight, and a primary pirate. Everything else is bonus.

The story plays out like a parody of 'Treasure Island'. You get the pirate, a young man, a scientist/doctor type, and an older man as the main crew. The pirate's on the side of the 'goody guys' but isn't to be trusted. They go looking for a treasure. Others chase them. Lather, rinse, repeat. If Disney had made a Pirates movie in the 60s, this would be a parody of that as well.

Like 'The Holy Grail' certain historical details are more accurate than the average period film of the time. The jail that Yellowbeard is imprisoned in is an example of this as is the expectation that no one would survive 20 years in one.

The failing of the film is that there are so many comics in it. Not everyone gets to be funny, to build a strange comic character, as the film doesn't break the pirate movie format enough. It's too much parody and not enough original. Peter Cook stands out as the primary example of this problem. He plays the drunken Lord in the 'older man' role of the crew. While he stays in this mumbling, bumbling role very well over the course of the film, he doesn't get to do much of anything. He has one bright moment of Peter Cook like comedy about mid-way through the film and then burbles again. It's not that he does nothing, he just doesn't get to do enough.

On the plus side, a lot of the subtle comedy is fun once one stops being disappointed that Yellowbeard isn't headbutting someone into oblivion. Spike Milligan has the briefest of cameos but he spends the whole time being normal crazed Spike Milligan. It made me laugh.

I remember the movie feeling very uneven but I didn't get that feeling watching it this time. I also remember Yellowbeard disappearing for half the film but I didn't feel that this time either.

Is it perfect? A forgotten, neglected gem? Not quite. Is it better than it's been received in the past? Yes, I believe so.

Recommended.

A Phone Call Causes a Flashback of Sorts

I had an experience with the customer service department of a large company the other day that reminded me of a lot of my experiences in that general field. It made clear to me why so many companies are failing. Certainly the driving force behind those failures and the failures yet to come is whatever has motivated the economy to destabilize as a lack of positive cash flow will destroy even the best run company. Quite simply, I don't think most companies are set up to succeed. Once they reach a certain size, the structure becomes unwieldy. When the economy is soaring, it's a lot easier to survive with a faulty structure. If the company's product is a success and positioned correctly for an economic downturn, it has a better chance at surviving said downturn. If not, well, the collapse can be a tricky one.

The problems in this process are down to structure and people. In themselves, both are necessary, especially to run a large company, so they can't be avoided. When things are going well, it's easier for well-meaning, or even not-so-well-meaning, employees to fail, to not be good at the jobs, or just poorly positioned. Some are in the wrong role. Some are badly managed. Some are repeatedly badly managed. Some are just lazy bums, doing the least they can without getting fired. All of these situations tend to be treated more calmly in times of success. Everyone fails at some point or another. Everyone should be given a second chance to atone for previous failings. Sometimes people don't 'get' it and they remain in a position because it's easier than removing them, thereby creating a drag on the rest of the group in question.

Organization is a good thing. Clearly defined roles help people to succeed as they know what their boundaries are and therefore don't waste time on work that's beyond their role. A well defined set of boundaries are a good thing.

Something always sets itself between the boundaries, in a gray area that never truly gets defined until it arises. While on hold the other day, that's what I felt was occurring. The question we had raised was outside the normal list of questions that the individual on the phone could answer. She needed a supervisor or someone in another area to consult with and they are rarely available when needed. They are busy people too you know! They will usually tell you that, even if they have their feet up on their desk.

I didn't know the exact situation of the structure on the other end of the phone but I could imagine a generic situation from my past to fill in the gaps.

It's about a month after a reorganization that felt very clear and tidy, very enabling. A customer calls with a question that is clearly outside your realm of ability. Using your memories of previous similar situations, you retrieve as much detail from the customer as you can, documenting it carefully. You inform them of your need to transfer the problem to another group and try to give them an expected time to resolution, while not wanting to speak for the other group's availability. The problem isn't critical, not yet anyway, but is important and needs to be resolved quickly. You reassure that you will do everything you can, politely terminate the conversation, and find who's on call for the group in question.

Said individual answers the phone but is grumpy because your group is calling his group. Your group 'never' has documented the problem well enough because your group tends to hear a word or two, immediately theorizes it's his group, and transfers it over without investigating fully. The criticism is unfortunately accurate but poorly timed. You explain the situation as described and add any personal investigation you were able to do with the tools at hand. While you have investigated properly, the individual you called quickly checks something (you hear them typing away), indicates that the error is not with their group's equipment and to call a third group.

You call the third group but the entire group is in a meeting for the next hour and none of them will respond to your call because it's not critical. Yet. As the group is known for not responding to videomail in a timely manner, you email the group, noting the incident number in question as well as a few details. In the meantime, you have other work to do while you wait, including updating the original customer on the status of the problem, and you work on that.

Despite the fact that the third group doesn't like voicemail, after the meeting, one of them calls you after their meeting. As you are on the phone with someone else at the time, you cannot respond to them. They leave you a long voicemail, noting that they checked on their equipment, all is well, and ask if the second group had checked on a specific item as this has been an issue in the past. You don't get to the voicemail for another twenty minutes. You call the representive from the second group again, but now he's at lunch. He can't check on the specific item yet, but will once he returns from lunch.

When he calls back forty-five minutes later, he's not grumpy but confused. Clearly typing away, he's calling to update you on the situation. An error code didn't report properly. Why it didn't isn't clear at this time and can be determined later. It looks like he'll need to call a fourth group that's in another state and is probably at lunch now. He'll let you know when progress has been made. You contact the original customer with another update.

Twenty minutes later, the original customer calls you back. She just got out of a meeting, heard your voicemail, and is hoping for an update. You have none. She is frustrated but points out she's not frustrated with you. She can't understand why the problem is taking so long to resolve. As you have no good answer to that question, you do your best to relax and reassure her that it is being taken care of and that you'll contact her as soon as you know. The group that's impacted by the problem has other work that they've been doing today but it's not the best use of their time. After noting this, she notes that she'll have to explain this to her boss who will have to explain it to their manager who will have to explain it to their vice-president. You don't think she's name dropping at this point but realize it's possible. You also feel that the vice-president will only hear that your entire area failed this group, not that there was an issue and an issue determining what caused the issue. Once that call is done, you immediately call the second group for an update but their line is busy.

Another member of the second group calls you about a half-hour later. They put some heads together on the situation and the failure has been resolved, at least they're pretty sure it has been. The original individual you talked to is verifying it's fixed now and asked for this other person to call you with the update. While you talk, trying to understand what went wrong and what the long-term resolution will be to catch the error code next time, you are given the thumbs up that everything should be back to normal.

You contact the original caller with the update and the resolution as you can best describe it, trying to take the explanation you mostly understood and translate it into something that a layperson can grasp. She says she gets it, thanks you for your attention to the matter, but expressed dispare at the time it took to resolve as it's now well after three and most of her department will soon be going home. You apologize despite the fact that it's not really your fault in any way and try to say nothing that will sell out any of the groups involved while she vents a little more frustration your way. After you apologize again and she thanks you again, you terminate the call and do your best to document what happened so you can update your supervisor before they leave for the day.

That's how a day gets wasted. I'm sure it's not much better at a smaller company where more outside help might be required. Imagine being on the customer side, being on the phone for an hour and on hold for the bulk of it, rather than being updated occasionally during the day. It's frustrating. It's how my Wednesday got wasted.

A Few Thoughts on Comics from This Week

Slow week up at the lodge.

Secret Warriors #2 wisely provides us with more information after the shock ending of the first installment. Some mysteries need to be drawn out a bit. Some reach a tipping point and lose track of the story by waiting too long to resolve. 'Twin Peaks' springs immediately to mind as a fine example of this problem. 'Who murdered Laura Palmer' took too long to resolve, the audience started to waver, and there wasn't enough in place as a storyline for after the resolution. The 'Who is the Red Hulk?' mystery is shaping up to be one of those. Secret Warriors is NOT doing that, not on that level anyway. A myriad of questions raised by the ending of the first installment are resolved in a sentence or two from Nick Fury. I know that some disliked the revelation at the end of the first issue. I think this plot point works in the 'this is why to be more scared of the Daleks at the end of Series Four' sort of manner as opposed to it being a 'everything you know is wrong!' sort of thing. It reinvents Hydra as not being whipping boys. Their leader isn't crazy as often portrayed but a cunning plotter on the level of Nick Fury. This is a personal duel played out with organizations. Nick's just realizing he lost, and had always lost, even when he thought he won. All are welcome to their opinions. I'm finding it interesting so far.

Spider-Man and the Human Torch in Bahia de los Muertos! is a one-shot sequel to last year's story in Puerto Rico, the title of which escapes me at the moment. Like the original, this is fun and doesn't really need continuity beyond 'Spidey and Johnny Storm hang out occasionally'. Juan Doe's art is very stylized but I like it in small doses like this. The heroes all look like action figure versions of themselves but, in his style, it works rather than looking clumsy. It's a fun read.

Black Panther #2 continues the story of the (presumably) temporary replacement Panther. I didn't care for the book much the last time T'Challa wasn't in it and I'm growing increasingly neutral to this one as well. This story is being told better than that last time but I'm not sure why I should care about the replacement. I'm more impressed that I could spell T'Challa correctly without looking first.

Daredevil #116 brings back the Kingpin. Ed Brubaker humanizes the Kingpin in this issue in order to set up his return. It doesn't look like it will be business as usual for the Kingpin and that sounds like a good thing to me, at least for awhile. Bendis' run on Daredevil was good until Brubaker took over and has taken things to a whole new level of interesting. I like Ed Brubaker's writing a lot. If it weren't for him, I'd probably have dropped every X-Men related book I was getting. Brubaker is barely keeping me interested in the Uncanny title.

Madman #14 takes last issue's happy ending (who says #13 is bad luck?) and moves forward, telling another good naturedly weird story. I won't lie and say that I get everything 'Doc' Allred does with his characters but it's always worth seeing his art. Love. It.

Still reading the Video Watchdog I got this week and there's a couple trades I've yet to go through, including a story about a down on his luck Luchadore that used to fight crime. Hey! I know guys like that!

Ads aren't what they used to be

I've been making some solid progress on my project to transfer my old tapes to DVD. Of late I've been prioritizing the stand-up shows on some of my oldest tapes, dating from 1990-1991. It's odd that some of the jokes would sound very valid now, or just recently at least, with talk of war in Iraq, economic downturns, and Bush as President.

Occasionally I taped the commercials during these shows. Most often I was watching them as I recorded them and I paused the recording during the commercials. Sometimes I was clearly gone or chose to sleep and the commercials are intact. Almost 20 years later, the commercials are interesting instead of just annoying. I've been letting them record onto the DVDs.

Sometimes it's worth it for fragments of forgotten shows. As these stand-up shows were on FOX, I'm seeing bits of 'True Colors', 'Babes', and 'Drexel's Class' in amongst more familiar shows like 'Married with Children' and 'The Simpsons'.

One question that occurred to me while watching the ads in general was 'What happened to the jingle?'

Even in the 1990s it seems that the concept was dying out. A little tune associated with a product's catchphrase can burn that product into your head, sometimes annoyingly so. Did they become too annoying? Was there a backlash? I'll bet there are people that were children in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s that can still sing jingles from certain products. Apart from the radio, where are they now?

Did advertising agencies get lazy? Was marketing invaded by frustrated movie directors that feel the need to tell a story rather than push a product? It seems that commercials are often too busy trying to be clever nowadays than sell something.

Maybe that works. Maybe I'm the one that's backwards. Maybe I've seen too many commercials where I didn't know what was being advertised until the end of the commercial and then immediately forgot what the product was in the ad.

Lets face it, most people skip commercials when they can. Why make them longer? Make them shorter. Do a 30 second song based on buying one brand of soup over another and move on. Better yet, a 10 second song, to hit someone's brain just before they raise the remote to hit fast-forward. Sneak it in there quickly.

It's obvious music gets people's attentions in a commercial. Look at the trend to promote bands via commercials. What gets over? The band or the brand? Hint: it isn't the brand.

The only place I can think of where this comes together for the brand is for a credit tracking company that has a band in each commercial, doing different songs in different styles. The first one was in a seafood restaurant. You know the one. They tend to be clever, they use music, and it's focused on the brand.

Maybe that doesn't work either. My folks love the songs but would never sign up for the service. Maybe it does work. Somebody must be signing up. They keep making new commercials in the series.

'Something Weird' review

Synopsis:
A serial murderer kills women in Jefferson, WI. An electrical accident leaves a man horribly scarred but with incredible psychic powers. An old crone approaches the scarred man, offering to fix his face, if he will become her lover. To everyone else, she appears to be beautiful but all he can see is the old crone. Once the psychic offers to help solve the serial murders in Wisconsin, a government agent is dispatched to test him. Love triangles, psychic powers, murders, assassination, karate, attacking bedsheets, LSD - truly this is Something Weird.

Thoughts:
With all the movies I own copies of that I haven't watched, I felt the need to watch this one again last night. This was not a bad choice as it's a fun ride. The movie keeps moving, quickly setting up what's going to happen, explaining it just enough to set the rules for the movie, and then getting to the next bit. It does not get boring. Ever. Well, maybe once, but not for long. There's a minute or two long explanation of psychic powers that's all narration over clouds. Coming out of nowhere as it does, it still manages to be weird and, therefore, fits in the movie.

As with any low budget film, the acting is not always what you'd expect or what is needed. Sometimes it is. The old crone is wonderfully over the top and she needs to be. Our psychic friend is solid, occasionally becoming theatrical when the role demands it, but also capable of looking realistically broken up as he stares at his burned face in the mirror. The government agent isn't horrible, has good moments, but often comes across a bit flat, like an anchorman. Some of the smaller, one or two line roles, come across as very natural. All in all, there's enough there to make it work.

The special effects, limited as they are, aren't bad either. The makeup is good. The levitation scene is a bit transparent but the lighting tries to cover that up. As silly as it sounds, the attacking bedsheet scene doesn't look bad at all. The lighting is just right so that no wires are clearly visible and the shadows created add a creepy tone. It works when it shouldn't.

Did they film in Jefferson, WI at all? I don't know for sure. It's possible. This is an H.G. Lewis directed film and he was headquartered in Chicago if I remember correctly. Jefferson would still be considered small enough to film something in, to get the local assistance one would need, and yet isn't so far away from Milwaukee, Madison, or even Chicago to make traveling back and forth improbable. The moment that made me believe it was Jefferson occurs early in the film, as the government agent arrives at police headquarters. Across the street is a bar with a large Blatz beer sign on it. That just screams Wisconsin to me.

The film has survived but not perfectly. The 2000 DVD release by Something Weird Video (the company is named after the movie) has a solid audio and video quality but the print is regularly flecked with damage. One reel seems to be a little soft in image quality. It's never horrible, not like watching a movie through a screen door, but this isn't one of those 'it looks like it was filmed yesterday' sorts of situations either.

It's not often that a film lives up to its title. This one does. For 80 minutes, this is truly Something Weird.

Recommended.

The Books of U.N.C.L.E.

I have a habit of getting things when the opportunity arises. I have a great many interests, sometimes they connect to one another, and I had a habit of haunting second-hand shops to see what there is to see. Quite simply, this is why the Archive is as big as it is.

Much of the Archive is in a temporary status, not in it's proper home. It's in a staging area, set aside as the item in question has yet to be read or watched or what have you. Sometimes opportunity and interest do not connect at the same time. Some items happen to be on sale at the right time, or a hard-to-find book will pop up, or I'll stack up issues of a magazine for a year or so knowing that they'll get read over the course of a week at some point.

Some years ago I picked up about a dozen books in 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' line. They're not novelizations of episodes from the TV show, like my Doctor Who books are, these are just other stories featuring the characters from the show. When I saw them on the shelf at the second-hand store I knew that some of the later books in the run were rare, I had enjoyed the earlier books I'd gotten from the run, and they were priced at the princely sum of a dollar apiece. I bought all that I needed and have a nearly complete run thanks to that day. They came home and have sat on the 'read me' bookshelf since, waiting for their chance to be read and be moved to the shelf with their previously read brethren.

I started reading through them a week or two ago. They are fun. Some paragraphs have made me read them twice as I would have sworn I wrote them. Perhaps they are another influence on my style. A couple have been particularly entertaining.

90% of one book was set in Wisconsin. The details were enough to make me giggle on occasions; different but enough the same to know they were often right even 40 some years after the writing of it.

The one I'm working through now is set in England and the author is having fun with unnamed guest stars. One character was clearly meant to be Fu Manchu. I think another was the Saint. James Bond is referred to in a 'I hope we don't meet him on this trip' sort of way. There were a couple sets of people I didn't recognize as of yet and may have to look around to see who they were meant to be. Neddie Seagoon, Harry Secombe's character from the Goon Show, is named as working at New Scotland Yard.

The best so far is William Escott, an old man, long retired, who lives in Sussex and raises bees. Once he was a detective and has been amazing Napoleon and Illya with his abilities. He speaks of having dismantled a proto-THRUSH back in his working days.

I think the chap may have changed his name. Sounds a bit familiar, hmm?

Still Drifting a Bit

The days are starting to blur together. My normal weekend appointments were called off and that has only served to further confuse my head. Tomorrow I'll be out of the house and that should help realign things. Hopefully I'll have some fun as well.

Haven't played Guitar Hero in months and today I found out I'm still okay at it. At least I'm no worse at it than I was months ago. I'm probably not any better. My hand won't curl to allow for comfortable play on medium so I lamely rock on easy. I still managed to get through 'Raining Blood' and that's not bad after all that time.

In the past few months, Time/Warner has been meddling with the television scheduling screens. I dislike the changes. Screens are slower to respond in general, to the point where bringing up the guide can lead to a break in the audio/video feed. This never happened before the updates. This failure is part of the reason for the change I mentioned yesterday. Today I found that, at the very least, they made the 'on demand' channels work better. I could never consistently get them to work properly before. Today they're working. I've been recording some shows to DVD, stuff I wouldn't normally record. The lack of commercials or minimal commercials in the 'on demand' feed is very attractive. This way I got the first three episodes of 'Wolverine and the X-Men', which I had previously missed. It's a pretty good show so far.

I also got some 'new' Muppet stuff today. This is exciting!

So there's reason for hope.

I got nothing

Feels like I've done nothing but type this past day or so. That's not a bad thing as such but it's not all directly related to the current project so it's as much keeping the momentum going as anything else. Watched a movie last night but it walked a line between 'okay' and 'not bad enough to be funny' so there isn't much to walk about there. Getting rid of Time/Warner for the AT&T version of television but that won't kick in for a little while yet. Once it does, that'll be something to talk about. Played the last level in a videogame that I haven't touched for months. That was weird and fun at the same time.

Just...meh.