MovieMans Mental Musings and Other Natural Flavors

And so it goes...

2012-01-15T19:53:00.000-06:00

Sooo the Packers lost in the post season in fine fashion. Defeating themselves more than the other team beating the. The Giants wanted it more, plain and simple. I think our team does better as the underdogs then as the top dog. Many teams do. It makes them more hungry. Plus Packers didn't bring their A-game to be sure , but still the season was a lot of fun.
Now though is the time that test true fans versus the bandwagon fans. I loved my Packers when they went 6-10 and love them now. Many won't
OTHERS will say "Well Brett got them to 2 super Bowls back to back." Sure he did but then he lost horribly to Denver. Then how many post season games did we lost because Brett made a Bone headed play. DID people really forget about those last min interceptions on throws that never had to be made.
Its human nature for seeing the top dog fail. From the financially successfull to the celebrity that is successful, to the sports team that is successful. There is so much fascination for humans to watch more successful humans fail its no wonder we don't have more people striving to be better. If you are you will get hated and shunned and insulted. In this world it seems better to be mediocre than to be great.
Its really no wonder we are where we are as a species but back to football.
I am very happy with the Packers they way they performed 90% of the season. I have respect for the teams that play against the Packers. I wish the Giants well.
As for the Packers. They can make another run. In this Day and age the NFL and their free agency system makes it a miracle any teams can be successful for more than a couple years, Packers have had a very good run this decade and I hope for many more. Meanwhile we have to just put up with the name calling and the Haters because they were happy to see a top dog fail. Yet when their team becomes top dog will we do the same insulting and nasty name calling. I won't, unfortunately I cannot speak for my other Packer Fan friends.
People seem to foget that when all is said and done, its just a game. There will be others.

Hi 2012

2012-01-01T11:30:00.000-06:00

And so begins another year. This time every year we make resolutions that 90% of the time are broke by March. Its just human nature. This year though I really want to try and hold to my resolutions. I am going to make this the year of creativity. Write more, work on more videos and hell even shoot a short movie. Work on making my work room more studio-ish and try some new ideas that have been collecting dust Big goals? Well outside of the short movie, no.
On the personal front there are goals of play with the kids more, be a better husband and the traditional lose some extra poundage. Again definitely do-able.
With this being a year of Elections I plan to be a more informed voter and I also plan not to get into heated political discussions. These might be a bit tougher to hold to as I do tend to get passionate about things I believe in but its definitely something I can do.
Course there might be people out there who throw everything out the window figuring this is the last year of the human race. I hope most people that read this do not believe that. Its just not true.
New Years is a time of reflection and renewal. Now of course you can try and change things during the year, you don't have to wait until Jan 1st but it is nice to have a hard set reset day. One you can really mentally prepare yourself on the coming year and remember the things you have done right and wrong prior. Hopefully we can learn from these experiences to make sure they either do not happen again or build on the positive.
This past year had its ups and downs but I made some new friends, went on a number of family trips (probably more than we had before) that I think help bond our family a little closer together, and had more more ideas for projects. Good things to build on.
Things to learn from are still my ever present problem of being my own worst critic and stopping myself from doing something for fear of failure.
2012. The reset button has been pressed and who know what events the New Year holds for me and my family but whatever it brings, I feel I am ready for it. Never to late to change.

Heroscape Battle Me vs Honorable Son #2 aka How I spent my afternoon

2011-11-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

Team Me:

Syvarris
Major Q10
Raelin the Kyrie Warrior
Marro Stingers
Sonlen
Nikita Agents
Zettian Guards

Team Son#2:

Marro Warriors
Airborne Elite
Krav Maga Agents
Agent Carr
Venom
Iron Man

The Battlefield (designed by Son #2)

After our warriors took the field Son # 2 Got to move first. His Agents moved out first along with his Marror warriors and Agent Carr. On our side,Syvarris lead the Marro Stingers out with the Major Q10 bringing up the rear.

The bridge was insight and with the group we had we were sure to reach the High Bridge first but luck was not on our side for in the next round Son #2 gained the advantage and managed to deploy his Airborne. There was no mistake where the Airborne were to land. All four landed on the High Bridge and now Son # 2 was in control of it. The airborne moved swiftly and it was not long before they managed to take out the Major and severly wound Syvarris. Meanwhile Son #2 agents took up positions on either flank as his Agent Carr made his way to the High Bridge.

Sonlen and Raelin joined in the fight but for the Major it was too late. The Airborne were able to strike first and took him out. Raelin no sooner got to the Marro warriors and Syvarris to help with their defense before she was too was gun down by the airborne. Syvarris and Sonlen did their best to draw the fire of the Airborne who continued to hold the bridge with their advantage in height as the Stingers moved up behind a nearby wall.
Syvarris managed to pick Airborne off but not before taking another hit. One of the Marror Stingers fell to the Airborne rifles. At this time the Zettain guards had moved up and managed to strafe the bridge, dropping another Airborne. One of the agents in a flanking position on one of the connected islands took out a Stinger.

When it looked as if the ranks of the Airborne were thinning and we could possibly take the bridge. The enemies Marror warriors had managed their way to the bridge and reinforced the one lone airborne unit left. Syvarris continued his double attack from the ground trying to pick off the newly arrived enemy units as the last two Stingers went for the agents. The Zettian Guards provided cover but their attack is weak and they had little affect. Sonlen managed to kill a wounded Agent Carr with his baby dragon. One of the Stingers managed to kill another agent while the other tried to shoot from afar at Venom, who was about to climb the ladder to the top bridge. Venom swung out of the way before taking damage.

The battle continued to rage.

Syvarris held tight to a pillar and managed to take out the last enemy agent as the Zettian guards and a very wounded Sonlen took out Venom but not before the last of the Stingers were dropped and one of the Nikitas fell.

The enemy was able to occasionally reinforce their Marro ranks with their dang water cloning ability and Son #2s excellent dice rolling skills. One of the respawned Marrors dealt the killing shot to Syvarris. After a long hard battle we finally got up that damn ladder. With only 2 Zettian guards, 2 Nikitas, and Sonlen with his baby Dragon we took that bridge. It looked as if the battle was nearly won, that was until Son #2 pulled out his final unit, Iron Man. Our guards heavy armor made it easy to hold the ladder on to the bridge but their attacks had little affect. Sonlen managed to get Iron Man on the ropes and down to a sliver of health but the Superhero fought back, he took out a Zettian Gaurd and then flew up next to Sonlen.

At this range the Smoke screen of the Nikitas could do nothing to protect Sonlen and he fell to the hand of Iron Man, as did the last Nikita. Luck was fortunate enough on our side that the Marros had stopped spawning. Which left Iron Man, one Marro Warrior and our Zettian Guard.

In a last desperate effort the Zettian Guard with his weak attack managed to some how hit a weakness in the armor of Iron Man. The superhero fell into the water below the bridge. The Guard slowly made his way to the last Marro Warrior, the one who had stayed back to spawn reinforcements. He managed one more clone but it fell to the Guard.

Finally after 2 and a half hours of heated battle, the Zettian guard managed to take high ground and with his long range made the final shot and stood alone on the bloody battlefield. Team Me was victorious.

Damn kids are really getting good at these games.

We made our own political bed.

2011-07-25T21:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry to say it but the reason washington is the way it is and the reason the country is the way it is, is because we made it that way. Some may say "Well I didn't!" but you did. The government is designed to serve the people and the country but it no longer does. Our elected officials stopped serving the country many decades ago. They serve thier party. They work for the benefit of appeasing their party. Not the people. But it makes sense as party is where the money is at.
Regardless of which side of the aisle they sit, it boils down to money.
Why? Because we the people allowed it.
How? By staying a divided people. By staying uninformed. By being sheep.
Again you may say, I am not a sheep. I look at both sides of the argument to make a decision and thats you. congratulations. Unfortunately you are not the majority.

The world has grown up but we have not as a country. If anything we have returned back to our infancy. Where we take the childish stance that if someone belongs to a different party than you do that you completely refuse anything that person says to you. Even if that person is right. That's the current state of congress. You have both sides posturing. Both thinking not of their constituants but how they will look to their party and the people that hold their money. If our elected officials actually made decisions and had civil discussions about what is wrong with our country and work together to fix it. This country would be the top leader and a model for other countries to follow.

We use to be that. Not any more. To the world our government looks more like abunch of school kids where the bullies reign and the other just follow behind. I have read where people are saying the president is taking our money or squeezing us or whatever. REALLY? Now I am not saying he is not innocent to the whole thing but to put the blame solely on him is well where we are getting it wrong. Its our whole political body that is to blame. A system where money guides the politicians, not the will of the people. So don't just blame the President, its too easy.

Harder part is to blame our elected officials. Why? BECAUSE THE MAJORITY VOTED FOR THEM. Hell no one likes being wrong and if we blame our elected officials, well then we have to blame ourselves as a country. President tried to get things done but the right voted party line on anything that had his name on it. Nearly everything. Just because he was a democrat. The Right won the last election because "the Left just didn't get done what needed to be done" , at least in some peoples eyes. But what did the Right do? Shove every policy on thier wish list through. To hell with the people. "We reign and the money men want this so I will give it to them so I have funding for my next election." Wisconsin is a prime example of that.
What funny is if the Left did the same thing then the Right would have complained about their actions, though as we see its something the republicans themselves would do.

Even now we have posturing. "well he likes it so I will dislike it. I don't care if it will help the people and keep the country from defaulting. He likes it so I hate it. He won't agree to ALL of our terms so I won't agree to any of his terms. Cause if I do someone may think I agree with him and if they do that I won't get my money for re election." This goes for both sides.

Again though this is just a reflection of the people. The world has changed alot quicker than our country has. We have people who will vote republican/democrat solely on the fact that they were republican/democrat and their were republican/democrat. Nevermind where those candidates stood on issues. Nevermind that they voted for because some special interest group who believes it in helped fund their last campaign.

It would be amazing what we would accomplish if we could think for ourselves as a nation but we have grown this environment where he who has the most money controls our elected officials. We did this by believeing the mud slinging and rehetoric of those who paid for the most advertising. Now when I say we I mean we as a country, I know of many individuals who do not beleive in such things but it is a minority in comparison to the country as a whole.

Look everyone we only have ourselves to blame for the state of being. So before we decided to blame washington for our woes, we first have to take a hard look at ourselves and realize we as a country are too blame. After all we put them there.

Things I learned while on a School Field Trip to Mt Olympus.

2011-06-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

- I no longer Tan. I burn. I use to tan when I was younger. I mean hardly ever burned. Now I burn. We has spray on sunblock and I used it all on Son#1 through out the day. Better he not burn than me.

- All new pop rock songs for some reason have a repeating phrase such as "Just come on and come on " or "na na na " whatever. I mean every single song is like the artist has a stutter. I also could tell which were the popular songs as all the 5th graders new the words course fifth grade girls singing Rihanas S&M radio edit is a bit disturbing.

- It is legal to sell a single bottle of beer for 7 dollars in Wisconsin WTF

- Did I mention I sunburn now.

- That Mt Olympus truly does mean No Carry Ins. They searched every kids bag and pulled any food or beverage items from their bags. I mean they pulled it all. Full lunches to sodas to juice boxes. We did have a lunch ticket as part of the field trip that entitled us to a hot dog and bun with a small cup of soda and some potato chips. Heat Index of a hundred and they were pulling kid's beverages.

- Apparently Lazy river means run with the tube through the Lazy river over and over again as fast as you can. Or form a Lazy river blockade with two tubes so no one can pass. LAZY RIVER means to just float and possibly fall as sleep.

- Green screen Photos as well as videos are the norm now in every place in The Dells.

- Did I mention I sun burn now instead of tan.

Only 1 Week until TRIVIA!!

2011-04-01T08:34:00.000-05:00

Yep its only week until the most exceiting weekend in central wisconsin. TRIVIA 42: I LOVE TRIVIA. Has to be one of my most favorite times of the year , if not the most.

For the few who may not have heard of it allow me to expand your knowledge.
TRIVIA is a contest that is held here in little old Stevens Point. It is a fundraiser for the totally student run Radio Station here on campus. Teams pay a registration fee to get a team number so they can play the contest. There is also mechandise a plenty to buy.
Basically from 6pm on a Friday to Midnight that Sunday, yes 54 hours straight, trivia questions are read on air. Then teams have usually the length of two songs (sometimes one or three depending on the types of questions that hour) to call in give their number and the answer. The songs are usually older songs due to their shorter length. You don't get any Meatloaf songs during Trivia :) Now these questions can be on ANYTHING. From What is Harry Calahan's Badge number? to who won the long distance jump in the 1954 olympic games, etc.
Anyway points for the questions are then determined by how many teams call in correctly. There is a formula but it escapes me at the moment.

Along with the hourly questions , there are Music questions in which snippits of 8 songs are spliced together and a team has to decide what songs are in with in the music track. Now when I say Snippits I do mean snippits, we are talking anywhere from a short group of notes to a single drum beat that has just enough there to distinguish it from other drum beats from other songs.

There are also the running questions , one on Saturday and one on Sunday, which are basically scavanger hunts of sorts. Teams gather in a location in town , i believe its downtown on Saturday morning and then a different location on Sunday morning. They are then given a list with certain things to find, such as "What poster is displayed on the door of the Tech Cafe?" . You Get points for how many you get right. Again it is based off of how many people answer correctly. You get the idea. But wait that's not all.

There are also the Trivia Stones. This is where teams are given directions on how to get to a certain location. There are groups of directions that are read on the radio. These directions eventually guide you to a number of locations where you can get your book stamped. Again you get points for the stamp. Now when I say directions I am not talking about "Go three blocks to Division street and turn left." no we are talking about directions like "From where you are now, turn left, go past the big fish, the bike and the waffle house, now turn right." You get the idea.

Some of the questions involve pictures that are featured in the New Trivia Times, a booklet you get at the time you register your team. These pictures can be of ANYTHING and ANYONE. alot of times they are just a logo or a head shot/ glamour shot of an actor or actress. That's all your given until the time of the contest when the question is asked about it. You are given the week to try to find out as much as possible about those pictures, which trust me aint easy.

Trivia is 54 hour of sleep deprived organize chaos and what are you playing for? Mostly a big trophy and bragging rights. The Point (pardon the pun) of the contest is to have fun. Speaking of fun there is also a Trivia Parade On the Friday starting at 4 oclock. Its meant to be a warm up for the contest and also a chance for teams to show themselves to the rest of the world. Teams build floats for the parade that are as simple as a car displaying their team name to a viking boat to a Pirate Ship (that one was ours one year, I loved that ship, it was Macy's worthy) The floats are judged and the top three get a gift of pizzas or some other such item. Not points involved, just shear fun.

There is one more even I almost forgot about and its happening this weekend. The weekend before trivia there is the trivia movie. It is meant to be a kick off for the week leading up to the contest and the movie could be anything. As you may have guessed questions based off of movie are asked during the contest so its a good reason to go to it.

So if you are not doing anything the weekend of the 8th, 9th and 10th drift on through point, head to the bottom of the radio dial 89.9 and listen to what is one of the best times of the year. Trivia Time.

Politics, Politics and well damn I did it again.

2011-02-21T20:10:00.005-06:00

You know when I vote for a politician to get into office I vote because I believe they may make a difference and Believe that they will do what is best for the people. How Naive I am.

Most politicians nowadays don't serve the people, they serve the Party they belong too which isn't the same thing. If it were I think there would be alot more cross aisle cooperation. I maybe Naive here but its what I believe. Also it is not exclusive to one party or the other, both are guilty though the Republicans do have alot more examples of it.

Party Line Voting does not serve the people! To vote on a matter the same as the rest of your group without consulting the people is well irresponsible of our elected officials. When I say people I do mean people and not companies or lobbyists.

Party Line voting may show unity of a party but again its showboating alot of times and it provides an opportunity for a politician to avoid taking a hard look at the issue to see if how they vote will truely serve the people in the long run, not the short run. A very good example is the current political environment in Wisconsin. The Republican reps there are going to vote for the bill regardless of whats in it because our Republican Govenor put the bill together and heaven forbid they go against him. Should they do that their GOP backers may pull out or worse Walker will target them for some form of Backlash. He would do it too.

People pick on the Wisconsin 14 saying they aren't doing their job and are avoiding the situation. Thats quite the opposite. These 14 by far are showing more backbone than most of the Democrats in office have shown in ages. They are facing potential political ruin when all is said and done. They are doing this because they are serving the people. They are slowing down the process so there can be discussion, so the things hidden in the Bill can be negotiated or removed entirely. They are doing it so democracy can actually be practiced.

There is supposed to be debate, there are supposed to be questions, there is supposed to be a dialog between two sides that can come to an agreement that will best serve all the people.
The stance that Govenor Walker has taken is "Well as long as you agree with me, then I am open to discussion." That is not democracy.

Yes they have the majority because more people voted for them. There is also the fact that special interest groups were able to stuff buckets full of cash in their pockets to basically buy an election and hence buy the politician and his vote. Should he actually stray from the path they want him on they will not support him in the next election.

Some would say, the groups didn't pay people to vote for the republicans, the people chose it themselves. I would have to disagree with that. I will use Star Trek as an example. Before you laugh stay with me a moment.

In one episode Picard was captured and held hostage. During his ordeal he had four lights in front of him yet his captor told him there were five. This involved alot of yelling and yes some torture. This continues for days and days before Picard was rescued but at the end of the episode he admits he saw five lights.

Now while the Republicans did not torture the people. They did yell, and yell and yell and saturated every possible media with their "vote for me, I am for you" message and the like. They were able to Yell a lot louder and a Lot more often than the democrats because the Republicans had a hell of a lot more money to saturate all forms of media with their message. Repition was the key. Since they were able to put their message everywhere and often it soon got people to believe what they were saying was true, whether it really was or not. They continued to bombard us with their message and they were able to convince many people there were 5 lights, in other words, that they were for us. Thats how they gained the majority.

Does this mean we agree with everything their party represents, no not at all because people weren't voting for the party , well I hope they weren't again I am probably being Naive, they were voting for the person who they thought was for the people. Unfortunately the person being voted into office took it as "Hey the people are voting for our party we can do whatever our party wants us to do without question." That's not democracy.

These are just my thoughts.
You know again here I am trying to talk politics. Sorry. I did that at work today and I did not present my case the best. Slap my hand Jim and Jill.

The State of Things

2011-02-17T21:00:00.002-06:00

SO after 2 hours of thinking of something to say about politics and the current powder Kegger party known as Wisconsins Budget Fix bill I have decided not to write anything.

I mean I had many paragraphs and descriptions of my opinions on each section of the Bill which I actually read. Pretty extreme stuff in there. Alot of it going against the very foundation that much of the labor force of the state was built on. There had to be a better way to go about it then what our governor did but what do I know I am just a common man.

Politics is such an explosive subject nowadays I try to avoid it all together. EVERYONE has an opinion and are more than willing to give it to you. Tonight has been exhausting trying to come up with what I want to say without stoking fires that are out there. So I stay quiet and will let my vote speak for me come election time.

But thats the State of Things right now, exhausted. I can tell you I am exhausted of our politicians from any aisle not getting their heads out of their political party asses and start asking the people who put them there what they should focus on next. Some Politicians have it go in one ear and out the other, some promise to act but when the time comes never actually do because it could possibly go against their Party, and then there are the Politicians who tell you what is best for you and don't give a damn what you think is best for you.

So I will just say this. If the politicians from any side of the aisle don't start looking past their party line or even more past their own pocket book and begin to actually focus on the extreme issues at hand we are headed for a sad state of affairs.
Before someone tells me "But we are trying" I would argue no our politicians are not. If the Politicians were actually thinking of the people and looking beyond their party to what the people truely wanted, instead of an exhausted nation we would be a well rested one.
But what the hell do I know I am just a common man.

1 year later and Saturday Mornings

2011-02-12T07:58:00.004-06:00

So it has been over a year since I posted on this thing called a blog. Didn't realize it was that long. Anyway I decided why not knock the dust off of it and post something. So here it is.

Yep....still got nothing. But then it could be because my children decided that it was a good idea to get up at the ass crack of dawn this morning. Bright eyed and bushy tailed they sit quietly on the couch watching cartoons...on Netflix instant view...from the internet.

Saturday mornings are not what they use to be. In the 80's Saturday morning was a big deal for cartoon watching. It was something you looked forward too all week because there were certain cartoons that only played that morning and at no other time during the week. It was a must attend event. Hell in the 80's they would have a prime time show in early fall specifically promoting the upcoming Saturday morning cartoons that would be playing for that season. I never missed one of those. It was a show specifically for me. My how times have changed.

Nowadays those cartoons that play on Saturday morning network TV can be accessed at anytime during the week via the intarwebs. The cartoon viewing time has also seemed to shorten on MOST channels. More important though is that the Saturday morning cartoon block of shows are not so important.

Saturday morning cartoons now are just there. They have lost their luster I think. At least from what I have observed from my children. Perhaps they are the exception but I don't think so. We now live in a culture where entertainment is at your finger tips 24/7. I can at least enjoy the fact that my kids use Netflix to watch the cartoons I grew up with rather than the latest version of Yu Gi Oh or some variation.

I am not saying this is a bad thing at all. Its the old cliche "Times have Changed" and I accept that. I just miss the magic that was Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Dog Day of the Dead -- "The Day"

2010-01-21T21:42:00.004-06:00

"The Day" started out, like well, every other day before it. I got up out of my bed and stretched the limbs. Then after a brief stop in the bathroom for a refreshing drink, I headed to Sally's room. When I entered her room I was sad at the sight of her still made bed. Normally the bed is very unkept and, at this time of the morning, containing a half sleeping girl. That's when I remembered she had been at summer camp for the last four days and that day was the day she was supposed to be returning to us. The thought of this got my tail waggin, if you can really call it a tail, its more like a stump ever since that bicycle accident when I was three. I still jump everytime I hear a bicycle bell ring. I had wanted to just lay next to Sally's bed until she returned but remembered did have a morning duty to perform.

I ran down the stairs and out my special dog door. I call it my special dog door, not only because I am the only one who could go through it , but because there is a small wooden board that is hung above it that has my name painted on it. "Chesterfield" was stenciled in a beautiful shade of grey along with a couple of flowers on either end of the name. Sally made it for me a few summer camps ago. It made me smile everytime I saw it. What didn't make me smile was the smell that hit my nose when I reached the outside.

I didn't really notice it until I went to pick up the paper. A breeze blew in the right direction and the aroma of death was so foul, it made me drop the paper I had just picked up in my mouth. I nearly puked. The morning air was filled with more than a foul stench. I had been so focused on my thoughts about Sally's return and getting the paper, I didn't pay attention to what my ears were hearing at first. With the distraction of the smell of death filling my nose, my attention returned to the present and thats when I realized the neighbor hood was very noisy. There were sounds of car alarms and sierns coming from everywhere. At one point I thought I heard an explosion in the distance. Fear slowly started to reach its icy cold hands around my neck. I immediately shook it off and went into protection mode. Something was happening in the "not good" category and I was damned if I was going to let whatever it was into my yard. I abandoned the paper to patrol the area.

Like many of the houses on our block, a 5 foot high wooden fence bordered our land. The fence was stained just that spring and the smell from the fresh stain helped mask the smell of death, at least a little. With nose to the ground, I walked the perimeter checking to see if anyone or anything had come into my yard. I heard something thud against the front gate as I passed it. I stopped and waited to see if it had been my imagination. Thats when I heard the thud again. It sounded as if someone were bumping up against it over and over again. From where I was I could not see over the fence so I moved to the porch to see if I could see what was trying to get in. It was at that moment I saw my first "changed".

It was Charles, our paper boy though the term boy didn't seem to fit him since he was a freshman in High school and already over 6 feet tall. He was usually being followed by at least one or two females but on "The Day" I think they would have wanted to be as far away from him as possible. The baseball cap he always wore was tilted to one side and very dirty, his hair was a mess and his eyes were cloudy white. His neck had a huge gash in it. The blood from the wound had since dried but you could still see the muscles where the skin was missing. His arms were limp and swayed as he continued to walk into the fence. He just kept walking. Step-bump-step-bump. I had never seen such thing before, it creeped me the hell out.

Dog Day of the Dead

2010-01-15T20:21:00.003-06:00

I miss playing catch out at the Park. Frisbee, tennis ball, hell any stick would do. Sally and I would go to the Big Field and play there for hours. The Trees stood tall along the Field's edge and if the wind blew just right they sounded as if they were speaking to you. Occasionally a squirrel would venture from its tree sanctuary, out into the field, only to be chased by me back to its home. It's not like I ever intended to catch the little bastards, they were just fun to chase and let me tell you, we springer spaniels love the chase. Sure we had squirrels at home too but there wasn't as much running room and a lot of times the squirrels there would sit on top of the fence, just out of reach, and mock you, shake their little furry asses in your direction and even hit you with their nuts, little bastards. Park squirrels were more respectful. I would like to believe that they enjoyed being chased as much as I enjoyed chasing them. More than chasing the Park squirrels and the trees, and playing catch, I loved the smell of the grass.

The grass at the Park had such a magnificent fragrence to it, I would sometimes I would just lay in it and breath deep, let its wonderful aroma fill my nose as I watched Sally with her parents Tim and Maria enjoy a picnic in the sun. The grass smell was so perfect it would sometimes even put me to sleep where I would dream of chasing squirrels through the clouds. With each breath of grass air, I would float higher and higher in the sky until I was drifting in a sea of delicious aromatic bliss. Today the grass smells like shit.

Actually shit smells better than the Park grass does today and let me tell you I have smelled a lot of shit in so I would know. The smell of death has erased the beautiful essence of the grass that I use to enjoy so much. It's not just at the Park either. Nope I would say that there isn't a place in this whole damn city that didn't smell of death, or worse, but then again this is no surprise considering how many of the walking dead are, well walking about. They just spend their entire day and night walking, I always wondered where they thought they were going. Phil, he's the oldest of our group and one of the craftiest son of a bitches I have ever met, but then again it should come as no surprise considering he's a raccoon, anyway Phil thinks they are on the search for food. Lucky enough for us it appears they only care for the taste of human flesh. Oh my dog! I am sorry I forgot to introduce Phill and Crow and FiFi and "The Day" and... tell you what, if you would allow me the courtesy, I would like to back up my little tail to when it all started. It has become known among most of us as "The Day".

The Doctor is dead, Long live the Doctor

2010-01-02T14:55:00.002-06:00

So I finally got to seeing both parts of the End of Time and On the whole I was actually surprised that it was better then expected. Now I will try not to give away spoilers just in case any Dr Who fans actually read this and have not watched the End of Time yet. Lets weigh in the best we can shall we.

Part One:

Part one was a little more of your standard Davies episodes. It was one of those that you saw most of it coming due to the trailers for the episodes. The way they had the Master return (again in the trailer) I thought was a bit of a stretch but any chance to see Simm back in that character is fine by me. This episode really had more of the Davies Finale type of feel which isn't exactly bad BUT isn't exactly good either. The one problem I have always had with Davies writing is the scale he feels he almost has to have everything on. It's so huge and always involving like the entire planet...while dramatic and epic as this is, it almost has become a cliche by now. We get some excellent dialog and, between the Davies epic moments, their are some fantastic bits of conversation and well you can tell Tennant put in his all in this part. The cliffhanger caught me as a surprise as well. In all a better than average story for Mr. Davies even with his rather cliche Epicness. The cameo of a certain actor was great as well.

Part 2:

Talk about you snow ball traveling down hill. Things just continue to ramp up as this episode went on, in a good way. This is definitely an episode where you have to really pay attention to the dialog. I suggest you do your bathroom breaks ahead of time because if you lose your focus on this episode you could lose a lot of exposition. This episode is truely a tie up episode not just for the story from part 1 but basically manny of the Davies story archs. Where the performances were decent in part 1 , part 2 was just fantastic. Tennant and the crew put their all into this episode and it was really a solid piece of work. There were alot of moments where you think they are going to do something and then they actually take it in a different and better direction. There are some subtle items addressed in this episode that give some foundation for future story archs. Tennant delivers a fantastic bit of monolog and I got misty. The event that actually causes the generation was a surprise but it made a lot of sense for the way this Doctor has always been portrayed and it again made me misty eyed.

While watching Part 1 I was a bit worried about the direction the finale was going to take but Part 2 really helped create a solid story worthy of Tennants send off.
Not only that but some how they managed to end it in a way that I really want to see the next doctor in action. In just a few minutes my doubts kind of dissolved and I can't wait for the next season.

Enjoying the little things.

2009-12-01T16:38:00.003-06:00

I haven't blogged in months only because I have been focusing on my Final Cut projects and that we are in full swing at the part time job, and the holidays and well you get the point. Anyway I just share just another example of how small the world wide web has made the world...in a good way.

A while ago I did a review of the movie OC Babes and the Slasher of Zombietown. It was a What the Frak! film which I try to feature weekend budget, under ground, or just plain weird b-movies. This one was a doozy and I really kicked it through the dirt. Well just last week I get a comment on the video post I did and it basically said that it was a good review and how most people just say they hated it, but my review was well thought out, etc. I was surprised at the compliment on a review that basically said the movie was bad with bad frosting. Turns out the comment on my video came from the writer and director of the movie. Talk about your small world.
Now I know its not like George Lucas or anything but I thought it was really cool to hear from the actual maker of the movie. I messaged back and forth a little and he told me a short "making of " story about the movie and the problems they ran into. Also why some of the things looked the way they did.

Needless to say I was giddy the rest of the day and thinking about it now still brings a smile to my face. It also has helped keep me motivated to doing what I have been doing with the Final Cuts and also start putting some true effort behind my bigger planned projects. Who know maybe he will be a resource I can turn to later on. It is indeed a small world.

bloaaarrg!!!

2009-10-24T21:51:00.004-05:00

Ok so I am walking down the street the other day. Now when I say day I really mean night and by street I mean ally. Anyway I walked past a half open doorway and I see two rather hot women making out...or at least I thought they were making out ...damn this itches....I slowed down because you know, hey free show right, so I noticed that one seemed to be enjoying it more than the other. The one faceing me seemed to have this glazed, wide eyed lifeless stare and the one with her back to me was moaning in a approvement apparently of her own actions....can't stop scratchin shit maybe infected..Anyway,I noticed a pool of liquid by their feet. It ....damn that itches and hurts...Where was I oh yeah the pool. I thought maybe one of them had spilled their drink or something but then the light reflected on it and it had a reddish tint.....damn arm going numb....so I was thinking blood right. as I went to approach the couple the one who had her back to me and had been kissing the other girls neck turned around.
Now I have seen some cracy.....i mean crazy,...damn hard to concentrate...I have seen some crzy shit in my day but never seen a woman eating another womans layrnx before....I am thinking there is probably some weird person out there where thats their fetish ...now that I mentioned it, it will be a fetish site on the web...dmmit brain foggy...getting hungry to.. To make my point larynx eating hottie cam after meee. I Well I assumed sheeeee was cause of the pale skin and ...umm brains...I mean cloudy eyes and all....anyway ....damn hungry now....any she chased me...fast little bitch but I got away...shhhiitt aarrh...fuck what did I just say oh when I say got away I mean she caught me once but only biitttee my arm.....stomach reallg hurtazz hed fuzzzzzweeee.....hunnnngrrree arrrrrrrvggh btt I think shhe marrrrr ha ben zom......

Fall is definitely here

2009-10-23T07:10:00.002-05:00

Well fall came like a bat out of hell. But it usually does for Wisconsin so its not a big surprise. The leaves turned all kinds of fantastic colors which makes this place a very pretty place to live for a couple weeks before the colorful leaves decide to leave their planet tree to explore the ground that is my lawn. Its not that I do not mind raking, its a normal part of this time of year when you leave in a city that has a large amount of trees, its just the amount of raking that needs to be done.
It would be nice if the trees dropped all their leaves at once like the one tree in our backyard. One day the tree will have all of its color, the next you find the leaves all decided they had had enough and commited mass suicide, leaving the tree looking like a skinny naked old man. Wow that's a visual I didn't need. Anyway the rest of the tress around here aren't so nice, in fact they are cruel. You could rake all the leaves off your lawn mid day and by night fall they will let just enough leaves go so that it looks as if you never raked.
Don't take it like I am a lawn fanatic, I am not by a long shot, just ask my buddy Jim or the Wife. I do like having the feeling of accomplishment and the trees dropping their leaves in small batches really puts the kabosh on this feeling.
Soon snow will be here and I will be cursing myself for never taking the free snowblower that doesn't work in to have it looked at.
Snow is alot like the fall leaves. You could shovel your walk free of snow and clear of ice and you turn around to put your shovel or unbroken snowblower away and find a fine layer of snow covering where you just shoveled. Guess its the price you pay for living in midwest, but I can't imagine myself living anywhere else. Its worth the price.

Just What am I missing?

2009-10-01T23:44:00.002-05:00

OK confidence in what I do has never been my strong suit since I was a teenager. I have been doing a number of movie reviews and while they are not in depth as a Roger Ebert I hope folks find them entertaining. I could go more in depth, I can be a deep guy that is more than foreign torture movies and b-horror. So what am I missing with the movie "Girlfriend Experience".

For those of you who don't know the movie it stars Sasha Grey in her first "non porn" film. Now the fact she is a porn star and the movie is about a week in a call girl's life is not why I rented the film...ok its not TOTALLY the reason why I rented the film. I had heard a lot of good things about the movie from critic sites and it got a lot of hype at Cannes. Its a movie direct by Steven Soderbergh, the one who brought us Erin Brockovich(which I really enjoyed) and the Oceans franchise ( which I really liked the first one). It a docu film style of movie where its shot like a documentary but not a documentary which I enjoy as long as the writing is decent.
The movie scenes are shot out of order which can be a little unsettling but it does make you have to pay attention and it does give you those "A HA! so thats what happened" type of moments but on the whole I didn't think this movie was very good. All the other critics in the world seemed to disagree.
The movie definitely dates its self as the subject discussed by all of the call girl's clients is the economy . This makes sense since they are supposed to be rich guys. It is set just before the most recent election so there are alot of Obama/McCain debates discussed as well.
The problem I had with this is I have/had heard soooooooooooo many of the same damn discussions in real life that these parts of the film really turned me off to the movie. I hear enough of it during the elections and now I am getting it in the movie. Please enough.
I am all for being topical but it was monotonous in real life and it was the same in the movie.

You do really feel bad for this young girl and some of the decsions that she makes in the film but on the whole I just felt the characters were plastic and the main actress seemed bored. I know thats how her character was supposed to kind of be ...this really blocked off girl but the actress herself seemed just dulled by what she was doing.

So I will keep on keeping on and reviewing like I review, I am just wondering what I am not seeing that the critics are. Maybe its why they are the famous one I don't know.

Girlfriend experience gets one stub.

Yes folks I am crazy....but don't tell the others in my head

2009-09-30T06:46:00.002-05:00

So I have decided to do something kind of crazy. I plan on doing 5 final cuts a week BUT they are only going to be one movie each show. This gives me a little more flexibility in time which seems to help my ADHD tendencies. Now some may ask...wow that comes to 260 movies a year to review. Yeah I got plenty I can give my opinion on so no worries about running out.

I applied to a web site to be a horror movie movie reviewer for them. It would be text which is probably why they have not contacted me back. My grammar isn't the best as most, if not all of you may have noticed so that would be my downfall. I did also link them to my youtube page which may have been a mistake. I could see them worrying about me promoting myself on their web site more than reviewing a movie, not that I would do such a thing but I could see their concerb. I am going to follow up with them but I think I know their answer if they have not contacted me so far.

Which makes me think perhaps I should put forth a bit more of an effort in lookin for sites that might want movie reviewers, video or written. Maybe look up some video contests but that means showing a little more ambition than I normally do. I just know I gotta do something.
Thats why I am going to try and stick to doing so many movie reviews a week. Practice makes perfect and it will keep me motivated to want to do more. At least thats the plan

"Ah ha!" & WOW moments and slaps to the head

2009-09-14T22:43:00.003-05:00

So I am catching up on my episodes of the Fringe, which is by the way a show that definitely got better with age, the show is a lot different than it was when it began but that is a good thing. The last episode of the first season truely surprised me. I won't give away any details but there was a major "Ah ha!" moment and also a "Wow" moment. A moment I didn't see coming. Now I have never claimed to be the brightest bulb on string but usually I can catch where things are going but the show threw a curve. I liked it.

I will admit that 6th Sense caught me off guard, laugh all you want but I got so into the story I didn't really think about it. I have no problems admiting it. There have been many movies that I did figure out way before hand and while I enjoyed those movies I felt a little let down. Its not the movie's fault I had seen soo many movies that I was able to predict it.
Saw was another one of those movies that surprised me. Never saw the ending coming and neither did alot of my fellow movie maniacs. IT was a WOW moment.

The slap of the head comes from Hollywood thinking they could build a franchise off of these movies or the director thinking he had to do the same thing over again because it worked the first time. Why do they think that? I mean the more they repeat these formulas the more predictable they become which I think tarnishes the original.

6th sense wow'd and ahha'd people and the movie took off. M Knight I think then thought that was how he should make all his movies. The problem is it seemed forced with some of them and made them less of a movie than they could have been. The first Saw movie was very creative and ending out of no where, They developed a great character and brought horror to a different gory level but then they decided to rinse, wash, repeat with the next movies. Those sequels could have possibly been better had they not tried to be the same as the first.

Look I am not a major movie maker I know that. I have not made a major motion picture, but I got to think there has to be a better way to go about these movies. I understand doing a franchise and all that but who says the movie has to be the same as the first , course we the movie watching audience is a bit at guilt as well. We continue to pay for the movies because we hope the next movie will be something new and different. Nothing wrong with that I guess, we can always look at the money spent gives us the right to call a crap movie crap.

I just wish movie makers would look past the dollar signs once in a while.

Rediscovering the magic of the 1st Doctor.

2009-09-04T19:18:00.003-05:00

My wife and I have begun to watch the first Doctor who's. I Have successfully converted her to a Who fan. So much in fact she did the research to find out what Dr episodes were on DVD, and when those shows original release dates were. Then updated her netflix Q accordingly.
In watching the originals it made me realize again how actually ground breaking the series was with what was done in the way of F/X writing, characters, etc. They did some cool things with the budget they had. Now while I have watched many a series of the Doctor I am still green in the way of back story for the show. The going ons as it were. I know they worked on a limited budget, very limited and I imagine they stuck with the TARDIS being a police box because it was cheaper to use the same prop then coming up with new ones every story. Now this may not have been why they kept it a Police Box but I am sure it may have had influence.

They then write this reason into the story. What I thought was most interesting is the difference in the Doctor between the Pilot and the 1st Episode. IN the Pilot he was alot harsher, meaner and just basically alot more old cranky guy. In the 1st Episode while the Doctor still had some attiude he was lighter in tone.
We have watched "The Unearthly Child" and "The Daleks" which were still badass bad guys even back then. Its funny on how consistant they have kept their shape all these years. Again unusual for a sci fi series that has gone this long. Sure they have gotten upgrades but there really is not a huge difference between the 60s and the Aughts Dalek. I like that.
We also watch by far the two weirdest episodes, at least in my opinion, that we have seen "The Edge of Distruction" two parter.
We have started to watch the Aztecs which is shaping up. It is a shame there are so many episodes missing from that time. I even sat through the half hour material they have been able to salvage of "Marco Polo" that one would have been fantastic to see in its entirety.
I look forward to watchin more as they come in.

Alas poor ....ah skip it

2009-08-25T10:56:00.002-05:00

I am happy lately with the progress I am making with my video projects. After doing four episodes of Final cut in almost as many weeks makes me feel like I have a real project and that it is something i can keep up with. Its that damn hurdle thats always hard to get over. I have decided to just edit a whole bunch of sides before posting more or for those that may have been actually interested in the project I can send you the first final draft of the story.
I have a couple of video projects that may need to wait until next spring due to the fact they are rather involved music videos that will include props and such. Until then I keep plugging away at work and enjoy time with my family.
Turns out that I had a massive amount of vacation days left that I had to burn before the end of the year so I have planned them out. Spacing them by taking a friday and the following monday off so as to have a four day weekend and only use two days. During these days off I hope to make some progress on the video projects. I have a plan to use my time wisely. But also just have some fun veggin on games too.

Football is here

2009-08-16T12:29:00.002-05:00

Watched the first preason Football game last night of the Pack. Yes I realize it is preseason but its almost a game for the first quarter when all or most of the starters are out. This was the case last night and I was pleased with what I saw. Our Defense did well in keeping the Browns scoreless and for the first quarter when the starters were all playing, the Offense looked to be in top form. Almost gone are the talks of Favre altogether which I am happy about. Rogers is almost completely out of the shadow of the Gunslinger in the media's eyes which should help him focus even more.
The new 3-4 Defense I think is gonna work out well. The players are still finding their feet with it but overall I like the look. They have more pressure on the QB and while guys are still getting passes completed our defenders are more on top of them before.
Granted its only game one of the preseason but if it is even a little indication of what is to come. It could be a good year.
I have rather limited myself to enjoying one sport. Its not that I feel the other sports are not worth my time, baseball has become a bit more exceiting than the past but as hard as I try, I just can't seem to get into it as much as most here. As a kid I enjoyed it alot more but then again I was born and raised in Milwaukee and in the 80's the Brewers, for a short while, were the shit. They are close to that again but unfortunately they seem to stay hot until when it really counts near the end.
IF you think figuring out the playoff schedule for NFL can get complicated, Baseball is almost worse, I think its because there are so many games played that there is a lot more opportunity to screw up.
Football...your one game away from getting into the Playoffs and you have only one game to play, no problem. Baseball, your one game from the playoffs but you have 8 games to play, alot more pressure there.
I have a lot of good memories about baseball as a kid, perhaps next year I will give it a chance again. Though thats all I need is one more distraction...ooo shiny.

Long week

2009-08-07T18:56:00.002-05:00

So I saw in the new that the Wisconsin State Fair made national new for its...Chocolate covered Bacon...on a stick. I love it. Especially the idea of it. Unfortunately I will not make it down for that this year. In fact if has been a long while since I have been at the State Fair. Living up in cow hump Wisconsin its hard to make it down there well that and my workaholic habit. Anyway. Going to do a final cut tomorrow hopefully. And finally get to writing some more Sides. Its not that I do not like doing my projects. Its an engery factor and all.
Anyway look for some new stuff soon.

Turning over a leaf that's sort of new

2009-08-03T22:37:00.003-05:00

I had hoped to blog last night but alas my final cut episode took up my night, as it usually does. Not that this is a bad thing. I try not to just throw something together for the sake of posting, thats probably why it takes me longer than it should to get things up on a regular basis. Mind you I am not looking to become the next internet sensation, they come and go in the night, I would like to think I am able to gain a following of steady watchers who are brave enough to watch my projects.
I posted the final cut episode last night at like midnight and by damn if it didn't have 20+ watchers when I checked it mid day. Now the Lisa Novas, or Mr. Saftey or even the chocolate rain guy may say chump change but for me...I am happy with those numbers even if no one watches it again. I know at 20 some people took the time to at least click the link lol.
I may come out with one near the end of the week. I have been watching a lot of cult and b- movies lately so I may dedicate a show to the art of the low budget film.
I am just trying to build some consistancy in my creative well creations. Its been rough at my jobs and I it helps me escape that by doing projects I want to do instead of ones I have to do.
Anyway I also want to try and cut back and lose some weight. I am getting old and my metabolism is rebelling against me. Time to suck it up and do something about it. I am thinking I may use a tape recorder and possibly toss out ideas as I work out...mind you I do not have a work plan yet but its getting there. I want to make this new month a time when I break out of my habits and create more productive habits...course there will be a day or two a vegging ..you gotta have those.
Anyway again with the rambling. Tomorrow look for more sides . Alot more.

August first and stuff to do

2009-08-01T20:29:00.003-05:00

SIDES by Mark Krawczyk

sorry I don't have more than a couple more pages of Sides. Again Feedback is welcome.
So another month has arrived and this month for work is going to be as fraking busy as the last but whatcha gonna do.
Got to enjoy the day with some friends from Jill's side of college. It was a fun time at the park and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I unfortunately did not finish a project this week but I still have Sunday so next week I will post two. I want to do 1 a week to keep me in form on video editing and also to keep working at it to lead to the music video I want to shoot...that probably won't happen until next Spring but hopefully sooner. Lots of year left.
You know when I was in college I never pictured me being where I am at today but thats not a bad thing. In college you think you know it all....and I don't think its being college that does it, I think its just that age. Takes you a few years to realize you know nothing and that what you have done up until that point has been preperation for what is yet to come. Life is always changing and you can either be accepting to change or resistant to it. We naturally are resistant to change because it takes us out of our comfort zone but it is something that needs to happen to keep us going in life and to keep us out of the rut we usually put our selves in. I know there are some things I need to change and I plan on doing it over the next month or two. Its something that I must accept rather than resist If I want to accomplish what I want to. These next months will be interesting .

Also I have made my first of what will be many Movie reviews on the MovieMans Manic Movie Musings. Check it out if you get a chance.

Look up in the sky....

2009-07-29T18:40:00.002-05:00

You know no one looks up anymore and I think they should. Now before the wiseass remarks come in , I am not talking about looking up when driving, or walking, or operating heavy machinery etc. I am talking about at times say on your break if you are able to go outside or even when leaving work.
I try to do this everytime I leave work. Its amazing how relaxing it is. Especially on sunny days...not so much on rainy days but still. We plow ahead through life constantly looking forward, gotta get to the car, gotta get home, etc. I think we get tunnel vision and forget how big the world out there really is and how small our part is.
I am sure I have written about this subject before but I felt like bringing it up again because of how stressful things have become at my job as of late. I come out of the building still wound up by the days events but if I just stop , look up and at times take a deep breath, much of the day melts away.
Anyway I just wanted to say that maybe everyone should just stop and not smell the roses but instead look up. Unless its high noon in which case you may want to wear your shades before you do it.

What to write hmmm

2009-07-26T21:22:00.003-05:00

I have been very neglectful to my blog but its nothing personal to it. Just busy. In a good way, Last week I finished an episode of my Final Cut Movie review show I use to do on YouTube. I broke away from it for about a year or so. Not sure why just did. But now I am a bit older, wiser and through lonely trooper a little more experienced I dare say in doing a short show. Anyway I have gotten good feed back from it and plan on doing one a week at least. It is after all a show about something that I just don't shut up about. Movies.
The challenge is that I want to present it like a real show but don't want it too long for it is a youtube audience who are looking for short bits.
I also try to do it like a real show...well as real as I can make it with the production tools I have. I don't want it to just be a "Yeah I am in front of my web cam here's what I think." I am striving for the show to be a little bit different. I get soo passionate about movies and I want to convey that through the show...share some of it. The first episode went well and I think I was able to reach my goal. Hopefully I can achieve that every week. I am always looking for feed back and have gotten good stuff back from those who have watched it. I have graphics in there but they look rather primative because well I have not the experience or the equipment to make really cool graphics. Mostly the expereince. So here's hoping I can keep it going. This I then hope will help build momentum to lead to doin other video projects. We will have to see. All I know Is I need to do something to help keep my work work from over taking me.
Anyway I have rambled long enough
I will say this Puberty was very kind to Hermonie Granger.

Misery and Woe = Torchwood

2009-07-21T21:11:00.002-05:00

Ok so I just realized that in the last 20 days I blogged 4 times. I just thought I had my birthday but it was two weeks ago already. Anyway I gotta work on that, among other things. Though I did acomplish one thing and that was watch the entire Torchwood series as it is so far. We had the privelage of watching the BBC releases. I know they are currently being showed in the US so I will not give away spoilers. I will say this. Russell T Davies knows Misery and woe and man do his characters suffer because of it.
Torchwood, the more mature doctor who spin off, has always seemed to be about misery and woe. Every episode though had been resolved ended up in some part of it being very bitter sweet, teetering on the unbearable.
Now we get a 5 part miniseries that takes it up a notch. I will say this about the miniseries is probably some of the best written episodes written for the show. On the other hand Russell T Davies pisses me off. Almost as much as he did with the Doctor Who Series. Please please please don't get me wrong , I love the fact that he managed to bring the franchise back AND write it in a way to where it wasn't just for geeks anymore. But the scope at which he liked to do some of his episodes really make you go "Oh Come On." I know I have commented on this before when I talked about the last Doctor who episode he wrote for season 4.
This man has a thing about having his characters unhappy. Now I am all for grit and dirt and yes even misery and woe with the characters I fall in love with in shows I watch but for fuck sake I also love when the after they go such things they get a happy ending for all the crap they suffered. Instead they just get more crap. I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, the new gritty no holds barred version that came out but damn even those characters sometimes got a happy ending to their episode.
Davies just didn't seem to want to do that with the shows he did . I won't tell you if he has changed his ways or not for the 5 part miniseries. I will just say he pisses me off and not just now but has for a while.
I know they are his characters and yada yada but come on a show is supposed to make you forget your misery and woe in real life for a while....not add to it.

Anyway thats all I got. Still recovering from the series and hope they make more Torchwood. Now I just gotta wait for the Sara Jane Adventures to start up again.

Been gone awhile

2009-07-20T15:54:00.003-05:00

Hi all. Can't believe I have not posted in almost two weeks. I had been doing so well until now. But it is that time of year . Busy busy busy. I had a good birthday. everyone invited showed up surprisingly and people didn't die from my cooking so all is well.
So whats been going on the last two weeks...work work work work work ...sleep torchwood work.
Yeah that about sums it up. Work has been running me ragged this month. So much so that when I get home my mental energy level is nil and about all I have the energy to do I enjoy some TV time with the wife or kids... Mostly the wife.
I work too much and I know it. I have an excess of vacation days and running out of months to use them. We just lost a guy in our dept. so time off will be even harder. The workaholic in me that I have managed to subdue is all for this while the rest of me goes "oh boy!".
I have been working on some more sides and will post soon. And once again I make the promise of doing the movie review show this week. One of these weeks I will actually do it. along with other projects in the wings. Ah well thats enough mental dump for the day. I know I am probabyl repeating myself but when you do nothing but work there ain't a whole lot to say.

Busy week kinda

2009-07-08T10:18:00.002-05:00

LAst week I was so fried that I vegged all weekend. Even had a whole day where I was not on the computer. Instead I read through the Stephen King Novel Cell....interesting book. It caught me right away and I was compelled to see it all the way through. Its a lighter read for King but still had the gore and carnage of his other horror books. I also went to the fireworks with the kids.It's taken me a long time to enjoy fireworks again. I think it was having the kids be interested in it the helped me get over them.
Saw Transformers 2....and that's all I have to say about that ...for now. I will be reviewing the movie in full tonight as I finally record a Final Cut episode. Plus I am going to start populating the Moviemaniac's Manic Movie musings with some past reviews and such. Not that I will get a lot of hits and I doubt I will become an internet movie review sensation...there are so many nowadays. But its something to just share my opinions on movies to those who are interested.

The kids are at camp for the next four days. I am sure they are having fun. House is almost too quiet with out them. On one hand its great but on the other hand their is that "something is missing feeling".

And tomorrow I turn ....34!!!!! The day is unavoidable so I guess I should just face it like a good soldier.

Short but ....ok just short.

2009-07-03T22:25:00.002-05:00

Had a plesent day off. Not really productive at all but I guess a day off doesn't really have to be does it. I was completely fried from this past week from work and I know more is coming. So today I just spent hanging about and oh yeah watched some more Who with da wife. She really is getting the hang of sci fi lingo. Its rather attractive to state how the Master is dead only until they find a hole to a parallel universe or another rift appears in the fabric of space in time or some other timey wymie thing happens that will allow the master to return.
Anyway.
Tomorrow is the fourth. Americas indpendence. My friend and I plan on seeing the 2nd transformers movie. Expectation level is not that hi so should be fairly enjoyable. I hear they upgraded the CGI Megan Fox for this one.
Well off to watch more doctor. may end up writing another who story ...but Sides is calling me to work on it some more. Hope you all enjoy it.

Been a while

2009-07-01T17:27:00.004-05:00

Yes it has been a while since posting. Been busy busy busy busy busy with work which has drained me so. My job seems to be getting tougher and I know I could be doing better at it than I have been but I think it could be burn out. MY yearning to do something different for a living that would flex my creative muscle more doesn't help either. Part of the reason I have not posted as of late. Its also that whole "time flies" thing. It is true that time seems to fly by. Here I think its Tuesday and its actually thursday. I think Its only been a day or two since I posted and its been a week.
Been rough but there have been some bright spots in the past week or so. Been watching the Doctor Who series with the wife. the new who or the 2005 doctor who. She says I am forcing her to watch them yet she is the one saying "ah just one more". IT fun watching them again and catching things I hadn't before. Also fun seeing her reaction. I have been trying like hell to control the ..turn your head to see how they react to something you knew was coming ....thing. You know when you have seen something cool and are watching it again with a new person who has not seen the program.
Anyway its been a fun time and she is enjoying it. She made mention though the now my buddy Doc's stories make way more sense. Between her watching that and buying trade books of the Buffy comix the geekization of the wife is coming along nicely.

Movie Note...GO SEE THE HANGOVER. Funniest movie I have seen a the last few years. One of those where you are laughing about it 10mins after you left the theatre or you meet someone else who has seen it, they quote or you quote the movie and both laugh out loud. Its that good.

On another note I am trying to put forth the movieman's final cut AND also start a blog here that will just feature movie reviews by me. I will post when I have it in some assmeblence to read. I hope people read it and all. I wouldn't mind being recognized as one of those fairly well regarded Movie Review personalities but thats probably reaching too hi.

Welp off to more dr who watching with the wife.

Post if your interested in more sides or not. I plan on posting more this weekend, but if it is not of interest I will not bug ya all.

Dog on Pixar and stuff

2009-06-22T21:45:00.002-05:00

Gonna keep it short. Been missing alot of days this month but it has been a busy month. In any case went to see UP with the little one , Ethan, today. His brother had seen it over the weekend. Eric was at his friends for a sleep over and they went to see the movie...he said it was kinda good and kinda not. This is because he was a kid, UP is definitely made for grown ups in mind as well as kids. Pixar once again does that excellent balance and walk that fine line of making a movie with mature enough elements that grown ups really get it and enough elements for the kids to laugh at the animals.
Now I am sure many have read the critic reviews and all and know the first 10 mins or so of the picture...might be less but who is counting minutes when you are watching... and the montage sequence that pretty well sets up the main character. I admit I got a little watery eyed which doesn't really happen to me at movies. This one some how got to me in spite of myself. That's how I knew Pixar had another winner on their hands.
Pixar still puts out the best animated material out there. Though Dreamworks is close behind. They mostly have the Shrek franchise which unfortunately they have run into the ground. They are showing promise though with their most recent pic Monsters vs Aliens. That was near Pixar level. I really enjoyed that one as well though they did more of the 3D schticks that you see in a 3D movie , still Monsters vs Aliens did make me laugh out loud more times than expected which is good thing...at least for me not sure if the other audiences liked it.
Anyway if they are still in theatres go see both movies. Better than most of the remakes and sequels and Comedies that have come out this year. Hell even some of the Dramas don't match up to UP and aren't nearly as funny as Monsters vs Aliens. I hear the Hangover is quite good but its not exactly kid friendly, even if it does have a baby in it.

Just another Saturday...and some more sides

2009-06-20T22:58:00.003-05:00

SIDES by Mark Krawczyk

I updated the page for Sides...for the curious. I may actually get ambitious and dust off the old HTML editing and come up with a whole like site for Sides. I have some great ideas just need to relearn things. Though everything now is in Java, I am not looking to go that fancy...yet. Also wrote a couple pages on the script and am putting together my thoughts for a music video. I hope tomorrow to record a final cut episode and script out the next LT. Yeah sounds like a lot but I am finding I work better with self applied pressure than just goin eh. I am so far able to keep the projects seperate but it is fairly easy considering each is unique.

I did watch PotC:The Curse of the Black Pearl again today. Not sure why, probably because I enjoy that movie alot. Alot more than I should for a disney film but it is such a fun adventure film that I can't help but enjoy it. What does help is Johnny Depp's character that had definitely become a classic character already, Capt. Jack Sparrow. You can tell that this is a character Johnny loved playing, even if you didn't watch the interviews where he said he loved playing the character. Sparrow is supposed to be the bad guy, and he is a bad guy who lies, cheats, steals, double crosses his way through life but you can't help but cheer for him when he succeeds in escaping and feel bad for him an his terrible luck. That's why he is such a great character that truely could only be played by Johnny Depp who really helped carry the movie. Sure they had a great supporting cast and effects and real pirate ships, etc but what people come to the movie for the most is Capt. Jack. Johnny just can't help but steal every scene he is in with that character. I also think he had one of the greatest entrances that a character could have. In the first two minutes we see of Capt Jack, he says one line while bailing his sinking ship but by the time he has reached the dock we know exactly what kind of character he is. From how he holds himself to his attitude towards the dead priates hanging at the entrance of the cove, you can tell at least a little of what is in store for this character. I mean he is sailing into harbor on a sinking ship yet you would think he had the best vessel in the sea by how he handles the situation.

Sorry really didn't have much of a point other than that characters like Captain Jack aren't as easy to find in the movies of today. It is refreshing when you do get one. I hope to be able to write a part like that for a talented actor who will be able to sell the part like that. But only time will tell.

On a roll, 100th post

2009-06-18T20:30:00.002-05:00

SIDES by Mark Krawczyk

Ah and so here it is. I am only 400 behind my good friend the Doctor. I would spend time reflecting on the blogs of old but the old montage show is just so played.
Some sappy song like "Through the years" by Kenny Rogers and...oh dear lord did I just make a Kenny Rogers reference. I feel so dirty now.
Anyway I did update the sides web page with a few more pages of writing for any curious folks.
Its been a good run and I have somethings on the horizon I plan on sticking to. So since this is a blog lets talk about my day

I ate three meals.
Went to the bathroom.
Went to work.
Worked my ass off
Drove in my car home.
Made Blt's
and currently I am writing a blog on Blogger. I am writing this Blog about it being the 100th Blog. In it I mention about my day. I will give you the highlights
see I talk about eating three meals a day, going to the bathroom and working, and some other things like my friend Doc who has like 500 blog postings. You should check it out.

Wow I need to follow my son's advice when says.

"Stop Staring into the Future."

Whats funny is one could get philosophical about it if one wanted too.

Anyway I quoted Clue the movie today and it got me thinking about that movie and it still makes me laugh. I think thats why I consider it a classic comedy, just like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankstein (that's frankenschtein). Those are three movies that I have fairly memorized and when I watch them I laugh my ass off. Litereally not a pretty sight but Duck Tape fixes everything.
Actually I think these movies are even funnier now because I anticipate the jokes. I find my self laughing before the joke is played. The jokes don't really get old to me. Now some people may disagree but these jokes in these movies stand the test of time and are very often quoted. Much like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Clerks and Clerks II. These comedies sit up there with the classics of the Marx brothers and yes I shall even envoke the Three Stooges. Which gets me to my point,yes I did have one.
DON"T REMAKE THESE CLASSICS.
Not that Hollywood would listen to me. They are after making a movie based on Battleship.
I am too late in this matter though. Yes Virginia they are making thinking of remaking Clue and it has been greenlighted , THE THREE STOOGES. Nothing is truely sacred they even have a cast. No its not Seth Rogen as Larry, Steve Carell as Moe, and Anthony Anderson as Curly. no no instead of this group of talented comedians who I think would actually make this remake tolerable They have
prepare yourselves
Sean "I have done nothing but drama most of my career" Penn as Larry.
Benicio Del "Yeah I have done even more drama then Sean Penn" Toro as Moe.
and
Jim "I am one of the skinnest comedians out there who needs a new boost in his career" Carrey...who I am assuming will be in a fat suit.

I shit you not ...its on IMDB ---> Say it aint so Moe!

Why why why why why would they they risk choosing two drama boys who decided to stretch their acting chops to be such classic characters as the Larry and Moe. And Jim carrey, while he is a talented comedian, is about the skinnest guy in hollywood to play the large source of comedy Curly. I mean whats next a movie about Monopoly the board game...Oh Dear god no

Sides the first couple pages.

2009-06-17T17:22:00.006-05:00

SIDES by Mark Krawczyk

So we will try this. The link above is to the first couple pages of a Story I started a long time ago. It is one of the many incomplete projects I have I want to finish. It is a war story. I would just like to add that I have never been in the military. I have complete respect for the men and women who serve in the armed forces. If my descriptions of battles are over the top or a bit unrealistic it is just cause my frame of reference for such things have been Documentaries on war and Hollywood. When I write I imagine it as more of a movie then text so that is why some elements may seem a bit, well Hollywood'ized. I do hope you enjoy the story as I post more pages and again feedback is always more than welcome. This one was intended to be quite long but I hope you stick with it. Hell I hope I stick with it. Posting pages up will help with that motivation.
Again sorry for the extra link but its the only way I can avoid retyping everything I have written and keep my formatting. As A geek my web posting skills are lacking but its just one of many things I hope to change this year yet.

damn my hair is too short to pull out.

2009-06-16T07:57:00.002-05:00

SO I wanted to post some pages from a story I started but abandoned about 3 years ago, but it appears Blogger and MS word do not get along when it comes to formatting. Never mind the fact that the Blogger editor it self doesn't like to keep the formatting I tell it to use when I retype it into the compose window. I think this thing hates me. I am working on a another way to post but it may involve dusting off the old HTML knowledge which is really rusty.
Anyway 1st day back from vacation and I wish I could say that I was re energized and ready to sally forth into the work routine with new vigor. But I can't because I am not. Still same old same old. Don't get me wrong vacation was great but it did not help me look at my job in a different light.
I had a great time with the family in Green Bay except for the driving. As some of my friends can attest too, I do care much for driving in the larger cities anymore. Fine call me a pansy, wuss, what have you but I just don't like it. I thought there were crazy drivers here in cow hump wisconsin but when you get into the city its increased by a factor of 10. I think I would be a little less bothered by the driving if it was just me but the fact I have the kids and wife in the car make me a bit more cautious. I use to be a more agressive driver or at least concerned driver when I lived in Milwaukee but not so much now.
What also through me off were the roads in Green Bay. That town was a bit tough to naivgate in if you did not stay to one of the three highways that cut through town. Course it didn't help that one of the bridges was closed and there was construction taking you on detours. Then the maps printed off the internet weren't exactly correct either. Big surprise I know.
I am usually very good at navigating but damned if the city didn't challenge me. Guess I just don't get out enough or something. I just had a tough time getting through that town when it didn't involve the main roads. Ah well everyone made it home fine which is the important part.
I am compiling in my head the events of the past three days and thinking of putting the account here for all to see, for those who might possibly be interested that is.
My goals for this week are to get some pages posted of the new fiction I am writing, A lonely trooper episode posted, a Final Cut episode posted, and work on the script. A tall order but I think it is doable. I do have my 2nd job this week but its only till 9 at night so I have time afterward. I may have to do this take time off thing again sometime. It was rather nice.

English be damned

2009-06-14T22:24:00.002-05:00

Ok so my grammar is far from perfect as is my spelling. I apologize to all for this but I believe it is genetic. My parents were not exactly english majors. I am far from one. I should probably go back to school for it, that is if I think I could actually make a living with my writing or videos for that matter. That is still my dream job. I would love to have video production as my main job, but unfortunately a number of factors enter into that option that make me realize it is a dream that will have to wait.
Until then I shall subject people to my videos on you tube for free. Perhaps I will post on facebook as well, who knows. I would love to be a writer as well but, as people have seen, my English writing is not so good.
But enough about that, lets talk about birds.
I had a rather close encounter with one on Saturday. Real close. Like on top of my head close.
See we were at Bay Beach amusement park enjoying an ice cream snack. When we were done we decided to head inside the common building where the restrooms were so the kids could wash off the stickiness from their summertime treat. On our way to the building, I saw a bird flying very low along the bushes. It waited until I was just heading up the stairs before it flew at me. It was at head level and got three feet from me before it decided to go back into a tree. I waited for the family to catch up and as they got to me the bird had returned. It flew low towards me and then landed in a bush in front of me. I went up to it to say a few words to it when I felt something scratch and slap my head. I ducked down in time to see a red wing blackbird fly off into a tree. The bird had divebombed my head and got close enough to smack me with its wings. It was a bit traumatic. Since that time we have joked about the birds having it out for me. At the sanctuary and the zoo. Even the high flying seagull seemed to have their eye on me. Kinda creepy.
Anyway when I return to the Batcave I will be posting pages of a story I have been working on for a while, a long while. Too long actually. I hope you all will enjoy. Is it something I would like to see published, you bet, one of my dreams. But before that would happen I would probably have to go back to school for English lessons. Also work my ass off at it alot harder. Same could be said for the video work.
Such is life. For now I shall try an enjoy my day off from work, tough to do when you are a workaholic, and spend time with the Brothers Krawczyk and da wife.

Family videos and such

2009-06-14T08:09:00.003-05:00

I was rather tired last night by the time things wound down on our first day to post so I figured I take a moment quick and post this morning. This is the first family vacation where I took a video camera along. Which is weird considering I am a video head. My problem with shooting family videos is 1) since your behind the camera your not always right in on the action sometimes and 2)Its a family video. The movie guy in me can't just shoot whats going on. I am looking for interesting angles to shoot things at or try to shoot it as a narrative to the point of trying to get the kids to enter the building then have them go out and come in again so I have an outside shot of them going into the building and then the shot of them coming in and continuing on.
I try to fight it but I can't. Just the video guy in me or something. Also the fact its a family video and once transfered to DVD will probably be watched once every so often or when we want to humiliate the kids when they are teens.
Anyway coming to a home theater near me will be our GreenBay Vacation 2009: The Brothers Krawczyk Attack.
Today we head to "the Zoo". Can't wait to shoot them getting eatin by a goat.

Comics how I miss thee

2009-06-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

Yes folks the other day I took my kids to the comic book store and they bought a couple of comices. As I looked down the rows of comics I realized that I am very much out of touch with the world of comics now. I use to follow number of them but as years went by I feel more and more behind and I finally didn't buy any because, well I couldn't really follow some of the story lines while others were just plain dumb. This was during the Early to mid 90's. I think one of the issue I bought was the issue where Batman had his back broken by Bane. The comic was well written and though I knew the moment was coming I still yelled "NOO!!!" as I turned to the full page panel of Bane breaking my beloved superhero. So now I have started my children on the slow path of comics which they are interested in. The only problem I ran into was the fact that the majority of the comics out there are no longer written for the ages 7 to 12 years of age group. At least none at the small comic store that we have here in town. Or at the book store either for that matter. A good chunk of the material out there is written for the more mature audience.
I guess our generation held on to those tried and true comics and the ritual of going to the comic store to get the latest issues.
I wonder how many kids nowadays are actually into comics, well that aren't derived from the latest japanese fad toy that is out. While some of those do pose to be interesting at the start they really seem like graphical instructions for the games themselves. I think more adults are buying comices than kids and not just because of one group has money over the other.
I welcome the fact my kids would rather read than stay plugged into the games. Yes we geeks love our video games but there is soooo much more of the geek world to explore.
I nearly wept when my children said they wanted to learn how to play D&D. sure they are a bit young but its the thought that matters.
But getting back to the subject matter, I have no problems with myself reading the comics but many of them have a lot more mature story lines.
Lucky enough we did find an issue of Batman The Brave and the Bold #5 featuring Batman and Captain Marvel, DC Super Friends #16, and a comic from free comic day called DC Kids Mega sampler. Not bad reading ....so my kids tell me ...not that I read them or any...yeah I read them.
Hey they are comics how could I not.
My friend awhile back mentioned a zombie themed comic. I finally got around to reading it recently and I am sorry I did not catch it sooner. "The Walking Dead" is definitely not for kids but is a fantastic zompocalypse story. They have done things with the story I didn't think they would do. Just when it seemed to get cliché, they would surprise you with something out of left field. It has yet to get campy or predictable. Good traits for a comic to have. I am nearly caught up and can't wait to see what happens next. In fact I think I will go read some more right now.

Ooo Shiny.

2009-06-11T14:18:00.002-05:00

So last night I got distracted by the Left 4 Dead editor I downloaded. It was officially released less than a month ago and when I learned of it I knew I had to have it. My running history with level editors has been extensive yet also fleeting. Course I was younger and a bit more impatient then. I remember getting the level editor for Doom 2 and sitting for hours working with the less than user friendly tools. I then took the deck plans my friend jim had of a starship he designed and tried to recreate it, to scale with the doom engine. I got one level done kinda. Then the interest drifted. Then I dabbled inthe other editors out there like the starcraft one but never finished the level, free space, delta force, dungeon siege and recently Company of Heroes....all left unfinished...you see the pattern. Before I had the motivation to do a level but then lost intterest or took longer than expected or I just got distra...oooo shiny.
Sorry where was I.
I am easily distractable when it comes with projects. i know I have probably covered this ground before about my not finishing projects but its still occurs though I am fightening through the urge more now then in the past...now that I am aware and fully acknowledge my one of many flaws.
Also I recently came into possesion of all of the episodes of the 1966 Batman series.
We watched the first episode of the first season with the kids last night. The kids got a kick out of it while Jill and I laughed our asses off over the dialog. Dripping with cheese complete with Adam wests over acting... and over course there was Batman doing the Batoosie dance.
I remember watching it constantly as a kid. I look forward to reliving those memories and burning them into the minds of my young children in the near future. in between designing a L4D level. Hey its Zombies so its gotta keep my interest longer. I was so damn giddy when I got to shoot zombies in the very basic level I made going through the tutorial. The editing tools are still in beta but there is so much promise. I know I am probably behind many diehards out there but I also have a life and that sometimes takes priority over any project.
I am looking forward to the trip this weekend and hope the weather is good.

"Chief O'hara I want you to stake out that warehouse like a circus tent" Commissioner Gordon.

Riddler: "Three men are stuck in a boat with four cigarettes, how did they all smoke?"
Robin: "They tossed one cigarette over board and made the boat a cigarette lighter"

Ah good times

We Digdigdigdigdigdigdigdig dig the whole day through

2009-06-09T20:34:00.002-05:00

Ah yes gotta love when they keep your department lean. We have one guy on vacation this week and then today I had my other coworker stay home. He had to have removed a fleck of rust that had attached itself to his cornea. I told him stay home and rest. but it did mean a 13 hour work day for myself. I got some things done. Not as much as I like but never is. It does make for a long day though. Part of me doesn't mind. That would be the workaholic part of me. Work is like a second home if you think about it. Depending on your hours your with the co workers more than your family during the week. Kinda weird how that works out.
Anyway I actually have started the script. I am just going to continue writing it and when I am finished go back and tweak it. I know it will need it ...at least a few times but I have actually started on it which is a good sign.
Other than that not much to say tonight.
Hope its nice for this weekend.
Been long day...time for some nachos.

Hey look up in the sky its a bird, its a plane, no its a Monday

2009-06-08T12:17:00.003-05:00

Ah so Had a soggy weekend. This still put a damper in my plans for my location shooting for Lonelytrooper. I know I could do blue screen but its kind of fun doing a location shoot plus it is quicker, cleaner and hell just looks better. Besides is very fitting for the way the story has progressed so far. Hopefully I can shoot it today in between downpours.

Had a decent weekend otherwise. My day off Friday was better than I thought, Saturday spent a good chunk of the day with the boys watching Batman The Brave and the Bold. We all enjoyed that. I really didn't get to any writing. Did get two movies in the mail we need to watch yet, Yes Man and Bedtime Stories. More mainstream than most of the movies I have watched recently but still something I thought I may enjoy. Gotta balance the Italian cannibals and zombies movies with something...other than porn.

Anyway I may use them for my movie review comeback which yes I have yet to film as well. I don't have my 2nd job this week so I have time. Its not like I don't want to do these projects, far from it. Just the energy is been lacking.

We have a weekend family trip coming up next weekend which should be fun. Going to Bay Beach and probably The Zoo in greenbay and if there is time I will be taking my boys on the Wisconsin right of passage, Lambeau field. I don't have season tickets or any tickets so for now its as close as they can come to being there for a game. Hopefully we will check out the hall of fame and maybe lunch at Curlys' I would like to take the tour too but those tickets are almost as hard to get as well any tickets that have Lambeau's name on it.

I do feel bad I will not be able to join the rest of the Lenny Lane Army for the wrasslin in milwaukee on Friday but one can't do it all. There will be other matches to be sure.

well thats about it keep a sharp eye for a new story, yes I will post soon. I hope people liked the poem Parody. Its something that just popped in there a few years ago and had to write it down. Funny how those things work out.

The Vader (A Parody of the Raven)

2009-06-06T17:56:00.002-05:00

xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

Once upon a Planet Dreary, as I practiced, sore and weary,

style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>The Vader
(A Raven parody)

By Mark Krawczyk

Once upon a Planet Dreary,
as I practiced, sore and weary,

With my light saber and book
of Jedi Lore.

I suddenly heard class=GramE>a breathing, like someone softly seething,

Seething
outside my blaster door.

"Tis
some alien" I did mutter "that's seething at my blaster door"

Quote the Vader "Open
the door."

My head it started reeling
and my heart was swiftly beating,

Not prepared for the dark
figure outside my door.

My arms were a class=GramE>quiver, my back gave a shiver,

While my fear extended into
my very core.

I chopped him up, this class=GramE>man who brought fear to my core,

I Left a head and torso,
nothing more.

I knew I should not have
stayed, should have gone far,far

away,

Hid out on
Dagobah or on Yavin Four.style='font-family:Arial'>

But stupid I had become, to the
Jedi temple I did run,

Hoping to
find one Jedi and maybe more.

In my search I had found
just 2 droids and little more.

It was R2D2 and R4.

The troopers, how they came
to enforce the Emperor's Reign,

With Ani's
help, they killed the Jedis by the score.

He use to be my friend but
that soon came to an end,

When the class=SpellE>Darkside pulled him through its blackened door.style='font-family:Arial'>

"You were the chosen
one," I screamed to my blaster door.

Quote the Vader
"Nevermore."

Out the window, I thought
I'd jump, on the bed my leg did bump,

Spilling
me out on to the metal floor.

From my hand the saber flew,
my chance to flee it did go too,

As my weapon went under my
chest of drawers,

I got up and as I reached
under the chest of drawers,

Quote the Vader "I'll
wait no more."

Then there came the humming
of someone swiftly running,

Running a class=SpellE>lightsaber into my blaster door,

Through the door I knew he'd
cut, to come in to kick my butt,

Right through the hole he'd
made in my metal door.

I tried to plea to him but
knew he wouldn't hear me through the door,

He wanted revenge, nothing
more.

My saber I did find, the
memories came and filled my mind,

Of all the brave Jedi
written in our lore,

My weapon I did light, took
my stance, prepared to fight

To Fight like I never had
before.

His red saber I could see,
as it came through the badly damaged door.

Fight with Anakin, I would
once more.

style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Part of the door, it did fall, his name is
what I called,

As the dark lord came
through the hole in the door,

He was dressed all in black
and swift with his attack,

Nearly killing me before the
battle had begun,

I countered, blocked, and
jumped, through the door I did run.

Quote the Vader, "You
are my teacher no more".

His powers he did use, as he
continued the abuse,

And used
the force to push me to the floor.

I held off his attack,
though I was on my back,

My own
powers coming to use to me once more.

I pushed him back into the
wall and he came at me swinging more.

Anakin was stronger than
before.

On and on we did fight, down
the halls of dark and light,

Until we
found ourselves at a Hanger door.

Our sabers they did clash,
with sparks that made a splash,

Shorting out the controls
and opening the door,

As we continued the fight I
knew that I soon could take no more,

I then saw the sky, and
nothing more.

Through the open door I did
jump, and soon landed with a thump,

Death would have to wait for
me once more,

A little droid, I can say,
had come to save my day,

In my fighter that was
driven by R4,

style='mso-spacerun:yes'> I asked, if the Jedi could ever be as strong
as before,

Quote the Vader
"Nevermore"

Friday yep still there

2009-06-05T21:24:00.002-05:00

So I took the day off today which was weird for a workaholic like myself. Now I did end up checking my work e-mail twice and talking about a work related item to my co worker but I wasn't physically there. My mind was a bit. I did have a good time going to the kids family picnic thing and then the Wife and I walked around for a couple miles around town. IT was a fun. I got the audio recorded for Lonelytrooper and installed some more games on the new HD
All in all a good day off.
I hope to finish the lonely trooper episode tomorrow and play some games with the kids and start posting a new story soon that I really hope people will like.
Thats about all I got.

A Workaholic note

2009-06-04T06:18:00.002-05:00

Yes its been a long week but today is my Friday, I know its Thursday but I took tomorrow off so this is the last work day of the week.Well ok theoretically it is. I most likely will check my work e-mail twice tomorrow and message my co-work "how's it going, anything going on, anyone looking for me."
What can I say I am a work a holic...another thing that tends to cut into my doing projects mostly because even though I may leave work my mind has a harder time of leaving work at work. Then I become mentally exhausted and well a bit lazy. The term Burnout comes to mind which would probably be most fitting for how I feel at the end of the day. Also the fact that my job requires me to use my brain doesn't help. It keeps it interesting to be sure but its a whole different way of thinking than the free flow of creative thought I use when working on my projects.
I realized I had only taken one full day off since January so it was about time for another one. I have more than enough days to burn. The fact that I have a 2nd job helps in my workaholism. Feeds the flame so to speak. I am working at trying to leave work at work but alas it has not gone well....I am getting better to be sure but its still tough.
On a side note I did get the script for the next lonely trooper done and hope to record it during my day off. Hell I may record two and work on writing or I may veg in front of some illuminated monitor . At least its not work

Poor Poor Monday.

2009-06-02T08:14:00.006-05:00

Monday was a rough day. Long and bit stress ful but most Mondays are. Its funny how we give Monday a bad rap. I mean its not its fault its the first day after the weekend. Some people say I wish we could jump to Tuesday, not realizing they will dislike Tuesday just as much as Monday because it would be the first day of the work week. Sure you could go to Wednesday but then you are off of work more than you are working and then would complain you don't get enough money working 3 days a week and wish you had another work day.
Its not the fact that the day is Monday that makes it less tolerable than the rest of the days, it just happens to be the first day of work after having two days of not work. If you want to blame any day blame Saturday and Sunday for making Monday so bad. They are the ones that get you just relaxed and use to not being in the work environment before they run away on you. Leaving you standing there with Monday like the last two kids in the line to be picked for kickball teams.
Now it can be calculated that more work needs to be done on Mondays then the other workdays but again its not really Monday's fault. Saturday and Sunday are the ones that let things go to hell over the weekend so when its Monday's turn more things need to be fixed. So try to go easy on Monday when it comes around. It just happens to get the bad spot on the calendar.
Tuesday is a day that understands Monday's troubles the most. Usually Tuesday is just another workday but occasionally it becomes a Monday on those Holiday weekends were we have off on Monday. Tuesday then catches the brunt of the disdain. In fact sometimes when the Tuesday becomes a Monday its worse because Monday really lets things go to shit when its a day off so there is an extra day of stuff that can go wrong that needs to get fixed. Tuesday really doesn't like those weeks too much.
Wednesday is a day that is quite happy where it's at. It knows its place in the week is a coveted one. Why? well for one it is far enough away from the weekend where people are use to working by now. They come into work and things are fairly routine, plus Wedneday marks the halfway point to another weekend, so people are happy the week is half over. Wednesday is also a very happy day because at least once year it gets to feel like a Friday. So Wednesday is probably one of the best positioned days of the work week.
Thursday is more lucky than Wednesday in that it gets more chances to feel like a Friday but it also has the rep of making the work week long. By Thursday everyone really really wants the weekend to be there , so Thurday is more of a lamenting day. Its a day that people work hard to try and get things done before the weekend and a day people only look at as a bridge to Friday. Thursday is the day that most wants to be Friday and is happy when it gets its chance but wishes it got its chance more often.
This then brings us to Friday. This is the mover and shaker day. Friday is the day that is probably the happiest of all the days. Everyone usually looks forward to it, can't wait for it and when it finally arrives, people are generally in a better mood. Plus the fact that it gets to share the status of the Weekend the most out of the other workdays. Friday is also very content in its position like Wednesday is.

Of course there are those floating holidays that all the workdays love because every four years or so they get to be "the Day off" . Again Friday benefits the most out of this occurance just because it has the regular holidays that makes it part of the weekend and then the floater holiday too. We could talk about Saturday and Sunday but those two I think are rather self explanitory.

see what happens when I let my mind wander.

Alas I was doing so well

2009-05-31T10:47:00.002-05:00

Ok so I have not posted in a couple of days. In my kinda defense I got my father's day present early...a 1.5TB drive plus I got a media server going so I can play video and music files on the PS3 as well as the other PC's without them having the files locally stored. Yeah I am a geek. Speaking of Geek the wife forced me to sit down and watch the first disk of the first season of the Big Bang Theory. Yeah I avoided for as long as I could ...not sure why ...maybe to just give the wife a hard time or maybe cause the show hits too close to home. I of course loved the show about 4 geeks who deal with a hot chi....a very attractive member of the opposite sex. Anyway the show is quite fun. I and my friend Jim laughed quite hard. Partly because these characters have bits and pieces that remind us of people we know or our selves. Not in a bad way, just in a way. Also because the actors just rattle the geekdom off so naturally you would swear this is how they are in real life outside of the tv world.
I could tell that the actors have real chemistry. Its funny but you can usually tell the shows where actors in a TV sitcom are just doing their thing and they don't really work well off each other. Their coversations seemed like they are reading from the script and the relationships are just scripted. With the principles in the Big Bang Theory this is not there. These characters feel very natural in a sense and the actors play off each other. Its fun to watch one try not to laugh while the others are performing. The geek banter these actors have in converstaions roll naturally off the tounge and it reminds me of conversations my friends and I have had.
All in all I enjoy the show and will be watching the rest.
I have been slow again in my video projects but I have the script for two lonely troopers completed and know what movie I want to review for the Final Cuts return. I just got to get off my butt and do them which is harder than one may think.

Fae'th in Time---the alternate ending

2009-05-28T11:18:00.007-05:00

Hey if movies can have them why can't the written word. Anyway after chewing on it for a day, and some feedback from a few folks who have actually read the story, I decided to give it a different ending. I know its a Doctor Who story but it is also a Fae'th story so here is a different ending for the story. Try it on and see if you like it.

"The Doctor and Julie, really?” Donna-Lé asked. Shaden just shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘it happens’. He led them towards town as they started to walk.

“I know but hey we had one hell of a ride, wouldn't you say Points. How about I get you guys a drink on me?” Shaden asked.

"On you huh and how do you plan on purchasing said drinks? With the money you still owe us I bet." Bernard asked suspiciously.

"Who said we were buying the drinks?We'll just steal em." Shaden asked with a smile.

"Well we are theives are we not." Donna-Lé answered. Bernard looked at the tool as he shook his head and then added as he cracked his knuckles.

"It is our Specialty"

Fae'th in Time...the final pages

2009-05-26T21:04:00.001-05:00

The group gathered outside the TARDIS. The Doctor opened the door and Shaden motioned to his two fellow thieves to enter.

“I don’t see how were all going to fit in there but if you insist. “ Donna-Lé said as she and Bernard entered the TARDIS. The moment the two were inside, the Doctor put the collars on them and then returned the Time Vector Generator to its rightful spot. The control room to the TARDIS was once again at its larger size. Julie and Shaden entered as the Doctor stepped out.

“Excuse me there is something I need to take care of.” The Doctor said as he drew his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor walked away before the other two could ask what he was going to do. He walked over to the Rani’s TARDIS which was still disguised as a pillar. He pointed the screwdriver at the machine when there was a flash of blue light and the Rani appeared between him and her TARDIS.

“Oh no you don’t” The Rani stated as she pushed a surprised Doctor to the ground. He grabbed her right boot but she managed to pull it out from his grip. She ran for the entrance to her TARDIS as Draconis burst through the front of the Palace. The Doctor scrambled to his feet ran to his TARDIS. Both machines dematerialized as Draconis shot a massive stream of fire out at both time machines. He roared in frustration and slammed his fists down, creating two large craters in the stone steps of the palace.

“Well that went well don’t you think?” The Doctor stated with a smile.

“You know I think your definition of well and mine are a bit different chief but I will say it could have gone worse. “ Shaden replied as walked over to a coat rack he did not remember seeing before. The Doctor answered Shaden’s unasked question about the rack.

“Oh I had that brought out especially for you. I thought you might enjoy looking at them.” Then the Doctor walked over to Julie.

“I am sorry I did not get to you sooner. Let me look at that cut.” The Doctor softly said as he looked Julie’s wound.

“Oh it’s just a scratch really Doctor. As far as the speed of my rescue, I knew you would come eventually. You always do.” She said as she smiled that smile that the Doctor enjoyed seeing. They stood there and shared a quiet moment. It did not last long as Shaden yelled from over by the coat rack.

“So what do you think, Chief?”

The Doctor and Julie turned to see Shaden wearing a black duster that seemed to fit him quite nicely. He spun around in place once for the Doctor and Julie to get the full affect, also Shaden liked how the jacket bellowed as he spun.

“I must say you do look quite dashing in it.” Julie said with a bit of a chuckle. Shade bowed in her direction.

“Why thank you m’lady?”

“Ah yes I remember that jacket, I have three or four others just like it. I picked them up from a little shop on the edge of the galaxy. The makers claim that it will never wear, fade or tear. It can withstand temperatures hotter than the sun and I have yet found a weapon that could penetrate it. Well there was one weapon that could but unless you plan on visiting Centrax 7 I think you will be safe in it.” The Doctor said as he leaned against the console. Shaden’s eyes got large. He went over to the Doctor to shake his hand.

“Thanks Doctor. I don’t tell many people that but you definitely deserve it.”

Shaden looked over at the console as the cylinder in the middle slowed and there was the sound of the TARDIS coming to a stop.

“I guess this is where we get off.” Shaden stated as he walked over to Julie. The thief moved a piece of her hair from in front of her face and looked deep into her eyes. There were two small tears trailing down her face and her eyes were full of water.

“Oh Dollface don’t cry. I wish we have more time too. Of all the times, in all the places, in all the universe, you had to come into mine. But see you gotta stay on this ship because if you stayed with me, you may not regret it tomorrow, or next week, or next year but someday you would and I don’t want to be the reason for that.” Shaden said as he touched her chin. He then turned to his two partners in crime who were still in a daze and moved them towards the door. The Doctor came over to Julie and put his arm around her.

“I didn’t think you cared for him that much my dear,” he commented as the two watched Shaden move Bernard out the door.

“I don’t actually, but the fumes coming from him made my eyes burn. Seriously can we go throw him in a shower, or bath, or say a river.” Julie said with a chuckle as she wiped here eyes. The Doctor got a look on his face as if he just remembered something and went through a door in the back of the control room. He emerged again just as Shaden had gotten Donna-Lé through the door.

“Here you are Shade, payment for you and your partners.” The Doctor said as he placed a hand sized pouch in the thief’s hand. He bounced the bag in his hand and smiled.

“On behalf of my partners I thank you. I also personally thank you. See I had spent the money from the last two jobs on one wild night with these two cat wo…” Shaden stopped as the Doctor looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He looked over at Julie who had her arms crossed and a smirk on her face.

“Take care Blue Eyes,” Shaden said with a wave to Julie and quickly he gave the Doctor a big hug. The thief broke the embrace as fast as he had given it, “Sorry... Anyway safe travels Doctor. I don’t have many people I can truly call my friends but you and Julie can count yourselves as ones.”

Shaden exited the TARDIS and the second he closed the door, the TARDIS began to dematerialize. When the TARDIS had completely disappeared Shaden pulled out the sonic screwdriver he had just stolen from the Doctor and gave it a little flip in his hand. That’s when heard the sound of the TARDIS rematerialize behind him. The door to the TARDIS opened and a hand appeared from it with its palm open. Shaden placed the screwdriver into the hand which disappeared back into the TARDIS, followed by the slam of the door. Shaden chuckled to himself as the TARDIS once again disappeared into time and space. He then turned to his companions and removed their collars. Before they could say anything, Shaden put his arms around both of them.

“Can you believe that guy and his girl, knocked us out, disappeared and stiffed us our money.”

“You’re putting me on” Bernard said.

“The Doctor and Julie, really?” Donna-Lé asked. Shaden just shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘it happens’. He led them towards town as they started to walk.

“I know but hey we had one hell of an adventure, ay. How about I buy you guys a drink on me.”

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

“So where to now Doctor.” Julie asked as she took a seat on the love seat she had been on before. The Doctor checked a small monitor on the console and then flipped a couple switches before he turned towards Julie.

“I was thinking we go could go after the Rani.” He said with a smile.

“What? How?” Julie asked as she got up and walked over to the Doctor.

“ Slipped a small tracking beacon to her boots when she knocked me over. The TARDIS is working on locating it now.” The Doctor stated as he leaned against the console with his all knowing smile on his face.

“You think the TARDIS can find the Rani Doctor?” Julie asked.

“It’s her specialty.” The Doctor replied.

FIN

Thank you to any and all who have actually followed my little story. I know there are grammar errors and spelling errors abound but that's why I am going to be drafting it again to tighten it up. Please message me or e-mail or leave in the comment section of this post feedback, likes, dislikes and if you would like a copy of it when I am finished. I plant on posting a new story soon so stay tuned. In meantime I am actually working on a script of a movie I hope to shoot with in the next year. I have made some progress on it...not much but a start.

Grilling and the modern man

2009-05-24T23:51:00.003-05:00

What is it exactly about grilling that makes it so enjoyable. Is it some primal instinct of man that comes to the surface when ever meat meats a grill and open flame. I can tell you its something I throughly enjoy, the fresh smell of burgers on the fire..or brats...or steak if you are so privelaged. I love the taste of grilled meat, there's some added element of the outdoors maybe. Something that gives it that extra kick. People grill out at tailgate parties and that tastes totally better than the more expensive burgers in the stadium. Some stadiums even use open grills but they just aren't the same.
Maybe its all just psychological in our brains that associates grilling with summer and vacation and good times. The brain becomes so happy that the food just tastes better not so much because it is but rather our brain thinking it is cause its feeling just so damn good.
Whatever it is that makes grilling special, I like it.
I am going to try and grill as much as possible this summer, because well to coin a phrase from Mr.Food. " oooo its so good."

I'll be Back: A quick review from a Devout T2 fan

2009-05-23T22:20:00.002-05:00

OK so the finale for Fae'th will have to wait until tomorrow. I instead headed out with my good friend Jim to go see Terminator Salvation. Now I went into the movie with not so high expectations. Considering what a catastrophe the third movie was and the fact the McG was directing this one, lets just say I was very worried on how the movie was to play out. I was happily surprised.
I have always been a T1 and T2 fan, the multiple copies I have or should say had of T2 on vhs and DVD speak for themselves. When the 3rd movie was made you could tell it was something they slapped together to try and cash in on the franchise and failed miserably.
Then I heard the rumblings of them making a fourth movie and I was like,"They just are trying to milk the franchise more. Run it into the ground like Paramount did with alot of their other movies. I went in expecting another Indiana Jones and the Crystal skull, what I got was more of a respectable sequel to the first two films.
You can usually tell when a sequel is made just for the sake of making it and when it is made because someone actually took the time to come up with more story to tell. Terminator Salvation is the latter of the two. They put effort in keeping as much continuity as they could with out getting too confusing with the whole time travel aspect. McG made you care about the character and the pacing of the movie was very well done considering the amount of action sequences there were. This movie fit so much better into the time line of events than the third one.
Sky net still is on its rise to conquering the world after judgement day and the resistance is a hell of alot more organized.
They added a pleasant new twist to the story line with the introduction of the character Marcus Wright.
I don't want to give much away about the story but lets just say I was happy with the way events progressed.
The music made me happy and not just because it was Danny Elfman, my favorite composer, well ok maybe that had a little to do with it but it was decent even without that factor.
Danny's music is great during the quiet moments, I am sure the action ques were good as well but you couldn't quite hear it over the special f/x, which is normal for a high action film.
You could also tell what was going on in the action scenes for the majority of the film which was a nice change of paste from the close up Michael bay wTF just happened directing of action sequences we have seen as of late.
Sure there are some plot holes and some "Why didn't the robots just do this" moments but you have that in every movie.
On the whole Terminator is an excellent action film that takes itself a hell of alot more serious than the third film. They do a better job of tying it into the mythology and also keep it entertaining. It is at least worth the price of admission.

OY! damn me and my ways

2009-05-22T23:56:00.002-05:00

SO my procrastination in movie making has let another IDea slip away. Just read about a guy who made a movie for 70 bucks. Its a Zombie film and its getting talk at Cannes. A japanese company is looking to buy the rights to it. He is looking to make major bank and possibly jump start his career. His movie is a Zombie movie told from the Zombie's perspective. Funny thing is I have had that idea for quite awhile but never got to shooting it. Now I would just be an imitator instead of an innovater. Ah well look for the Finale of Fae'th in Time tomorrow. Good night and good luck.

Fae'th in TIme....not quite the end.

2009-05-21T23:44:00.007-05:00

The Doctor slid over to Julie’s body, in a bit of a panic fearing the worse. As he reached her she began to move. He was face to face with her when her eyes opened.

“It’s about time you showed up.” She stated groggily.

“You know how I am about schedules.”

The two shared a smile but immediately were reminded of the situation they were in. Draconis walked over to the two and sighed.

“Oh well, guess we will have to start with the elf.” Draconis said as he threw a fireball toward’s Donna-Lé.

“NO!” The Doctor and Julie yelled as they watched the fireball head towards its target. A moment before the fireball connected, there was a bright flash of blue light above Donna-Lé and two bodies fell on top of her, knocking her out of the way. The fireball connected with the Noc that had been holding the elf and the guard immediately turned into ash.

“Well that was new.” Shaden commented as he picked him self up off the Rani who was in a daze. Donna-Lé was also dazed and made little effort to move. Bernard stepped on the foot of the Noc holding him and then elbowed the beast between the legs. The Noc howled and loosened its grip just enough for Bernard to slip out. Shaden threw Smite and it cleaved the Noc’s head in two. The Doctor and Julie attempted to get up and run but were knocked back across the room into another pile of treasure by a large hand. Draconis had returned to his true form and did not look happy.

“I tried to be civil about this but you just don’t want to play nice. I guess I will just have to dig through your ashes later to look for that precious key.”

The Doctor and Julie tried to retrieve the air that had been knocked from their lungs as Draconis spoke. Bernard made a run in vein towards the two. Shaden made a motion with his hand and a large jewel flew from the ground and hit Bernard in the head, knocking his friend out cold. Though Draconis had his back to Shaden, the thief knew Draconis was about to strike. The Doctor pulled Julie close as Draconis released a large stream of fire from his mouth towards the two. They closed their eyes preparing for the pain to come but it never came. The Doctor opened his eyes immediately to see the stream of fire curling away from them and back towards Draconis. The Doctor saw Shaden on one knee with both hands stretched out at the fire, he was manipulating it. Draconis stopped for a moment with the fire trying to figure out what was wrong with his flame. The Doctor and Julie tried to get away but Draconis pinned them with his right hand.

“I don’t know what part of your science is protecting you, Doctor, but I will show you your science is no match for magic. Draconis used his free hand and a gigantic ball of purple energy appeared. Draconis threw it at the Doctor and Julie but the ball no sooner left Draconis’s hand when it flew back into the dragon’s face. He held his head in both hands as purple electricity arched around his eyes and mouth. The Doctor and Julie made a run towards Shaden. Draconis shot a stream of fire out blindly. Again it curled back into his face, causing him scream in pain and this time collapse to the ground.

The Doctor managed to reach Shaden before Shaden fell, the thief was covered in sweat and very pale.

“You can move things with your mind?”

“Its my secret …specialty…sssssh” Shaden replied wearily as he put his finger to his lips. Draconis had managed to clear his head and stand up again. At that moment a Noc Guard grabbed Julie by the arms and lifted her up in a reverse bear hug while the Rani had snuck up behind the Doctor and pulled the Time Vector Generator from his pocket.

“You lose Doctor.” The Rani said in the Doctor's ear as she pointed the TVG into the back of the timelord. The move made the Doctor lose his grip on Shaden, who slumped to his knees. Shaden looked for Donna-Lé but she too was restrained and Bernard was still out cold. Draconis’s voice snapped Shaden’s attention back to the dragon.

“Well done the Rani. I must say you have proven yourself most useful. Now if you could search the Doctor for his key, Shaden and I have some unfinished business.”

Draconis went to grab Shaden. The thief managed to get a hand up in front of himself.

“WAIT!!!!” He yelled.

The move was so sudden Draconis pulled his hand back for a moment as if he had touched something hot. Shaden then reached into the pocket of his leather armor and pulled out the recorder crystal he had put there earlier.

“Draconis … the Rani is going to double cross you.”

The Rani suddenly looked very nervous but did not move

Draconis just smiled as he went to grab the thief, “Now Shaden. You know I don’t trust anybody and suspected one day she would double cross me. Its one of her more appealing attributes. Now where were we.”

“But did you know that the double cross involved your death at the hands of science.” Shaden replied as he was grabbed by the dragon. Draconis paused for a moment and looked in the direction of the Rani with a raised eyebrow.

“Really?” Draconis asked.

“I am not Draconis. Don’t listen to him it’s just another one of his tricks. Now hurry up and fry the little fish.” The Rani replied in a bit of a panic.

Shaden smashed the crystal against Draconis’s finger.

“The crystal never lies”. Shaden said calmly.

A pink smoke floated in front of Draconis’s face. A picture suddenly appeared in front of him. Julie and the Doctor watched as well. The picture was not clear, like a video, but reminded Julie of an oil painting where the colors are slightly smeared. You could not see sharp detail but could tell what was going on. That’s when the hall echoed with the conversation the Rani had with Shaden about killing Draconis and then killing magic and using the world as her own personal lab. The scene ended at the point Shaden had just been pulled into the tunnel by the carpet.

Draconis looked down at the Rani and smiled.

“My you are full of ideas. When we are done dispatching these fools, you and I are going to have to have a talk my dear about how to destroy your vessel and your new role as palace slave. Isn’t that grand.”

The Rani’s face went flushed with anger and she pushed the Doctor out of the way.

“No one touches my ship, especially not some over grown salamander.” The Rani shot a beam from the Time Vector Generator at Draconis chest. The blast knocked the beast back and he let go of Shaden. The thief managed to roll as he landed and pop back up on his feet. The Doctor got to his feet and used the sonic screw driver to knock out the Noc holding Julie. The guard holding Donna-Lé was distracted by the commotion. The elf took advantage of the opportunity and elbowed the Noc in the nose a couple times, then she pulled out one of her daggers and drove the dagger through the Noc’s eye and into its head. She then grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows that had been tossed to the side. The Rani ran past Shaden with the TVG extended. Shaden promptly grabbed it from her hand and tossed it to the Doctor.

“Heads Up chief.”

The Doctor managed to look up and catch the TVG just before it hit him in the face. The Rani took a swing at Shaden, who ducked and spun around sweeping the Rani’s legs out from under her. He saw Draconis start to get up. Shaden looked above Draconis and notice a large iron chandelier hanging above from the ceiling. Shaden threw Smite into the air. The boomerang sliced the chain holding the fixture up. The large, heavy object fell instantly. Draconis caught the chandelier square in the head and slumped unconscious onto a pile of gold.

Shaden tried to run towards the Doctor, Julie and Donna-Lé, who was helping Bernard to his feet. The thief took two steps before he was tripped by the Rani and he tumbled down the mound of gold. The Rani picked up a large silver mug that was near her and slid down the mound after Shaden. Shaden was in the process of getting to his feet when the Rani reached him. She held the mug in the air, in preparation to strike but was not able to complete the action. She instead slumped to the floor, knocked out cold. Shaden looked down at the Rani and then up to see Julie holding one end of a golden scepter in her right hand while bouncing the other end in the left. Julie just smiled at Shaden and walked away.

“Right well we’ve had our fun but I think its time to leave.” The Doctor stated.

They nodded in agreement and the group ran to the large door way of the lair. They stopped just before the door way and stared at the sight in front of them. The fountain room was filled with Noc Guards, all with their weapons drawn and looking mighty pissed off.

Shaden armed himself with Smite, Donna-Lé readied her bow, Julie held her scepter like a bat and the Doctor took aim with the Time Vector Generator. Just as they were about to scream a barbaric yalp and rush into the fray, music suddenly filled the air. The Noc seemed to become entranced by it.

There’s a story you should know from a hundred years ago

And a hundred years we’ve waited now to tell

Now the Yankees come along and they’ll listen to this song

And they’ll quake in fear to hear this Rebel Yell

Yeeeeeeehaw! Oh the South’s gonna rise again!

As Bernard hit the cord on the last note green mist swiftly poured from his instrument and appearing between the group and army of Noc stood a 35 foot tall ghost soldier on his ghostly steed. Julie thought it looked like General Lee. The Ghost looked down at the Noc and gave a loud roar. From its mouth smaller ghost flew out and attacked the Noc. Most of the Noc ran in terror. The few brave Noc that stood their ground found themselves on the ground dead. Bernard made a motion with his hand.

“After you.”

“Teach him that one too did you?” The Doctor asked

“Yeah, for some reasons the songs I teach him seem to have more potent affect than any of the other songs.” Shaden replied as they walked to the back of the room. The Doctor used the Time Vector Generator to carve another hole and the group hastily exited the Palace.

Those final moments...

2009-05-21T07:15:00.002-05:00

So last night I worked on the last few pages of Fae'th in Time. Once complete I shall go back over it again for its second revision and if I am comfortable with it I would be more than happy to send all interested parties a copy. It always bitter sweet when I get to this point of a project like this. I have been writing it over the last few months and as with all my creative works, I have grown attached to it. It went in directions I did not expect , in a good way, and became a lot more integral to the Fae'th world than originally planned, again a good thing. I appreciate my friend Doc letting me use his Doctor and Julie characters and I hope I did not mess with them too much.
Now I am already setting my sites for the next project. Its a story called Sides and the scope of this story could be quite exentsive. I may even try to promote it up some how but not sure on that. Or I may also post my Ring Noir story again. I have more I would like to add to it. Many of you probably haven't read it, it is a Parody of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy set in a Noir style and is still one of my favorite pieces of writing, that not too narcessistic I hope.
Anyway I have to actually do some work at work now. Look for the last pages of Fae'th to most likely be posted tonight.

Repo: A genetic op...AHHH MY EYES AND EARS ARE BLEEDING!!

2009-05-19T22:56:00.002-05:00

OK so I may be taking it a little to the extreme but not much. I finished watching Repo: A Genetic Opera and as far as modern musicals go it was pretty much...crap. The story is that there was a sickness that was taking millions of lives but this company GENE Co. came up with a cure for people in the form of transplants. They came up with a drug that would make transplants easy for folks and of course Gene Co provided the replacement organs. Soon people were living longer because they were able to buy new organs and replenish themselves for the most part. As long as they had the money that is. People could by their organs on a payment plan but if they missed a payment well ...enter the Repo man who comes to the people and collects the organs that they got from Gene co but were unable to pay for. Repo man keeps his occupation secret from his daughter who is ill with a blood disease. There is also a love triangle and the head of Gene Co's twisted kids. The son who likes to stab people, the son who keeps getting his face replaced yet still gets the hot women, and then there is the surgery addicted daughter played by that razzie award winning artist, Paris Hilton (warning she also sings.) I think her best bit is where her face falls off.
Now that premise for as weird as it is was not bad for a regular horror sci fi type movie. But then the geniuses shoved their heads in their ass and made it a musical..a bad musical. I am sorry but for a musical to be decent it must have well good music, songs that are catchy like the songs in Mulan Rouge or Chicago, even Sweeny Todd had some catchy tunes. This one had none...which is a feat in itself considering about 80% of the movie is song. Truely no performances really stand out except for the grave robber character who kinda looks like a reject from the Labyrinth Casting call. He had a decent voice and seemed to really get into his roll. The rest of the actors seemed to not really be in it. Even the Repo man was a flat in his performance which is not what you want from a guy who is skilled at removing organs.
There is alots of gore which should satisfy some but the rest of the movie is a mash up of bad musical number and then bad dialog that serves only the purpose to get you to the next bad musical number.
I liked the production design of the sets and the story itself would had been interesting had they not made it a musical. IF this was your normal weird Sci-Fi punk sort of thriller I really think it would have done better, at least made a living as one of those good bad movies. It never really does reach that level and hopefully it fades into movie obscurity. I know I can't have those 97 mins back of my life but I can try. I think I will e-mail Paris tomorrow and ask if she can slide some of that money this way to compensate for the trash that was that movie. Then again no one forced me to watch it except a little guy called Morbid curiosity. If I ever find that guy he is gonna have hell to pay.
SO if you have not guessed it, I did not like the movie in most aspects of it. What little redeeming quality the production design and the grave robber character may have are too over shadowed by the steaming pile of crap that is this movie. I hope those actors fired their agents and I hope Paris Hilton decides to stay in the clubs where she belongs and not trying to act.
Rent this movie when its in the dollar bin or on netflix and ONLY if your own little guy called curiosity decides it would be a good idea.

Fae'th in time...the story is waning

2009-05-18T21:14:00.005-05:00

Test test
The TARDIS materialized next to the Pillar that was the Rani's TARDIS. The Doctor flipped a couple switches and then stared at the two entraced characters before him. He wondered how he was going to move them to the door and get them out before seeing the inside of the TARDIS. Then he snapped his fingers at the brilliant idea he had. He first made to move Bernard. He found he was able to turn the troll and ,with a little push, make Bernard move toward the door. Once in front of the door the Doctor did the same with Donna-Lé, only with the elf he gave a quick apology for grabbing the lady by her shoulders and turning her towards the door. Then the Doctor went to the door and slid back a panel. Behind the panel was a small rod held in place by two metal contacts. The Doctor grabbed the rod.
"Sorry girl," the Doctor apologized as he removed the Time Vector Generator.The interior changed from the vast space that was the control room to the normal size of a police boxes interior. The rod the Doctor removed was pointed at both ends which were covered with a small cap. The rod fit into the Doctor's pocket fairly easy, though it did make the jacket quite a bit heavier. He then saw the small half collars Shade had mentioned earlier. The Doctor slid both off at the same time and slid them in his other pocket. Good thing I like jackets with pockets the Doctor thought to himself. As the two came too the Doctor gave a loud clap of the hands.
"Right to catch you up to speed. Shaden has gone after the Rani and we are at the Palace Draconis. We are to storm the Palace, rescue Julie and escape with our lives in tact. Now there are most likely a large number of Noc guards out there so I suggest we all prepare ourselves."
Donna-Lé and Bernard looked a bit confused but decided to go with what the Doctor said and they did thier best to draw their weapons, which was not easy given the cramped quarters.
"Wasn't this room a lot bigger before?" Bernard asked.
"Just a matter of perspective. I am sure alot of rooms look big to you. Let's go...heya!!" The Doctor opened the doors with a mighty yell. Donna- Lé shot out three arrows and Bernard began to strum. They jumped out of the doorway as they did this and felt a bit foolish. To their surprise there was no one around.
"Right well, shall we go pay Draconis a visit." The Doctor stated as he strolled to the two large ornate doors that made up the entrance to the Palace. Bernard and Donna-Lé looked around cautiously as they followed the Doctor. The Doctor went to knock on the doors of the palace and just before his hand connected with the door it turned into a wall.
"That's a bit rude wouldn't you say?" The Doctor stated.
"Looks as if we will need to find another way around. I think I see a door at the base of one of the gaurd towers. We could sneak along the wall to the door. You. Doctor, and I wait on either side of the door and Bernard will start a serenade. Then when the guard comes out of the door you subdue him and I will proceed to dispatch any gaurds behind the first. We then fight our way to one of the main Palace cooridors. Then we ask the Palace to take us to Draconis's Lair, then Bernard and I will distract the guards as you sneak in and rescue your fair maiden."
Donna-Lé took a deep breath after laying out a well thought out plan.
"We could do that." The Doctor replied as he removed the Time Vector Generator from his pocket and removed a cap from one of its pointed end. Then He activated it. A laser came out of the end of it. The laser burned a small hole in the stone wall. The Doctor trailed the laser along the wall in an arch shape and the piece he cut out fell backward into the palace. The Doctor smiled.
"This way is quicker."
The three walked through the opening which started to heal as soon as they were through. The Doctor found they were in the same room with the fountain he had been in earlier. That meant he was right where they needed to be.
"Um Doctor I think I found where all the Guards were hiding." Bernard stated as he grabbed the sleeve of the Doctor's jacket. The Doctor looked at the two large closed doors that led into Draconis's lair and infront of them 40 Noc Guards and two of the Hyden beasts with riders, one on each side of the group of 40.
"That must be some companion you have their Doctor." Donna-Lé stated as she held her three arrows in her drawn bow.
"That she is my dear." The Doctor replied as he readied the Time Vector Generator. The Noc grunted and snorted like bulls in Pamplona just before they are released for the annual Running of the Bulls". That was one hell of a day the Doctor thought as he remembered participating in the event. The Noc Screamed as they charged the group. The Hyden beasts were quicker and flanked the trio on each side. Donna-Lé launched two volley's of three arrows at the beast and managed to take out both its eyes and its rider. Bernard strummed a tune on his instrument furiously as the other Hyden beast approached him. The Beast stopped in its tracks and threw its rider to the ground. It mauled its rider and then Bernard was able to direct it towards the group of charging Noc. The Doctor proceeded to point the TVG at the ceiling and in no time cut a huge circle in the ceiling. The large stone circle immediatle fell on top of the Noc and the fountain just before the hoard was to reach them. Three Noc remained standing. They immediately uttered something and the palace whisked them away.
"They are going for reinforcements. We don't have much time. " Bernard informed as they approached the liar door.
"I won't need much time." The Doctor said calmly as he used the the Time Vector Generator to cut along the side of one lair door and then the other. There was loud cracking noise as the two doors proceeded to fall forward. They landed with a loud crash and kicked up a huge cloud of dust.
"DRACONIS I NEED TO HAVE A WORD WITH YOU!!" The Doctor yelled as he stepped into the lair. Bernard and Donna-Lé took a spot on either side of the doorway and looked out into the room they just came from. Looking for signs of more guards.
"There's no need to yell Doctor. I'm right here." Draconis stated. He was sitting on a large golden throne perched on top of a large mound of gold and jewels. Next to him in a cage was Julie who appeared to be a bit dazed. Her right arm was bleeding from a cut on her shoulder. The Doctor pointed the TVG at Draconis and fired it.

A beam shot out of the end of the of the Time Vector Generator and hit Draconis directly in the chest. The beam knocked Draconis and his throne down the back of the mound of gold. The Doctor quickly bounded up the mound. He used the TVG to cut through two of the bars. Julie was in a dazed state and hardly seemed to notice the Doctor was there.

“Julie, It’s the Doctor.” The Doctor stated as he tapped her on the face in an attempt to get her to snap out of it. The Doctor heard Draconis’ laugh echo through the lair just before he felt the searing pain of electricity travel through his body. The Time Vector Generator flew from his hand before the Doctor fell to the ground. The device rolled down to the bottom of the gold mound. The Doctor watched as Draconis floated in the air near the cage.

“You scientist will never learn that all your knowledge and inventions are no match for the natural power of magic.” The evil wizard stated as he landed gently next to the cage. He clapped his hands and the cage disappeared. He then gave the Doctor another zap of electricity.

“Although I am impressed with your entrance, you do seem to have a talent for the dramatic entrance.”

“ What did you do to her?” The Doctor asked as the pain subsided for the moment and he tried to lift himself up. Draconis kicked him back down and shocked him again.

“Calm yourself Doctor, its just a side affect from the Doppleganger. As long as its alive she will be in this state. Of course you know by now should her double die, well let’s just say you would be traveling alone.”

The Wizard gave a small chuckle. The Doctor wondered where Shaden’s companions were but his question was immediately answered as he heard Donna-Lé yell at someone to let her go. Draconis snapped his fingers and the Doctor found his hands shackled. He managed to maneuver himself to sit up right and face Draconis who was once again sitting in his throne.

“Tell me then Draconis, why would you want my TARDIS if you think science is so horrible.”

“So I can destroy it. You of all people should know you cannot destroy what you do not understand.” Draconis stated as a Goblet of wine appeared in his hand. The Doctor shifted positions to try and move his jacket in a way so he could reach his sonic screwdriver. Draconis continued to talk with out directly looking at the Doctor.

“Now Doctor if you don’t mind, I do need that key of yours. It would appear your device is stronger against magic than I expected.”

“Sorry but I seem to have misplaced it again. Happens more than you think.” The Doctor quipped as his hands found their way to his jacket pocket.

“I grow tired of these games Doctor. If you do not give me the key then I will kill one of your friends here.” Draconis opened his left palm and a fire ball appeared. Julie suddenly dropped to the ground limp. Draconis looked over at the motionless body of Julie. “Oh damn, it looks as though someone beat me to it.”

And Zombies too

2009-05-17T22:38:00.003-05:00

So this weekend was decent. The trip went well, kids had fun playing with their cousins and grandma. The wife got to spend time with her family and I had some great food. I have never been much of a baseball guy but the brewers are doing well so far. Hopefully they haven't peaked too soon.
Ended the weekend by watching a zombie movie. Dead Snow.
A Norwegian Nazi Zombie movie. It was alot better than I though it would be. The movie also pays homage to the zombie movies before it. You have 6 friends that look to spend a holiday at a remote cabin in the mountains. Little did they know that there was a platoon of Zombie Nazi's that haunt the woods and they don't like trespassers.
The Characters are just your standard college kids though they did make them all medical students which is a bit of a twist. Also a twist was that one of them was afraid of blood ironic for both the fact he's a medical student and cause he's in a Zombie movie.
The director does well to make you care about the characters at least enough to where you would not want to see them dead. There are a number make you jump moments. There is plenty of gore. The story of the film is actually well played out and its not long before your realize its not just a gimmick movie. They put some thought behind it. Those who have seen zombie films will catch the honor they pay to movies such as Night of the living dead and yes Evil Dead 2.
Once again it is proven that foreign films are becoming more and more competition for the US cinema for the quality of film produced. Once again we have running zombies but it fits the film and I have grown use to them at this point.
Now with Dead Snow you do have to deal with subtitles but they do not remove you from the experience at all.
I am happily surprised at the movie and definitely recomend it for all zombie and horror movie fans alike.
It is on my to buy list for sure.

A quick thought or three

2009-05-16T16:39:00.002-05:00

Ah so I am on the road here so this is going to be short.

Went with the family to a state park today, one of the ones with all kinds of rock formations and such to climb and such. I remember when I was younger my friend and I would spend hours climbing and exploring. I gave the boys a chance to experience the same opportunity and they did not disappoint. They explored and climbed and of course at several points went off the beaten path which I was happy to join them. We took a long trail up a huge hill that had an overlook at the very top. It was a very cool view. It was one of those epic views where you could see for 15 miles in every direction that was not blocked by the tall trees. Its funny how some so simple could be so relaxing. This is gonna sound cheesy but to see the vast landscape and all the little details, a barn here, a large cranberry field there, water towers peppered about.
I just found it fantastic and serene.
I am in the city alot because of work and have not had alot of opportunities in the past few years to enjoy nature like that. It was easy when I was kid because my grandparents had a cottage in delafield at a time when it was still considered out in the country. I have to definitely get out to nature parks more. Just the few hours in the woods and I feel like I have been recharged a bit, Not completely but definitely helped. Yes must get to nature parks more. Anyone care to join me.
Well now off to a wedding for an inlaw, at least there will be food.:)

Doh again I miss with the posting

2009-05-15T15:38:00.002-05:00

Yeah so it happened again. Funny enough is that the days I miss posting are the days that just sucked ass at work for me go figure.
I didn't end up watching Dead Snow the other night, after posting I found some other things that actually needed to get done and went to bed. Such is life. I hope to watch it in the next few days and make it my first Movie review of the return of the final cut. I also was so mentally drained I was unable to complete a Lonely tooper this week or for that matter any video projects. That's the problem with having a job where you have to use your brain. It gets tired and wants to do nothing but play Plants vs ZOmbies or just stare at the nothing.
"They look like big...strong...hands..." Sorry flashback in the form of a movie quote there. I have been able to do some more planning in my head but not spit it out in any legible form. Some would argue that my blog is in an eligible form but ....where was I ah yes.
The Movie Donkey Punch was very interesting. Not just because there is nudity in it. The movie was better than most trapped on a boat movies I have seen. I think one of the reasons it did not make it here was one all the actors are australian, or british, or to more plainly...people with thick accents.
Those movies aren't the best just because you have to concentrate to listen to the dialog and we all know the average movie audience today really doesn't like to concentrate or think about whats going on.
Anyway, yes it is about a trio of girls on Holiday, as it is called over the pond, and they meet up with four gentlemen who are crew on a massive yatch. Well the men use their large yatch to impress the girls and they go for a ride. There's alcohol, drugs and eventually a rather steamy sex scene. This is where the movie turns as during the scene someone decideds to try a donkey punch and it ends very badly and the girl involved ends up dead.
The rest of the movie is along the lines of Dead Calm as some of the group start to go crazy and the longer they delay just heading into land and facing the consequences, they stay out at sea. THis allows things to break down. You can see where the movie is going.
I will say that there were a few moments of "wow they actually did that" and there was a fair amount of suspense.
The actors are great at selling the crazy and the directing is such to where you actually care for nearly all the characters. It is a decent suspensful thriller. Worth a watch

Long day short entry

2009-05-13T18:55:00.003-05:00

ITs been a helluva a day from work. I am going to spare the rant or the venting though because well I am just too tired to do so.
I would rather be making movies. and I guess in a small way lonely trooper is a series of very short movie shorts.
Someone sent me a message on you tube stating they would like to see more of the final cut movie reviews I did a year or two ago. I had actually started thinking about doing them again and with at least one person out there actually asking for more, I have the motivation to move on it. SO next week hopefully I will have one in the can to share with you all.

I think I am gonna go watch Zombie Nazi's in that sure to be classic film Dead Snow which recently came out.

Fae'th in Time....the story continues.

2009-05-12T18:29:00.002-05:00

Here is some more of the story for your enjoyment.

The Doctor walked over to the small group that was now in his TARDIS. Donna-Lé and Bernard seemed to be in a trance while Shaden’s head looked around the rather large interior of the Doctor’s craft.
“I must say Doc, be it magic or science, this is very impressive.”
“Thank you. Now if you don’t mind time is of the essence and I need to know where the Rani’s taking the fake Julie.” The Doctor said. He snapped his fingers in front of Shaden’s two dazed companions, “Um what’s wrong with them?”
“Oh trance collar. I slid it on them the min we entered the craft. They aren’t quite ready for the whole space craft, bigger on the inside than outside sort of thing you know chief. Oh and its not the Rani we should be going after , well at least not all of us.”
While Shaden was talking the Doctor was busy at the controls of the TARDIS setting it to go after the Rani when he stopped as if an idea came up and hit him on the back of the head.
“Of Course, Why would the Rani actually capture a fake Julie unless she believed it was the real Julie.”
“Now your cook’n with gas Doc. There are only two people who would have had the means to create that Dolpeganger so quickly and to do the switcheroo of the Julies, the Rani with her science and Draconis with his magic.” Shaden stated though he knew the Doctor had already come to the same conclusion.
“Right but if the Rani hurts the Julie’s double then the real one will be hurt. So we should still go after the fake Julie first.” The Doctor stated.
“Or we could go for both.” Shaden commented, “You go find Julie at Draconis’s hole and I will go after the Rani and reveal the doppelganger. Once revealed, the doppelganger’s connection to Julie will be broke and no longer a threat.”
Shaden made to leave but a shout from the Doctor made him stop.
“What about your friends?”
“Partners Doc, thieves never have friends. Friends are an occupational hazard but go ahead and take them with Doc. There is a small collar on their neck just remove it and they will be ready to go. I’ll move quicker by myself, besides you will need someone to help distract the guards at the palace. Catch you on the flip side.” Shaden answered as he exited the TARDIS, not giving the Doctor a chance to protest. The Doctor just sighed and then set about the controls. He knew he would be able to locate the energy signature from the Rani’s TARDIS and use it to materialize near the Castle. I’m coming for you Julie, just hang in there, the Doctor thought to himself as he engaged the TARDIS.

Shaden watched the TARDIS dematerialize and a moment later he was staring at a rather large and brightly colored tapestry. A smile came across Shades face. I don’t think Cavenaugh will mind me borrowing her magic carpet. He went to the hanging carpet and gave it a yank. The carpet ripped at the corners where the hooks that were holding it up had been. The carpet immediately repaired it self and floated to the floor. It hovered a foot off the ground as it stretched itself flat.
“DON”T YOU THINK ABOUT IT SHADE!!!” Cavenaugh yelled from the middle of the room. She was having trouble wading through the treasure about her.
“No worries Dollface. Its in good hands.” Shaden replied as he hopped on to the carpet. He stood like surfer as the carpet began to move. Shaden leaned to one side and the whole carpet moved with him. He pulled out his bag and slid it along the top of the sea of treasure. His bag filled with coins and jewels as it moved along. Just before he exited the room Shaden righted himself and the Carpet and gave wave to Cavenaugh.
“SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH!!” he yelled.
“SHADE YOU BASTARD!!!!!!” Cavenaugh yelled as she lobed a large black pearl in his direction. Before the pearl hit the ground Shaden’s hand appeared out of the doorway and caught it, then disappeared.
Shaden zoomed down the hallways of the Guild. This time he was laid flat on his chest, allowing the carpet the ability to move faster than if he stood. He flew down the last corridor and threw his boomerang at the torch switch which opened up the end of the hall. Shade and the carpet flew into the Dirty Hog and then crashed through its main window. The cool night air felt refreshing on his face. Shaden reached into his bag and removed a long slender sapphire. The jewel had a string wrapped around it and the string was attached to a small sliver rod.
“Let’s hope the locator jewel I slipped into Brown eyes pocket works” Shade said to the carpet and the held the jewel in front of his mouth.
"Awake" he whispered.
The jewel swung slowly back and forth at first but then began to pick up speed and glow. In the next moment the jewel pointed straight out in front of them. Shaden smiled and commanded the carpet.
“Follow the jewel.”
The carpet picked up more speed as it followed the jewel’s pointed direction. The carpet changed direction as the jewel did, while Shaden did his best to hold on to the carpet with one hand and jewel in the other. After 5 mins the the jewel pointed straight down and the carpet started to descend. The change in direction happened so fast, Shaden did not have time to jump when the carpet ran straight into the ground. Shaden rolled across the ground and stopped with a thud against a large tree stump.
"A little advanced warning next time huh." Shaden said to the carpet which had straighten itself out and once again hovered. The jewel's point was stuck in the ground and the jewel twitched as it tried to dig further into the dirt. Shaden looked around and saw they were in the middle of a vast open field. He could barely make out the fence line or the lights on the farm house at the north end of the field. He then realized he had the pleasure of slamming into the only tree stump in the entire field. He dropped to the ground and sighed as he stared at the jewel.
"Don't tell me she is buried already. Looks like Shaden is a day late and dollar short again."
"Are you comfortable my dear," a female voice asked. The voice sounded mystical and distant.
"Actually, I am thanks for asking, hey..." Shaden stood up quickly and spun around but all he saw was the stump. Just as he was about to check his sanity, the voice came from it again.
"You know for someone who is about to under go an extreme mental and physical altering procedure your rather calm. Oh did I mention the extreme pain as well. hahahahaha"
Shaden knew that voice as the Rani's. The stump was very large and appeared to be hollow in the middle. Shaden peaked down into it and saw a very long tunnel with a light at the end of it with shadows moving across every so often. Shaden wasted no time. He picked up the jewel and commanded it to sleep, then he pulled a very long rope from his bag. He tied one end of the rope around the middle of the carpet and the other around his waist. The tube walls were made out of segmented bricks and stones, this allowed Shaden to use them as foot holds as he descended down the tube. It took a couple minutes to traverse the tube before Shaden found himself above the lighted opening. His eyes had adjusted to view the room below.
To the north, there appeared to be an entrance into the room with two Mutant Noc stood guard with their backs to the room. The walls to the east and south were lined with tables that were covered in various items, glass tubes and jars filled with multi colored liquids and steam. Shaden figured were the Rani's science equipment. The west end had a small table that contain a wide assortment of bladed objects and probing tools. They were all covered in black blood. Next to this was a larger table which had a barely clothed faux Julie strapped to it.The Rani hovered over "Julie" with a knife. Shaden then had an idea. He maneuvered himself to free a hand. He reached into his bag and pull out a pink crystal. He tapped it against a rock until it glowed and then slid it in a small pocket in his leather armor. He slowly lowered himself through the opening while the Rani continued to talk.
"Its a pity the Doctor isn't here to see my science at work. This world will be mine for the taking and your going to help be part of it...well part of you anyway. See I will use your DNA along with a few other bits and pieces I have been collecting to create a creature that will be able to defeat that bloody reptile Draconis and I can take this world as my own. A whole new world filled with subjects for my experiments." The Rani trailed the knife along the body of "Julie" who finally began to show some emotion to her predicament. She squirmed at the feeling of the metal against her skin, the Rani smiled wickedly.
"Well it appears you are alive. Good that will make this all the more fun."
Shaden landed on the ground with out a sound. He removed Smite from his wrist band and took aim at the guards. Shade through the boomerang at one of the guards. It cleaved the one guard's head in two, then Shaden immediately directed Smite to the other guard. The Mutant Noc turned in time to see the boomerang cut it's head off. The sound of the bodies as they hit the floor made the Rani turn to see what the commotion was about. She immediately threw the knife she had when she saw Shaden. He dove to the ground but not before the knife put a large slice in his left arm. The cut didn't phase him and he did a sommersault towards the Rani.
The Rani managed to reach another knife and spun around to stab the fake Julie. Shaden managed to reach the Rani just before the blade pierced the fake Julie's chest. To Shaden's surprise, the Rani was quite strong and it took both hands to hold the Rani's one hand back. With her free hand, the Rani managed to grab Shaden by the throat and choked him.
"I'm going to kill you and Julie and then throw your dead carcasses at the foot of the mighty Doctor. Let's see how all mighty he will feel then hahaha."
"You know... you talk...tooo much" Shaden retorted between gasps of air. He then summoned up enough strength and kneed the Rani in the side. Her grip on his neck loosened slightly and he kneed her again, this time the Rani's grip on Shaden's throat broke as the tip of the blade made a small cut in fake Julie's chest. Shaden then head butted the Rani hard in the nose. The Rani stumbled back from the table. she held the knife in one hand and her bleeding nose. Shaden removed smite and held the flat side in front of the fake Julie's face so it could see its reflection.
"See your true form. Dopleganger."
The Rani looked at her hand that was now covered in blood and was filled with rage. She was so focused on the blood and pain in her nose, she failed to notice Shaden's actions.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" The Rani screamed as she charged the table. She brought the knife down hard but the blade instead just passed through a blue mist instead of flesh and clanged against the metal table surface.
Shaden headed back under the hole as the Rani stared at the empty table where the fake Julie's body once was. A dozen noc guards had reached the entrance as Shaden gave a tug on the rope.
"Well its been a slice but I gotta thing." The thief stated as he looked at his wrist as if he wore a watch. The Rani dove at Shaden as the rope went taunt and pulled the thief into the tunnel. The Rani, who had manged to grab a hold of Shaden's legs, was pulled with Shaden.
"Your not going anywhere you little worm."
"Worm? Knowledge of the universe at your finger tips and the best you can come up with is worm." Shaden said as he tried to shake the Rani off his legs. She continued to claw at Shaden, as she tired to crawl up him. The carpet ascended into the night sky and soon Shaden realized they were high above the ground, really high. So did the Rani who was now clung to Shaden's legs for dear life.
"Umm you can stop now" Shaden commanded to the rug. The rug continued its ascent.
"It doesn't appear to be listening. Do something you wretch." The Rani yelled as she adjusted her grip on Shaden's legs.
"I am open to suggestions. Anyth ahhhh" Shaden lost his grip and the two fell through the air. The Rani reached for a pendant around her neck and squeezed it. The two were engulfed in a blue light before they disappeared, a second before they were to hit the ground.

Day Late and Dollar short

2009-05-12T16:37:00.002-05:00

DOH and so I ended up not posting every day this month. It was a good run but I broke the streak., I was so tired and such yesterday from work...came home vegged on Plants Vs Zombies game and went to bed after watching the X Files movie.

Some thoughts on that movie. I think had it come out soon after the first movie it would have done a lot better. I was a decent movie by itself. The problem I think that people had with it was 1. No aliens...never mind the ship has sailed on the story line for that..people like Mulder and Scully chasing little green guys 2. there was conflict between our two heroes and the movie was rather dramatic. I enjoyed the film but I think it just took too long to get it released. Amanda Peet held up well next the two stars but the director didn't seem to quite figure out how to play her character. She did not get naked in this so you will have to go back to your copy of The whole 9 Yards to see that. The music for the X-files movie was good. I always like Mark Snow's music though and hope he does more.
Anyway sorry I broke the streak but I was doing better than I thought I would. Now excuse me I have to go find my copy of the whole 9 yards.

Ah Mothers Day

2009-05-10T22:47:00.002-05:00

Well another mothers day is here and gone. I think my wife enjoyed the present and cards the kids gave her. I got up early got her flowers and also her favorite doughnuts. Other than that I ended up having most of my time taken up by a game called Plants vs Zombies. Its a somewhat strategy game where you plant...plants that defend your home from hordes of various types of zombies. What can I say I am a sucker for a Zombie game. This one is entertaining and funny but also a challenge. Definitely has replay value and it was fairly cheap. On the whole it was worth the money. Oh the graphics are done cartoony so no looking for high detail realistic uber graphics. Thats fine by me because the game play is fun.
I will always take game play over graphics for any game. Thats why many of the classic games are hella enjoyable. One of my top favs was ultima underworld. It has decent graphics but more than that it had a deep story and it was fun to play. The game engine was user friendly. I still play the game.
I think there is this weird need for game programmers to always go for the fantastic graphics in a game but then forget to make it fun to play. Maybe I am just old and this is a get off my lawn moment. Don't get me wrong I love fantastic graphics in a game, but if the game play sucks I am not gonna want to play it no matter how cool it looks. Some of the games have controls so complicated you have to have a key attached to your controller so you know what your doin. OR sometimes the controls make no sense and make you bend your fingers in unatural ways.
I also picked up Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich. So far it is a great little comic book hero game with 3D graphics from 2003. Unfortunately the game keeps just shutting down on me. The parts I played were fun...mostly point and click interface and it has a build your own hero feature which I have avoided only to prevent me spending a good chunk of time on it.

So it was a plesent day...which is what I needed because going to work is going to be hell this week...again. I should have gotten out a long time ago from there. Ah well hindsight and all that. Look for more Fae'th this week and another video project...probably another lonely trooper. GOtta strike while the creative iron is hot/

Star Trekkin across the universe.....

2009-05-09T23:11:00.003-05:00

Last night I caught the new star trek movie and to sum up I likey. Now being a fan of the series of course there were things that I thought could have been done a bit different, a view shared by my good friend but at the risk of sounding cliché the needs of the many out weighed the needs of the few. They are trying to bring in new fans for the franchise, reboot it as it were and in doing so somethings had to be sacrificed or changed. On the whole though the movie was very entertaining and it was an actual movie.
Let me explain ...the last number of Star Trek films were not written, directed or acted as a movie and were more just a TV episode on the big screen. The characters all did their cookie cutter things and basically were not human.
JJ Abrhams has made Trek Characters Human again. They are unique, they feel, they are scared , and they get right pissed off. There is conflict among them ...now I am not talking to the extreme of conflict as seen on BattleStar Galactica but still the crew of the enterprise aren't exactly all kissing each others ass and singing kumbaya in the shower.
The new actors in the roles of the old classic characters did their homework and the performances were well executed. Especially Bones, Spock and Kirk. You could tell the actors did thier home work.
My friend Jim and I agree that the writing for the script was brilliant and handled perfectly in the first half of the film. It did taper off a bit towards the end but that was also because they did their darndest to help tie this into the Cannon. With the amount of history in Star Trek Cannon I think they did a pretty darn good job.
Some of the homages they paid to the original like some of the character classic lines as well as some of the original sound effects reused from the original series seemed a bit forced at times but not to the point of annoying and probably only noticable to the Trekkies of the crowd. ALso the music was not all too great. It was a bit over the top and lacking in variety. Now perhaps I missed the good bits because they were over shadowed by the dialog and sound effects but even with that the score needed some polish.

Overall the movie was a hell of alot better than expected and I looked forward to the direction JJ Abrahms is taking the series. It is definitely worth the price of admission to see on the big screen or IMAX.

PS I was hoping for a "Conception of Spock" scene just to finally see Wynona Ryder naked but again the director misses such an opportunity. Damn you.

AH Friday now time to keep up my Geek Cred...

2009-05-08T18:47:00.002-05:00

So tonight I am off to see the latest Star Trek film. I do not high expectations and plan on just going to the film and looking at it like any other film...yeah right . The old school trekkie in me will probably creep up 15 min into the film and yell "get off my lawn damn kid versions of the classic characters.
This could really go one of two ways. I will either be happily surprised like I was with Batman Begins. I am a devout Tim Burton fan so when I heard of the reimagining of the series I was skeptical to say the least. Especially when I saw the Tank they called a Batmobile. But when I saw every thing within the context of the story and the world the story took place in I was very happy and throughly enjoyed the film...and of course after.
Then there are remakes / or reboots that do not work. For instance the Day the Earth Stood Still . That movie did not even resemble the original save for the two alien character names. You could barely even understand the Famouse line that stops the planet devestating robot, as well as allows you to pick up the proper necronomicon. The movie really would have been better off as a ScI Fi movie by itself rather than trying to cash in on the cult following of the original. The Cleese Cameo was vericool though.
So I am off to see an enjoyable movie I hope. I do like JJ Abrams style. He made me enjoy CLoverfield alot more than I should have and Lost keeps you guessing if not dizzy. I also like the actor playing young Spock. He rules as Sylar, when the script actually gives him a chance to be badass instead of Whiny little bastard child, and he definitely has the Vulcan'isms down from what I can tell in the trailers. Look for a review leater tonight or tomorrow.
Yeah I am still a Trek Geek. MAy even try to revitalize the trek short story series my friends and I wrote back in High School.

Thoughts and stuff

2009-05-07T21:54:00.002-05:00

Not a lot of things happened today outside of work being hectic again, but when hasn't it been as of late. I have begun writing the script for the next lonelytrooper episode which is good. I had hoped to have more Fae'th but Time and other things may have post poned that until Sunday or Monday.
Other than becoming more and more the disgruntled worker things are going well. Kids are looking forward to school being over and the weather has decided it is Spring. I remember that feeling as a kid ...counting the days until school was over for the summer. Nothing quite like tossing all the crap you had from the school year in the garbage and saying good bye to the school for the summer. Truely a happy feeling.
I remember one year we had locker clean out day and I scored a UHF movie poster. What are the odds huh. I still have that poster I believe somewhere. Good memories.
Sorry its been a long week and I am fried so my thoughts are just a bit random tonight.
My oldest is too smart for his own good. He was reading a book that had a theory about when the extinction of man would happen so of course he had questions. Here we worry about violence in video games and such when Science has it all there. Anyway he was convince he did not have to worry about the extinction because it was , according to the book, 10 million years from now and we probably would not be around at that time as he put it. Then he mentioned how he believed he would live a long time , he had a bit of a tone in his voice like he was trying to convince himself. So I tried to assure him he most likely would live a long time and change the subject. It's tough because when it comes to our own mortality I have issues with facing it. Not sure why but I do so to sit and try to comfort my son who seems to have a bit of a hidden fear, like I do, about death is a bit...surreal . I am sure I will learn to better accept it in the future as I get older and so hopefully will he. Being afraid of something that is unavoidable is truely not productive or worth the time but humans seem to do that, my self included. Just one of the many flaws of the human race.
On a lighter subject I am going to go see the new Trek Movie tomorrow. I rather like JJ Abhams style so I am looking forward to it...at least on one hand...on the other the Trek Fan in me is scared at just how much they messed with the series and will it be a major fail for us Trekkies. Then again anything can be better than Nemesis or Star Trek V.

Hooray for being productive on a crap day

2009-05-06T23:55:00.002-05:00

Yes it was one of my rougher days of the year today. I managed through it ok but when I got home I wasn't sure I would be able to complete the lonely trooper episode like I had wanted too. I ended up just diving into the project. I was happy the way it turned out, especially since I didn't think I would be doing any more.
I have also making progress on the Fae'th in time story as some of you may have seen...or I hope have seen..have you?
Anyway I am a little sad because I am heading near the end of the story. I have very much enjoyed writing it. I hope I did not abuse any characters too much or not enough. I tried to make it a Who story but also a bit of my own. I am still finding my style a bit though I have found my self comfortable with the first person versus third. I have had this series of Fae'th rolling around in my head for 6 years I realized and when Fae'th in Time is done I will have two and a half stories for the series done. Not a lot of progress considering the length of the stories.
I did have a in there a story I did that was a satire of the Lord of the Rings I may just brush of and give a revising and updating to. Who knows maybe I could market it in some fashion. I am getting that motivation to really do something big and actually try to promote it and make money off it but have not gotten to that level quite yet. Anyway hope you enjoy the new LT posted. Feed back is always welcome with that or the story I am posting here. Well thats enough of my rambling for one day. Tomorrow hopefully will be better at work. Perhaps I may even get something else done on my projects at home. We'll have to see.

My apologies for the formatting

2009-05-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hello this is a quick note to aplogize for the formatting. Apparently this FRAKING blog program doesn't like it when you copy and paste from word. ANy help in getting this to keep its formatting would be appreciated.

Fae'th in Time continued some more

2009-05-05T21:17:00.014-05:00

"You have me at a loss sir for you know my name but I know not yours" Lady Cavenaugh stated in a very innocent and high pitch tone.

"My apologies, I am Doc and these are my fellow travelers. We have come a long way to meet you and ask if we could have a moment of your time?" The Doctor asked with a smile. The smile helped hide the urge he had to run up to the TARDIS and take it back so he could rescue Julie. He had to play it smart and push the feelings aside for the moment until he could better asses the situation. The irritation from the ether did not help matters much. Cavanaugh stood up and went to the side of the TARDIS.

"Nice to see someone has not forgotten their manners around here. You could learn a thing or two from this one Shade." She said as she ran her hands along the TARDIS, "By the way I don't remember having seen your name on the 'those who have paid their tribute list.' In Fact I think the last time I saw your name on that list was well never. Yet you always manage to find a way in here."

"I am resourceful like that. I see your mole is gone ...to bad you had to take your eye with it when you removed it. Tell me do you still have that mole on your inner th..."

"Enough! I know why you are here." the lady stated as she walked around the back of the TARDIS, trailing her hand along it as she went. "You want this box."

"Yes we do actually baby cakes. It was lifted from my friend here so if you wouldn't mind just giving it back to him. We can make like sheep herders and get the flock out of here." Shaden answered as he stepped up next to the Doctor. Cavenaugh laughed out loud and it echoed across the chamber.

"Seriously Shade I didn't think you had any friends. Unfortunately this is no longer mine to give. You see I have since sold it to someone of great power and they are paying handsomely for it."

"I thought you stopped doing business with Draconis years ago," Donna-Lé commented as she and the other two stepped up behind Shade and the Doctor. "Julie" seemed uninterested and just stared at the wall. Cavenaugh took her seat on the throne again as she talked.

"Draconis? I said someone with real power and not that overgrown lizard. No I am talking about the RANI and she can't wait to get her hand on this box and you Doctor. "

"It will be a cold day in hell before the RANI steps foot in my TARDIS." The Doctor stated calmly. Donna-Lé and Bernard mouths drop as Cavenaugh called the Doctor well Doctor.

"Well I suggest you pack some skins because you will be in hell very soon." Cavenaugh clapped and the walls on either side of the group and the one behind the throne pedestal disappeared to reveal a room three times the size of the Dirty Hog. Along the wall of the room to the right was a long bar with Catman for a bartender. There were various wooden tables placed on the main floor and along the left hand side were booths. The upper part of all three walls and the ceiling made up the surface for a huge map painting of Fae'th. There were small stars at random locations with many of them connected by dotted lines. There were also three red x's placed at equal distances on the map. The title of the map appeared to be written in some ancient script the Doctor, at first, could not read but a second later he understood it. That's my girl the Doctor thought as he looked at the TARDIS in the distance. Shaden nudged the Doctor and handed him a rapier.

"I think you will be needing one of these chief. With you being a man of the universe, I assume you know how to handle one." Shaden armed himself with his boomerang.

The Doctor noticed the room was suddenly filled with a hundred guild members. All of them were standing and staring at the group. Donna-Lé drew her bow and three arrows while Bernard prepared for a song. Cavenaugh's laughter was soon muffled by the sound of grinding stone as the pedestal that held her throne and the TARDIS slid to the back of the room.

"It's one of my expertise." The Doctor replied as he took a fighting stance. The group of thieves moved back and forth. Some were punching there fists into their hands or grabbing near by bottles. The Doctor and Shaden slowly started to move backwards towards the way they came in.

"Tell me what is Donovan-Dé's treasure?" The Doctor asked calmly.

"You're asking this now?!" Shaden replied.

"Yes"

"Its the treasure of the thief that first started the guild. He was the best thief at the time and had many valuable items he had acquired over the years. He didn't trust anyone so he buried his entire treasure somewhere in Fae'th. " Shaden informed as the thieves began to rile themselves up further. It appeared Lady Cavenaugh was enjoying the building of tension because she had not given the attack command to her troops. Donna -Lé moved up next to the two men and continued the tale Shaden had started.

"Donovan-Dé wanted to keep a map of where he hid is treasure of course but maps are easily stolen so he decided to paint his on the ceiling of the guild house. Problem is everyone could see it so instead of putting the exact location on the map he put all those false locations."

Bernard moved up to the Doctor's right and finished the tale.

"The poor fool fell ill and demented and died. Taking with him the actual location of the treasure. Over 100 years and no one has been able to find it. If someone were to find it they would be as rich as Draconis himself...or close to it."

The Doctor's mind worked furiously over the facts he was just told and ran the pattern of the map through his head. Oh it can't be that easy could it. He thought to himself, then as he looked up at the ceiling he smiled, Oh yes it can. Cavenaugh took a large drink from a chalace that was handed to her by a servant.

"Enough mumbling over there. We have some time before our buyer arrives. How about we have some fun. Thieves ATTACK!!"

"WAIT I KNOW THE LOCATION OF DONOVAN- Dé's TREASURE." The Doctor screamed.

"HALT!!" Cavanaugh yelled. The events happened so fast that the thieves had not had a chance to move from their spots. Cavenaugh stepped down from her throne and the group of men made a clear path for her to the Doctor. As she reached him she grabbed him by the chin and looked him square in the eye.

"You are kidding aren't you?" Cavenaugh asked," How do I know this isn't some last disparate act of a man trying to save his skin."

"It could very well be the first act of Henry the fifth but it does not change the fact that I can tell you where that treasure is." The Doctor replied as he removed his chin from her grasp, " I am a scientist and its my job to figure things out. Its what we do."

"Ok well if you do not reveal the location I will kill one of your companions here starting with her." Cavenaugh stated as she pointed to "Julie". One of the thieves broke a bottle on the side of the table and grabbed "Julie". He held the broken bottle to her neck. The Doctor didn't budge.

"I see you are not the business person I thought you were Cavenaugh. You harm any of us and you will never get that location."

Cavenaugh waved her hand and the thief let "Julie" go. She ran behind the Doctor to hide.

"Thank you my lady. Now I would like my box back. You let us walk out of here with it and I will reveal the location. If we are harmed in anyway then good luck in finding it." The Doctor stated as the group drew in close to him. Cavenaugh rolled her eyes and sighed. "Fine, Pete and Sans escort these people to the box but do not let them near the door until the Doctor here tells us the location."

The Two biggest men of the group of thieves stepped forward and gave the Doctor and Shade a push. Donna-Lé sheathed her arrows and Bernard lowered his hand. As the group made their way to the TARDIS, Donna-Lé tugged on Shaden's sleeve.

"How could you not tell us he was a Doctor. No wonder we are in so much trouble. I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

"Hey Points I didn't hold an arrow to your head," Shaden replied quietly. He then leaned over to the Doctor.

"Do you really know where the location is Chief"

"Yes"

"You realize they will kill us once you reveal the location."

"Yes"

"But you have a plan?" Shaden questioned.

"Always do." The Doctor replied.

They soon were standing near the Door of the TARDIS. The two men that escorted them stood in front of the door, blocking the entrance.

"Now then Doctor. Where is it? Time grows short." Cavenaugh said.

"Very well. See our man Donovan-Dé was ahead of his time. He triangulation and didn't even know it." The Doctor stared at the ceiling and the three red stars, he pictured the lines to connect all three stars and then figure out the center of the triangle the lines formed. Then he took his rapier and threw it at the spot. Cavenaugh chuckled.

"That's the middle of the Sister Nova Sea. You aren't much of a scientist that area has been gone over many times these past hundred years. hehe... you almost had me convinced Doctor. I am afraid now the time for you to Di..."

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE CAVENAUGH!! WE HAD A DEAL!!" the Rani yelled. Everyone looked over to the entrance of the room to see the Rani still riding her Hyden beast accompanied by two other beast riders and four flying Noc, flapping in place above her.

"We Still do. The Doctor here was just telling us all a ...funny...joke."

Cavenaugh's voice trailed off at the sound of cracking stone coming from the ceiling. Everyone, including the RANI looked up at the rapier the Doctor had stuck in the ceiling. Cracks began to spread out from the impact point. Within a couple seconds, half the ceiling was cracked and then it gave way. Gold, jewels and treasure poured from the ceiling and began to bury the thieves. Those that weren't unconscious were cheering as they tried to fill their pockets. The two guards in front of the door to the TARDIS abandoned their post as they went to the avalanche of treasure. Cavenaugh ran to it trying to claim it all as her's and failing. The RANI, her riders, and flyers immediately charged in the direction of the TARDIS.

"Right time to go!" The Doctor stated as he pulled the key from his pocket and made to unlock the door. Donna-Lé shot arrows at the oncoming beasts and managed to take out one of the flyers as the Doctor got the door open. Everyone filed in without question and the Doctor closed the door behind them. While the rest of the group stood in awe of the size of the TARDIS control room. The Doctor did a quick head count and dread came over him. They were one short. The Monitor for the outside was still on and the Doctor could see the RANI with an unconscious "Julie" hanging over the back of one of the Beasts.

"Hey Doctor! I may not have the TARDIS but I sure have one hell of a consolation prize!" The RANI yelled as she rode out of the room while the thieves continued to collect their treasure.

Work , Writing and things

2009-05-04T20:14:00.003-05:00

I promise to have more Fae'th this week. That is if anyone is still reading it. If not thats ok too I am on a roll with it. Unfortunately not quite sure how to end it but I think I will have that figured out this week. The ending itself may be a little while but there will be one.
Anyway I started fleshing out the characters for my short film. I realized the body count will not be that big but then again I would rather keep it small and have the deaths done smartly than just randomly kill a ton of people just to have the gore and body count. I have the script almost complete...well in my head. I have not written it down yet. I usually toss these things around alot in the brain before actually jotting them down on paper or computer.
I also will have the lonely trooper episode done Wednesday night, unless I get off work early tomorrow. That's from my 2nd job anyway. My day job has me really stressed but I am keeping it together somewhat better than I would have a year ago.
Nothing really interesting happened today, got up went to work, was swamped, went to other work, came home. Eventful I know. I am staying on track but finding it harder to maintain that level of on-top-of-ness. I feel like I am constantly under the microscope, which I probably am, and know my mid year review will probably not be as shiny as I hope. But no one ever said customer service was easy.
OK done hearing me whine about my job and all.
I am off to tuck the kids in and then a movie. I do so love both very much. The kids more than the movies of course...oh and my wife naturally love her too..ok I am just digging a hole and I will stop now.

Slackin day

2009-05-03T22:28:00.001-05:00

Yeah today I slacked more than I should have probably. Sure its a day of rest but that just means your not at work...doesn't mean your not working. Progress on the latest lonely trooper has been a bit slower than expected. But I have the audio done and the props completed so its just shooting the video which I shall do tuesday, a week later than I wanted for the episode. Procrastination is a bitch and I am its master. I try not to be, I try my best to stay on top of things and get things done but it is rather difficult for me. More so maybe than most. A lot of time I lose track of time, I see its Monday and I have the whole week a head of me only to blink and now its friday and I am behind. I think I really have to choose specific days to work on specfic things make a schedule and then post it where ever I go. I made one at the begining of the year but I didn't follow it because it was only on the computer and not in front of me. Just a little icon that laughed. Perhaps I have an attention problem or maybe its just I am too busy. dunno but I want to figure it out. That's my other goal for the month. Figure out why I keep getting this invisible wall that I lean against instead of breaking through. Maybe its laziness. Maybe its cause my mind is so drained from work that I just don't feel like trying to do stuff that requires my mind to work hard, even if its stuff I love to do.
Its the same at work as at home and I am sure I will hear about how things did not get done as quickly as people wanted them too. On that note though when it comes to customer service it is never done as quick as people want it to.
I am doin better than I was 8 months ago but I know I have a long way to go.

Fae'th in Time continued

2009-05-02T19:30:00.007-05:00

5 mins later Julie came back in the barn looking very relaxed. The group had gathered by the back of the wagon.

“So what did I miss?” She asked with a smile. The Doctor turned to her and paused just a moment before he spoke.

“Um nothing my dear, Bernard was just telling us of the tale on how he lost his arm to the Noc.” The Doctor replied.

“Oh I am sorry I wasn’t here for that. So when do we head out?”

Shaden looked at Julie and smiled.

“Why we were just about to head out beautiful. There is a jacket hanging on the wall in my stall there. Why do you go grab it and bring it with. It does get rather chilly when the sun goes down and I don’t want you freezing out there.

“How kind of you.” Julie replied as she turned and went for the Jacket. Shaden walked up to the Doctor and whisper.

“Hey Doc it looks like…” but the Doctor cut him off.

“I know.” The Doctor clinched his fist.

Julie came back wearing the jacket. It was a worn jacket made of leather. It fit Julie perfectly telling the Doctor the jacket was not Shaden’s , at least one of his that he wore.

“Right well its close enough to sundown to where the Dirty Hog should be open. I am sure Snitch is already there so shall we head out. The Doctor moved in the direction of Julie but Shaden put his hand out just enough to stop the Doctor. He then turned to the Doctor.

“Just wait,” he whispered and then Shaden turned to Julie. The thief made a sweeping motion with his hand.

“After you …brown eyes.”

Donna-Lé and Bernard stopped and looked towards Julie. Donna motioned for an arrow from her quiver but Shaden shook his head slightly, stopping the elf.

“You three wait outside a moment I have to get something from my stall.” Shaden said. His two partners followed “Julie” out the door. The Doctor immediately headed to the back of the barn and threw open the door. He peaked his head out the door and slammed it.

“There is signs of a struggle but Julie is gone. I am going to find out where she is and that Dopleganger is going to tell me.” Shaden stepped in front of the Doctor.

“Out of my way Shade.”

“Now hold on Chief, you know as well as I do that the thing posing as your companion is the only chance we have of finding where Julie is. We can’t let it know we are onto it. Once a Dopleganger’s illusion is called out on, they disappear faster than tickets to a Beatles concert. Poof gone, nothing.”

“LOOK that thing knows where Julie is and I need to find out before its too late.” The Doctor yelled as he stepped around Shaden. Shaden grabbed the Doctor by the jacket and the Doctor swung around drawing back his fist as he did. Shaden ducked and put his hands up. The Doctor realized what he was doing and put his arm down. Shaden straightened up and looked the Doctor in the eye.

“I can assure you Julie is fine. Whatever happens to her will happen to the Doppleganger so as long as it’s alive we know Blue Eyes is too.”

The Doctor took a deep breath and realized that he had let his emotions get the better of him. The high concentration of ether, the Doctor realized, was starting to affect him. He could feel it irritating his skin and even his lungs as he breathed. The Doctor didn’t like it at all.

“Yes, you’re right, sorry.” The Doctor apologized.

“No worries Doctor, we’ll get her back, and the TARDIS.”

The two men walked out of the barn and joined the others.

No one said much on the way to the Dirty Hog. The Doctor was trying to work in his head how he was going to get the Dopleganger to reveal where Julie was. Shaden’s mind was work almost as loudly as the Doctor’s. He was trying to figure out who had sent the Dolpeganger, and also had to figure out where they were going to have to move too since it was obvious whoever sent the Dolpeganger knew the location of Shaden’s safe house.

To the Doctor’s surprise, the Dirty Hog was only two blocks from the safe barn. The sounds of merriment and fighting could be heard before they opened the door. Shaden made to open the door when it flew open on its own and a patron of the establishment went flying through it. The body landed with a thump twitched once and then laid still.

“Just another day at the Hog.” Bernard said with a chuckle as he entered. The rest of the group followed behind. The inside of the Hog looked like your basic pub. There were booths along the sides and tables out in the middle of the room for folks to sit. At the back of the pub was the bar with two tenders moving furiously back and forth. One of the tenders was a Catman and the other a Hogman, their bodies were human shaped but all other characteristics were that of an animal. The Doctor noticed most of the patrons were humanoid animal mixes.

“Not many humans visit this place. The Animan’s and humans don’t get along too well. I would watch your step sir.”

“I will do that.” The Doctor replied as he watched four Volemen and a Hyenaman play a game that reminded him a lot of Poker.

“Ah there he is by the Bar.” Shaden observed as he Pointed to the corner where the bar and wall met. There was a, what the Doctor assumed was a Hareman. The humanoid had two long fuzzy ears and a face of a Hare. The shorts he wore were tight against his very muscular legs. He must have heard Shaden because he turned his attention from a human lady he was talking too and stared at their group as they approached.

“Take a walk doll face. Grown up talk.” Shaden said to the lady as he handed her a gold coin.

“Shaden, been a while, I see your group is growing, ya ya. Makes it a bit harder to be a thief with so many folks around you.” The Hareman looked hungerly at Julie and Donna-Lé and added,”Course I can see the appeal with the likes of them.”

He licked his lips while he stared at the two women. “Julie” made no reaction at all while Donna-Lé turned away so she could not see him. Shaden grabbed the Hareman’s face and moved it so he was eye to eye with Shaden.

“Tell me Snitch, has Cavenaugh acquired any …unusually large items.” Shaden asked as he took a drink from Snitch’s cup.

“Yeah she has a large blue box of some kind with strange writing, ya ya. She is very proud of it, ya, took it herself she did, right from underneath the nose of the Noc. She’s good I mean real good.” He informed Shaden. Shaden looked up at the Doctor and the two exchanged nods.

“You kind of have to be to be the head of the thieves guild.” Bernard commented.

“I need to see her. Which stone is it?” Shaden asked. Snitch squirmed in his chair and looked nervously about as if he was late for something.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t pay your tribute to the guild again. Besides you know Cavenaugh wouldn’t be happy to see you, even if you showed up.”

“Tell you what you tell me what stone it is and turn the other way and I will make I worth something.” Shaden said as he pulled a diamond the size of a golf ball from his pouch. Snitch’s eyes widened and he made a reach for it. Shaden closed his hand around it and pulled it away.

“Come one Snitch. You give me the skinny on the stone and you get a rock.”

After a moment of hesitation and stuttering Snitch sighed and took a drink from his cup.

“Third row, middle stone.”

“See that wasn’t so hard.” Shaden tossed the stone at Snitch who juggled it a couple times before he caught it from the air. The bar suddenly got quiet and Snitch began laughing.

“Umm Shade I think we have a problem.” Bernard commented. The Doctor looked around and noticed some of the people in the bar were leaving hastily while others were standing and looking at them. Some were rubbing their fist while others smiled wickedly at the four. Snitch continued to laugh.

“Oh heh hehe ya ya I forgot to tell you…heheh Cavenaugh was looking for you actually. She said you still had something of hers ya,ya and who ever was able to get that item back from you. They would get 1000 gold pieces. Yaya . “ Snitch busted out in a full blown laughing fit. Donna-Lé immediately drew her arrow. Shaden grabbed Snitch and knocked him out with one punch. The bar patrons were just about to charge when the sound of a Trumpet filled air. Lights appeared on the small stage area that was next to the bar. Everyones head turned to the stage. On it was Bernard, perched on a chair and strumming his instrument. Smoke poured from it and a ghostly band appeared behind him. There was a drummer, a horn player whose instrument resembled a trumpet, and a piano player.

“Here’s a little song a friend of mine taught me. He said it just popped into his head one day.”

The band played a small intro and then Bernard began to sing.

Hey folks let me tell you about Minnie da Moocher,

She was a low down hoochie coocher,

She was the roughest, toughest frail,

But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.

Hi dee hi dee hi dee hi…

The entire bar repeated the call. They all seemed entranced at the song and they all gathered at the stage except for the Doctor, “Julie”, Shaden and Donna- Lé. Shaden led the other two over towards the fire place that was on the wall across from where they were standing.

She messed around with a bloke named smokie
She loved him though he was cokey
He took her down to chinatown
And showed her how to kick the gong around.

The Fireplace had stone pillars made of bricks on either side of it. Shaden counted out the stones and found the one Snitch told him about. He pressed on it and nothing happened. The Doctor looked at him with a smirk.

“Let me guess he lied to you. What are the odds? If you don’t mind I think I can lend my expertise.”

“Be my guess.” Shaden said.

Donna-Lé kept her bow and arrow drawn though everyone in the bar seemed entranced by Bernard. The Doctor activated his sonic screwdriver and waved it over the bricks. A brick near the bottom of the pillar began to shake. Shaden gave it a push and the fireplace disappeared to reveal a torch lit corridor behind it. The Donna-Lé and the Doctor filed into the corridor. Shaden waved at Bernard who continued to sing as he walked towards Shaden. As he moved the bar patrons gaze followed him as he stepped off the stage and reached Shade. Bernard never took his eyes off his audience. He took a step backward into the cooridor and Shade lifted the torch nearest them off of its wall mount. Opening turned into a stone wall immediately. The muffled music of the band could still be heard.

“We have 5 mins before the band stops.” Bernard informed Shaden.

“Ah pleanty of time Berno.” Shaden replied as he slapped the troll on the back.

“Julie” screamed and grabbed her arm. The Doctor instinctively went to her aid.

“Its ok let me take a look, “ The Doctor moved “Julie’s” arm to reveal a two inch slash across her forarm. Donna-Lé pulled a leaf from a small pouch on her belt and pressed it against the cut. The bleeding stopped on “Julie’s” arm the second the leaf touched the wound The Doctor look at Shaden but didn’t say a word. Shaden knew that the Doctor was not please. If the Dopleganger had a cut that meant Julie had the cut.

“Let’s go get your spac…sculpture shall we.” Shaden stated as he led the group down the corridor. As They ran down two more short corridors the Doctor realized just how much he disliked cooridors. The group made one more turn and found them selves in a dimly lit room that resembled a throne room. There were standards hanging on the walls and at the back of the room was a small set of stone stairs that lead to a throne. Sitting on the throne was a slender women around her 40’s she was dressed in leather armor over a bright green shirt. On both her arms were three sheathed daggers. She had a scar on her left cheek and a patch over her right eye. Behind here stood the TARDIS. The Doctor resisted the urge to run up to it and instead addressed the lady on the throne.

“Lady Cavenaugh, an honor to meet you.” The Doctor said with a bow.

May Day! May Day! I think I am gonna try this

2009-05-01T17:27:00.002-05:00

OK so its May 1st and another begining and another attempt of me holding to posting something everyday in the blog.
I was also thinking of starting another one where I could just place my stories so as folks can read the posts in order rather than read one segment then pass by my ramblings to the next. I could also get off my ass and relearn HTML and post them on the unused Specialmarkproductions.com. Yes there is one but I have not utilized it much at all. My fault really ...same reason as why I don't have alot of things done. I get great Ideas but don't follow through. Well this is my first attempt at following through.
Should this work I will begin next month to posting everyday and complete one video project a week.
Ambitious yes but it will just take discipline on my part. Just when I think i have broken the invisible barrier that stops me from acting on my ideas, the barrier crops up again...and again.
THere is also the fact i have to self motivate my self. I think I only have two people that read this though I post updates to this on my facebook page. Those two people I thank you. It has kept me at least posting if not spordaically on here and its why I am still posting now. Just like the subscribers to my channel on youtube I occasionally lose and gain one here and there. I have not posted a new video since my road exploits. Part of the reason is that I thought I was done with Lonely trooper but at least two more episodes cropped up go figure. I will start on the one this week and post it next and then the 2nd new episode a week after that. Again ambitious but I have this spark of motivation thanks to my friends who seem to still be around, its cause I pay them well ssssh.
So I promise I will have a post for each day on here at least for May.
While we are setting goals I will also say that I would like to shoot a short subject movie I have rolling in my head before the end of the year. I can do it.
I just gotta get off my ass which is harder than you think.

More Fae'th in time. Sorry for the wait.

2009-04-28T18:46:00.001-05:00

Shaden watched the E-wraiths fly off back the way they came and towards the direction of the fairy gate. Shaden then saw one of the Rani’s flyers appear above the tree line in the distance. Donna-Lé and Bernard had just gotten into the wagon when Shaden gave the reins a whip.

“Time to go, HEEEYA!!!” Shaden gave another whip of the reins and the horses took off, spilling everyone but Shaden to the bed of the wagon. The wagon did not slow as Shaden took turns looking behind and in front of the wagon. They took a sharp turn and the stone road turned to dirt. Shaden continued to turn left and the right at break neck speed. The ride reminded Julie of traveling through the palace though it wasn’t as smooth as that. Julie’s stomach remembered too. The wagon took one more sharp turn but this time into what looked like a Barn. As the wagon came to stop the Elf and troll immediately slipped off the back of the wagon and closed the large wooden barn doors they had just came through. Bernard slid a large metal bar across four brackets built into the door as Donna took one large leap and was in the hay loft. The Doctor could by the way the crew went about securing the barn, that this was rather routine for them. Shaden jumped out of the wagon and ran to the barn door. He peered through a small slit in the door.

“Sorry about the bumpy ride, but one of the flying uglies showed up above the trees on the edge of town.”

The Doctor helped Julie out of the wagon and stood next to Shaden and peered through his own small opening in the door.

“Any sign of it?”

“Nah its all good Doc.” Shaden replied. Donna jumped back down from the hay loft as the group gathered in the center of the barn.

“Right, well we have some time before the Dirty Hog is open. I am sure my partners in crime wish too look over their spoils. Doc and blue eyes make yourself at home. Mi Casa es Su Casa.”

“You know Shade sometimes you speak the strangest words.” Bernard stated.

“I’ll take that as a compliment Berno.” Shaden said as he gave the troll a slap on the back. The troll headed off to what Julie figured out was his section of the barn.

It was one of the large stalls in the far corner that was the darkest and was furnished with a bed made of logs, a small table and chair and a chest that seemed to have a faint blue glow to it. Julie felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and was about to turn to tell the Doctor she was fine but it was not the Doctor’s arm around her. It was Donna-Lé’s arm.

“If you would do me the pleasure m’lady, I would love to show you our humble home.”

“Umm I think I should stay with the Do.” Julie’s reply was cut off by the Doctor.

“Oh no you girl go and have fun. I will be fine.” The Doctor said with a large grin. Julie looked back at the Doctor as if to say save me. Donna-Lé’s smile grew large as she turned Julie in the direction of the other side of the barn.

“Good. If you don’t mind we can start with my room.” Donna-Lé led the reluctant Julie up a makeshift stair case that lead to the hay loft area.

“You girls have fun.” Shaden yelled as he watched the two head up the stairs. Julie made a very unlady like gesture with her middle finger towards Shaden. Shaden leaned over to The Doctor.

“I take it that’s not a happy gesture.”

“Not really no.” The Doctor replied with a chuckle.

“Oh Doctor I have something to show you.” Shaden said as he walked over to what appeared to be his area of the Barn. Shaden had setup his room in the largest stable of the barn. It reminded the Doctor of a stable hands quarters complete with a saddle hanging on the wall and the makeshift cot. There was a large table in the middle with two old wooden chairs that had a lot of experience to them.

“Have a seat my dear man. You like wine?” Shaden asked as the the Doctor took a seat. He eased into the chair to make sure it would hold his weight. It wasn’t that the Doctor was heavy by any means, it was more of the uncertainty of the weight capacity of the old chair. Shaden pulled the small sack he had used early in their escape. The sack was only the size of a paper lunch sack, like the ones the Doctor had seen human children use to take their cold lunch to school. It looked weathered and there was a faded C imprinted on the bag.

“I have been known on an occasion to have wine”

“Oh Good,” Shaden said as he reached into the bag, “Two wine glasses and a bottle of Elvish wine 1944 A.M.E.”

Shaden removed his hand from the bag and pulled out two large wine glasses. Then he reached in and pulled out a wine bottle. The Doctor just shook his head as he stared at the bag.

“Amazing am interdemensional storage device, I haven’t seen one of these for quite some time.”

“I’m sorry your what hurts. Oh the bag, it the famous Caladore’s Keep, one of the three rare bags of infinite holding. This little guy was the reason I headed back to Draconis’ Castle.” Shaden’s comment was immediately followed by the pop of the wine bottle as its cork was removed. Shaden poured the wine

“You mean Royal Premier Palace Draconis,” The Doctor chided as he took his glass of wine.

“Don’t you start. That’s a great jacket, would hate to see it covered in wine.” Shaden retorted as he took a seat.

“Do I want to know how you came to have such an item in your possession.” The Doctor asked with a smirk.

“Actually this is one of the few items I have that I did not acquire through my profession. This little baby came with the goods. See my real parents kicked me to the curb in a basket and this was the only thing found on me by my substitute parents. The only thing I have been able to find on the item is its name and that’s its older than dirt.”

“If you don’t mind me saying Shade, you seem a bit how should I say it….”

“Odd, different, freakish, weirdo, crazy, etc…yeah I know I have always been different from well, everyone. You see I hear things, constantly, in my head. When I am asleep, when I am awake, in the bathroom well you get the idea.” Shade informed the Doctor in a very serious tone.

“That must be very difficult for you to handle. It must have been really tough on you when you were a kid.” The Doctor commented as he studied Shade’s face to make sure their conversation was not upsetting him. Shade’s eye twitched once but the smile did not leave his face.

“That’s the funny thing about it Doc. The voices have been with me since I was shorter than a dwarf. My sub parents were both killed when I was young and I escaped from that kid’s prison they called an orphanage as soon as I was able to.I lived on the streets, in the woods, in the rain. It was not peaches and cream let me tell you but the voices, they kept me company. Helped me through a lot, I know I sound like I need a straight jacket but it’s the truth.”

“I can relate more than you know my friend.” The Doctor took a drink from his wine cup as memories of those times when he was with no companion and all he had were his thoughts. The Doctor’s head was a crowded place. If he didn’t have something to focus on be it a disaster or teaching his companion the fine art of beer drinking, it could get noisy. The Doctor stared off in the distance as he thought about those noisy times. Shaden lifted his glass quickly. The motion snapped the Doctor out of his thoughts.

“That’s why I say if I can hear myself think. I need another drink.”

“I’ll drink to that.” The Doctor added as the two men clinked cups and took a drink of wine. The Doctor was about to express his own toast, a special and bit risqué one he learn on Ackturs 3 when the sound of someone one stomping down stairs diverted his attention. It was Julie and she looked rather flustered. Julie’s face was flush and Shaden thought he saw a very small smudge of a blood rose lip print on her cheek. Blood Rose was used as a lip moisturizer by elves. Donna-Lé was at the top of the stairs leaning against a nearby post with a smirk on her face. Shaden looked up at her with a silent ‘What did you do?’ and the elf put her hand to her chest and shook her head in a silent ‘I didn’t do anything.’ look.

“Doctor. I am feeling rather uncomfortable here and want to leave now.”

“Why what’s wrong my dear?” The Doctor asked. Then silently answered his own question and looked up at where the elf was.

“Its just…well…” She looked up at where Donna-Lé had been standing, it was now empty.

“Did she try to hurt you? Shaden what type of …” The Doctor stated in a fatherly tone as he turned toward Shaden.

“No no its …its ok Doctor. I am fine really. I just…its nothing. A bit flattering ..but I ..I’m fine. “ Julie replied. The Doctor wasn’t sure who exactly she was trying to convince but decided that if she said she was ok he would let it drop, for now. Julie composed herself and then turned to Shaden.

“If you don’t mind, I really need to use the rest room.”

“Sure the outhouse is out back. Should be safe to go out there now, I haven’t heard the fliers or any wolf calls. There is a water basin out there too. We had a lot of rain lately so there should be enough if you need to freshen up, Blue eyes.” Shaden answered like a hotel bellboy pointing out the finer points of the room, “Its not the Taj Mahal but its what we got.”

“That will be fine thanks!” Julie stated with a half smile and then went to the small back door of the barn. She opened the door and had to duck her head to go through the doorway. The minute she closed the door behind her, the Doctor was about to talk to Shaden about keeping his people in line but didn’t get the chance because Shaden had already bounded up the stairs towards Donna-Lé’s area. The Doctor felt a tug on his jacket. He looked down to see Bernard’s weathered face looking up at him.

“If you aren’t going to be finishing that, would you mind if I finished it for you.” Bernard asked as he motioned to the wine cups on the table.

“Be my guest.”

A look of delight traveled across the trolls face as he reached for the Doctors wine cup. He downed the contents of it and Shaden’s drink as well, then he made a reach for the bottle but a voice from above stopped him.

“Leave the Bottle alone Berno,” the voice said.

Bernard said something rather unpleasant under his breath and went back to his area. It was times like this when a GPS on the TARDIS would actually have come in handy. The Doctor thought but then shrugged off the thought, No if it were inside the TARDIS who know where it would say it actually was in space and time and its not like it could survive being on the outside. Course there is the telephone cubby…

The Doctor sat down as his head got noisy.

Trivia

2009-04-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

So April aka busy as hell. Mostly because of the worlds largest trivia contest which I once again had the pleasure take part of and the honor to play with the FREAKS. Its hard really to describe the contest to anyone not from the area or who has not played. Basically it is a fundraiser for the student run radio station here in Stevens Point. There are not many completely student run radio stations out there anymore so that makes them special. What also makes them special is the world largest trivia contest.
THe Contest starts at 6pm friday and goes straight through until midnight sunday. 54 hours of organized chaos. During those 54 hours on average 8 trivia questions are asked and you have the length of two short songs or one long 4 min song to answer the question. YOU call in your answer and depending on how many teams answer correctly determines the point value of the questions
Now these questions could be about anything. From movies to sports to radio programs to food packaging. Not too tought right. Well then there are the three music questions which is a music track that has 8 snippets of different songs and you have to identify which 8 songs are in there. Oh and the track is usually less than 20 secs so you do the math on that. There are also running questions Sat and SUn morning which are like a scavenger hunt in certain areas of town. Oh yeah and the trivia stone in which they give clues for you to figure out where to go in your car to get a stamp which gets you points. Like go past the blue meanie, the beatles song and the big fish, now turn right.
Oh yeah and then there are black and white pictures you need to identify like what is this logo from, who is this actor/ sports figure/ etc.
Oh and the trivia movie played a week or two before where you take notes in the dark theatre on the movie becuase they could be potential questions.

And the kick off parade which happens to be two hours before the begining of the contest. Our team is in it every year. We build a float as do other team and compete to be placed. Now no points are given for placing but there are bragging rights plus a lot of frozen pizzas given. Plus your team name gets out there for recognition.

IT is the most fun you could have while getting sleep deprived. It plays soley on the human nature of competition. It is something I think people need to experience once in a lifetime. Course I warn you , you could get hooked. I know I did.

But don't stay up all 54 hours cause you will get really really ill...not that I would know such things...I just ..heard.
The big thing is getting together with people you may not see the rest of the year. Sharing the experience and just having fun.
OUt of 450+ teams we took 26th. Not too bad and we all had fun while playing which is the important part.
It also helped break the creative block Ihave been having this past month so look for more of Fae'th to be posted . I have two lonely troopers in the works and have started a script for a short film.

YEah Trivia. can't wait until next year. Off to take some notes on movies...and commercials...and... tv shows....and....

Yeah Spring time is the time for illness

2009-03-31T15:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry I have not posted more about my weekend last weekend but time flies especially when half the family is sick and your working more hours at your second job. After a week my wife finally was 95% over the flu and the little one Ethan is well on his way to recovery as well. Then it was my turn. I have been sick the last day or so. On the plus side it was a stomach bug which tends to run its most severe course in 24 hours. Bad news was it was a stomach bug which meant me and the bathroom became really good friends. Anyway It seems as though it has run its course for the most part and I should be good by tomorrow.

So anyway... where were we.

Ah yes over week ago now but the Midwest Gaming Classic was alot of fun. I got there and my wallet immediately started to shake and the plastic wanted to run. So many retro games and gaming systems to buy from the vendors. It was impressive and I got to relive memories from my childhood. Got to play some pinball machines from the 50's which was cool especially the part where it took me a minute to realize that it was so old you had to manually eject your ball into the launch tube.
Then I played dig dug, A game I had not played in ages. It was very cool. I didn't stay too long because I was meeting up with my dad for Lunch. I get to see him about two or three times a year and being so close to Milwaukee I figured it was a good time to get together. While waiting for him back at the hotel more of the Wrestling Karma attacked as A&E just finished showing a documentary on Hulk Hogan and right behind it a documentary on Andre the Giant. I realized I was soo meant to go to wrestling that night.
So Dad arrived and we had a very delicious lunch at CHili's. We then decided to drive around to our old haunts. We had a family cottage in the area a number of years ago and wondered how much had changed there. We knew of the changes already near oconomowoc since I was staying in a hotel that was built on land that was a cabbage field when I was a kid.
Anyway we traveled around and were surprised to see the old cottage still looked pretty much the same. IT had a new roof and some asthetic changes but on the whole it was like I remembered it. The shed even had the same shade of stain that we put on it when I was young. That made my dad and I feel better. Its nice to know not everything changed.
Then we got back to the room and talked more as I messed with the 35"LCD and tried to get the laptop connected to it. I actually was successful thanks to the internet and on line manuals for the TV.
Anyway we said our good byes and soon Doc picked me up for Wrestling. It had been years since I had been to a live wrestling match so I was looking forward to it. Plus all the wrestling shows before had stoked the fire more. We get to the parking lot of the Waukesha expo grounds and I had flash backs to when we saw the Weird AL concert there. That was the last time I had been there. So I meet up with one of Docs friends. After talking for a couple minutes he asks where in point I lived. Which was strange since he is in Milwaukee. So I told him and he said "Yeah I know that area, My friend Sean lives near there."
Which led to me asking "Sean who"
Replied "Sean Wall" Which immediately popped a light on in my head. I knew I knew the name but not sure how. When the gentleman followed it up with "YEah I am good friends with Sean and his wife CIndy"
To which I exclaim "Georgenson"
Turns out he is friends with Cindy and Sean. Cindy was an old friend of mine from High school. Talk about a small world. Anyway soon more of the crew showed up and thus we had entered the fray.
My good friend Doc has an excellent account of the nights wrestling activities. You can check it out there. To sum up for me IT was fun, love the smell of Marker and of course the Lenny Lane army is in full effect.
Anyway after the match we froze our asses off having a great discussion on how wrestling has changed and such. It was an hour and a half long and involved at one point someone getting hit with the chair twice.
It was a fun time by all and it was only day one.
Day two really was more pinball, video games and meeting up with fellow friends. Debating on what to buy and what to skip. I also learned how to play Quake which, to the surprise of my friend Alex, I had never played before. Well maybe once but still.
Headed home that day with an excellent weekend behind me though a chunk of me missed the family and had wished I had brought them. Maybe next year.

A weekend with a bit of everything part 1 Fraking fate

2009-03-23T19:13:00.001-05:00

I had a good time this weekend. It was a trip I was looking forward to for a while. I headed by myself to O-knock-o-moe-wok for the midwest gaming classic. I tried to do a road video about my adventure this weekend but had too much fun participating to get behind the camera to observe. Still got some good stuff on the way down that I will be posting on Youtube. There will also be a video that all my friends could laugh at, but nothing wrong with that.
On the way down I saw just about everything you could see on a trip. First there was the fog. The night before it snowed an inch, yes on the first day of spring "Welcome to Wisconsin, have a brat and beer." So there was fog...and I am not talking like light haze. I am talking Steven King Mist/John Carpenter FOG type of fog. I was waiting for some dead guys or really large locust to jump out at the car.
The fog did claim one car though. I saw a car that had to have rolled at least twice. The paramedics, cops and fire department were on the scene. No tarps but a couple of girls who were really shaken up. Then there were icy roads until the sun came up in which they were just wet.
I get to the interchange where 39 hooks up with 94 and I watch as this white car enters the freeway and is in my lane. The car next to him is going the same speed, the car infront of me goes to a complete stop and cuts across three lanes of traffic to barely make the other ramp he meant to get to I guess all along. Lucky I was a couple blocks behind so I had time to slow.
Anyway get to the hotel room. IT was cozy. Then this thing called karma or fate or whatever you want to call it kicks in.
I have a little time before the Midwest Gaming Classic started so I turn on the TV, 35" LCD very nice, anyway they just happen to be showing on ESPN classic an old AWA match from 1986 that had Scott Hall and someone named sunshine I think. Anyway, this was freaky because Saturday night I was going to a wrestling match that had...you guessed it Scott Hall in it. After that match was a 6 man tag even but I had to get to the classic so I didn't watch any of it. Still kinda weird.
On to the Midwest Gaming classic. I am going to stop here. I plan on writing alot more tomorrow. The wife has the flu something fierce and I need to get the kids ready for bed...more to come

WEW or how I miss GLOW

2009-03-17T23:44:00.000-05:00

OK so I went ahead and tossed in the netflix que WEW: Night of Erotic Insanity. Yes its a women's wrestling league...if you can really call it that. Thats like calling GLOW a serious wrestling show I will say this the ladies of GLOW actually seemed to have more talent than this lot. lets break down what occured in this hour of trailer Trash fun.

Match #1
Passion
vs
Jackie Gayda

This match was pretty piss poor. I understand they are a small independent type thing and truely the point of WEW is to see "hot" women "wrestle" unfortunately this match comes up short on both. Seriously I know it sounds sexiest but if women wrestling is your schitck you think you would be able to find women to fit the action. Needless to say this match is over quickly enough to not be too painful. Both women need to work on a little bit of everything but then again it is an opening match and usually those aren't the greatest.
Passion wins by cheating with the old feet on the rope while the "Referee" wasn't looking...(yes I use a lot of quotes cause these terms should be considered loosely)

In between matches they offer to show an "uncensored" clip of one of their feature wrestlers. In this case I have seen hotter action watching the popcorn pop in the microwave. Anyway

Match # 2
Talia Madison
Vs
Lollipop

Again another lack luster match though they seemed to have a bigger crowd now ...or they at least better arranged the audience they had. Of course 99% were men and they got more into yelling in this match only because I think they found the women more attractive. Couldn't really tell who had lesser talent. Both were poor at it but in the end Talia won. Guess she won the coin toss before the match.

Match #3

(a three way match...go figure) Billed as A THree way

Pryme Tyme Amy Lee 335lbs according to the announcer. SHe looked like she could give earthquake a run for his money.

vs

"School girl" Tara Bush....now she was a looker though that appears to be her only purpose. There is a supposed story line I guess where she slept her way to the top...not sure where the top was but I doubt it was no where near her.

VS

Pussy Willow ( come on you had to see it comin) get this she is the head of the Pussy world order...yes folks the PWO. My lord the schtick will not die.)
she of course was accompanied by two other PWO members who sole purpose was to make out during the match I guess. not sure.)

Anyway this match really was also poorly done in all aspects. I mean there are ways to try and sell to the crowd that the two vanilla wafers could defeat the Gigantic Moon pie that was Amy lee but they just didn't do it. There was an ambush with the bell that wasn't bad but it was still poorly executed. This one was painful. The SOmewhat attractive girls making out did not save it. Though at the end they had a "fan" come into the ring area and make out with a PWO member. This "Fan" just happened to be a "fan" "interviewed" before the "show". Yeah considering she was only one of three female "audience" members there was no way she was a "plant". See I warned you about the quotes. Anyway

Match #4

Simply Luscious
Vs
Mercedes Marinez

Now this one had the feel of a wrestling match. These two, I think lucious was in the pros for a while, anyway these two actually give it all and put on a decent match there is a little rope work a number of suplexes and brain busted and a few face plants. Simply Luscious supposedly graduated from the Sean Michaels academy of wrestling. You could tell cause she was decent. So far the most talent two wrestlers in the show. Simply won.

Match #5
WEW heavyweight title match

Angel Orsini accompanied by the General Manager of WEW Francine...yes that Francine. I guess we know who is behind the WEW being around. Not that she was ever that popular in the pros but it was good to see her have work.

Vs
JAZZ accompanied by So Cal Val. Yes that Jazz from ECW and WWE fame and I think a short stint in WCW can't remember . Anyway this one had it all some Mic work, an attempted Moon sault, etc. You could really tell who had the experience. Though Angel did a decent job Jazz really helped her look good. Francine and So Cal got into a cat fight which is always fun. In the end JAzz won fade to Black.

OK so why did I say this made me miss GLOW. well for one , completely sexist reason. The women were more attractive, but more importantly on the whole more talented and at least knew how to work a mic ( in more ways than one wink wink nudge nudge) I kid but they did now how to talk smack alot more than these girls. The WEW announcer was funny for this though. When he was infront of the camera he was talking infront of a bluescreen that had the image of some other place than the one the matches were taking place at. He truely was giving his commentary on over dub. Sometimes he literally said "I don't know what they are doing there. One of his best lines.
"She has a face only a John could love" and also "In my unprofessional opinion if she had not been shaken up she could have covered her a lot quicker." Unprofessional is right.

I watched the watch men

2009-03-07T19:41:00.000-06:00

Quick little blurb. Didn't get a chance to write one thursday cause I worked my second job and then stayed up late as hell to watch the midnight showing of The Watchmen and it was a fun premiere. First we got there and hour early and a line had begun to form. At the head of it some fans of the Watchmen dressed as their favorite characters, vericool. So we stood there and wondered if waiting so early was all for naught since the line was not that long. Well our hast in getting in line early proved fruitful because soon after we questioned our decision the line doubled in size.
So we get in and since we had advanced tickets we got in a lot quicker. I got my tub of Dew and Popcorn. Then we had something happen that I have not had happen in a long time. Someone checked our ticket stub to make sure we were permitted to see the film. It was a midnight movie and as far as I was aware all other movies had let out already so this was the only movie showing in the theater. My friend Jim almost didn't get in cause he could not find his stub right away. But we soon found a seat and the lights went down.
Saw a few cool trailers, the one for the new Wolverine movie looked cool. I am personally looking forward to it but not just because its going to kick ass but they have my favorite mutant of all in it Gambit.
Just before the movie started I looked around the theater at the occupants. Some I looked at longer than others, hehe, anyway I realized that the majority of the viewers of the movie had not even been born when the graphic novel came out yet they were here to see the live action version of it. I on the other hand was very much born at the time. This made me feel a bit old. It also made me wonder how much might be lost on the group. The movie is set in the 80's and alot of the cultural references in the movie I though might be missed by most of the viewers but it did not seem to be...except for when they laughed at 99 luftballoons being played at one point in the movie. That one I did not get. Maybe because it was the german version of the song.
Anyway the movie it self was Excellent. Definitely did a good job of translating the movie to the big screen. They managed to keep the core story in tacked. Though they took some liberty in the ending , they way they went about it was still acceptable because it still managed to convey the same message as the original ending of the graphic novel. All in all a fantastic movie and I can't wait for the Uber edition that they will be releasing eventually on blue ray that adds another half hour to the 2 hour and 40 min movie.
Worth the price of admission. I shall write more later but I have to work. Damn I was hoping to post everyday.

Movie Premiers and things of that nature

2009-03-04T21:28:00.000-06:00

I love premier nights. Not sure why but always have. Something about the buzz and electricity in the air as you wait in line with other folk with a similar mission. To see the movie on opening night. Though you know you are by far not the first group of people to see the finished movie, unless your blessed to live on a coastal city, you still have the feeling like your getting in be fore the rest of the world and can talk about it Monday when many others have not seen it.
Some may also find this behavior annoying so you must know your audience. Anyway premier nights are fun. I don't go to hardly any any more. I use to as a teenager. In fact it was my mission to see it on Friday night and at the latest Saturday night. The crowds are usually the largest they will be for a movie its opening weekend which helps add to the energy.
I had some of my best movie experiences on opening night/weekend. I remember when I saw Terminator 2 on its opening weekend. We had a full theatre and there was a group of 8 college guys three rows back. When the movie started and arnold did the spin thing with the shotgun while on the motor cycle we all went nuts..we whooped and hollared with the crowd and at the end there was applause.
Yeah I miss those nights.
I will get to experience it tomorrow night though when we go see the watchmen. Hopefully we can get good seats. I probably won't get a chance to post tomorrow which will break my attempt at posting everyday in March. Perhaps I can just do a double post on friday to make up for it. I have some more pages I am working on for Fae'th I am happy at how its progressing and I hope everyone reading it is enjoying it. Thats all I got tonight.

Quoth the Raven....Your defending yourself you coward

2009-03-03T22:14:00.000-06:00

Now the Raven has been done many, many, many times as a film but I think for me none are more memorable than the Roger Corman version of the Raven. I remember first seeing this film on beta when I was a kid and I enjoyed as much now as I did then. Unfortunately I was not able to obtain a copy of the film on DVD. It was limited print and I missed out on the limit. Sure I could pay an extraordinary amount for the DVD on e-bay but not worth the price people are asking for. I lucked out thought recently and a friend of mine borrowed me a copy that they had and after watching it again I wanted to share some thoughts about it.
This movie is the first one to feature Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff on the screen at the same time. I can only imagine how big the movie must have been when it first came out. This was like the all stars of horror movies. Now toss in the up and coming talented Jack Nicholson with the beautiful Hazel Court and Olive STurgess and you got yourself a fun movie.
This is a comedy not so much in the vein of say scarey movie but more along the lines of Clue only not quite so slap stick. There is a lot of chemistry between the stars and its hard to say who exactly is stealing the spot light when the three titans of horror were together in the same scene.
I love the pacing of this movie alot more than the Terror and enjoy the subtly of the humor more in this than Comedy of Terrors. Don't get me Wrong comedy is another entertaining classic but its not the same as the Raven.
The DVD cleans up the print the best it can and there are only a few spots where it is a bit blurry. Also the joy of seeing it for the first time in letter Box filled me with delight. All too often the older movies fell victim to pan and scan and were never able to escape it. The problem with that is the viewer misses out on seeing just how expansive the sets were for these older films.
The movie is also worth seeing the young Jack Nicholson. Already perfecting his perfect crazy face at this young age. You may at first not quite recognize him but once he gets his smile on you go...yep that's jack.
I also love the voice in general of the three principle characters. Vincent's tone, Peter Lorre's classic sniviling and Boris Karloff's classic voice all help keep the dialog interesting.
All in all a great film and can truely be called a classic. Definitely worth a watch.

Hey look ma More Fae'th

2009-03-02T20:17:00.001-06:00

The group road for a half an hour before Shaden slowed the horses to a trot. There were now signs of them re-entering civilization. The road turned from dirt to brick and it widened to the point where four wagons could easily drive past each other with little concern of bumping into one another. Along both sides of the road were various shaped shops made mostly of stone and wood. Between each building was an oil street lamp and occasionally a bench for the passer-bys to sit. There were all kinds of brightly dressed people popping in and out of the shops. The front of most shops had a large glass picture window that displayed the featured wares for the day. Julie’s nose was made happy as it filled with the smell of apple pie. It was the best smell she had experienced since they had been there.

The road they were on soon split to the left and right, bordering a large grassy square. In the exact middle of the square was a Draconis statue twice as large as the last statue Julie had seen. As the wagon drove past it, the group saw a word the was painted in red across the statue's wings. Julie could not understand the word but the rest of the group must have because they all snickered, including the Doctor.

“Doctor what’s that word say?” She asked, a bit annoyed to be the only one not to get the joke.

“I would rather not say. Its offensive and it involves an unnatural act between a man and a four legged animal.” The Doctor answered.

“Umm sorry I asked.” Julie replied.

Behind the square was a large stone white building with three white pillars in front of it and a large stone stair case leading from its huge ornate wooden doors to the stone walk at ground level. Midway between the top of the doors and the top of the building was a large circular window made of blue glass. In the center of the window was a red crystal that gave the window the look of an eye staring out of the building.

“These people sure have a thing for stone stairs.” The Doctor commented quietly to Julie. She snickered to herself.

“Well look at what we have here.”

Shaden’s comment drew everyone’s attention to the large crowd that had gathered at the foot of the stairs. The wagon stopped at the edge of the large crowd.

“Excellent timing. Looks as though a wizards duel is about to begin. There is one outside of this library almost everyday.” Bernard had a gleam in his eye as he informed the Doctor and Julie of what was occurring. Shaden and Donna-Lé also had the gleam.

“You two know what to do.” Shaden stated. The elf and the troll nodded at each other and the slid out of the wagon and into the crowd.

“You aren’t doing what I think your doing are you?” Julie asked.

“Not me, them and yes they are doing what you think they are doing. What do you expect sweetheart, we’re thieves. Ooo looks like its getting good.” Shaden answered never taking his eyes off the crowd. Julie gave Shaden a dirty look as she and the Doctor stood up to get a better view of what was going on.

The crowd had made the familiar fight watching circle around two men who were circling each other with their wands pointed high at each others heads. One was dress in bright yellow robes while the other man was shorter and dressed in a rainbow colored set of robes. They continued to move around each other as the crowd yelled words of incitement towards them.

“Not much of a duel is it.” The Doctor commented. Shaden just put his hand up and replied.

“Wait for it.”

“Its three ginseng, two blood moss, and two garlic, everyone knows that!!” The yellow wizard yelled.

“You imbecile, according to Aesop’s Potions, third edition, its two blood moss, two garlic and two ginseng!!” The rainbow wizard retorted.

“It’s a potion and not a soup recipe you WARTHOG!!!” The yellow wizard shouted. He pointed his wand at his opponent as he spoke the last word. A bolt of yellow energy shot from his wand.

“Shield!” The rainbow wizard commanded and a blue field of energy appeared in front of him just before the yellow bolt connected. The bolt bounced off the blue shield and hit the closest bystander. It turned the person into a warthog. Half the crowd cheered while the other half booed.

“Lightening Strike, Earth Shake!!” The rainbow wizard yelled as he shook his wand toward the yellow wizard. Electricity shot from the tip of the wand and a large crack appeared in front of the rainbow wizard. The ground shook as the crack appeared to follow the stream of electricity towards the intended target.

“Armed Blockade!” The yellow wizard shook his wand and a red shield of energy appeared in front of him. This shield also had three arrows pointed out the front of it. When the bolt of electricity hit the shield it dissipated in a shower of sparks and caused the three arrows to launch back towards the rainbow wizard. The shield apparently did not block the ground attack and the yellow wizard was knocked back into the crowd. The rainbow wizard turned the arrows into water before they connected.

Julie shivered but it wasn’t with excitement it was instead cold. She looked at the Doctor and could see his breath. Shaden looked up into the sky as if he knew exactly what was happening.

“Ah hell, time to cash in our chips, the party is over. Smoke if you got’em” Shaden sighed. The Doctor and Julie looked up to see a large black cloud that looked similar to the ones they had seen hovering over the palace. She was about to ask what they were but a scream from the crowd told her immediately what the cloud was.

“E-wraiths.!!”

Julie continued to watch the cloud and noticed it was starting to take shape, in fact many shapes. About two dozen winged creatures formed out of the cloud and dove at the wagon. The Doctor and Julie instinctively ducked into the wagon as the crowd scattered. Shaden pulled out a small cigar and lit it as the e-wraiths neared. The thief took his seat as the flock of e-wraiths flew around the wagon and then out into the crowd. They resembled the lamprey eels Julie would occasionally see in Lake Michigan but these ones were black with wings and a single eagle like talon. The scariest part about the beasts is the fact they made no noise, not from their wings or from their mouths. They were like a mass of nothing.

Shaden just sat and smoked as the e-wraiths broke off into two groups. One group flew at the warthog who tried in vein to escape. Two wraiths caught up to their prey and grabbed the pig in their talons. Then their leech like mouths attached to the warthog’s head. The pig turned back into a man and was lifted into the air by the other e-wraiths. A loud scream drew Julie’s attention to the yellow wizard’s direction. She looked in time to see three e-wraiths attach themselves to the wizard’s head as their fellow e-wraiths circled them. The Doctor leaned over to Shaden.

“How is it they spared the rainbow dressed wizard.”

“Well Chief I imagine he paid his taxes to Drago this month and old yeller there didn’t. See the pendant the Rainbow one has dangling around his neck. That is charged with a spell set to run out every thirty days. If you pay your dues it gets recharged and you can use your magic with out fear of being wraith’d. Now if you don’t pay every month, well then you get that.”

Julie diverted her eyes as a fourth e-wraith attached itself to the yellow wizard’s head. There was blood leaking from where the mouths were attached.

“They are eating his brains!!”

“Actually blue eyes they suck the smart right out of you. You still have a brain but end up stumbling around, mumbling to yourself and eventually get a craving for human flesh. That’s why they are taking him away so he is not a danger to anyone else.” Shaden informed as he watched the two group of wraiths carry off their victims into the sky.

“Wait let me guess. If they bite you its contagious and you become like them?” The Doctor inquired, he had heard this song before.

“Check out the big brain on Doc. You are one smart man. I take it you are familiar with the condition?” Shaden asked.

“Something like that.” The Doctor replied.

Lets try this....and some Fae'th too

2009-03-01T20:53:00.000-06:00

Hello all. Sorry to those how have actually been reading this. I have been in hiatus partly because I could not get the creativity a flowin and partly because I was ill. It was bound to happen eventually. When I have a cold it hits the sinuses hard and therefore makes it hard to concentrate. But I feel better now and was able to write a couple of pages for Fae'th in Time. I hope you like and as always constructive comments are welcome. It's not much but there is more on the way.

It was only a moment later three hyden beasts jumped out from the bushes. The Rani rode on the back of the largest of the three beasts.
“FLYERS!!” The Rani called.
Four winged creatures flew down from the sky and flapped in place around the Rani. Their head and torso resembled that of the other Noc. In place of their arms and legs were two blood red wings, one on each side. Two pair of insect like legs were attached to the area where the wings were connected to the torso and each leg had a pincer like claw at the end of it.
“Nothing yet misstresssss.,” the flyer closest to her said. She slapped the flyer in the face. The action made him hiss loudly.
“Oh what good are you. I will have to make a note to not add so much stupid in the next batch of you I cook up. Go take to the skys and find them. Their fire pit is still smoking, they could not have gotten far.” The Rani yelled as the the flyers flew away to the east.
“Damn dragon let that she-witch out. That’s never good.” Bernard whispered as he kept an eye on the camp’s new occupants.
“You know her?” The Doctor asked in a surprised whisper.
“Where have you been these past three cycles. Ever since she showed up people have been disappearing in the middle of the night. They say she takes them to a secret place and makes them into creatures that defy nature. Those flyers are one of her special creations. She says she is using magic but most believe she is using science. If Drago found out she was using science instead of magic, he would be quite upset. I…”
Julie put her finger to his lips to shush him. One of the beasts seemed to be drifting in their direction. Julie could hear its large nose sniff the ground as it neared. The three slid to the bottom of the pit and tried not to make a noise.
That’s when the worst smell Julie had ever had the displeasure of knowing attacked her nose. The Doctor smelled it as well, it reminded him of rotten eggs sitting on a fresh pile of cow manure covered in sour milk on a hot summer day. The two suppressed their gag reflexes best they could as they looked over to Bernard who also looked away as if the culprit was some imaginary friend of his.
“It happens when I get nervous.” He said in defense of his silent flatulence.
They could hear the sniffing of the Hyden beast stop above them. It then began to whimper as if it was in pain and a thud was heard.
“Oh what now. Get up you mangey mutt. What’s wrong?” The Rani asked. Her voice got louder as she talked. The Doctor knew she was coming their way and that it would only be a matter of moments before she found their hiding spot. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and made to activate it when the troll put his hand up to stop him. Then Bernard pointed at a very large cage covered in a blanket. Bernard pulled the cover off to reveal four rabbit shaped animals. They were similar to rabbits on earth except they had two powerful front legs as well as the normal rabbit back legs. Bernard held up three fingers as he took hold of the rope attached to what appeared to be the front of the cage. The Doctor knew what the plan was and readied the screw driver.
Bernard counted down with his fingers. Three…two…one. Bernard pulled the string as the Doctor activated the screwdriver. An opening appeared above the cage at the same time the top of the cage opened. The rabbits shot up out of the hole.
The beasts first howled in pain from the screw driver and then saw the rabbits. The rabbits saw the beasts and headed off east, deep into the woods at breakneck speed. The Hyden beasts, being dogs, chased after them.
“Damn you doctorrrrrrr….” The Rani’s voice trailed off as the beast she was on joined the others in the chase. After a moment, the three hole inhabitants lifted the lid off their hiding spot.
“Good job guys. I don’t think we will be seeing them for a while.” Shaden commented as he appeared. “Lucky for us we need to head west. Time to pound some dirt.”
Donna-Lé jumped down to join the group and they ran in a straight line with Shaden in the lead. The group ran until they felt they had put enough distance between them and their pursuers. They changed their pace to a brisk walk. Shaden let Bernard take the lead and fell in step next to the Doctor.
“ I will say Chief you’re quick on your feet. Escaping seems to be another one of your expertise.” The thief commented.
“You could say that. Evading seems to be yours.” The Doctor observed.
“Comes with the job,” Shaden then looked over to Julie who had just let out a small yelp as a branch hit her arm, “Don’t worry blue eyes we will soon reach the road and it’s a far easier walk.”
Shaden moved up to the front of the line again. Julie walked up next to the Doctor to ask a question that had been in her head for a while.
“Doctor is it me or does Shaden not quite fit in with …well everything here?”
“I have a theory about that. It relates to how he was able to command the gate without a key. Shaden here appears to be extremely sensitive to ether though he may not know it. The problem with that is those who are very ether sensitive are also sensitive to Radio signals.”
“So you think Shaden is the way he is because he could be picking up radio waves from earth?” Julie deduced. The Doctor smiled wide.
“Exactly. He has probably been hearing them since birth. I am surprised he has lasted this long.”
Julie looked a little puzzled at this comment but the Doctor quickly explained.
” Part of the downfall of the Valdsudians was their driving goal to become one with the ether. They believed it would bring them eternal life. Unfortunately as they altered themselves to become more and more ether sensitive they would pick up more and more radio waves from space. Let me tell you it’s a noisy place up there. The drive to live forever made them blind to what was happening with each generation of altered Valdsudians. The entire race eventually went mad and died out over a thousand years ago.”
“That’s so sad. In a way though they have survived, through their experiment here.” Julie stated.
“That is true and…” The Doctor’s reply was cut off by the sound of wolf howls in the distance behind them. The entire group ran without a word. They soon found themselves on a dirt road. Shaden was ahead of the group and headed towards what looked like an abandoned wagon attached to three horses.
“Here’s Our ride Come on” Shaden yelled and soon everyone was in the wagon except for Bernard who had trouble jumping into the back of it. The Doctor and Julie grabbed the troll by his shirt and pulled him into the wagon. As soon as Bernard’s feet left the ground, Shaden gave a whip of the straps and the horses took off. A man appeared from the bushes and yelled at the wagon as he tried to pull up his pants.
Shaden laughed as he gave another whip of the straps, “Now that’s what I call being caught with your pants down, hahahahaha!!”

Lets get ready to rrrrrummmbbbllle again...and again...and

2009-02-19T18:15:00.000-06:00

I apologize ahead of time for I will most liked jump tracks of thought on this subject Whoooooooo!!

I miss old school wrasslin. Back in the day when the wrasslers would defend to the, sometimes violent, end that its all real and none of its staged. Back when (I am going to get a bit of Nostalgia on here) Pay per views truely meant something. I mean seriously one every month while gets the wrasslin fan in a frenzy does tend to get a little stale. I remember the first Wrestlemania. Man that was a night, It was a wrestling event on the scale we had not seen before and it showed just how profitable cable tv could be. What really got me was the build up. The stories got deeper , the rivalries more bitter, and the championships alot sweeter. Once Wrestlemania took off they knew they had a winning formula and were able to build stories for the whole year to the next wrestlemania. It was something special, Nowadays not so much. Sorry but they aren't at least they weren't when I was watching the WCW and all. Thats another thing that bugs well bugged me about both houses of wrestling. Championship titles were passed around more than a drunkin cheerleader at a frat party.
Old school they had the championship belt held on to for much longer and wrestlers "earned" their right for a shot at the belt. Though we rarely saw the tree of contenders, the organizations played a lot better at there actually being a tree at all. Course when talking old school wrasslin and championships we have to mention Hulk Hogan. IN his Hey day he was truely a marketers dream, he held the title for what seemed like forever and you were happy he did...for the most part. In reality I think people really started to see wrestling as more of a structured show than a competition. Hulk is really not the greatest wrestler BUT he was able to work a mic and a crowd. With his wild eyes and the "24 inch Pythons" and his take your vitamins, say your prayers, listen to your mom and dad" he was definitely a character that helped carry the franchise. HE was definitely a popular product. So were the payper views. So much they started coming out with others that , at least had schticks to them like the Royal Rumble which ended with a main event where you saw all your faves beat the snot out of each other and also take bets on when the ring was going to break from the weight. Survivor Series where you had "teams" of your fave bad guys and good guys who did an elimination type of competition. etc...but soon as they got more and more frequent so did the championship changes and the story lines not as deep. In the end I think the pay per view kind of killed its self in its special meaning. At least to me and thats the bottom line cause Crazyboy said so....

ok that was bad sorry...especially since I have now sprayed beer all over the computer.

Sorry where was I oh yes.
I was going to end it there but I wanted to add something. I truely enjoyed the whole New World Order (NWO) the originals ,,,If I remember right and I could be wrong I believe it was Ted Debiase who started it. But they did this whole elaborate presentation and it worked. This rebel group of bad boy wrestlers, a third party who picked on any one heel or face who was not part of the New World Order. Again here they went over board when factions of NWO came out and soon every wrestler was in some altered version of the NWO...the Latin wrestlers had their NWO and then the wolf Pack. I did enjoy the wolf pack though. They were decent wrestlers and you just loved to hate them.
Not a lot of wrestlers could pull that off well. One that always came to mind was "Hot Rod" Roddy Piper. The crazyman who you never knew where he stood but didn't really care. He had that charisma and that crazy schtick down pat. He seem not to care who he ticked off and he would get a pop no matter who he was fightin.
The guys in the ring weren't the only hated ones we loved. Lets talk managers, The mouth of the south and the Brain. Lets face it when it came to managers Bobby the Brain was just a guy you loved to watch. He made you love to hate him and hate that you loved him. Jimmy hart was just a guy you loved watching get the snot beat out of him and he played it to a T. He really had the geek getting beat down by the athlete down well and lets face it anyone with a Mega phone deserves to be beat down.
Other mangers that were great in the older days. Mr. Saito (sic) and The Dr of Style Slick helped as well. Managers were great because unlike today, most managers were somewhat normal looking guys. They sometimes were "former" wrestlers but never usually appeared as physically fit as the guys they represented. They were really fun and helped add another level to the game.
Final random thoughts on wrestling are about announcers. Lets face it Mean Gene, Jesse the Body and Gorilla monsoon just were dream team announcers. Then throw the guest announcing of Bobby the Brain in the mix. Man they really helped sell the show and also made some stale matches entertaining as hell. I miss those days. Since the cat was truely out of the bag about wrestling it seems its alot more show and less actual wrestling. Course there can never be enough bra and panty matches.

INDEED.

Another Wednesday and yet the mind is empty

2009-02-18T19:41:00.001-06:00

So once again Wednesday is here and alas no William.
NOt sure why. When I was telling the kids these in the middle of night to get them to sleep the ideas flowed more freely. Maybe it was because they were a captive audience and it did not matter whether the story was good or bad just as long as they fell a sleep.
Self realization is a tough thing. I realized recently the strongest force stopping me on working on something or trying something new is my self. Thats a hard lesson because you would think it would be the easiest thing to get over but at least for me its not.
But we are working on it.

PLayed this game called animal crossing. I bought a cardboard box because I thought it was cool. I was wrong.

random number of the day: Pi

Sunday and The Wizard of Gore

2009-02-15T19:11:00.000-06:00

I know I have talked about remakes a couple times before but they are so abundant in the movie industry today its hard not to. So lets talk remakes of movies you never thought would actually be remade. No I am not talking about Friday the 13th, though that movie would classify as such, no I am referring to the cult classic Wizard of Gore. I watched them back to back today which really kinda surreal. Surreal is actually a good description of the original. It is truely out there in many respects. You have the Magician Montag who performs extreme magic acts on stage that you would think would kill the volunteers but it doesn't, they seem fine only to have them wind up dead in gruesome ways hours later. The original never really delves into the how these things occur , they let you try to put the pieces together. There are a number of very good monologues delivered by Montag. By the end of the movie your thrown a twist that well have you going ummm what? All in all a decent movie.
I was not sure how I was going to receive the remake and how exactly they were going to do it because nowadays that existential surreal movie making isn't really a hit.
People like explanations for the events that have happened. Enter Wizard of Gore the remake.
I will say up front it was a good horror movie. Better than expected. They took the same basic concepts but they gave it a little more grounding in the reason why things were the way they were and how exactly Montag was able to do what he did. It was a decent modern version of the cult classic. It was missing a bit more of the social commentary that was put into the original by Herschel but I think it was still entertaining horror.
They came up with very interesting magic tricks and Crispin Glover did pull off the creepy. Though that has never been real problem for him. I think the harder problem for him was trying to shake the McFly image.
I liked the fact that our main character had a flair for the nostalgia in everything he wore and his apartment. I am a huge fan of noir style though many would not have guessed it so the character appealed to me. Brad Dourif's presence also helped the movie be more acceptable just because he's Brad Dourif. He knows how to bring the creepy. Also the new version has much more nudity brought in the form of the Suicide girls for those goth fans out there.
Many remakes are hits or misses and in this case it was for me a hit. They kept the core concepts from the original and also had enough out there moments that those that love the original will see where omage is paid to it. It also kept it more grounded for the general view audience to walk a way with a feeling of "oh ok now I see how it fits," versus the original which did keep it more in the air.
Wizard of Gore remake is definitely worth a watch.

Fae'th Friday

2009-02-13T20:34:00.000-06:00

Ah another week come and gone and what better way to begin the weekend then with some writing. Up until now the pages I had posted were prewritten, in other words I had them written before I started posting them. We will now be drifting into fresh territory. It also means that the writing maybe a little looser. FOr that I apologize but I still hope you like.

The moment Shaden’s rear hit the ground, the Doctor pointed the screwdriver at one of the stone arches. A shower of sparks flew from the symbols and the sparkling light in the middle of the circle disappeared.
“Good thing I brought you along today.” The Doctor said to his screw driver as he flipped it and then placed it in his pocket.

“I guess we won’t have to worry about them coming through this gate again.”

“At least for the next twenty minutes. See the Valsudian technology incorporates nanites to help maintain the equipment. They will have the damage repaired in approximately twenty mins. They are probably the reason why the gates have lasted for so long.”

“Sorry Nan whats…ah never mind, anyway good job chief.” Shaden said while he dusted himself off.

Julie had a look of concern on her face.

“Doctor this isn’t the same gate we first came through”

“No it isn’t, its even better. Come on all I know exactly where we are.”
Shaden answers and motioned for them to follow as he started down a small dirt path that led into a thick forest. The Doctor explained as they walked.

“I assume that destinations are determined by the bearer of the keys. They concentrate on the location they want to go to then hold on to the key and enter the gate. Our friend here obviously had a specific gate in mind when I activated the portal. I our friend here is either more powerful then he lets on or then he knows. In either case he was able to direct the gate to the location he wanted to go. Right now though I am more concerned about where the TARDIS is, who has her and how are we going to get her back.”
“I can answer at least two of those questions for you doctor, the last one is still a work in progress.” Shaden interjected.
“So is that where we are going now? Where the TARDIS is At?” Julie asked. She tried not to trip over the roots and bumps in the makeshift path they were walking down. Shaden walked backwards as they talked.
“No, we are heading to join my crew. If they decide to help then we are golden.”
Julie’s Mouth dropped open.
“If? What do you mean ‘If’? After we just…”
“Look Shaden if you do not want to help us I understand. If you could just point us in the general direction, I am sure we could find it ourselves.” The Doctor stated.
“I am sure you could Chief, but what fun would that be?”
The forest suddenly filled with music. Julie stopped to listen to the tune. The music was being played on a lone mandolin and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. The music also made the two men stop.
“Ah, that would be the Crew, come on.”
Shaden bounded off the path and down a wooded slope nearby. The Doctor and Julie bounded right behind him. The music stopped as the trio broke through a line of bushes at the bottom of the slope. The three were now in a clearing where campfire burned and three cots were laid out around it. Shaden looked around as if he lost something.
“Bernard you can come out from behind that boulder. Donna-Lé you can jump down from that tree, it’s just me Shaden and a couple of guests.”
There was a rustling noise that came from behind a large boulder that was on the right side of the camp site. A green humanoid about four feet tall with very large pointy ears appeared from behind the boulder and proceeded to take a seat on it. Julie could see the firelight reflect off his large round brown eyes. His round face was accented by a long pointy beard that went half way down to his pot belly. He had a very ornate mandolin which hung down at his waist by a strap that came across his neck. He was dressed in clothing resembling a picture of a bard Julie had seen in a Dungeons and Dragons book she had read sometime ago. The bard happened to also be missing his left arm.
“Sorry Shade though you were more Noc. Forest appears to be crawling with them and worst.”
“How do you know they aren’t Noc?”
The question came from a large oak tree that bordered the left side of the camp. A figure held a large bow as it jumped to the ground from a high branch above the group. As the person landed their bow and the three arrows that were pointed at the group never wavered and there was no sound from the landing. It was a female elf, Julie recognized the race from one of the fantasy novels she occasionally read.
The female elf was six feet tall with shoulder length silver hair that seemed to shimmer in the firelight. Her face was perfectly symmetrical while her steel blue eyes sharply contrasted her pale white skin. She was dressed in black leather armor with a black belt around her waist that held three sheathed daggers. The bow she had seemed to be a very plain long bow with a single red jewel embedded in the front of it. Julie looked down and saw the jewel was emitting a tiny red light against her chest. The jewel light reminded Julie of a laser sight on a gun.
“Come on Points do we have to do this everytime?” Shaden asked as he flopped his hands to his side. The elf drew the arrows back a small bit and leaned in to tighten her aim.
“Ok, Ok, The hawk flies at night while the owl sits and waits. A mouse sits on the ground, each bird holds the rodents fate.”
The elf Shaden referred to as Donna-Lé lowered her weapon and took a seat on a log that served as a sitting place next to the fire. She sheathed her arrows into the quiver on her back as she slung the bow around her shoulder. She never took her eyes off the trio, even as she warmed her hands to the fire.
“Who are they?” She asked with a nod towards the Doctor and Julie.
“They, my dear, are potential customers so I suggest you play nice.”
The three moved near the fire so they too could enjoy the warmth. The Sun was just getting behind the trees and the temperature had begun to drop.
“Now then I will give you the skinny on these two. The fine gentleman in the long coat is The Doc….is Doc. The pair of brown eyes next to him is Julie his…travel partner.”
“Hello,” the Doctor said with a nod as he took a seat on a small rock next to Shaden. Julie also nodded.
“My apologies good sir and madam, it is hard to tell nowadays friend or foe. There are creatures who call this woods home that have the ability to pose as both. I am Donna-Lé. Please Miss Julie, you may have a seat next to me, there is plenty of room.”
“Thanks” Julie took a seat next to elf. She thought she felt the elf actually move closer to her but shook it off as she warmed her hands by the campfire.
“And I am Bernard the Bard, at your service sir and m’lady.” The green man said as he stood on the boulder and bowed before he dropped back to sit on the boulder.
“A bard, so it was your beautiful music we heard earlier?” Julie asked. She thought she saw a hint of red in the cheeks of the troll’s very green face.
“You are too kind m’lady. If I may, I would love to play you another lovely tune. It is one that Shade taught me.”
Julie bowed her head in approval. She wanted to see just how a one arm bard could play the mandolin. Her question was immediately answered, for as Bernard started to finger the cords, the mandolin strummed itself.
Girl…you’ll be a woman soon…
Julie suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to begin to dance. Her head became foggy and could not tell exactly what she was doing. The Doctor could see very well what Julie was doing on the other hand. Bernard continued the song as Donna-Lé ‘s eyes were locked on Julie.
Love you so much, cant count all the ways
Id die for you girl, and all they can say is
Hes not your kind…

Julie danced seductively as the music played. She moved her hand up her body and seemed to be rather enjoying it. The Doctor was about to protest but was stopped short by a rock that seemed to fly out of nowhere and hit Bernard in the head. The hit knocked the troll back behind the boulder he had been sitting on. Julie snapped out of her trance and looked down at her hand, which appeared to have a rather firm grasp on her chest. She had the feeling as if someone had just caught her coming out of the shower naked. She immediately took a seat by the Doctor. Donna-Lé grabbed her blanket and put it over Julie’s shoulders.
“I am sorry about that m’lady. It has been a while since Bernard has had an audience. He does get carried away. “
“That is one way of putting it. He’s lucky I don’t punch his lights out.” Julie threatened as she shot daggers with her eyes at the Troll, who rubbed the large red knot on his forehead as he came around from behind the boulder.
“I believe Shade took care of that for you already my dear. I do apologize. It was rude of me. I forget the affect that song has on most folk.”
“Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Perhaps we should leave. Thank you so much for your hospitality but I am sure we will be capable of finding our missing item on our own.” The Doctor stated as he stood up with Julie following suit.
“No don’t be like that Chief. We are rough around the edges but I am on the up and up when I say we are the best skilled in the profession of stealing. Please have a seat.”
The Doctor paused for the moment and decided to give the crew one more chance. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. Shaden was truly an interesting character and definitely seemed out of place for the planet he was on. The Doctor also knew if the Rani were to find them, he would be their best defense against her.
“Speaking of skills, I believe it is good time to talk about compensation for the lending of our skills to your master plans. It has been a while.”
“A month and a half “ Donna-Lé chimed in as she sat close to Julie. A little too close for Julie’s comfort, though she had to admit Donna-Lé smelled the best out of the three.
“Please Berno, D.L., must we talk about this now. We can settle the dust on the matter later, right now I would like to talk about our new job. Now these fine folk have been involuntarily relieved of their spac…sculpture.”
“A sculpture?” Donna-Lé asked in surprise as her hand moved to Julie’s knee.
Shaden looked at the Doctor with wide eyes as if saying ‘help me out here’. The Doctor smiled back and spoke up.
“Yes, you see I am a sculptor and I was asked by a rather wealthy gentleman to create a large sculpture for his garden. Due to the cost of the thing to be created, the man was kind enough to pay up front for all the materials I needed. Needless to say it was stolen before I could deliver the item to him. Now he thinks there never was a sculpture and that I am cheating him out of his money. Should I fail to return it to him in the next couple of days he will seek compensation in other forms. Those forms being my head and my assistant becoming his slave.”
The Doctor waited to see their reaction. He was rather pleased at the tale he just wove and in fact nearly convinced himself the story was true. Bernard had since pulled out a pipe and puffed on it while Donna-Lé had pulled out her dagger and sharpened it with a sharpening stone. Both stared at the Doctor for twenty seconds not saying a word. Then Bernard turned to Shaden.
“So what’s in this for us?”
Donna-Lé’s head whipped over to Shaden and the two now stared at him. His eyes got big and there was a long pause during which the only thing heard was the fire. Julie was not sure if the crackling noise was coming from the fire or from Shaden’s brain as he tried to think of something to say. Shaden’s face went back to normal and he spoke.
“Well not only would you be rewarded with the jolly good feeling of helping your fellow man but…”
“You will get paid in gold and jewels.” The Doctor finished the sentence for Shaden.
“Really?” The elf and the troll asked at the same time.
“Really?” Shaden asked in surprise.
“Really. Some of the finest riches that you could not find anywhere else in all of Fae’th.” Julie added as she stood up and walked over to Shaden. She continued.
“Diamonds as clear as spring water…” , She walked over to the elf, turning her backside to the troll. She bent over so she was eye to eye with Donna-Lé
“…and Saphires as blue as your eyes.”
The elf licked her lips as she stared straight back at Julie while Bernard was focused on the part of Julie that had suddenly presented itself to him. After he took a long hard look at Julie’s rear, he hopped up on the boulder.
“Right I’m in!” the troll said enthusiastically.
“Me too!” the elf said with equal emotion as she stood to her feet.
Julie smiled, spun on her heals and took her seat next to the Doctor. The three thieves grouped together by the boulder to whisper amongst each other about what Julie had just stated. The Doctor and Julie took the opportunity to do their own whispering.
“Don’t you think that was a bit much”
“Not at all Doctor, that’s my character, the sultry, kick-ass, warrior from space.”
“Ah I see, though I don’t remember ever reading about that class in the Dungeon and Dragons guides.”
“That’s because you didn’t read the expansion set” Julie smiled and the Doctor met it with one of his own. The group of thieves were also done conversing. Donna-Lé and Bernard started to pack up the various camp items. Shaden walked over to the Doctor and Julie.
“Right we have to break camp and start now if we wish to make it to the Dirty Hog before nightfall.”
“The Dirty Hog is where my sculpture is being kept?” The Doctor asked,
“No the Dirty Hog is where we will find the person who knows the person who can tell us where your sculpture is being held at. Though I have my suspicions about its location, I have to be sure before going there.” Shaden replied as he poured dirt on the fire.
“Ah sounds simple enough. What exactly is the Dir…”
The Doctor stopped in mid sentence as he could feel the presence of the Rani. Shaden and the Elf also stood frozen. All three looked towards the direction of the thick woods behind the camp. It was also in the direction of the Fairy gate.
“I think we should head down the rabbit hole.” Donna-Lé stated without taking her eyes off the woods. She readied her bow with an arrow in one fluid motion.
“We aren’t all going to be able to fit in there.” Bernard informed.
“We don’t have to. Berno take Doc and Blue eyes here into the rabbit hole. Donna-Lé, do what you do best.” Shaden directed in a calm cool voice.
The troll grabbed Julie and the Doctor by their arms.
“This way please sir and m’lady.”
The Doctor and Julie followed the Troll as they hurried thirty feet out from the camp. Bernard reached down and took hold of a mushroom. He lifted up on the mushroom to reveal a hidden hiding hole that had been covered with a lid that was disguised to look like the rest of the forest floor. The Doctor jumped in and was surprised at how deep it was. He could nearly stand straight up in it. Julie and Bernard joined the Doctor into the hole and the lid closed on top of them. Julie crawled up the sloping wall and peaked out of a crack in the lid in time to see Donna-Lé gracefully jump and disappear into the branches of a tree. Shaden stepped into a tree’s shadow and pulled his disappearing act as the air filled with the sound of dog howls.

THursday already

2009-02-12T20:15:00.000-06:00

I have one of many guilty pleasures and that is I watch Survivor. I would like it to be known for the record that this is the only reality TV I watch. I like it for really two good reasons. 1 is the Challenges. They can get pretty original and involved and they look quite fun. They have sometimes repeated some challenges but they also bring something new or new twist to the challenges. They are things that look like just fun to do...well most of them. There is alot more thought put into this show to help keep it feeling like a game show. Granted you have the human drama, real world type of stuff but I think its harder for these contestants to put on an act while struggling to survive.
The show has outlasted most of the other reality shows and still a fave and the host helps keep the show interesting. Which brings me to why I like this show # 2. Jeff Probst the host and executive producer. IF you ever wonder what a modern day puppet master looked like, well its Jeff. He really does "Pull da strings" on these people. IF the tribal council is a little slow he stokes the fire. He sees everything so he knows their secrets and the things the contestants don't know about each other. He knows what questions to ask and how to phrase them. Then he justs sits back and lets the drama unfold. It is a show that was created by vindictive psychologists. So there you have it I am a Survivor watcher. Not ashamed to admit it. I am ashamed at my poor blogging skills but "they are getting better." Sorry no william this week. The mouse did not speak to me this week so I had no story.
BTW Favre retired. Again. Lets hope it stays that way. If it doesn't and he decides he wants to play for the ViQueens,,,,and if they are dumb enough to take him back,Favre will have erased any hope of having a warm return welcome to Green Bay or go into the Hall of Fame as a Packer. How the mighty have fallen thanks to bad agents/

Short and to the Point

2009-02-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

The president talked. The people listened. The Reporters were well shits. Here we are in a major economic situation and rather than ask the important questions they feel the need to ask him about shit totally unrelated to the press conference. I understand they are reporters and its their job to get the truth but never had I heard questions asked of Bush as finite as they asked of our new president. They are testing him and I think he stood up fairly well.
Anyway not much to say except it is nice to see a president who can speak presidential.

I am feeling kinda Sunday

2009-02-08T19:47:00.000-06:00

well another weekend has come and gone and It was actually a bit productive for me. I got some writing done ..Soon will be finishing another Lonely trooper and looking into a possible road trip with some friends next month to the Midwest Gaming Classic. It turned out to be a very nice day to day so me and the fam walked to a local cafe. IT was fun but the fresh air and excercise must have gotten to me cause I came home and took an unexpected nap.
I always kinda like the feeling you have after a good solid nap. I mean not at first...your usually groggy as hell and the nap is usually longer than planned, if it was planned at all. But once you get the blood flowing and feet moving you have a bit of a refreshed feeling. Its nice.
Not sure why I felt the need to write that but I did. I have not kept all my new years resolutions unfortunately but have done more than I thought I would so I guess its a plus. One month at a time right. I am going to start working on a script and plan to do a short project. I wanted to do at least one movie or be in the process of completeing one movie by the time I was 35. Well that's coming up in two and a half years.
So I have babbled enough for tonight. Gonna finish lonelytrooper so look for it in the next couple days. FOr the curious

Fae'th Friday at least some things are on time

2009-02-06T21:25:00.000-06:00

The adventure continues...

The Rani frantically searched through the Doctors pockets, letting out a small sigh with each failed attempt.

“Where is the Key and that precious sonic screwdriver of yours? I would really like to know”
“Yes so would I actually,” The Doctor said while he looked down at his chest in curiosity. He always put the key and sonic screwdriver in the same pockets, well 99.45% of the time. By shear law of averages the Rani should have found it by now. The missing items were as much a mystery to him as it was to the Rani, only one of them was getting angrier by the moment and it wasn’t the Doctor. The Rani stopped and threw her hands down to her side in frustration. Then she looked over and Julie and smiled.
“Perhaps I should have my Noc friends here search your delicate companion. Though they could get a little over anxious in their searching her, they are still very thorough .”
“Take me one on one and I will show you just how delicate I am .”
“Oh really,” the Rani put her finger to her pursed lips as she thought for a moment, “Alright let her go. This will be a most enjoyable experiment.”
The Doctor was so focused on trying to figure out where his two prized possessions were that he failed to notice Julie get into her usual fight stance once she was freed from the Noc’s grip. The two women circled each other with fists raised. The Noc chuckled in delight as the Doctor’s mind worked over the possibilities. The Rani was about to take her first swing when the solution hit the Doctor.
“Ah HaH!!!” The Doctor’s exclamation caused the Rani to turn her head involuntarily in surprise. Julie saw her chance and swung as the Rani turned her attention back to Julie. The Rani’s jaw ran headfirst into the Companion’s fist as a voice rang out.
“Doctor duck!!”
The Doctor did so instinctively. He saw a silver boomerang fly above him and through the skull of the Noc that held him. The Boomerang then changed course and passed through the Noc that had held Julie just a moment ago. Both beasts slumped to the ground at the same time the Rani also connected with the floor.
The Doctor took Julie’s hand as they ascended up the gold pile to the TARDIS. They were joined by a figure that came out of the Shadow of the TARDIS. The Boomerang flew towards the figure and attached itself to the figure’s Arm.
“Shaden” Julie exclaimed with a smile
The Doctor held out his hand and Shaden handed over the two items.
“I was only holding on to them for safe keeping.”
The Doctor easily opened the door and the three poured into the TARDIS. Only after three steps into the TARDIS Shaden ran into the back of the TARDIS. Julie ran right into the back of Shaden, she was then squished by the Doctor who just closed the door behind them.
“Um if you don’t mind me saying chief, for a space ship I was expecting something abit more roomy.”
“What, what?” the doctor asked as he looked around at the bare wood door staring back at him.
“Normally there is a lot more room than this, honest. I Don’t under..”
“ssshhhh” Shaden shushed Julie. The loud steps of Draconis had stopped just outside the TARDIS. They could hear Draconis’s voice through the wooden walls.
“Water” Draconis exclaimed, followed by the sound of a splash and a startled yell of a female.
“The Rani wake up. Where are they?” Draconis asked
“I don’t know, but they couldn’t have gotten far.” The Rani said as she spat water out of her mouth. The three in the box tried not to make a noise. Shaden noticed a symbol in the shape of a C inside a diamond shape on the wall in front of him and rolled his eyes. He knew the symbol and realized what had happened to the Doctor’s ship. There was a loud cracking sound from above and the box was flooded with light. As their eyes adjusted they looked up at Draconis who smiled back at them. The four walls of the Faux TARDIS fell outwards.
“Well now this is unexpected wouldn’t you say Doctor” The Rani stood at the bottom of the gold pile with her arms crossed and a smile on her face.
“Now where were we, hmmm” Draconis asked. Shaden, in the meantime slid his hand in his bag and whispered something. A round stone ball leapt into the thief’s hand. In one swift motion Shaden spun around and gave an unexpected push against Julie who ran into the Doctor. The two landed with a thud on the wooden faux TARDIS wall that was in front of the Doctor. Shaden jumped on the board as well and the three surfed down the pile of gold. They knocked into the Rani, who was thrown back to the floor, and continued to glide on the wall through the large doorway they had used to enter the chamber. Shaden threw the stone from the bag at the doorway at the same time Draconis launched a stream of fire from his mouth. A wall of stone appeared to fill the doorway in time to block the fire.
Julie and the Doctor picked themselves up.
“Well I never expected you to be the hero type.” Julie stated with a smile.
“Don’t get all doe eyed sweetheart. You were just in the way, ended up coming along for the ride.”
“Oh you…..”
Julie spun around in frustration and stared at the fountain.The Doctor seemed in a bit of a daze, a slight twing of pain hit his gut as he realized the TARDIS was truly lost at least for the moment. He shook his head and realized there would be time to worry later, they still had the issue of getting out of the palace. He dusted himself off and walked over to Shaden.
“So how do you suggest we get out of here, I can assume that wall will not hold Draconis for long.”
“You are a quick one chief. To get out of here all we have to do is ask.”
Shaden grabbed the Doctor by the coat and Julie by the hand.
“PALACE STABLES!!!”
The three were pulled through a blur of hallways, they changed course twice and caused Julie’s stomach to flip. The next thing she knew, they stopped in the doorway of a huge stable and also next to two Noc guards. The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the one by him and knocked him out with a sonic burst while Shaden pulled the boomerang and used its blade to decapitate the guard next to him. The Doctor looked back in time to see the guard’s headless body drop to the ground. Shaden took off down the aisle.
“Must you.” The Doctor asked as he pointed at the body.
“Let’s go Doctor” Julie asked as she pulled him by the sleeve. When they caught up to Shaden, the thief pointed at a wagon that was already attached to two draft horses.
“Our Chariot awaits.” The three ran up to the wagon and as soon as the three were aboard, Shaden jumped into the driver’s seat and gave the reins a whip, accompanied by a “HeeYa”
The horses took off immediately down the middle of the stable. The Doctor moved to take the seat next to Shaden. He handed the reins to him.
“If you would be so kind, I prefer shotgun.”
“I am sure you do” The Doctor snipped as he gave an extra whip of the straps. Five Noc guards appeared in the stable entrance. Shaden threw the boomerang and directed it towards the group. The Noc could not scatter in time before the boomerang had chance to cut across all five of their necks. The wagon passed the bodies and exited into the night.
As the group traveled down the bumpy road, an eerie choir of howls filled the air. Julie could see in the distance three pairs of red glowing eyes followed them. When the eyes passed under the torches that lined the road the rest of the dog beasts were revealed. They were same beasts that were chained up to the pillars.
“We’ve got Company!!”
“Well that didn’t take long.” Shaden stated. He threw the boomerang and guided it towards the head of the lead dog. It caused sparks to fly as it connected to the beasts skull.
“We may be in a bit of trouble.”
The wagon lurched up and one of the barrels that were in the back of the wagon hit Julie in the arm. Liquid leaked from it that had a smell that reminded Julie of kerosene. She watched the boomerang bounce off the heads of the dogs again and decided to take action herself. She pushed the barrel off the back of the wagon and to her surprise the barrel did not immediately break but instead decided to roll towards the dogs. The lead dog did not hesitate and smashed through the barrel sending its liquid contents flying. All three dogs were covered in the liquid. Julie tossed another barrel out the back of the wagon which yielded the same result as the first. Julie then grabbed the boomerang from Shaden just before he was about to throw it. She threw the boomerang at one of the road torches and knocked it to the ground. The dogs ran over it and immediately were engulfed in flames. The dogs screamed in pain as they tried dropped to the ground in vain to roll the fire out.
Shaden smiled as the boomerang came back to rest on his wrist. It was not long before they were at a fairy gate. They ran the wagon into the middle of the circle of stones but nothing happened. Doctor and Julie looked over to Shaden who continued to stare straight ahead, as if he was trying to will the gate to work. Then he slapped his forhead so loud it echoed against the black stone walls that surrounded the fairy gate.
“Son of a Bitch.”
“You don’t have the key to the gate do you.” The Doctor asked as he stepped out of the wagon. He then helped Julie out of the back of the wagon.
“Well how are we supposed to get out of here now?” Julie asked concerned.
“No worries, you have me.” The Doctor replied as he held up his sonic screwdriver. He immediately went over to one of the stone arches and ran the sonic screw driver across the faint symbols on the underside of the arch. He knew he had seen these symbols before and knew what technology he was dealing with. How it ended up on Fae’th he wasn’t sure but one thing he knew was the universe worked in mysterious ways. The symbols lit up in a bright green light that brought a smile to the Doctor’s face.
“Be careful there Chief, last time someone tried to hot wire one of these his insides became his outsides.”
“Trust me, this is my specialty.”
There was another howl in the distance. As the Doctor ran to the other arches to activate their symbols, Shaden turned the wagon in to the direction of the path they just came down. He slowly moved it out of the circle. The Doctor activated the last arch and a large bright flash of light blinded them all for second. When their eyes were adjusted again, white sparkling light danced in the middle of the circle of stones.
“Time to go.” The Doctor said with a smile.
Shaden saw three pairs of red eyes in the distance.
“Not a moment too soon. Go on get through the gate you two I will be right behind.”
“You can’t take the..”
Julie’s protest was cut off as the Doctor grabbed her and they both fell into the sparkling light. Shaden jumped off the wagon and grabbed a nearby road torch. He then tossed it into the back of the wagon that still contained three barrels. He then smacked the rear end of one of the horses with the flat side of his boomerang, accompanied by a ‘heeeya’. The wagon took off straight toward the dogs. Shaden had just enough time to watch as the wagon collided with the dogs and exploded. The force of the explosion pushed Shaden through the gate.

William Wednesday on Friday

2009-02-06T20:19:00.000-06:00

Sorry about being late on this folks. I hope you all like and I am not sure I can make one every week but will still try. Don't want to come up with just crap for the sake of posting. Anyway for the young at heart to share with kids or whoever.

William the Mouse and the Ant
By
Mark Krawczyk

In the really old house,
on top of the very large hill,
just outside of town lives William.

William is a mouse and this is a his tail…I mean tale.

William the mouse, Wendy the Mouse, and Larry the Locust were all sitting on the warm concrete patio that was in the back of the really old house. The stones were cracked and had various weeds growing between them. There were also a variety of ant hills that rose up from the cracks. The large piles of sand and dirt were built around a hole which the ants used to move in and out of the ant colony. The ants would leave to go get food which could be dead leaves, grass, even dead insects, yuck.
Larry spoke between bites of the large green leaf he had brought for the day on the Patio.
“This is really good you sure you don’t want to try some ”
“No that’s ok I think I will stick with my cracker piece today. Green leaves make my tummy upset.” Wendy said as she took a bite of her cracker.
Larry nodded and kept munching. That’s when he felt something tug at his leg.
He looked down and screamed as he jumped in the air.
“AHHHHHH ANT!!”
The scream seemed to scare the ant as much as it scared Larry. As larry landed he scurried behind William.
“Get him out of here dear friend. Yes please, so ugly and scary.”
Wendy looked at the ant and jumped back as well. It was a Carpenter ant and it was the largest ant she had ever seen. It had long antenna and big pincers that were on either side of its mouth. Wendy hid behind Larry who was still behind William.
“Make him go away William. Please. I hear they will eat anything, even mice. I heard a story of a bunch of ants attacking and eating animals way bigger than them. Make him go away before he brings his friends and they make us their next dinner.” William continued to munch his cracker as he looked at the Ant. The Ant looked back with its little beady eyes that sat on either side of its large head. He didn’t look mean or ugly at all. In fact he looked kinda sad.
“Hello Mr. Ant. How are you today?” William asked. The Ant ran over and grabbed a dead leaf. He used his pincers and cut out a small word in the leaf. He held it up to William. The word said ‘Good’.
“Really, well I am happy to hear it. I am William. “ William held out his paw towards the ant. As the ant went the grab William’s hand with its pincers, Wendy pulled his arm away.
“What are you doing William? You trying to lose a paw. He will eat you” She yelled. The Ant looked even sadder than before and slowly started to walk away.
“Wendy that’s no way to treat anyone. He maybe was just trying to be friendly. He doesn’t have paw or anything else to hold my hand with. How else is he going to shake my paw but with his pincers.” William turned to the Ant.
“Please do not go sir. My friend is just a little scared. Would you like a piece of leaf? “ William asked as he pulled off a small piece from the leaf Larry dropped.
“William don’t give that thing my leaf. He tried to eat me,” Larry yelled.
“Maybe he was just trying to get your attention Larry.”
“Yeah attention to the inside of his belly.”
William just shook his head and held out the piece of leaf. The Ant paused and then slowly grabbed the piece of leaf in its pincers. Then he moved his mouth over the leaf, nibbling as he went. He seemed to smile at the taste of it.
“See he likes the same food you do Larry. Just because he looks different and talks different than you doesn’t mean you two can’t get along.” William tore off another small leaf piece and handed it to the Ant. The Ants antenna seem to move with joy as he ate. Larry slowly moved out from behind William and took a step toward the ant. The ant took a step back in fear.
“I think he is scared of you as much as you are of him Larry.”
Larry took his leaf and ripped into two pieces and moved it toward the ant.
“Well you do seem to have good taste in food my dear Ant. “
The ant carved out a word in the piece of leaf that he was eating. It said ‘Thank You’. This made Larry feel more relaxed around the Ant.
“I am sorry my ant friend.” Larry realized that even though the Ant talked differently with people and looked different in a lot of ways, he and Larry were also a lot alike. Wendy still seemed a bit scared.
“Come on Wendy give him a chance.” William whispered to her. She looked back at William and took a deep breath. She then tip toed quickly over to the ant and sat next to him with her eyes closed as if she was expecting him to attack her. The Ant looked at Larry and William and the two just shrugged their shoulders back at the Ant. Then the Ant walked over to a near by leaf and started to cut into it swiftly with is pincers. After a short time of doing this he then pulled the leaf next to Wendy and tapped her with his antenna. They kinda tickled and Wendy laughed. The laugh made her open her eyes and when she did she could not believe what she saw. The Ant had carved a small picture of a rose. She now felt bad for judging the Ant just because of what she had heard from other people about Ants. She promised herself never to make that mistake again.
“Thank you Ant. I am also sorry.” Wendy apologized.
The ant carved the words ‘its ok.’ Then he wrote the word ‘Friends?’
William nodded at the ant.
“Yes I think you could consider us friends Ant.”
The Insect spun around in a circle with joy. Another ant appeared near the group. The group’s new friend ant stopped and after a second or two he turned to his leaf and wrote ‘have to go work.’
“Well you guys don’t get a lot of time to rest do you, my ant friend. Maybe we can meet tomorrow and we can share a big maple leaf together.” Larry said. The Ant did another spin in a circle and then wrote ‘yes’. The ant wrote the words ‘thank you’ and started to walk away towards the other ant.
“Wait we never got your name” Wendy yelled out. The Ant ran back over to the leaf he was writing on. He had just enough room to write his name. He then handed it to William and ran off with the other ant into the grass.
“Well what’s his name William?” Wendy asked.
William said with a smile. “Adam” .

Off to a great start

2009-02-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

Well New Month and already missed a day of blogging. Course yesterday I did work my second job but I had enough time to write. Instead I blew up germans with a friend of mine via Company of Heroes and then spent time playing Carnival Mini Golf with my wife. So I guess I have a bit of an excuse...mini excuse. Anyway.
Got the last hit of football until Fall. Sure there is arena football but that's like football lite. Speaking of Lite the Super Bowl commercials this year were a bit lower key again as they have been the last few years. Mostly car commercials. A couple of eh commercials, the Go Daddy commercials which now just go out of their way to be titillating (note to self go to GoDaddy.com to see commercial conclusions) Anyway, the one that really stood out for me was the doritos contest winner. The one with the Crystal Ball/Snow globe. I will admit did not see that one coming and I did laugh out loud at that one. Nice back story to it , the guys who submitted it for the contest were two out of work guys who managed to scrap up two thousand dollars from friends and family. They won the grand prize of a million dollars. That just makes that commercial all the better.
The BOSS and the e-street Band were a decent super bowl show. It was as good I think as the one last year. The rolling stones one which some magazine put up as one of the top ten super bowl performances IMHO sucked ass. The audio was horrible Jagger barely moved and well...anyway I still remember the worst super bowl show to me was when they were promoting Indiana Jones the Ride. IT was awful as they tried to do this action type play and ... still burned into my head.
I also remember the one where they tried to do Bullet time on a stadium level. That just did not work. The performance was good as it was the nsync, aerosmith, Britney Spears and about four other performers singing fairly well. This was pre poparazzi psycho britney.I think she was only 17 at the time. Though there was a law about Steven Tyler being that close to a teenage girl.. anyway that one was good.
On the whole the game was fun to watch, just like last years. always better when the game isn't like a total defense game where the score is like 7 to 3 but also better than when one team is just crushing the other team. Although I would have liked to see the Cardinals pull it out I guess it was not meant to be.
Anyway gonna work on a william story tomorrow.
Hope everyone like how Fae'th is going. Working on more pages for Friday.