Tuesday, January 31, 2006

24 last night.

I can't believe I'm blogging about television...

But, holy crap, I was dying to see Jack Bauer take that dude's eye out. In hindsight, I kind of wish the whole episode was of Jack beating the crap out of that guy in front of the President.

It'd go like this:
11:00am
Shot of the President staring calmly at action off-camera. We hear the sounds of a man being beaten. Cut to Jack beating the crap out of Cummings.
JACK: TELL US WHERE THE NERVE GAS IS!
CUMMINGS: NEVER!
Jack continues to torture Cummings for fifteen minutes.
Cut to commercial.

11:15am
Shot of the President staring calmly at action off-camera. We hear the sounds of a man being beaten. Cut to Jack beating the crap out of Cummings.
JACK: TELL US WHERE THE NERVE GAS IS!
CUMMINGS: NEVER!
Jack pulls out knife.
JACK: I'LL CUT YOUR EYES OUT!
CUMMINGS: GO RIGHT AHEAD!
Jack cuts Cummings' eyes out and continues to torture him.
Cut to commercial.

11:30am
Shot of the President staring calmly at action off-camera. We hear the sounds of a man being beaten. Cut to Jack beating the crap out of Cummings. Cumming is eyeless and bleeding profusely.
JACK: TELL US WHERE THE NERVE GAS IS!
CUMMINGS: NEVER!
JACK: I'LL CUT YOUR ARMS AND LEGS OFF WITH MY LITTLE KNIFE!
CUMMINGS: I DARE YOU, YOU COWARD!
Jack cuts off Cummings' arms and legs, making a huge mess.

11:45am
Shot of the President staring calmly at action off-camera. We hear the sounds of a man being beaten. Cut to Jack beating the crap out of Cummings. Cummings is an eyeless bloody torso.
PRESIDENT: I'M THE PRESIDENT AND I APPROVE OF THIS BEATING.
JACK: TELL US WHERE THE NERVE GAS IS!
CUMMINGS: OKAY, YOU WIN. IT'S IN LOS ANGELES SOMEWHERE.
PRESIDENT: EXCELLENT WORK, JACK, YOU'RE THE BEST.
JACK: I KNOW, THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT. NOW IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO STAVE OFF AN ALIEN INVASION.

Roll credits.

...

I should not be doing IT for a living.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Gary North just gets it.

Perhaps you don't know Gary North. You probably should. He's a grumpy old man. He's an economist. He's a scholar. And he knows a lot about money.

If Gary North says your industry is in trouble, your industry is probably in trouble. His points are the same that the geeks on Slashdot have been making for years, but from a purely monetary standpoint, instead of a "information wants to be free, yo" standpoint.

A business depending on lawsuits to survive is doomed.

Humans Are A Destructive Force Of Nature

We're unstoppable.

Oh, man.

It's 3am. Took a too-long nap, and now I can't sleep.

And I've been hit by a frightening realization.

If the 1994 version of me could see me now, he would kill me. Not in a figurative, "uhoh, I'm in trouble" sense. In a "he's going to kill me with the closest sharp object he can find" sense.

I was going to have books written by now. Comics published. Bills paid.

I was going to have a keen sense of humor. And biting cynicism. And marked brilliance.

I think my mid-life crisis is starting early. Please note, this isn't "I need to be driving a Ferrarri to feel better" vibeage.

This is, "My brain was a lot more useful than this" vibeage.

I think my younger self would be okay with some things. My family would get a big thumbs-up. My addiction to information would probably impress him too. I'm older and a bit wiser.

What would he not be okay with:
My willingness to let work life sap my creativity.
My compliance with brain-killing entertainment.
My long periods of couch potato behavior.
My lack of financial discipline.
My inability to finish anything of lasting value.

Yeah, he'd kill me.

This is why you don't stay up until 3am.

Going to bed, hoping I wake up in the morning.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Mostly successful

So, did I force my week to submit to my will?

Yes, I did.

I was in bed by 10pm nearly every night this week. I slept soundly. I was in a good mood. I even ate breakfast one day.

Work went well, for the most part.

No alarms, and no surprises.

I'm ready to hit the comic store, and spend the weekend reading, writing, and packing.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Smackdown

New week.

My plan is to take this week, tie it to a chair, and beat it with a rubber hose until it tells me what I want to hear.

I will get things done this week. Work will behave this week. No alarms and no surprises.

Bills will be paid, issues will be resolved.

And if this week gives me any lip, I'm shoving it into the trunk of a stolen car, and shoving it off a cliff.

Have a good week. I will, or else.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Comics Rundown 1/17/2006

Desolation Freakin' Jones #5 - Jones gets operated on. He gets to fondly remember the life-changing Desolation Experiments. We get the plot summarized for us, in case we're confused. Which we are, but that's okay. Jones gets even. Great fun. The art is very strong for the entire issue. I'm going to have Desolation-Experiment-shaped nightmares now. My only hazy point with this issue is the premise of utilizing Los Angeles as a Prisoner-esque Village for retired spooks. You'd think they'd want to store all these security liabilities in a tighter environment. How hard is it to sneak out of LA? I think Kurt Russell did it in a movie, which means it must be cake. I would think Billings, Montana would be a better candidate location. "Hey, my ex-spy neighbor's Winnebago is missing. Maybe I should call somebody. Oh, wait, there's nothing but 5-foot snow drifts for the next 1000 miles. That sucker's not going anywhere." I haven't made eye-contact with a single human being since I moved to California. As in, more than a month. Which I think is more than enough time for even the crappiest ex-spy to escape. I bet I'd make a terrific crappy ex-spy.

Y: The Last Man #41 - Hm, no Gay Cowboys, I'm a tad disappointed. However, we get a glimpse of the enigma that is 355. Character development. I'm finding the supporting characters are turning out much more interesting than Yorick. Yorick tends to be a bit... hm... Peter Parker. Wisecracks in volatile situations, interesting talents, a little rough history... Funny, but not someone I emotionally connect with. Everyone else just seems so much more jacked-up than Y. Half the population is wiped out, people are mutilating themselves, changing their belief systems, murdering each other. Yorick is still wandering around, looking for true love and his pet monkey, making with the funny. I'm still hanging in there, I'm still reading, and I'm not hating the book. Still not my favorite title though.

Exterminators #1 - Tony Moore Pwns. Not familiar with Simon Oliver. The story looks to have promise. As soon as a 100-foot tall cockroach begins devouring people and destroying the city, I'll hail this book as the next Dark Knight Returns. For now though, the writing isn't super-spectacular. Characterization is promising. The artwork just makes me wish Moore was back on Walking Dead. Maybe someday.


Penny Arcade 25 cent Miracle Book - Cut... Paste... Email pdf file to printer... Rock on, we have a comic book. I didn't get it. I love Penny Arcade. The comic was... from 5 years ago. Some funny old strips were present, sure. But no new material was presented. The really strange part is, I'm fairly sure the 25 cent price point wasn't even enough to recoup the printing and shipping costs. It's like somebody lost a bet. Just weird.

Why is my bed hidden by stuffed animals?

And why are there magnetic letters stuck in the soles of my feet?

And why are my ears ringing with the sound of a screaming child?

And where did all the Gummy Worms go?

Oh.

Right.

I'm a Dad.

Monday, January 16, 2006

I have no clue what's going on today.

Not sure where my head is at. Still reeling with hysterical laughter from reviewing the Chuck Norris Fact List with Troy last night. Wife-lady says I giggle like a teenager. Wife-lady will pay.

Sandpaper Kisses by Martina Topley Bird is knocking my socks off. Spooky, yet soothing.



To my good buddy Don: Yes, you indeed need to throw the Chaff Grenades to beat the first boss fight with Vulcan Raven on Metal Gear Solid. Confirmed. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your difficulties. Er, I guess I just did. Gamer cred: RUINED.

Snake? Snake! SNAAAAAAAAAKE!

Just went 24 hours without playing any Dystopia, and it did me good. Evil, evil, delicious Dystopia. Going for 48. Now hopefully I'll stop dreaming about grenade-spamming stealth-suited corporate assassins. That's me delivering the spamming, corps receiving spamming. Strange, strange dreams.

Watched 24 last night, missed the first 30 minutes of the first episode. Instead of seeing important characters dying, I was fixing a Zebra 170XiII label printer in a room full of controlled substances. Wife-lady filled me in on the pivotal early-goings-on. Too early to tell how well this season will shape up. Richard Nixon is president again. Somebody is gunning for Jack, and knows he's still alive. The head terrorist looks like, kid you not, Benny Hill.

WTFBBQ.


I'm digging the whole Diehard 2 terrorist-occupied airport angle this time around. And loving more ridiculous accents. Almost as painful as Dennis Hopper's accent in Season 1.

Jack shooting Palmer's sniper in the head makes for pleasing Sunday-night entertainment.

See, there should be a 24 drinking game. Every time a punk kid with long hair causes problems for Jack, take a drink. Seriously, somebody buy these kids a comb. The son of Jack's landlady is this season's problem child. Last season's was SecDef Heller's hippy son. Season 1 had Kim's idiot kidnappers.

Long hair = stoner idiot who needs to be shot or tortured.

Government-approved Jack-sported short hair = someone who could jump out of a plane (no parachute) with a HK-USP .45 and Kabar and singlehandedly wipe out a continent.

Like Jack.

Or Chuck Norris.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Reminder to self:

I've gotta use the following exchange in one of my scripts.

"You know that guilty feeling you get when you do something bad?"

"Yeah..."

"Don't worry, it goes away after a while."

I won't relate where or when this exchange took place.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

OH SCHNIKEYS!

My blog is probably illegal...

It's broken, fix it.

Someone please explain to me why my two-year-old (almost two-and-a-half-year-old) is still calling me "Mommy."

Now I'm getting worried.

About her.

Okay, and about me. Maybe a little.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Bring it.

Set me on fire, will you?

Fine.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Epiphany!

It hit me last night what's so very wrong with California.

No winter makes people mean. You'd think it'd be the other way around. Californians should be the happiest people in the world.

Here's my take. People just need something to get pissed off at. Having something to get mad at is a good thing, especially if it's something you have no control over. The rest of the Continental US has to deal with stupid cold temperatures and blizzards and ice storms. Ticks 'em off. But there's nothing they can do with it. So they learn to cope, and get on with their lives. It reflects in other aspects of their lives as well.

"God grant me the strength to recognize the things I have no control over..."

So Californians have no freezing cold weather to rage at. So they get mad at each other. The culture here is very control-oriented. Money, possessions, and authority count. Image counts. Lawsuits count.

Two kids just got shot a few miles from our apartment last night. A 17 year old and an 11 year old. Driveby, no explanations. Just kids walking on the sidewalk.

If it were freaking cold here like the rest of the country, it wouldn't have happened. First, because no kids would be walking around in the stupid cold. Second, no nutjobs would want to leave the space heater long enough to go joy-gunning.

That's my theory. I don't care if it's wrong or not.

Cold people are docile people. You don't care what you look like when you're freakin' cold.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Forgot...

Man, last trip to the comic store was slim pickin's. Guess all the good comics were on Christmas vacation, too.

Got Y: The Last Man issue twenty-something. It was better than usual. I'm still falling out of love with the book, but this was a definite improvement. Pregnancy, crazy nuns, Yorick's sister dressed like a gay cowboy. Gay cowboys are the new ninjas/pirates, I guess, even if Warren
Ellis says Vikings are. Next issue: Ampersand is recognized as the newest incarnation of the Buddha, and Yorick discovers he never really liked women at all. The title becomes Y: The Last Gay Cowboy. In a world full of women, all that's left is a guy who's not interested. Oooh, irony. I swear, I started out really liking this book. Now I just want it to recover that former glory.

Err, DMZ #2. It was above average. Sniper love was an interesting concept. The child hospital scene was a bit too much. Depicting children in pain seems a little cheap to me. It's too easy a tool for evoking sympathy, too cut and dried. Am I uncomfortable with the idea of child injuries in a war zone? Absolutely. But we get enough of it on the news, I'm not looking for it in my fiction. Maybe I'd feel differently if I knew that Brian Wood had spent a few months in a war zone, and was speaking from experience. Right now, it's like a bit like talking to a grad student who's living in his mom's basement telling me about civil rights violations in China. It's disingenuous. Innocent casualties are bad. Fictional innocent casualties are fictional. 'Nuff said. Other than that the book has potential. It's Transmetropolitan in a war zone, only not nearly as funny.

Walking Dead Script Book. Haven't read it yet, but I'm excited about it. I love reading scripts. I like writing scripts. I'm trying to learn to love writing scripts. Seeing the nuts and bolts from my favorite comics is delicious.

And that's it.

I'm itching for more Desolation Jones, Fell, etc. Maybe next trip.

Excelsior, or whatever.

I don't know what happened...

but I seem to have suddenly moved to Seattle. Or another place where it rains a lot.

So it's rainy.

No real New Year's resolutions here, but I did set some long term goals. Seems like resolutions are at the peak of their notoriety this year. Bring up resolutions, and people look like they've been picked by jury duty. I don't think people hate resolutions, I think people just hate falling short of their expectations.

Set goal, comply for a short while, then fail miserably. Wait one year. Rinse, repeat.

Maybe the only goal to have is to make every day New Years. Man, does sound sooo Lifetime Channel. "Maybe if we ALL make every day like Christmas..." Geez, shoot me in the head, please.

So my goals aren't changed, really, they're the same goals as all year. However, I am changing my daily routine to accommodate those goals. So there's your change.

Happy Freakin' New Year.

SHUT UP!

I don't care what you say.

Alien Loves Predator is the pinnacle of online entertainment.

Just shut up. You can't change my mind.