December 2005 - January 2006

Dec 30, 2005

- 6:36am. Better. Coffee's almost ready, not even super tired. Tired yeah, but manageably. Maybe I'll read for a bit, get the gears turnin' in that direction. Hopefully I'll get "999" done today, shoulda had it done already but... ah no excuses. Just didn't get it fucking done alright? Gosh. Thinking about turning the "Wildfire" teleplay into a serial, converting an act at a time to real story then putting them up on the website. It's not the kind of thing I could sell anywhere so why not? Coffee's done, later gator.

- 11:24am. Alright, finished "999". Ended up 26 pages but there's no way I could edit down to 5000 words. Chopping out 2700 words from a 26 page story isn't editing, it's gutting. No point. Ah well, it is what it is and can't be nothin' else. On to the next one I suppose. Time for a walk though.

- 4:36pm. Want to write some more but my wrist is starting to hurt. Gotta start typing a little more healthily. Hope that Ganglion thing doesn't come back. Buggers. So what story to write next? Cannibals? Aliens? Were-Wolves? The monsters that man the counters at the DMV? I think first I'll make a folder of all the sites I want to hit right off the bat so when I go online I can open them all up at once...

- 9:57pm. So I call up the landlord, let him know the furnace has quit on us. He says he'll TRY to get someone out here. No one has. No big deal though, it's only going to hit 6 below zero tonight. Yeah 'cause heating the building with our electric stoves is the best idea ever... Guess we'll see how's it's going in the morning eh?

RANDOM

---- Crap, no time again tonight. Go check out the usual suspects, RocketBoom and such. Not sure what to think of yesterdays RB.

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Lovecraft / King
Skinny Puppy / Sonic Mayhem
Finishing "999", that baby just didn't want to come out...
The speedy passage of time.
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I had money.
His name is Bobo. He is without mercy.

Dec 29, 2005

- 7:39am. Crap. Heh, got the old school alarm clock set again for 6:00, 6:10, 6:20, 6:30... Heh.

- 9:25am. There's something sad about a broken book. Can't explain it. They're such wonderfully simple objects that contain such complex wonders. Jesus Jim, you want a hug or something you little bitch? Need a Kleenex? Fuckin' baby...

- 10:01am. Damn, if I write it with everything I want to, "999" is probably going to be 25 pages or more, 10 pages over the limit for CD. Ah well, if nobody wants it because it's too long I'll just put it up on the website.

- 2:31pm. So I went up to the library to grab a copy of King's "Night Shift" after discovering my own copy had about 150 pages knocked out of it's center (NOTE TO SELF: Stop lending your own books). Went to the library and grabbed the hardcover copy, then strolled home with my prize. Got home, flipped it open and discovered this one was broken too. Nice. Still readable though. Dammit, only two pages done so far. Maybe some reading will get me back in the mood.
---- After reading all that Lovecraft I thought it would be a nice change to get back to the modern style of good ol' dependable King. Enter "Jerusalem's Lot" (first story in "Night Shift"), initially to MY horror a very Lovecraftian tale. Of course it wasn't exactly like Lovecraft (in that it wasn't totally fucking boring), and that while it was written in that style, it wasn't actually written in the bad-old-days when the Very Large Stick was all but invisible up the ass of the literary world. "Economy of Words" has always stayed with me, though it is not lost on me that my world is unimaginably different from the one that Lovecraft spent his days, and that it is completely understandable that the literature would reflect this. Back then would an uneducated person of my upbringing and familial background be likely to end up an author? Would they get the chance?
---- I like to think that given the opportunity Lovecraft would have loved Monster Trucks. :-)

- 4:31pm. Dammit, got the thread back, pushed out another couple pages then get interrupted by a neighbor for no real reason and *poof* gone. Maybe I'll go work on a new story for a bit, maybe that'll help. Maybe it'll hurt.
---- Argh. <- my mantra.

RANDOM

---- No time for Randomness tonight, got work to do. Got lots of cool stuff tucked away though, just no time to dig through it real good.

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Stephen King
Scott Helm.
"Runaway"
The decline of North American Society. Durrrrrr.
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I could create coffee through sheer will of thought.
You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn't care who it cuts.

Dec 28, 2005

- 7:03am. Hmm, shoulda set the alarm for 6. Oh well. Not feeling too bad. Think I'll sit back and read for a bit before I get to it, though this Lovecraft isn't exactly blowing me away. Every story so far has been the same: Loner male is off wandering on his own when he encounters something powerful, supernatural and evil.

- 8:41am. Great, Clompy's home. Hope her clompitude doesn't stall out my writing. Going really good so far.

- 10:02am. Excellent! Got the story all done, eight pages hammered out. Slicker 'n snot on a doorknob.
---- Mary was saying something about coming out to Raymond today and us going for Chinese food or something. Think I'll give her a call and see what the scoop is. I am STARVING, nothing but about 7 cups of coffee so far today. *twitches violently*
---- Heh, that story came out really good and with a terrific title: "Shitter". Maybe I can finish up "999" today too. Wouldn't that be nice? I'm beginning to think I may actually be able to sell this stuff.

- 10:24am. Fuckin' garbage truck just drove by. Where were you yesterday jerk! Drag your ass back here and get this bag sitting next to my freezer, dick!

- 1:43pm. Just got my Voter Information Card in the mail, what a crock of shit. I think the ballot should include:

 
No Party (There is no one worth voting for, let Anarchy reign.)
 
Jim Jones Party (Free Kool-Aid for everyone!)
 
Random Choice (Party and Prime Minister are randomly chosen from general population).
 
I hate you all for calling a pointless election, and I hope bad things happen to you.

---- Here's some fun info: The Liberal party is responsible for the whole ad-scandal which saw the loss of about 100 million dollars of tax payers money. 100 mill, poof gone. Guess how much this useless election is going to cost we the taxpayers? I'll give you a hint: it's MORE THAN 200 MILLION DOLLARS, just like it did LAST FUCKING YEAR.
---- And what will it accomplish? Not a damn thing as there are 2 outcomes that are all but guaranteed:

1. The Libs are re-elected, again to a minority government, again with no ability to get anything done. Not that any politician ever does, but you get my drift.

2. The Conservatives get elected to an equal or WEAKER minority government, also with no ability to get anything done.

---- I think the only thing we can count on this time around is that the people will lose. *weeps* Bah, at least I know that whichever side gets in nothing much will happen and nothing much will change. Ah my old friend Apathy, missed ya buddy.

RANDOM

---- I think this falls under the "just crazy enough to work" catagory. This is just plain messed up.

---- RocketBoom, good as always though yesterdays was especially nice. I bet Amanda Congdon gets a lot of "omg u r so hot" mail. She only has herself to blame, being a chikkz0r and all. No wonder the show got picked up by Tivo, they regularily deliver the goods.

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Through a mountain of shit on the elections.ca website.
Dark Army
The weather.
Not having my sunglasses.
Red Dwarf Ep. 1
I had Red Dwarf Ep. 2
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Dec 27, 2005

- 5:18am. <--- Oy, more like it but kind of brutal. Must... fight... Sandman. Thinking I might watch something to stay awake. Have Caddyshack, Bladerunner, more Red Dwarf including very first episode and the un-aired US pilot which I downloaded. Don't really want to watch anything comedic. It's hard to switch gears and write scary / monstrous stuff. That Sandman is a real sonofabitch. Need coffee.

- 8:06am. No writing yet but didn't go back to sleep either. Victory! Stick that in your sandy craw Angel of Sleep! The Clompy upstairs is up and about. clomp clomp Clomp Clomp CLOMP Clomp Clomp clomp clomp... heh.
---- Must! Write!

- 11:00am. Damn, story is going to end up at least 20 pages long. Might be hard to trim three to five pages out. Meh, we'll see. Think I'll take a break, go pay some bills and buy some milk.

- 7:15pm. Clompy is making noise. Sounds like she's re-organizing her shoe collection. She's... yes she's putting on her shoes. I can hear the laces hitting the floor. The door is open and... down the stairs... oh I think she's gone folks... yes I do believe Clompy has left the building. Hopefully for the night. Ah quiet.
---- Had a great idea for a cannibal story and so cut my shower short to work on it. Sat in front of the machine and promptly lost ALL the energy in my system. Fudge. It was so fresh I could smell the blood, ideas were comin' rapid fire, then POW, engine stalled, drifted to a stop by the side of the road. Not a single man-eater to help push. Meh, I can still write down the ideas and take a crack at it tomorrow. Maybe I'm crashing from getting up so early, hopefully that means I'll be able to fall asleep before bloody midnight.
---- Saw the first commercial for the "Underworld" sequel. Looks like complete trash. They even used the 'she's the only one who can save the WORLD' bit. The instant you use the 'save the world' bit you lose about 10,000 potential viewers. Weak.

RANDOM

---- Urgh, too tired for randomness today.

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short stories from the internet
Scott Helm
Getting up at 5am.
That bovine violating Sandman.
Blade Runner
I had Blade Runner on DVD.
"I'm oh so comfortable and warm Jim..." - My Bed

Dec 26, 2005

- 5:49pm. Alright, well Christmas was good. Had an awe-inspiring feed over at the brothers place. As with every year my ability to eat amazes and disturbs many. Anyway's lots of other good stuff so lets get to it before I think of something better to do with my time:

RANDOM

---- So Devin got me seasons five and six of Red Dwarf for Xmas/birthday presents! Problem is we never do the present thing so this came as a surprise and now I feel really bad that I didn't get him anything. Ah well, I'll just have to get him something really great for his birthday in May. Is there such a thing as a Swedish Mail-Order bride?
---- While I'm on the R.D. kick, just downloaded the un-aired pilot for the American version of the series. Heard it's really dreadful. On the Season 5 DVD commentary they go into a lot of detail about the whole fiasco, very entertaining. Couldn't find it on BitTorrent, found it on Kazaa-Lite.

---- Alright, let's check out IngredientX.com and see what we find. Well... the "Horny" flick is good, and it is interesting in some of the videos that we see him actually drawing the image from the reverse side... but all in all not that memorable. The guy obviously has talent and he has a bunch of stuff for sale but there's just not enough there to convince me to shell out the bucks for more content. Still worth a few minutes of your time I suppose. This site has some fairly explicit content, not for the kiddies.

---- Next up we have incoherentmumblings.com. This is a PodCast site by Scott Helm. All audio, all music. Not bad at all, in fact it's damn good. Random Sampling -->Reboot: Nice electronica. Galapagos: Kind of aquatic electronica. Makes me think I'm a dolphin. Things I'm Working On: Another dreamy bit of electronica, but more airy than watery. Things are Gonna Change: Excellent slower poppier song. Paranoiac: Comedic radio play about paranoia and the postal service. Loads of material here, way too much to list. Go check it out for yourself.

---- I stumbled upon simplysyndicated.com, can't remember how, but it's got some interesting stuff.
---- The site has a bunch of video clips from various independent films available. They use the h264 codec (a.k.a. the Devil's Codec) so I haven't seen them. h264 is just too big a pain in the ass to be worth the bother.
---- One branch of the site is the "Movies You Should See" audio podcast with 8 episodes available. Okay, first off the downloads are fairly big. The Christmas Movies Special is 42mb for 46 minutes. That's a little excessive for just audio. Pretty good download speed at least. They are entertaining, just make sure you set aside a good chunk of time to give 'em a listen. Considering that podcasts are by nature very disposable, perhaps the bitrate should be reduced for a more reasonable file size. A small annoyance, the show is worth it.

---- Lastly but not leastly for all you fellow Machinima geeks out there Episode 3 of Bouncer Please has been released by Binary Picture Show. This is an excellent series, and must be a hell of a lot of work to make. Dr.Nemesis and company continue to deliver in an exceptionally demanding art-form.

---- As if I just spent 4 hours on this thing. Stupid internet. Goodnight and God bless the Gorillas.

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Lovecraft. Still. Not much time lately.
KMFDM
Music.
The grocery store being closed. Need milk.
Red Dwarf baby!
R.D. seasons were more than 6 episodes long.
I say lets get into the jet powered rocket pants and Junior Birdman the hell outta here!

Dec 24, 2005

- 7:12am. Up earlier, no danger of falling back to sleep, but still kind of messed up. Fuck I hate dreams like that. Got two more story ideas anyways, guess that's good. Bah, time for coffee.

- 8:50am. Oh I see, Pam gets led away to her doom by the fake Cathy. Oh shit that's right. She walks into the small reflecting pool thing and gets drowned. That's right. I think the girl who plays Pam is now on that show "Bones" with that guy from Angel.

- 11:44am. I just had cake for lunch! Take that colon! Muhahahaha! Four pages done. I wish I was working at the speed I used to, 10 to 20 pages a day. Good times, good times. Ah I'll get back there if I can just get up earlier. Stupid insomnia. If only I could make it work for me. Time to start up a meth-lab?

- 5:06pm. It occurs that I'm spending way too much time on the blog part of this, time I could be spending on content.

RANDOM

---- Funny how no one in the entertainment industry is willing to say that there's such a thing as too much sex. How can there be anything wrong with sex? Just because the two biggest threats to the future of humankind (overpopulation and AIDS) are both caused by our inability to control ourselves sexually, that doesn't mean sex is a bad thing does it? Everybody weeps and moans about the environment, well our environmental issues are directly related to overpopulation. You can't expect to cure the disease just by treating the symptoms. Sure we're doomed, but we'll have a deluded good time on our way out won't we?

---- So yesterday I was telling Sean about the haunted house story I'm working on and an odd thing happened: I instantly, completely slipped into the "Ernie" character, using his vocal inflection and everything. It was strange, kind of disconcerting actually. Huh. Stay inside my head bitch. Did I say you could come out?

---- Watched the Stephen King's Short Movies flick "Man in the Black Suit" and gotta say I wasn't impressed. The kid was okay, the mom was actually pretty good, the dad wasn't good at all, and Satan was done all wrong. Is it worth a watch? If you're into the scene, sure. Twenty minutes is a pretty good chunk of change though. It's also been compressed to hell, so the picture quality is not good at all.
---- As for "All That You Love Will be Carried Away" it took me all of two minutes to realize this was going to be a very good flick. Joe Bob Briggs is fantastic as Alfie Zimmer. Not just a renown movie critic and personality, the dude NAILED this character. The voice-over is perfect. The character comes across flawlessly. Director James Renner did a really excellent job. I highly recommend anyone and everyone watch this. Wow.

---- Alright, lets check out this Xolo TV show. Looks like there's lots of eps, but is there quality to go with that quantity? Verdict: I'm not sure. The video is fine but the audio is choppy for some reason. Not sure what the problem is but I'll download some more episodes and see if they're all like this. Maybe I'll post more tomorrow. Maybe they tried to get a little too fancy with the codec and/or compression. A common undoing.

---- The other place we'll check out today is GoodWordsRightOrder.com, home of the Seanachai. It's an audio podcast by the talented Patrick E. McLean. Great narration, great background soundscape, and great stories at their foundation. Definitely recommended. I can see how this kind of stuff would be great on a long ride to work.

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Lepus audio
Getting up earlier.
That even my sub-conscious hates me.
A bunch of stuff.
Self-control wasn't taboo.
Jeremy spoke in class today...

Dec 23, 2005

- 8:10am. Strugglin'. Up at 7:30 reading Lovecraft. Didn't sleep for shit last night. Ugh. Got hash-browns and sausage rounds cookin' up on the stove. Maybe that'll help. Damn, shouldna started the sausages so quick after the browns.
---- Heh, Letterman just had a restraining order leveled against him by a woman who claims he won't stop sending messages to her through her television.
---- Queen Latifa is huckstering for Wal-Mart. Sad.
---- Seriously, FUCK YOU QUICKTIME.

- 9:20am. Why was Todd Bertuzzi allowed to join the Canadian Olympic team? Great job on making it embarrasing to root for our guys, guys.

- 11:22am. So it seems IE6 has not only mildly violated File Explorer, but also fucked my nVidia drivers so the overlay Gamma is always wrong. Dagger, you owe me so fucking big. :p Oh well, the Player Connector site I designed is up. Won't blow your hair back but it does the job effectively I think.

- 3:04pm. Downloaded the new Lepus Quake3vid from fei. TWICE I download this 450mb file only to discover it's corrupted. This movie better be worth it or puppies will die. (It was. Barely.) :-p

- 9:44pm. I should be in bed. Bah.

---- Two new dollar-babies up at Stephen King's Short Movies, The Man in the Black Suit and All That You Love Will be Carried Away. Downloading, will comment tomorrow. Thanks to liljas-library.com.
---- Watched the trailer for "Paranoid: A Chant" at the independent films website. I dunno, I'm getting really tired of skinny "hot chicks" playing... everything. Why not use a girl that's more realistic? This woman is supposed to be crazy-eight bonkers, how she going to fit gym time into a busy schedual of writing down delusions and re-organizing her canned goods?

---- New Doom Toon. I love these things. This guy should get more recognition.

---- Hey ifilm, you suck. Streaming content is not the way of the future. Lemme download the file off your server and watch it from my own damn machine whenever I want. "On Demand" means "when it's convenient for me" not "make me go find the page on your website when I want to watch it a second time instead of just clicking the fucking file on my HDD." Man, I can be a crotchety sonofabitch eh?

---- Fuck it, that's enough for tonight. Goodnight you Kings of Nothing, you Princes of Jack Shit.

 

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Lovecraft
Dover
The smell of breakfast cooking.
Quicktime, IE6, Belgians.
Forest Gump. "Lt. Dan. Icecream. Ice creeeeem. Lt. Dan..."
Everyone used Xvid.
A lie for the eye, no truth for the youth.

Dec 22, 2005

- 8:36am. Don't even say it.
---- Odd dream about a guy who was puking up scrambled eggs, giant clumpy gouts of scrambled eggs...
---- Watching Rose Red again. King's characters manage to work on so many levels (a phrase I hate), specifically how the Brit and Cathy don't give a second thought to leaving Emery's mother to a fate worse than death while refusing to consider even knocking Annie unconscious.
---- Cathy says "Could you..."
---- Nick finishes "Could I hurt her [Annie]? I have the power. But no, of course I couldn't hurt her."
---- Aw Nick, so touching. He says all this as the woman he just brained with a pool ball lays squirming and maniacal on the floor. Then the two of them walk out leaving Emer's mom alone in the house where:

---- case(alone)
---- {
------ you >= dead;
---- }

---- Enough of that, g0t wr1t1ng t0 d0.

Our heroes stand in the door of the plane about to go skydiving.
"Wait! I have to go to the bathroom!"
"Don't worry, you'll go on the way down."
"huh?"
PUSH *Screeeeem*
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH-ahhhhhhhhh."

- 8:37pm. My GOD the German girl from LEXX is hot. It's enough to make me forget how much INTERNET EXPLORER SIX COMPLETELY FUCKING SUCKS. Yup, it's fucked up File Explorer. THANKS FOR NOTHING ASSHOLES.
---- Ah well, got 5 good pages done. Maybe I can get some more done right now, maybe I should go to sleep. First turn the heat down, then get the fan going to cool this dump off.



Heh:

http://web.ndak.net/~dylanh/TomCruise.mov

 

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Digitally Imported: Chillout
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I had a $2000 higher limit on my credit card.
Let's get this dirty cocksucker in the air!

Dec 21, 2005

- 8:23am. <--- Lost again. Blah. Hey dummy, don't forget to call Amanda tonight. Listening to some Snuff Pop Inc I found last night before bed. Finally got around to looking them up. Not bad so far, only found three tracks. Coffee is calling.
---- Alright, coffee? Check. Toast? Check. Now what the hell are we going to write? Fuck it lets do the haunted house story. Those are always fun, and the beginning just popped in to my head. How convenient.

- 9:52am. Okay that sucks. Everything was going fine, had a bunch of cool ideas, wrote the first page (which came out really solid) then POOF, the thread was gone. Been sitting here trying to get it back but my mind refuses to settle back down into that place the stories come from. ARRRRGH! I don't wanna do anything else, but the Muse has left the building. Dammit. Oh well, at least I got the first bit down. It's good too, does everything I want it to. Gets the reader on track fast and smooth so I can get on with the story. Funny how sometimes that simple bit can be a real bitch to push out.
---- Rented "Silver Bullet", never read King's story it's based on but I've heard the movie is fairly bad. I'll be the judge of THAT.
---- ...
---- Dammit.
---- So I've watched Rose Red about 20 times in the last week and I still can't figure out what happened to Pam. She just kind of blips out and comes back dead. Maybe I missed a bit when I was recording? Maybe I just haven't been playing close enough attention. Bah, funny (and usually UNCOOL things) happen to stories and movies when they are crushed to fit into TV format.
---- I'd just like to make a quick note for people putting video on the net: using the latest niftiest codec available is usually NOT a good thing to do. Logically, why wouldn't you want your program to be as easily accessible as possible? Look at it this way:

- 20 million people can watch vids compressed with CodecX and your file is 10.4mb.

- 5 million people can watch vids compressed with CodecY and your file is 9.8mb.

---- Seems kind of crazy to use chop out 75% of your potential audience to save a measly .6mb of space doesn't it? And yet loads and loads of people are doing just that. Crazy.
---- If you're looking for a program to convert a video file into another format, I use Stoik's utility and it for the most part works fine.

- 12:32pm. Goddamn it the 400mb Fragvid I downloaded was FUCKING CORRUPT. Nice, tried about 8 times to get it, finally it started working at was still fucked. Fucked fuck fucketty fucken fuck. Bah.
---- Watched some TikiBar TV, good show. Won't change your life but it will keep you entertained for 3-5 minutes.

- 1:48pm. ROFL, watching "SilverBullet" and the kid was just outrunning the wolf in his hotrod wheelchair and DAMN can that thing haul ass!

- 9:36pm. Got a whole bunch of work done on the website. A whack of random stuff up, added another haiku that I thought up (when else?) when I was trying to fall asleep last night. Strange how the brain works good in the bed, but if I get up it all goes away again. I need a laptop that works.

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Same old same old.
Snuff Pop Inc
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Dec 20 Rocketboom. Was good.
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Dec 20, 2005

- 8:09am. <----- Dammit. *grumble grumble* I promise I was in bed by 9:30, 'course I didn't fall asleep till about 11:30. Maybe it was because I forgot to turn on my alarm clock. Ah fuck it, I feel pretty good so I'll just let it go. Time for coffee weeeeeeee! *flies around like Timmy*

- 9:03am. There, 3 pages and the Cruel World story is done. First Draft anyways. Still need a decent title. Forgot to make coffee though. Machine is just sitting there opened up and waiting for a filter but I had an idea and They don't wait for me. When an idea wants to dance, you dance. They rarely ask twice.

- 10:09am. So what story is next? Murder Monday, maybe. Yeah, I could do with a laugh.

- 3:23pm. Got Rose Red playing in the background. Joyce just smeared her bloody hands all over Carl Miller's face. Gotta say I'm extremely tempted to write a short about the Emery character even though it's not something I could ever sell and technically it's all... illegal and whatever. There's just so much potential for coolness. That and I really liked Emery. He deserves a little more excitement in his pathetic little life doesn't he?
---- *GASP* (I think I literally did gasp BTW). Just switched to Explorer which I had open and it was all borked like when my comp was all buggered and I had to format. It doesn't happen when I make a new folder or anything so... maybe everything's okay. *crosses fingers* I did install IE6 yesterday, hopefully that hasn't fucked everything up again. I didn't want to install it but Dagger is working on getting the old Doom Connector program back up and running. I could've installed it with IE5.5 but I couldn't *find* IE5.5. No, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decided to not leave a download for it, forcing everyone to use 6. Microsoft just makes it so easy for everyone to hate them, and yet they still don't get it. ANYway, enough of this. Got writin' to do.

- 4:36pm. Went online to research police radio codes and of course ended up on Machinima.com. It is my start page so I was really doomed from the beginning. Got some kick ass machinima to pimp:

ILL Clan - Loving You and Drinking Beer

hero164 - The Substitute Wives Theory

Evilhoof and Flayed - Internet is for Porn

Not Machinima But Also Hilarious:

SNL Clip - Chronic(les of Narnia)

---- Also found TikiBar TV today, dunno if it's any good yet. Grabbed episodes 1-7 and I'll watch 'em tomorrow along with this frag-vid that's taking FOREVER to download.

- 9:15pm. Watching "The Hour", man that Tucker Carlson is hilarious. He calls Canadians "stalkers" who do nothing but obsess about America all day and fret about our "unrequited love". I mean, as a Canadian I find that really humorous, but is it wrong that I still really want to punch him in the face?
---- Why the hell is channel 5 and 27 double the volume of all the other channels? Why is "The Daily Show" at half volume so you turn it up to hear the show, then get blared out by the commercials? Who is that ridiculously hot babe on "Oblivious"? Bah, time for sleep.

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CD#53, Lovecraft
Ozzy baby! I'm just a rock and roll rebel!
MJB Coffee
The pimple. I'm 30! Does it never end?!
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Connector didn't need IE to function.
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Dec 19, 2005

- 7:49am. Actually managed to get up at 7 this morning, aided by the incredible cold that filled my apartment. Left one of the windows open a crack to combat the unnatural constant warmth of this place, but the crack turned out to be more than a match and the place was about 16 friggin' degrees. Argh, two days since I've done anything more than groundwork. Buggers. Now I'm enjoying a cup'o'joe, reading some Cemetery Dance, and trying like hell to ignore the siren call of my toasty warm bed. FIGHT JAMES FIGHT! On the list for today:

---- - Get some bloody writing done.
---- - Work on the website some more.
---- - Do some tinkering with a site design
---- --for PlayerConnector.com
---- - Buy soap.
---- - Hit the treadmill.

---- As usual there's lots of quality stuff in CD#52, but some stuff jumps out especially:
---- Among the Dead is the story of a corporate drone, David. Like with most companies, his feeds off the life-force of those living within it's glass walls. The company itself is a maggot squirming in the carcass of a rotting city.
---- Home Security is a really short story about a guy wandering through his house with a knife after hearing what may or may not be a prowler.
---- I've still got a third of the mag to read so there may still lie some unfound gems. Hmmm, according to AbiWord "unfound" ain't a word. Half expected the correct spelling to be "unfarted". Had a bad experience with a fart just the other day. The kind of experience that begins with a well-intentioned push and ends with you in the shower. Heh, that reminds me I thought up some other funny stuff last night. I'll have to check the recorder. Something about zombie rappers. That reminds me I thought up a bunch of stuff in the shower but I don't think I got any of it down. Damn. Probably gone forever now.

- 8:31pm. So:

DIDN'T - Get some bloody writing done.
DID - Work on the website some more.
FINISHED - Site design for Player Connector.
DID - Buy soap.
DID - Hit the treadmill.

---- Of course the most important thing on the list is the one thing that I didn't do. I could start writing right now but I think I'm gonna hit the sack--not code for masochistic masturbation--and try to get to sleep early. Hope that pizza I just ate doesn't kill me. Stupid mushrooms. Not allergic or anything but I just don't trust the damn things to not be carrying Stephen King's ass-weasel fungus. Bah, bed time.

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Cemetery Dance #52
"Boomstick" Scott Brown
My flabby ass did 2km in under 30min.
Nothing, it's all good baby.
Nothing, that's probably why it's all good.
I had Jessica Alba's phone number.
"Death is the impossibility of further possibility."

Dec 18, 2005

- 8:09am. Argh pretty much covers it, but hey, it's my b-day so liven up you sleepy plonker. Coffee and some toast I think, then I may just watch "The Island" while I consume some mass quantities. Should see if there's a new RvB out.

- 9:50am. Breakfast done, just wrote a whole bunch of shit for TEST TOWN, turned the idea into a real story. Excellent. Well, I think I'm gonna go watch Island now. *click*

- 1:18pm. So "The Island" wasn't really that great. Had some great action sequences--as Mr. Bay is famous for--but little else. The story was definitely interesting, Bay just ignores all the possibility for story in favor of mindlessly blowing shit up pretty much continuously for about two and a half hours. There is some good stuff but there is also some really groan-inducing dumb sequences as well. Our heroes fall about 30 stories inside a giant metal "R", crash into steel scaffolding, debris ripping through the air and shit exploding all over the place and yet somehow they end up nearly unscathed inside some netting that was hanging all over the scaffolding? Suspension of disbelief only takes you so far Mike, but that's just fuckin' retarded.
---- I think the main problem becomes evident RIGHT at the beginning of the cheap making-of featurette. Bay says he told the writers "not to worry about writing the action, just leave that part blank and I'll fill it in." This movie might not have ended up the ass it was if the writers could have gone to him and said "We need more story 'cause there's too many pointless and unbelievable action sequences."
---- This isn't to say it's unwatchable like the epically dumb "Stealth", but even as extremely talented as Bay is at filming action and just generally making things look amazing, at about the 2 hour mark you're just praying for it to be over and you don't care how. Maybe that was the point as the ending was as cookie-cutter as it gets. Still, it rated real high on the "Blowin' Shit up Real Good" factor so it's worth a rent. On cheap day. If "40 Year Old Virgin" isn't in.
---- On a distantly related note, AbiWord tells me that "featurette" is spelled incorrectly and that the correct spelling is "farted".
-
6:11pm. Almost forgot about the horrendous product placement in "The Island". First XBox, then Aquafina, an MSN info-phone booth thing (in the future Microsoft has total control over access to information, apparently), MSNBC (noticing a theme?), and I think Chrysler or whatever the Cadillac parent company is. Some of their cars were so perfectly parked in frame that I couldn't stop from howling with laughter. Ah what a mess.

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Cemetery Dance #52 
My microcassette recorder.
The peace and quiet.
-
The Island
-
Live fast, die young, leave an edible corpse.

Dec 17, 2005

- 9:40am. Rough morning, argh. Gonna wash some dishes then get to it yo.

- 10:26pm. Website is clickin' along good, though I got very little if any writing done today. Just for the record though, you'll never catch me with an IPod. Unless I'm dead and it's been planted on me. Funny how I still have that "If everyone likes it it must be worth hating." mentality from my youth. Some would call that a punk frame of mind but punk is now more worthy of hate than even the much ballyhooed IPod. Besides, would a punk use a word like "ballyhooed"?
---- For pre-birthday gifts Johnny bought Chinese food--as I did for his birthday last month--and gave me a 80gig drive. Now I feel bad because the only other thing I gave him was a bag of Mrs. Vickies salt and vinegar chips. Then again it's a used drive and he should be pretty greatful that he's related to such greatness.
---- Just started reading some H.P. Lovecraft. Only read "The Tomb" so far but gotta say I'm not so impressed. Not that it's at all fair to judge a writers entire body of work on the first 18 pages you read... After I finish this one I'll have to get the library to bring in a copy of some of his other stuff.
---- David Dukes was just on the TV, looks like that Gilbert Grape movie. Too bad he died just after Rose Red, I really liked that guy. Another 'un gone home.

- 11:38pm. I have a feeling I won't be getting up at 6 tomorrow. Then again maybe the prospect of working on this stupid thing will be enough to drag my ass out of bed. I guess we'll find out won't we?

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H.P. Lovecraft "The Tomb and other Tales" 
Trivium
The benefits of exercise.
That there's no one worth voting for.
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I could afford to eat food with nutritional value.

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