Torture

 

I mentioned a while back that phantom smell...it's gotten quite worse, to the point that sometimes it's so bad that I wonder if being around is worth it anymore. THAT bad...

Finally got to the doctor. He's like, "Have you seen an ENT?" I'm like, how would I know to do that before I've come to see you? (that's an Ear-Nose-Throat doc, not a giant talking tree)

He took a look and said he can't tell anything. He's like, "I could do an MRI, but you should see the ENT first and see what they say...they can check you out and see if you have some sort of infection clinging to your (something about nasal parts)".

Went to the ENT. Nice girl came in and took my blood pressure and stuff, and said "I can numb your nose so the checkup isn't as uncomfortable." I'm like, okay. She sticks something in each nostril and blows something in there. It immediately make me feel like I have to hock up a loogie but I'm not supposed to do that or blow my nose.

The doc comes in. Nice guy. Says "Let's take a look". Then he jams something in each nostril that is EXTREMELY painful, and I'm clenching my eyes, but I can actually SEE the light from his probe at the bottom of my closed eyes.

I mention it to him afterwards. He's like "Yeah, I was way up there near your eyes".

After speaking with him, he's like "Definitely phantosmia." (the clinical name for it) He says he's prescribing me a steroid that I have to add to distilled water and spray up both nostrils once a day FOR A MONTH.

Then he's also scheduling me for an MRI and a CT scan. Super.

Got out to see Shaun of the Dead, the new remastered version in Dolby Atmos. Man, looked great and sounded even better. Still love that movie. Not sure if it's my favorite horror comedy but it's up there for sure. (If Tremors counts, Tremors would beat it)

Anyway, would love to take this weekend off and just lay around, but have so much to do...

Those were the days...could go for a Toasted Almond ice cream right now...

 

 

 

Movies

 

I actually told the rest of that story about my kid to two of the people I know who read this, so that's good enough. I don't know who else is out there, and since nobody ever speaks up, guess you lose out.

I've seen a few new flicks in the past few weeks.

I did NOT see the new Crow, and probably won't in the theater. Heard enough to confirm it's fucking dogshit, so why bother?

Saw Strange Darling. Didn't love it as much as everybody else. It's okay, but the twist is pretty obvious after about 15 minutes, plus it keeps doing stuff to pull you out of the movie. (an actual 9 second countdown counter shows up at one point...)

Saw Don't Blink. Thought this one was pretty good, but I'd heard ahead of time that there's a spoiler-ish trigger warning at the beginning of the movie so I closed my eyes as it came up. My brother did too, but he took a picture so we could read it afterward. The movie's pretty entertaining, but I'm sure it'll piss some dudes off.

Guess I never mentioned that we saw Trap? Again, okay. The premise is so ridiculous that it's a bit hard to get over, but entertaining enough. (and yeah, I know they say it's "based on a true story" but that true story is nowhere near as ridiculous as this...

Played quite a bit of this game, as well as part 3-4:

 

This is gonna blow your mind...

 

So first, let me get this out of the way: Saw the new Alien movie. Super disappointing. No spoilers, as always, but the fact is that I would have been happier if it was just shit through and through, but the first half is actually pretty good.

Even the second half, once it falls off the cliff, has some cool stuff to it. It's frustrating as fuck. This could have been a return to the high point of Alien...

That's the frustrating part. SO much right, but then they make a terribly-stupid decision that seems to go against a lot of the decisions they made early on.

ANYWAY

Let's talk the thing that will blow your mind. Thing is, it might not blow your mind unless you know my kid. But who knows?

Anyway...a few reminders. He's on the spectrum pretty hard core. Not very good socially, which is why we've been worried about how he can find a girlfriend. He's desperate for one...every movie he sees has girlfriends and boyfriends. Kissing and more. 

He wants that, yet he has no job where could even run into girls. He doesn't get invited anywhere. Many of his friends from high school moved away so he really has nobody to talk to or socialize with. My wife tried to start a club just to basically get some friends to hang out--she had the first meeting at a restaurant where I bought all the food, but that was pretty much a bomb.

So. That's where we stood at the beginning of the summer.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife says, "I have to tell you something..."

Anything good ever started with that? I know, right now you're like, "Shit, where's this story going...?" Slow your roll, it's not really bad.

The wife tells me that our son has been hanging out with some girl at the pool down at the beach a lot. My wife said the girl is also mentally challenged, but said she had...what was it...she couldn't remember the name...thinks it starts with a T.

I'm like...is it Tourette's? She like, yeah, I think that's it.

I start laughing. She's like, "What?" I'm like, does this girl curse and say inappropriate things a lot? The wife doesn't think so. I ask her how old this girl is.

She says yeah, that's what she couldn't figure out. She said the girl looks like she's 30, but seems to have the IQ of maybe a 14 year old. Says that's how the girl acts.

My wife said she went over and talked to the girl's mom and stepdad. Said she thought the mom might have been a little slow too. Said she looked pretty old to have a daughter that young. 

She'd see them at the pool whenever she went up there with the kid, talk to them and watch him talking with the girl--though what they could be "talking" about is beyond me. He says such bizarre stuff, it's hard to have a real conversation with him.

This is where my wife found out that this girl is actually forty-two years old. My kid just turned twenty-one last month.

You can imagine my surprise when she told me that. But you'll have to imagine the rest of this story, as I'll finish it later and tell you what we found on his phone about all this...

 

 

The New Horror

 

It's funny, there's been this new brand of horror in the past...ten years maybe? Some people call it "elevated" horror, but I just call it boring or stupid. Like, the people stroking off the dude who made The Lighthouse and some other really shitty ripoffs...it's sad.

At least for this new movie he's admitting that he's just creatively bankrupt and is redoing Nosferatu, instead of making movies that blatantly steal from other flicks. (Lighthouse < Cold Skin, Northman < Conan, The Witch...don't remember, but I'm sure it ripped off some Hammer film or something)

The reason I bring this up is because I finally got out to see Cuckoo. It was my anniversary the other night, and my wife was at the beach so I figured fuck it--I'm going to the movie by myself. (my normal movie buddies were either away or sick)

The movie's got like a 78% on RT. I'd read some good reviews.

It's not good. It's stylish, the performances are fine, but the script is just weird-for-weird's-sake. Once they sort of tell you what's going on--and it's a pretty stupid explanation--some of the stuff that happened previously doesn't make much sense.

But once again, people are stroking this thing off. Far as I can tell, here's how you make a hit "indie" horror flick today:

Shoot it so it looks like a 70's horror. Throw in a lot of weird shit, some cool shots, and don't worry about having your movie make sense or be entertaining. Plot is last on the list of things to concern us.

Shoot it for $250K - 2million, and there you go. You may also want to shoot it in 4:3 format and/or black and white to further emphasize that you're an auteur.

Recipe for success.

 

 

 

Time Warp

 I swear to Christ I just updated this blog, right?

But it claims I haven't done it in like 11 days, so I don't know what the fuck is going on.

I've been working a lot, and battling being sick so maybe that's causing the fugue. 

Let's talk book, I guess, since that's taking up an inordinate amount of my time. I've begun sending out advanced reader copies, and have seen some of the people posting videos and pics on the twit and the tok.

I'm gonna hold the bulk of them until closer to when the book's available, because I really don't think that many people pre-order...most people will be like, "Cool, I want that...I'll buy it when it's available.."

And then promptly forget about it. Much better if they see it and can go buy it immediately.

Was scheduling this book release signing thing, but ran into difficulties and then was asked to move it to the following week, when three other people were already signing. I don't really wanna hijack their signing, but the owner of the store says it's cool.

But he's like "I'm gonna bill it like the other people are headliners", which is cool and all but I think a couple of my authors are bigger than them soooooooo we'll see how that goes. I don't care either way, cuz I'm easy.

Gonna be like ten of us now, but like I told the owner, I'm more than happy to give up my spot. I fucking hate signing things and sitting behind a table. I'd much rather just look at comics and old books.

Got most of the audiobook done--waiting on a few final stories from the male narrator. Gotta convert some stuff and then upload it all, see if it passes the ACX standards. They have a long list of ridiculous requirements that you can see here if you're interested:

https://help.acx.com/s/article/what-are-the-acx-audio-submission-requirements#a

----

Saw that Borderlands movie, against my better judgement. Only good thing about it is that the theater was almost empty on opening night. It's action packed and yet somehow boring...and I've never seen a movie that could make Kevin Hart unfunny, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that he doesn't have one funny line in the whole thing.

Knew we should have seen Cuckoo, but maybe we still will.

Today, was supposed to go over and eat filet mignon with my brother and parents. My mom called me earlier in the day though and said she has Covid. My sister, who visited from out of state a couple of days ago, also has it now.

Not sure where they got it--pretty sure I was over it for about a week before I saw them all, but my brother and dad--who came back from Texas the same day my sister came in town--both had something, so maybe they gave it to them.

I still have a sort of hacking cough, but I took a Covid test today just to check and it was negative. I feel fine other than the cough. Seems like once you get the congestion nowadays, it takes like a month to get rid of it all.

Makes me mad, cuz you KNOW our government funded that shit, right? They can call it conspiracy theory all they want now, but there's some pretty solid proof that it originated in Wuhan, and we were funding that lab.

I got an idea--how about we STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH VIRUSES? Novel idea, right? Fucksake.

Anyway. There ya go. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and find out that I updated this blog three weeks ago instead of yesterday.