Space Bear Whore and the Zombies From Dark Planet Yuggoth
(so many inside jokes and internal references, it's hard to count them all!)
What I'm Watching
Speaking of Zombie Trace, I started - and stopped - watching George Romero's "Diary of the Dead" last night. Yes, I'm terrified of zombie movies. No, I never miss a major one. This one started out as a real snoozer, however. As elderdutton would say, "Too much coo-coo and not enough pew-pew!" Did not care to hear yet another person lecture the documentarian camera man about why he was filming instead of fighting when everyone else is wandering around in denial about the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. The movie even started out with these people filming a horror movie about mummies... but no horror movies about zombies exist in their world? I cannot abide by horror movie characters who are both stupid and boring.
What I'm Reading
Elsewhere in the realm of horror, I finished reading one of Lovecraft's longer stories, "The Whisperer in Darkness" last night. (And for benefit of kathymonster who got me thinking on this, no, this story was apparently not published posthumously. There's not much excuse for this one other than everyone has a bad storytelling day!) It didn't get much smarter than where I left off at my last report. The scholar heads out to Vermont with all the evidence in the matter. Gets picked up by a weird guy who seems to know everything that's going on but who's never been mentioned before. He's driven out to this farm in the middle of nowhere which, curiously, has no animals, no guard dogs, not even birds nearby. The house smells weird and oddly vibrates. His host is wrapped up from head to toe in weird mummy-like wrappings, including a hood and large bundles over his feet, and sitting in nearly complete darkness "because he's suffering an asthma attack." Then they talk late into the night the The Whisperer in Darkness (who is, in fact, a tool) shows his visitor his collection of brains in mechanical jars, hooked up to voice boxes. All of this the scholar takes in stride. But when he wakes in the middle of the night to find aliens arguing downstairs, THAT strikes him as weird. Then he flees. On the way out, his finds his host's face and hands and he's surprised to learn that the asthmatic in heavy wrappings was, oh no, you mean -- NOT REALLY WHO HE THOUGHT HE WAS AT ALL? Say it isn't so!
This story really stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief to its limits. Ready to move on.
Speaking of moving on, tonight I'm stopping by the library to pick up the graphic novel, Return of the Dark Knight which I have never read. Not quite done with Lovecraft - got about 200 more pages to go and I'm going to stick with it. I want to grab this one since I've had a request for it open for about three months, however! Don't want to miss my chance in the library rotation.
The Life In Between
Ian asked his professor if, as Art Lead, he could sit in on the interviews for the team artists after all. His professor was surprised by the request, but said yes. Good for Ian for just asking! That went well, and he said he did learn some things about the artists that he was unaware of previously, things good to know about scheduling and priorities and whatnot. Ian is already jumping into the capstone project, and sinking his teeth into an early creative dispute. In my opinion, it's the "good" kind of conflict between a bunch of people passionate to make a good game, and just in disagreement over creative direction. Still, conflict can be frustrating, and I think Ian is anxious to resolve this dispute and get everyone facing the same direction and marching.
We decided to have a 5 minute discussion about cars last night, and we even set the timer I use during my yoga practice! We managed to get all new thoughts out in less than 3 minutes and were happy to pack up the dead horse before it began to smell up the house again. Thank you, everyone, for reviews on the Honda Fit.
You'll be pleased (or bored stiff) to know that I did follow-up on packing my bag for Water Aerobics tonight. It's even in the car in case my library errand runs late and I don't get home beforehand.
Slept through the night comfortably for the first time in several days.
If one more cell phone goes off audibly in this office this morning, I am going to drop some elbow.
Meditating on some "ABC After School Special" life lessons this week including: The continued theme of Just Ask, overcoming the hump in addiction (a broad definition), the power to consciously choose the right course of action in any situation, and perhaps in summary of a list of pretty diverse thoughts, the idea that once you choose a course of action, commit, get over the hump of initial challenge, funny, it's really pretty easy to maintain the momentum of your choice. What a nice reward!
If I haven't said it lately, let me note that I'm really happy out here in Texas.
T$
What I'm Watching
Speaking of Zombie Trace, I started - and stopped - watching George Romero's "Diary of the Dead" last night. Yes, I'm terrified of zombie movies. No, I never miss a major one. This one started out as a real snoozer, however. As elderdutton would say, "Too much coo-coo and not enough pew-pew!" Did not care to hear yet another person lecture the documentarian camera man about why he was filming instead of fighting when everyone else is wandering around in denial about the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. The movie even started out with these people filming a horror movie about mummies... but no horror movies about zombies exist in their world? I cannot abide by horror movie characters who are both stupid and boring.
What I'm Reading
Elsewhere in the realm of horror, I finished reading one of Lovecraft's longer stories, "The Whisperer in Darkness" last night. (And for benefit of kathymonster who got me thinking on this, no, this story was apparently not published posthumously. There's not much excuse for this one other than everyone has a bad storytelling day!) It didn't get much smarter than where I left off at my last report. The scholar heads out to Vermont with all the evidence in the matter. Gets picked up by a weird guy who seems to know everything that's going on but who's never been mentioned before. He's driven out to this farm in the middle of nowhere which, curiously, has no animals, no guard dogs, not even birds nearby. The house smells weird and oddly vibrates. His host is wrapped up from head to toe in weird mummy-like wrappings, including a hood and large bundles over his feet, and sitting in nearly complete darkness "because he's suffering an asthma attack." Then they talk late into the night the The Whisperer in Darkness (who is, in fact, a tool) shows his visitor his collection of brains in mechanical jars, hooked up to voice boxes. All of this the scholar takes in stride. But when he wakes in the middle of the night to find aliens arguing downstairs, THAT strikes him as weird. Then he flees. On the way out, his finds his host's face and hands and he's surprised to learn that the asthmatic in heavy wrappings was, oh no, you mean -- NOT REALLY WHO HE THOUGHT HE WAS AT ALL? Say it isn't so!
This story really stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief to its limits. Ready to move on.
Speaking of moving on, tonight I'm stopping by the library to pick up the graphic novel, Return of the Dark Knight which I have never read. Not quite done with Lovecraft - got about 200 more pages to go and I'm going to stick with it. I want to grab this one since I've had a request for it open for about three months, however! Don't want to miss my chance in the library rotation.
The Life In Between
Ian asked his professor if, as Art Lead, he could sit in on the interviews for the team artists after all. His professor was surprised by the request, but said yes. Good for Ian for just asking! That went well, and he said he did learn some things about the artists that he was unaware of previously, things good to know about scheduling and priorities and whatnot. Ian is already jumping into the capstone project, and sinking his teeth into an early creative dispute. In my opinion, it's the "good" kind of conflict between a bunch of people passionate to make a good game, and just in disagreement over creative direction. Still, conflict can be frustrating, and I think Ian is anxious to resolve this dispute and get everyone facing the same direction and marching.
We decided to have a 5 minute discussion about cars last night, and we even set the timer I use during my yoga practice! We managed to get all new thoughts out in less than 3 minutes and were happy to pack up the dead horse before it began to smell up the house again. Thank you, everyone, for reviews on the Honda Fit.
You'll be pleased (or bored stiff) to know that I did follow-up on packing my bag for Water Aerobics tonight. It's even in the car in case my library errand runs late and I don't get home beforehand.
Slept through the night comfortably for the first time in several days.
If one more cell phone goes off audibly in this office this morning, I am going to drop some elbow.
Meditating on some "ABC After School Special" life lessons this week including: The continued theme of Just Ask, overcoming the hump in addiction (a broad definition), the power to consciously choose the right course of action in any situation, and perhaps in summary of a list of pretty diverse thoughts, the idea that once you choose a course of action, commit, get over the hump of initial challenge, funny, it's really pretty easy to maintain the momentum of your choice. What a nice reward!
If I haven't said it lately, let me note that I'm really happy out here in Texas.
T$