Whew

 

That was scary for a while. I tried like five times to get the lenses out, was even trying to catch them with tissue paper. My eyes were hurting like shit.

Finally I literally put my eyes under running water to try to loosen them, then pried them out. It wasn't fun, but at least I got them out. Here we are two days later, and my eyes still hurt.

Anyway, here's a shot of the car--I was showing it my second home, the RF where I get my fake-but-better-than-actual-Slurpee Slurpees. 

I read through the manual a bit. Holy fuck are there a lot of buttons and display things. It's kind of overwhelming to someone like me who has always had real scaled-down, no-extra cars. Like, I think the rear-camera is just going to cause me to crash so I probably won't use it much.

Certainly won't turn into one of those douchers who backs into spots.

(little hint for you if you do that: YOU'RE BACKING IN, OR YOU'RE BACKING OUT...total time will still be the same. I've had arguments with dumbshits who are like "but it's easier to back into a parking space"...but they have no reason for why that would be because is it easier to back out into the wide open road behind your parking space, or back into a tiny spot between two vehicles?)

And the difference is this: If I'm trying to park near you, I gotta sit and watch you take your time backing into your parking spot before I can get past you. And also the number of people who can't get between the lines when they back in is also staggering, so we gotta deal with asshats who are parked over the line, or parked crooked--just stop)

----

Know what I found out recently? I looked into the price of doing that T1/T2 blu ray set. Still expensive--I think I have to get 1000 to make it worthwhile. Considering I haven't sold out of the 900 limited FOC2 DVDs that I printed back in 2006, that's a tall order.

I mean, I'd give a 100 each to Dan and Mark, so basically I'd need to sell 800. 

So my intent is this--I'm putting together a kickstarter where you can preorder them. If we can get 100 people who preorder it, I'll do it. If we can't even get that many people, then clearly the interest isn't there and I'll just say fuck that shit.

I'm torn on the price though. I see assholes all the time putting dvds on their crowdfunding thing for like $50, and blu rays even more expensive. That's gouging like fuck. I don't want to do that.

But the thing I found out recently is that if you do get that many blus, they replicate instead of duplicate. That's where they make a glass master and stamp copies, instead of individually duplicating them. It's the better way.

Thing is, you can't just upload your ISO though, like you usually do. They need something in this format:
Masters for Blu-ray replication must be submitted in Cutting Master Format (BDCMF or Sony CMF)

Never heard of that. My software can't make it. They say they can somehow convert it if I get them a playable ISO, of course that's a $150 charge per disc. 

Anyway, I'm looking into it. I've started creating the kickstarter thing.

 

 

 

H'ween Weekend

Listen--I got a big problem right now, and if any of this makes sense then it's only because of my years and years of typing that's getting me through this.

See, thing is, I can't see within 5 feet of me right now. Let me explain.

We had plans to go out tonight. I had bought a squid games guard costume last year to wear this year, so finally tried it on. Fit well, it's a little hot but not too bad. Only thing is, if I wear my glasses underneath the mask, the mask bows out a bit.

So I had the sudden thought--I went to the eye doctors and got a temporary prescription--I couldn't actually get the lenses into my eye though, so I didn't go back in to get the full prescription.

Thing is, though, they gave me like 20 temporary lenses that don't expire until like 2026. I thought--let me see if I can get them in tonight.

Well, I did. Good times. All of a sudden I can see like a normal human, except my close-up vision is ZERO. I can't read my phone. Even if I hold it way out as far as I can, it's blurry. Makes ordering an uber pretty tough.

We hit the bar. It's okay. There's a band in the backside, and the usual country side on the other. The weird part is that we now take my kid, who is 21 years old.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

He has a good time. They don't let me go in with my plastic pistol, which is bullshit. I could literally do more damage with my keys than the plastic gun, but they won't budge. And like I said, we uber'd so I can't put it back in the car.

I go outside and hide it in a stump around the back of the bar, and hope it's there afterward.

Afterward, I get lucky and it's still there--I sort of thought someone might have seen me put it there, and they'd go steal it. 

Then back home...and I can't get the fucking contacts out.

Granted...I haven't put contacts into my eyes in like 20 years. But I remember how to do it. I wore contacts for like 5 years regularly back in college.

But no matter how I try to pry these out, they're not popping out. I'm literally grabbing my eyeballs and they're not coming off.

I spent like 20 minutes trying and gave up. I'm not drunk---slightly buzzed, tops.  I dunked my face, eyes open, into the sink filled with water, but nothing happened.

So I can't see shit within like 5 feet. I can barely see what I'm typing--it's probably okay, because I can see when a word is red--meaning, I typed it wrong, so I just delete and retype it. But I put a read word that's just incorrect, I'm fucked.

I also was gonna post some pics from the night, but they're not uploading right. 

---

Maybe I buried the lead. I also bought a new car yesterday. I'll go into that later. My eyes are hurting.

 

 

 

New Car Thoughts

 

You probably noticed, I'm posting more than one picture on each post. That's because the images I run across and save to the pic folder has been stacking up. Some of these Halloween pics, I've had since last year.

Gotta get 'em out there, make room for the new ones I'll inevitably find. Nobody minds extra pics, right?

Anyway, remember how I tried to get a new car a couple of months back but the carfax was showing all sorts of BS things that screwed up my trade-in value?

I got carfax to take them away--at least the ones regarding the oil changes that weren't mine, that made it look like the odometer was getting rolled back on my car.

The accident, however, stays. Even though the carfax when I bought this in 2017 says NO ACCIDENTS, they say they were made aware of the accident AFTER I bought it. This is an accident they say occurred in 2014.

The whole thing smacks of bullshit to me. They never replied to my question of--can you get me an archived carfax from 2017 so I can see if it matches the one the dealer gave me back then.

Sort of feels like they're protecting this big dealer. This big dealer that I'll never buy from again--it's Bob Bell in GB, if ya wanna know.

They also own the dealership next door where I was looking to buy a car, so I've had to branch out farther since they're not getting my money.

There's a special going on the cars I'm looking at--they claim the offer 2.99% financing for 60 months. But I've seen how when you show up at the dealer, there's a reason they can't give you that offer.

So I called  ahead and gave them my info and said, "See if I qualify." They ran some numbers and called me back, said yes I can get it. I then said, "You're sure? Because if I drive out there and you make some excuse for why I can't, we're going to have a big problem."

He's like no, no, you're good. So we'll see. That's one hurdle. The other hurdle will be if they offer me a fair price for my car. If they do, I'll buy the car. Be the first new car I've bought in like 25 years. (the Saturn that I burned in FOC2 was the last new car I bought)

So I have clean my car out, get the title and the keys, and tomorrow I'll go out there. I took off tomorrow from work because I thought I'd be going in to the office today--man, I was dreading it, but turns out my ride got sick and he's not going in, so I'm off the hook.

What a relief...we watched some movies last night since I didn't have to go to bed super early to get up super early to go into the office.

 

 

Pumpkin Trail 2024

Got out Saturday night for some broccoli-cheese soup, courtesy of Zig, and the pumpkin trail. Everybody else bailed--my wife and kid had to go close the beach house--her brother went down too since she's basically worthless on the doing-anything-physical part right now.

My brother had something else going on, Stewie was getting his pussy waxed or something.

So just Zig and his wife, and me. It was cool, but gotta tell ya--seems to be reaching critical mass. It's hard to stop and take a picture of anything, cuz there's so many people.

Just like everything, people start ruining shit. I was thinking about this regarding Sleep Hollow too--like, it was just TOO crowded the last time we went. 

And I've thought about going to Salem for Halloween, but I just saw a video that showed it and it's fucking nuts--impossible to walk the streets...

As always, the holiday is rushing at me too fast. Eleven days away...

 

Yep. 1980's Halloween...back when Domino's pizza was actually pretty good.

 

 

 

The Hammer Comes Down On The Knee

 

The doctor said they can operate on the wife's knee on Halloween or November 11th. She doesn't want to do it on Halloween, so the 11th is looking like it. She's called out of work every day for the past week--she gets up, but her knee is killing her and is pretty swollen.

I'm not gonna say that it's her fault--I mean, she knew since last year that she needed to get it done, but she kept putting it off and now she HAS to do it.

Gonna really fuck our end of  year but life seems to do that more and more.

---

Here's a couple of those pics from the other night:

That one worked out well--that's not the actual moon that was there in the pic--I have a buddy who's taken some amazing hi-res moon photos, and he gave a bunch to me. So I composited it in, using the light from the actual moon behind it to light it up so it looks like it fits.

This was a lucky accident. Shooting some silhouette shots before I put the mask on, and those little eyes are actually the reflection from a light onto my glasses.

 

This is my brother standing in so I could look at the lighting before I jumped in for the pic below.

We were actually testing some scarecrow pics--but things didn't go well. I'll show you one of those soon, but I didn't finish editing it yet. It ain't great.

 

 

Watching The H Stuff

 

Okay, so here's the horror movies and shows I've watched since October 1st, hopefully I got 'em all:

Smile

The Substance

Monster Summer(barely qualifies)

There's Someone Inside Your House

Nightmare on Elm Street 1

Nightmare on Elm Street 3

Final Destination 3

Final Destination 4

The Guest

First six episodes of season 3 of From - Boy, this show is good. 

Wow, now that I've put it down, I've GOT to be missing some right? That's pretty sparse for 15 days into the month.

I've got Smile 2 this Thursday night. UPDATE: Pretty good. Lot of good jump scares.

I Saw The Devil -- another over-rated flick

Salem's Lot

Fun Size(not horror, but Halloween-based, so I'm counting it)

Halloween 5

1408

Satan's Little Helper - on Joe Bob

Final Destination 5

Halloween H20

Buffy Fear Itself episode

Carved

Halloween Resurrection

Buffy Hush episode

Hysteria! the first four episodes

 

---

The wife has a big problem, and you know that usually then means I've got a big problem. Her knee has been bad for years. She's been getting cortisol injections to help, and they tend to get her through a couple of months, but she needs knee surgery.

 

Lately she's in agony and the shots don't do anything. She puts ice on her knee constantly. Limps around like she's 100 years old. She wanted to wait until the end of the year to get the surgery but it's looking more and more likely that she'll have to get it ASAP.

 

That means she won't be walking for 4-6 weeks, and that runs through the holiday season. Probably means I'll have to do a lot of her legwork. Super. Not like I'm ever busy with shit.

 

---

Other night, me and my brother went out and tried to shoot some night photos. I wanted to see if we could find a cornfield where we could shoot some photos with this scarecrow mask I got.

 

We found one not too far away that we could stand in front of and shoot. I lit it up a bit--not too much cuz we didn't wanna get busted for trespassing, and shot some stuff. I haven't processed them yet, but the mask ain't as cool as I thought.

 

It has one eye, which is very distinct. (not cyclops like--it's on the right side of the face, not dead center) But it has no mouth. This sort of leads you to look at it and not quite get the geography that it's a face in the dark.

 

I'd have to alter it if I want to use it in a movie. 

 

We did see the bright tail of that comet--it was ginormous. I took an iphone pic of it. I'll post some when I eventually get that stuff over to this computer.

 

The Horror Divorce Continues

 

So here we are yet again...on the verge of another of those clown movies that do phenomenally well even though they're written at a fourth-grade level, and the only redeeming feature is the special effects.

This one is set to do even better than the others--they think it's gonna beat Joker in its 2nd weekend, which is nuts considering THAT cost nearly $200 million.

And that terrible walking simulator movie, which would have been laughed at except for its cool gore kills.

I saw people defending that one...they're like "it was so great that we didn't have to follow the annoying talking of the kids"...and I'm thinking, "Yeah, terrible when you have to listen to the protagonists as their characters develop..."

It's like today's horror crowd just wants to see kill after kill...and the differentiation between how it used to be is a fine line, but it's an important one. When we watched horror movies like F13 or Halloween, sure we wanted to see gory kills.

But we were invested in the protagonists surviving. We weren't JUST rooting for the bad guys to kill 50 people in gruesome and inventive ways.

Nowadays, they don't seem to give a shit. Hell, they seem to actively be rooting for the bad guys to win in the bloodiest of ways.

This is apropos of my thoughts recently, because besides thinking about T3, I've been considering making a scarecrow movie. Yes, I've written a full feature about a scarecrow, plus have been working on a novel about one for about 10 years.

But this would be different. I've been considering a number of ideas--the Malf says he's interested in maybe co-writing, but he has a hard time understanding that you need to write what you can get access to. Not sure I wanna open that door--I remember how difficult his segment for T2 was to film, since he'd put in a store, a cop and cop car, a fountain, etc.

Anyway, my mind goes to story and character first, but I'm starting to think I should just think up a bunch of cool kills, populate the movie with characters I don't give a shit about--because none of these horror people will anyway--and then have at it.

That's demoralizing for me for two reasons: Number 1, that kind of movie isn't one I'm a fan of. Number 2, kill gags have never been my strong suit. 

Dunno. I just sort of wish the creative urge in me would die so I could just be fine with sitting around doing nothing. Reading. Playing games. Watching movies.

Still love the variant posters...

 

 

Day To Day BS

 

Went back to the doc's today to get the results on the CT scan and MRI, and I'm sure he wants to know how my drowning is going.

Bad news--the steroid nose flushes haven't done shit. For a little while there I thought they might be doing something, but then this week--FUUUUUUCK. The smell came back with a vengeance(and I'm still doing the flushes).

More bad news--MRI doesn't show anything out of the ordinary. The CT scan shows a very mild infection that he says probably isn't causing this, but because we don't have a lot of options, he's going to give me antibiotics.

He stressed that phantosmia is very hard to treat. Hard to figure out what the cause is. So we basically just throw spaghetti at the wall.

After the antibiotics, we're going to try some nasal spray that's sort of experimental. Now, he didn't use that word but it's pretty clear from how he spoke about it that it's not used all that often. That's the reason insurance won't cover it, and it's gonna be like $100.

---

re the FOC book. I'm guessing, given the sales and placement on the charts, that I'm going to lose my ass on this book.

It is definitely not doing numbers like the Halloween book did--and is now starting to do again. It's sort of funny in a not ha-ha kind of way to see this:

I mean, cool that they're both in the top 10 but FOC should be doing gangbusters with the people I put in it. It's not. 

That will put a big question mark on whether I do another book. I mean, I was gonna do the next one much cheaper--in theory--but maybe now I just don't even do it.

Falling behind on Halloween movie watching...

 

 

Bad Thoughts

Before I forget, just putting these up as a reminder to myself to peruse the lists. Plus, cool Trick R Treat poster.

Had a dream last night that I tried to kill myself. That's fun, right? The weird part is how I tried to do it--I ate a bunch of those silicone balls that you get when they wanna keep something dry in a package.

Would that kill you? No idea, but definitely wouldn't be first on my choice of suicide.

In my dream I decided to make myself puke it up cuz I thought it might be a bad way to die.

---

Got out to see the Substance. Was better than I thought it would be, but 20 minutes too long. And as batshit nuts as the last 20 minutes are, they're probably the 20 that should go.

Saw a movie with Mel Gibson, Kevin James and Larraine Bracco in it--so bizarre that there's been no advertisement for it, it's playing in the tiniest of auditoriums, and not a showing after 5pm. It's rated PG-13.

It wasn't bad, but would have been rated G back in the 80's. It was like an episode of Goosebumps,but not even the new one, like the old slightly corny ones. Its target audience is probably under 10.

At home, watched a movie called There's Someone Inside Your House. Turned out to be super mediocre. Like a Scream wannabe, but without any of the clever writing. Uses some strange gag about the killer somehow having amazing silicone faces of every person he kills(before he kills them, mind you)

Like...how did he get the mold of their face? You'd think the guy ends up being a special FX whiz or something, but nope.

Anyway, am already feeling the seasonal affective disorder. Feeling super non-happy lately. Dunno.

 

As big a fan as I am of Frazetta, I don't think I'd seen these two paintings of his before...and apparently there was a story behind them. Frazetta was hired to paint one for some TV show or book, but I guess it was geared toward youngsters and they thought his first one was too scary.

So apparently he said, no prob, lemme just do another one...not sure which is which, but the first one is probably more scary?

 

 

 

Fuck ASUS and Microsoft

 

My mother-in-law's laptop went up, so she's been asking for another one.

I found a cheap, brand new one on Azon of the aforementioned brand. The mother-in-law(MIL from now on) doesn't need much--just so she can pay some of her online bills, surf the web, and play some free slot games.

The laptop comes, so I go over to set it up--make sure there's no junk(read: McAfee) on it, put the browser she likes on it, get her logged in.

This laptop WILL NOT let me even get to a Windows screen until I enter in a microsoft account. Like, WTF? Used to be a skip button--there NEEDS to be a skip button, because when I bought this it said nothing like "You are required to have a Microsoft Account in order to use this piece of shit laptop".

Fuck it, we got her a BS account. Logged in. The computer takes like an hour to finish whatever the hell it's doing. (seems a bit long for updates on a new laptop, but okay)

Then I go to put Google Chrome on it. Here's where I fucking lost my mind.

The computer says No, you can't do that. This computer is running in something called "S Mode"--apparently Microsoft says it helps keep your computer running fast by only allowing MICROSOFT APPROVED apps on the machine.

You following that? Cuz here's the real deal: Microsoft knows how fucking amazingly shitty their browser is and always has been. They KNOW every person who gets a computer always puts on Chrome or Firefox or Opera or ANYTHING other than that piece of shit Edge.

They previously would bug you--if you installed another browser, every time you launched it you'd get a "Hey, Edge isn't your default browser, want us to change it for you?"

Fuck. No. Microsoft, you piece of shit company. And fuck you, ASUS, for taking their money and letting this happen.

It's supposed to be SUPER EASY to take the computer out of S mode. Literally two clicks of a mouse. Yet when I do that, it says "Try Again--Something Happened". All the online stuff says "Hey, Microsoft's servers could be busy, so try later."

Microsoft's servers are never too busy when they're collecting money or finding counterfeit versions of Windows, but YEAH, they're too busy to let me have full control of the computer that I bought.

I went out with my kid to watch a movie, and when I came back hours later I tried again. Same TRY AGAIN.

So I just reset the computer and returned it, and left a SCORCHING review on it. Will never buy another ASUS computer. I'm gonna buy a Chromebook--a NON-ASUS Chromebook, cuz I know it'll have Chrome on there.

It better not have this bullshit S Mode, or I'm gonna fucking return it too.