nothing much with which to bore you
made a new tee shirt:

available at the lemming drops studio store

watched harry potter and the sorcerer's stone, rewatching to gear up for the new one this weekend (and cause i told kieran he could go with hayley and i to see goblet of fire if he watches the other three this week). having watched prisoner of azkaban a few days ago, it was remarkable how different the direction is (and how much better actors the leads have become)

after wandering about the extras disc of harry potter, watched two and a half men, picked up sarah from class then watched prison break before the daily show and the colbert report. a few nice touches:

• he of the broken finger left the sandpaper fella at the bottom of the well to die
• stupid prisoners can't put aside their differences long enough to escape
• group's getting bloated and they're making that a plot point--my vote is get rid of the mob guy as wasn't his usefulness the ability to get a plane after the escape, and now with his higher ups out of the way, does he even have the clout or money or anything to get that done? but, i'm sure all 7 will go, making the escape that much harder and tense

and, as for running through my cds in order (sampling at least a couple songs per "band", i'm finished through cold and coldplay is next. today had some clapton, cheap trick, chalk farm and the aforementioned cold

and, alas, night stalker was cancelled (and production stopped, with three episodes more already completed)

the weak end
Now Playing: the calling - camino palmero

three movies saturday:

• charlie and the chocolate factory - pretty damn funny and good. i've never read the book, but i'd say this film definitely improved on the old one, though of course i wouldn't dare speak ill of gene wilder or his take on wonka. i tend to enjoy tim burton films, appreciative of the weirdness as i am
• ed wood - another tim burton film, which sarah was seeing for the first time and apparently didn't enjoy so much--her take was "why make a bad movie about a guy who made bad movies?"--but i still loved it. the character of ed, however fictionalized he might be, is amazing, making such crap but enjoying the hell out of it and not caring what people think (hence burton's interest, for sure, and my own)
• the devil's rejects - now, i'm one who didn't care for house of 1000 corpses, finding it to be a shallow ripoff of texas chainsaw massacre but without originality or plot, but this sequel, while remaining just as shallow and barely managing much originality, plays numerous times better, probably just because here zombie focuses on the bad people, which seems to be what he was dying to do all along, the first film just an excuse to get to this one. as i've mentioned before, i like my horror films--not that this strictly is one, more bordering somewhere between a 70s style exploitation film and a crime spree/road picture (a la natural born killers or the first half of from dusk til dawn--to have graphic violence and gore if they're not going to bother with old school depth, so i actually liked this one

sunday, i tried to go see shopgirl, but a street fair thing screwed with parking and i ended up too late to bother, and wandered ikea in search of storage containers instead

and, i returned home early to clean the kitchen and mop the floors

for dinner, there was salmon, quite good. then, there was recording the simpsons, family guy and american dad, which i still haven't watched

and just after sarah's steeler game ended, i watched me some rome--a great episode, with great performances from brutus, veranus and pullo--that death by arena scene especially was a great mix of violence and emotion (especially since i wasn't sure how it worked, whether pullo got to go free if he survived or if attackers would just keep coming until he was dead). this is not going to end well, what with caesar's death coming and whatever the fallout from veranus' actions will be

then came grey's anatomy, tying together various plots about the same theme. a good episode, though i almost wish the husband hadn't showed up in the end for his wife's surgery. the show had done enough to cover both sides of the issue around her choice, so it didn't need to water down one of those sides, but all in all, it still worked

and i was feeling sick, and went straight to bed as soon after grey's anatomy as i could... throat's still bugging me a bit

and i should do some fiction writing today

friday night frights
keeping it simple today:

• night stalker - "the source" - (watched on tape) a good one, barely involving supernatural stuff (or seemingly, anyway), but did they just use kolchak's house and pool again as if they weren't distinctive and could just be anybody's? cool thing was, not paying attention to the time, i didn't expect a cliffhanger
• threshold - "progeny" - i knew this show was switching to tuesday temporarily in a couple weeks, but i wasn't aware it would be off friday already, damn it. i was looking forward to this show. instead, i caught a few minutes of killer instinct, with some seriously bad line reading
• masters of horror - "dance of the dead" - boring, aimless tripe, this episode was. it started out interesting, setting up a mysterious post-apocalyptic sorta thing, then just didn't bother to take it anywhere, but it's an anthology show so next week could be brilliant... or we could hope so, anyway

oh, and i watched thursday's alias ("solo") and rather enjoyed it. it's great how they are taking the style of season one and rearranging it slightly to remake this show once again

what's this life for
Now Playing: creed - my own prison
caught up on invasion and veronica mars last night, then got behind on alias and night stalker by watching garden state instead

invasion - "fish story" - what would have been a pathetic setup to screw with larkin's understanding of what's going on turned into something seriously fucked up, what with risking her life over a little timing and convincing her under the circumstances a hell of a lot more than if she hadn't wrecked her car (or had her car wrecked, rather)

veronica mars - "rat saw god" - advancing the ongoing plot while bringing up last year's for the primary mystery in this episode plus in the side story, getting aaron and logan together; making the lawyer (can't think of his name) and the security guy from kane software into more interesting (and useful) characters; and ending the sheriff election already, after only a couple episodes? nicely done

garden state - still me likes

and, as for me listening to creed right now, i've been grabbing some cds to which i don't listen much anymore and deliberately sampling them, just for the hell of it

might see shopgirl for free this weekend (maybe this evening), and tonight there's some threshold and masters of horror, and there's charlie and the chocolate factory and the devil's rejects rented and waiting to be watched

Posted by ca4/muaddib at 1:54 PM PST
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an intelligent design would not include you
Now Playing: death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
power outage leads to cable off leads to cable modem resetting leads to me not getting online yesterday to write any blog entries, so, here's a quick rundown of the past couple days:

• jeopardy
• the simpsons x 2
• family guy - "ptv" - i've said it before and i'll say it again, since coming back from being cancelled, the folks at family guy can get away with anything, and i for one am glad about that
• american dad - "stan of arabia" - this show has gotten much better but this week got overshadowed by a brilliant family guy episode
• house - "daddy's boy" - great ending, great bits throughout, but finally seeing house's parents wasn't all that revealing, which might have been the point
• nip/tuck - "tommy bolton" - only bugged a little by issues with reality this episode. with all the directions this season is going, i still contend there's no chance there will be another season after this one
• the daily show x 2
• the colbert report x 2
• boston legal - "truly, madly, deeply" - remained surprisingly serious in dealing with the bestiality, and played denny's case nicely. some of the new characters already seem extraneous, though
• extras - (patrick stewart) - stewart's obsession with nudity was hilarious and gervais' style with the uncomfortable bits being the funniest is making for a great show. can't wait for the second season
• lost - "abandoned" - odd thing, until about 10 seconds before shannon was killed, she was about the only possibility for death--since the folks behind popular tv never have the guts to kill off major characters who still have important things to do... part of why i killed off some characters at the end of my lion horse tree, to get off on a tangent--i was trying too hard to try to guarantee one character in particular and a couple others sorta would survive, so i deliberately put them in a situation they could not survive... anyway, great episode, advancing numerous subplots and possibly being the only episode not to include jack (except in that brief shot in the hospital hallway, letting the audience know of a connection the characters will never know) or kate. and, interesting detail, sixth episode last season was the one in which locke helped charlie get off the heroine. this episode, the sixth of this season, brought charlie's acquisition of some heroine to locke's attention. looking forward to "the other 48 days" next week
• recorded veronica mars and invasion, haven't watched them yet
• designed a new shirt (hence the blog title today)
• wrote some on my horror-ish gardea short story
• got to thinking about wannabeheroes again, maybe doing even more detailed research on some so-called revolutionary groups (sla, weathermen, etcetera) and simplifying even more the character designs to make it easier to keep up the drawing--a page a day would get the book out quite regularly--and i'm still thinking on the project as a half hour drama tv thing, not that i've got the clout to get anyone to try to make it
• gotta go to the post office to send out part of lion horse tree
• and, should consider sending hindsight (after a quick edit) to a magazine or two

and, that's that, no against the world blog today, as it seems the governor's pet project propositions didn't get much support and i don't feel like rambling about iraq or bush today

monday bloody monday
didn't feel too great yesterday, but went to work anyway, did my part time data entry bit, picked up saer from my mom's work, walked to get kieran from school, put together lunch for the three of us, got online for a short bit, checking around delphi and writing the weekend BUD, wrote 7 pages of a new gardea short story (not sure on the title of this one, which is odd for me, but it's effectively a horror story involving organized crime, giant turtles and hemophiliacs, but set in the fantasy world of gardea (or rather the neighboring caram)), read through one of sarah's homework papers, stopped by blockbuster and whole foods--passed nicole deboer a few times in the aisles, neglected to mention how good cube was and how not so great the dead zone has become--on the way to get sarah from work, and then while sarah had class, three kids and i had some sitcom time, two episodes of the simpsons (including sunday's new one), two episodes of arrested development, one of two and a half men, while i also built a spaceship out of lego blocks, then there was prison break, the daily show and the colbert report. all in all, a normal day

the weekend in retrospect
friday night:

• saw saw ii, rather liked it. liked the first twist over the second (that is, the (font color=white>fact the video feed wasn't live over the jigsaw heir (when they could've just had the cancer be a big ol lie if they wanted to guarantee a sequel), and not the twist of the first film over the twist of the second)
• watched the season finale of real time and still don't like joe scarborough, even when he seems to agree with me
• watched threshold - "revelations", a good episode, advancing the plot well
• watched masters of horror - "dreams in the whitehouse" and while it certainly wasn't as good as the first episode, it was passable and had some nice creepy bits and good gore (courtesy of knb)

saturday:

• saw jarhead and liked it. great lines throughout. especially liked the line about the earth bleeding
• started to watch exorcist the beginning, but was too tired and stopped it early on

sunday:

• watched exorcist the beginning, and it was weird seeing the same setups and same sets and plot points as dominion twisted into new versions of themselves. this one tried too hard to be a modern horror film, but both this and dominion fell apart in the last half hour or so anyway
• watched two episodes of rome (as last week's never bothered to show up on our hbo on demand) while recording the simpsons, family guy and american dad (haven't watched any of those yet). loved the way pullo and veranus are drifting apart and how pullo had some serious tragedy going on with such a simple gesture as freeing his slave
• watched grey's anatomy, and i think meredith will be a better character without mcdreamy
• watched the boondocks and did not like it. bad voices, slow pacing, jokes that weren't the funny, nothing redeeming about it at all, methinks
  
  Posted by ca4/muaddib at 12:35 PM PST
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useless sidenote # 147
daily online i read the following comic strips:

• the boondocks
• calvin and hobbes
• for better or for worse
• brevity
• frazz
• get fuzzy
• pearls before swine

fonts, punks, jedis, comics and little toy soldiers
got a review on my recently completed short story hindsight:

This is your best story to date. There is so much depth to this...I'll be pondering it for a while. Definitely must read again. Brilliant...and disturbing.*

yesterday, 3 november 2005, i put together both the high alphabet font and the low alphabet font for iridia (a neighbor to gardea that figures in the third gardea book quite prominently), with font creator also, i watched gus van sant's last days, which, like his elephant, was a nifty moodpiece, with long stretches of silence and bits of scenes occasionally out of order. both elephant and last days, in my opinion could have used a little more blood to get a stark contrast to all the peaceful silence

also, watched revenge of the sith. it's got it's parts that play well, but there's some horrible dialogue in parts and the structure could use some work (not unlike previous star wars films). odd thing: ewan's performance in his "you were the chosen one" speech didn't work so well the second time, but natalie's "you're breaking my heart" bit worked better. go figure

and, after dinner i read stephen king's short story battleground to the kids. it bugged me a bit how lacking the story was in style and writing, but it was still fairly clever

read this week's comics purchase:

• stray bullets 40 - a good use of silence, the main character in this issue having a hearing aid and all, but the plot was a bit confusing near the end, and the issue ended a bit abruptly without a satisfying resolution
• jonah hex 1 - went ok, but i'm not sure i care enougn for an ongoing hex book
• detective comics 813 - so, it all has to do with one of the various clayface guys, right? i haven't really read batman since the start of no man's land, so maybe this all ties into something else, or maybe it's something new. this, the penultimate issue in lapham's run--and while it's obviously winding down to its conclusion, i'm thinking it's not going to be satisfying. i'm almost in the mood to drop lapham like i dropped bendis last year. haven't regretted that one yet
• little star 5 - an odd issue for this book, which almost seemed like a conclusion, but five issues seems a bit short. flashbacks to the birth of the universe and the baby mostly and little added to the present story. still, even a lacking andi watson is better than a lot out there
• bulleteer 1 - nice, self contained intro story, with great bits about superhero porn, and did that subway crash tie into guardian and klarion perhaps?

and i watched a bit of the daily show, but i was exhausted and feeling sick, so i recorded it and the colbert report to watch today. also, meaning to get out to see saw ii this evening, and considering watching revenge of the sith with commentary, or at least listening to it, while i work on yet another font--i want to get my money's worth out of font creator right away

* it should be noted that review was from my wife, sarah

paper clips, dominion and cataloguing
paper clips - fairly well put together documentary, though it was almost too easy to divide my attention between it and cataloguing some videotapes of mine, but maybe that says more about me than about the film. maybe i'm just a antisemitic videotape lover and i should rot in hell

dominion - opening scene was oddly bright, like the lighting department didn't get it, but the next hour and a half or so was pretty good, going more for a slow buildup, a nice atmosphere of weird over the more overt stuff of recent horror films--and, speaking of which, this one made me want to see that other exorcist prequel that replaced this one after it was shelved--but then, once cheche lost his hair it all quickly devolved into something a bit too simplistic, and the exorcism itself was way too short, not that i wanted a days of our lives style exorcism, taking months and playing like a pathetic sitcom, but the original exorcist film let things play out much more deliberately, even after the exorcism gets going (or at least, it seemed to, which is just as important)

and, aside from those two movies, i also watched some jeopardy and another simpsons treehouse of horror, and the hour long premiere of that 70s show, oddly enough--odd because i dropped that show way back in season two or three

and, as i mentioned, i went through 42 videotapes (...to go into the garage, plus the handful of current tapes), updating index cards for various series (yeah yeah, i'm obsessive, so what?) cause i'd been neglecting that of late, made some pasta and corn bread for dinner and debated a sidenote on abortion (notably proposition 73 here in california, about notifying parents) with sarah

i'm off work today and paid for my font creator license yesterday, so i'll be working on the iridian font for gardea this morning, and i've got gus van sant's last days waiting to be watched