Busy Like A Muther

 

 Offloading some more cool movie/TV pics I came across. That Tarzan is a Drew Struzan. Man that guy's fucking amazing--greatest poster artist of all time, far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, how busy can one be, is apparently the mantra for me. (and I guess I'm a poet now too because that accidentally rhymed)

 First off, had to re-export my buddy's entire UFO thing in a different manner because they had cropped their picture after the fact. The place won't take cropped stuff. Found a little-known trick to exporting only portions of a frame in Premiere, so exploited that to only export the part of the picture that wasn't cropped.

Voila, this week his thing passed and is now being selected for platforms.

Speaking of platforms, man...here's where I stand now, and am planning on putting all of my movies on here. Hell, FOC2 is almost done, and then I think I only have the first Ttory. How much any of this will make is still up in the air, but I'm hopeful.

Don't share that, eh? 

Weirdly, Tubi seems to take the longest to get stuff up. Bounty was delivered on June 1st to them, still isn't available on their web site. I keep checking. Most of the others get the movies up within a week or so of delivery. (a movie will get selected, then delivered)

Anyway, had to re-export FOC1 and its trailer, and then do the same for part 2. Part 2's trailer was a little harder because it had some graphics in it that looked HORRIBLE when blown up, so I had to reconstruct those.

Problem being, they were AE 6.5--which is a format too old for ANY current AEs to open. I didn't have that version on any computer, so I had to rebuild the title FOC with the 2 that comes into picture and moves through it. It's not identical to the old one, but close enough.

---

The wife hurt herself at my kid's graduation. She'd had arm problems before, but she was adjusting the seat on her mom's motorized scooter when she sort of screamed and stood up, holding her arm.

Never seen her in THAT much pain, but she recovered after a few minutes, but couldn't move her right arm.

Since then she went to the doctor and the doctor was amazed. Said in his fifteen years of surgery he's never seen this kind of injury on a woman. She tore her bicep tendon off of the bone, and will now require surgery. 

They will apparently cut a hole in her bone and pull the tendon through and tie it. She'll be in a hard cast for a month, then a soft cast for another two or so. She'll be out of work for quite a while, and the disability money and other money won't be coming for a while, so good thing I've got a job now.

That means I also mow the lawn now, and the kid and I help with the other manual stuff like carrying clothes up and down the stairs, bringing in groceries, etc.

Suck part is that it doesn't look like she's going to the beach house with the kid over the 4th of July holiday. That's a vacation for me, but looks like it's a combination of she doesn't know how she's going to feel coupled with she doesn't have any money. I told her I'd give her some money to go, and she gets all offended. "Why do you want us to go?"

Then she gets mad when I tell her the truth, that it's my vacation when they go away. Man, if you lie you get in trouble, if you tell the truth you get in trouble. 

Anyway, killing it at work, I think. They're pressing to get people to "come back" to work at the building, but haven't tried to force anyone yet. We'll see what happens.

Blast From The Past

 

 So Doug, the guy who did the special effects for FOC1 and 2, hit me up with a message on FB. Said that he was cleaning house, and did I want all the molds he'd used on the movie that he still had left?

I hate seeing things get thrown away, so I say sure. Not sure what I'll do with them--can't really sell them because they weigh between 10-25 pounds apiece, so shipping would be too expensive.

Anyway, I go over to his house and he shows me around. His place has changed a bit, but I'm surprised to find he's still doing FX stuff. Just for himself, he says. He makes all sorts of heads and stuff from movies he likes, especially Exorcist and American Werewolf from London.

I should have taken a bunch of pics, but honestly I wanted to grab the stuff and go because a storm had just hit, and another was threatening. But I took these pics, which show among other things, Giggles dead body and Savannah's original prosthetic from when she got chopped in half. (he put a bikini top on it, plus added a chest burster for some reason)

Anyway, my thought was to auction most of them off for charity, if there was any interest. I asked Joe if he wanted to do it as STC, but he's a bit skittish because one of the molds is of a naked woman. Nevermind that it's a MOLD, and it's negative space so you can't really even tell what's going on without casting something.

He hears naked woman and he gets weird. He always has...

So maybe at the other convention. Not sure. Part of me wants to go mess with them, pour some foam in and see if I can make a head. The ones I got are Lisa and JP's head molds from the first FOC, and the rest from FOC2: Ogre head, Giggles head, Obrocki head, Carson head, Savannah full body mold(minus arms, which were molded separately).

 

 

Father's Day Weekend

 

So this week at work was a bit crazy. Did that demo. I think it went okay, but here's hoping I don't ever have to do it again...

Then Thursday rolls around and the pres declares a new holiday...and suddenly I'm getting a paid day off on Friday. My wife and kid are already at the beach, and I'd told them I might come down over the weekend.

Spur of the moment, I decide to surprise them Thursday night and head down. I pack up my stuff and my dog, and we get on the road. For some reason, my dog hates being in a car. Won't jump up and look out the window like most dogs, so she ends up throwing up.

It had been a while since I'd taken her on a trip, so I hoped this would be different. Well, I figured I'd stop at my parents house for a sec--it's sort of a halfway point between me and the beach. My dog could get out and stretch, go potty.

Well, as I'm turning onto my parents' road, she throws up. She does this EVERY time--it's like there's something at that point in the road where she has to throw up. And she throws up on the seat belt section of the back seat, which is a hole that goes down under the seat.

I try to clean it all up but can't get under the seat. My car smells like dog food puke--and note, I fed her like 4 hours before, thinking she's have digested it by then.

My mom gets me a towel to lay down, so I keep going. Look like I'll get to the beach around 1am.

I cross the bridge and call the wife, tell her I might come down tomorrow, that I'm out to get a Slurpee at that moment. She buys it. I pull into the parkt around 1am, cut the lights, and park. Nobody comes to the open door. (She usually leaves it open most of the night until she goes to bed)

I let the dog out and we slip into the porch, and I open the dog and let her loose inside. They are surprised, to say the least.

Anyway, we went to lunch and dinner the next day, some of our favorite restaurants. Hit the boardwalk for some ice cream, and the kid played some arcade games. Next day we wanted to do more, but the day got away from us. We went swimming at the pool a couple of times, took the dog to the beach for a walk. A pretty relaxed weekend.

I came home Saturday night, because I don't want to fight the Sunday traffic and also my mom's having a get together Sunday.

----

The other thing is, and maybe I've talked about it, is the story idea I've had for about 15 years. It takes place in this park my wife's family have a house in. It's basically a trailer park, but a nice one. Not the kind you or I think of when we hear the term trailer park.

The people that own the park make sure all of the homes are upkept, and as far as I can see, there's no meth going on. But I had an idea that this place would be a great summer place if you were a kid--there's so much to do and explore, and then what if something very bad happened? It would be my Stand By Me/It book, which I feel like every writer wants to do and eventually does.

I've been jotting notes for years--intended to write a screenplay--but this weekend I really went to town. It's hard to get the story off my mind now. I jot notes at home a lot of nights when I'm in bed. Clearly, my mind wants me to write it.

Anyway, here's some iphone pics I shot down there. Yeah, iphone.

The first three are from the boardwalk/beach(where the kids would have some fun), and the last is a shot of our cars at the house at night.

 

Work Suck

 

 Well, was killing it on work and then this past week happened. See, the 2nd project that I was one keeps pulling me back to do more stuff, which diverts my attention from the current project. I've literally got 30 windows open on my browser with different components, and sometimes you're in the middle of doing a test and then--bam--meeting. You come back and you've been automatically logged out in the middle of the test, so you have to go back and figure out where you were.

It's irritating. More importantly, when I first was being trained I sat in on a demo for the Navy and I asked my trainer, we don't have to demo for them, right? He said no, we just demo for the later testers so they know what to do.

Well, recently I was asked to demo to some testers this past project, so I did. Then I was told I'd have to demo it again for...some other testers? Wasn't clear. Sent me a bunch of stuff to fill out, as well as a powerpoint template but didn't tell me to do anything with it. A lot of people were CC'd on the email, so I figured it was something for them.

Turns out, it wasn't. It was for me to fill out, and they say I have to demo this whole thing for the Navy on Tuesday.

I'm like, what the fuck? This doesn't seem like something a tester should be doing. There are other positions specifically for demo'ing, but that guy was a piece of shit who didn't finish the project so maybe that's why they've got me doing this?

I don't like it, either way. Luckily it's not a complicated project like the one I'm on now, but I can tell you that trying to demo the current project I'm on will be very challenging.

--

I recently found out that this was a thing. A real thing.

Made by TSR, which--if you were a big D&D guy like me--you'd recognize as a big game maker. I looked into it and it sounds like it was actually not a bad game, but it didn't sell well.

I went and looked it up on eBay and found one sealed that was like $160 after shipping. I honestly stared at that all day, thinking about buying it. My problem would be that once I got it, would I REALLY want to open it? It's rare AND sealed...I'd love to take it over and play with Zig and crew, but I know I wouldn't want to open it...

Luckily someone bought it the next day. So I dunno, maybe if I see a complete one that's open I'll order it.

---

Remember I told you about Plex? It's actually pretty sweet. Sure, the commercials every 12 or so minutes are a bit annoying, but when I'm working it doesn't really matter.

I took a look at T2 on there. Looks very sharp, if a tiny bit too dark for some reason. I also caught Wolfman's Got Nards, the Monster Squad doc I never saw. It's entertaining. I also saw Caroushell, a so-bad-it's-fun little thing I'd heard about before. 

Now I'm watching some old war movie called Escape To Athena starring Roger Moore as a Nazi, and other stars like Elliot Gould, Telly Savalas and Sonny Bono. I feel like I must have seen this as a kid, but it doesn't feel familiar yet.

Either way, if you have a way to put Plex on your TV, whether via Roku, Xbox, smart Blu-Ray player, whatever, I'd do it. They have a pretty sizeable catalog.

 

Sink Or Swim

 

Let me see if I can tell you what's going on job-wise so far. I was thrown into a small project to start, which apparently I did so well that they then took off two testers from another project, and made me the sole tester.

I guess I did well there too, because they put me on this other project that I am only just now finding out is literally the BIGGEST project the entire company has going. I didn't know this until the big meeting where like 150 of us are on listening to a guy talk, and he mentions our team and how we're killing it, and he knows how hard it must be because it's the largest project BY FAR(he says) of anything the company is working on.

No pressure there, huh?

It's just me and one other tester, too, which is crazy. Parts of the process are interesting, but other parts SUCK. I guess that's just life, though, huh?

I'm having eye issues though. It's hard for me to read the laptop with my glasses on--I've always read books without glasses, because I can't focus that close with them on, but I would read the computer with my glasses. Can't do it now. Can't even read my regular monitor any more with the glasses on.

I can tell you, I'm not doing bifocals. Luke got them recently and hates them, he's going back to regular ones, so I'm pretty sure I would hate them. I should probably go get my prescription redone, since it's been about 12 years since I did that. I stopped because it seemed like every time I got a new prescription, it just trained my eyes to get worse.

In other news, I have a full week of Paid Time Off now. That's cool, cuz I'm gonna need a couple of days off for the Fridays of these cons I plan on attending. 

-----

Finished the Darkness doc. Lot of fun, as the other one was. Have a list of movies I'm gonna force Zig to pop out for me, assuming funs ever happen again. (not sure I can make Fridays, because trying to make it out to him during Friday rush hour isn't worth the frustration--traffic is miserable)

On the movie front, something called Gruuvr picked up GOH. You can see their site at https://gruuvr.com/, though I haven't tried to see much about it. 

I wonder whether 500 free channels can survive without branding themselves as something. Like, I can't tell much of a difference between the various ones. If one was a horror-only channel or something, okay, but they're all just pretty much free movies--and they have categories inside, but otherwise are indistinguishable.

 

 

Bonus Post!

 

Well, do you know what time it is, boys and girls? Time for another episode of MOVIE CONFRONTATIONS. I wish I didn't have any of these stories to tell, because I like watching movies and not having any issues, but alas in this day and age of complete dickheads, that is actually becoming rare.

So I give you the riveting story of yet another horrible, horrible human being trying to ruin another movie. (there will be no spoilers of the movie here other than to tell you how it starts, which you would have seen in the trailer before you could even look away)

 Now, given the movie above, you figure most people would be aware of how quiet the theater is and that every noise carries twice as loud. Hell, you have to chew your popcorn quietly, it's that quiet.

Yet, some lady is talking nearly non-stop behind me for the first FIFTEEN minutes of this movie. I keep waiting for her to stop--and honestly, the movie opens with a flashback to Day 1 so it was noisier so I couldn't hear her so well.

 So finally I turn backward--still can't see her because she's up a level and there's a wall. But I loudly say SHHHHHHHHH. She doesn't listen. Doesn't pause, just keeps talking.

I stand up to see what I'm dealing with. A teenager with his mom, and she's the one talking non-stop.  I give her the stare and she gives me a challenging look back and says "What?"

Pushing me is a bad idea, because I'm not a back-down kind of person. I say, "Shut the FUCK up."

She gets indignant and says, "YOU shut the fuck up. Who do you think you are?"

I say, "I'm a guy who paid to watch the movie without your commentary."

She replies--and I still don't get this--"Know your place. Know your place."

"What are you talking about?" I say, and she says "You just had to ask politely."

I still, to this day, can't believe the nerve of people who talk during movies and then expect OTHER people to politely ask them shit. "You're talking for the first fifteen minutes of this movie, and I'M the one who's not polite?" I say.

"Know your place," she says again.

So I escalate shit, because--again, we're in the middle of the movie--and say, "You're a mouthy bitch." Ohhhhhhh, that got to her. "What did you say to me?"

Mind you, we are both yelling while this movie goes on, and there's a good number of people in the theater. Nobody else is saying anything though. I reply, "I said you're a mouthy bitch."

Her teen son gets up and gets all aggro. "Don't you say that to my mom. I'll fuck you up."

The mom grabs him and says, "Sit back down, you ain't going to jail, I'LL go to jail, but you ain't going to jail."

I'm thinking to myself--the kid is half my size. She should be worrying about him going to the hospital, not going to jail. She continues mouthing shit  like, "I'll see you outside after the movie." 

"Yeah okay," I laugh, and sit back down. If she keeps talking, I'm going to go get a manager. A second later I hear her voice right behind and above me. "Hey boo," she says, and I turn and look up. She has her phone out and takes a pic. "Oooh, I got you now," she says. 

I laugh again, because what do I care? She acts like she's gonna go ahead now and post on FB in the middle of the movie. I can tell my wife is mortified, and I'd heard my kid say, "Shhhh", though I'm not sure if he's talking to me or her.

Well I can tell you this, after that she didn't say a fucking word. Like, not one peep. Normally these kind of people will periodically whisper just to show that I didn't intimidate them. Not this lady.

The movie turned out to be pretty good once I could enjoy it. The movie ended, and I stood up and turned to look at them to see if they wanted to push it further. She stared at me but said nothing. I think they got to see that I was actually much bigger than either of them, or maybe something else happened. (I think one of them might have walked out to maybe talk to a manager or something--someone stomped out shortly after this, though it could have been any moviegoer going to complain that there was about to be murder in the theater)

But hey--if you see a dark picture of a guy who look like me posted on the internet, let me know. I'd love to know who this mouthy bitch is that thinks it's impolite to ask people talking in a movie to shut the fuck up.

 

June Already

 

 Man, time really does seem to be flying by...not sure if it's just that I have a 40 hour work week now, or just the continued acceleration as I get older.

This week has been the beginning of a new sprint, which is what they call the segments of time we work on any individual piece. The beginnings are dull for us testers, as we wait for the programmers to pass us stuff to test. So yesterday was basically sit around and do nothing, as was today. I guess it's okay, because there's days where I work extra hours to get shit done.

So today I'm watching the In Search of Darkness 2 while I wait to see if anything's gonna hit my lane. It's just as fascinating as the first to someone who loves 80's movies. It's odd, there's even a couple highlighted  I don't think I've seen. I know what you're thinking...how could Zig let that happen? I don't know.

Reminds me to watch Beast Within--I got that blu ray a while back and never opened it. I haven't seen it in like 20 years, but the guys they interviewed in this don't speak very highly of it.

---

Had a problem I've never encountered in my 30 years of computer stuff. I had the auction company I work for order a new laptop, since they need one; the two we use are pretty old now. I researched a decent, not too expensive one. It's a Dell.

This thing comes in so I boot it up, start setting it up, but about 5 minutes in the computer shuts itself down. I hadn't plugged it in yet, because they usually come with a decent charge. I figured the battery hadn't been charged so I put it away and came back to it a couple nights later.

I boot it up and it gets to the Windows loading screen, and then just shuts down. I can't even get into Windows to check the event report to see what's going on. I try every trick in the book--I try the repair-itself option, nope, I try the safe mode on Win10, which is fucking LUDICROUS. What was so bad about hitting an F8 or an F4?

Do you know how to get to Win10 safe mode? Power up--when you see windows starting to load, shut it down. Then power it up again--when you see the windows screen starting to load, power it down again. Power it up again--I kid you not--then Windows will pop up some options, but they hide the "Safe" mode a couple of screens after that.

Either way, it doesn't work. So I just go full bore--this is the first SSD computer I've ever dealt with. It's partioned four times. I format every one of them. I then install my own version of Windows on there. No deal. Still does the power up for a second, Windows loads and some Dell Services thing comes up--then BOOM, power out.

I can find nothing that helps online, though people seem to have had this problem before.

I gave this thing 4.5 hours of my life the other night before I said fuck it, ship this bitch back. We're gonna try a replacement, but if this one acts weird, fuck it, it'll go back and we'll try a different brand. I've liked Dell better than HP in the past, but I'm not above changing...

---

Oddly enough, I got tagged on Insta the other day because apparently I'm going to be a guest as the show I was supposed to be a guest at last year with Proctor before it got canceled by Covid.

Weird thing is, he did not consult me. Didn't ask me whether I could still do it this year. It's like he thinks just notifying me is good enough. I haven't responded yet--if Proctor's not going, it's not worth it to me to do the 3.5 hour drive...

Some other shows are popping back up, and that's cool. Can't wait to get back to it.