Bat Dance Like It's 1989

 

They released the original Batman movie in Dolby this week for just two showings, followed by one showing of the sequel, for which I don't care much for. (has some cool stuff to it, but the Penguin completely ruins it)

Went with my brother. Would have taken the kid, but I haven't seen him in like a month--he's still at the beach.

Good time. Fun seeing it in Dolby, though I did have an annoying autistic kid to the left of me who was talking a LOT. Normally I might have been super bothered but I've seen this movie a hundred times--as had the kid, cuz he was literally saying some of the lines along with the actors on screen.

So I didn't say anything. I also took a Keto cheat day and ate the popcorn.

It IS sad that more and more I can see some of the issues with some of these movies I love. The combo of getting older and knowing as much as I do about filmmaking really gets me hyper critical. Still dig the movie though. 

This was the first time I noticed that there is fishing wire opening the gates of Wayne Manor when Keaton leaves as Vicky Vale is trying to follow him.

Also, on a screen that big and clear, the matte paintings really stand out as such. The first shot of Batman--the top down from way high on the building--that animation ain't great either.

As far as Keto, the one-day cheat didn't kill me too bad. I'm hovering around 204 now, which is slightly more than 10 pounds down. 

I got these AMAZING shake powder things...holy fuck are they good. Like, I got the mint chocolate chip and the peanut butter cup ones, and you just put some heavy whipped cream in, some water, and the powder, shake and add a lot of ice and you're basically drinking a milkshake.

They are also expensive as fuck. But other than the slurpees and popcorn, I could live on this diet forever. I do feel better, I can tell you that, but whether that's psychosomatic or not, not sure.

---

Work is killing me. I worked 13 hours yesterday, finally stopped at 2am. Frustration is high, and I'm not hiding it all that well in some of the convos I've been having. 

I think part of me WANTS them to furlough me...

Am back to contemplating shooting T3, maybe in May? Dunno, will start looking into it.

 

 

 

No Title Wednesday

 

No Title Wednesday's the new big thing, I hear.

So Monday was a week on that new diet. I lost a little over 7 pounds. Not bad, but not the ten I was hoping for. But again, I'm not hungry on this diet. I guess the hardest part is eating pretty much the same thing every day.

If I wasn't so picky and could eat some of the other stuff that most people probably like, wouldn't be hard at all. It's expensive though. Usually I go to the store and spend like $35, and that's maybe once a week.

I've been twice for this diet and spent nearly $160.

And I've been spending some money lately...

I just bought some bionic knees. Sure, they're not really that but sorta that. My knees have been getting pretty hinky the past few years and I saw these on kstarter so said fuck it. Got a pair. Won't arrive for a couple of months, but I'm intrigued to try them out and see if they make everything easier. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dnsys/dnsys-z1-knee-exoskeleton-defy-gravity-go-beyond

If they work well, the wife'll probably dig them too since her knees are even worse than mine. But over a grand.

Then there's a pretty big B-movie guy who's offered four exec producer creds on his new flick for $2500. It's a lot of money, but I've enjoyed his movies and I do this sometimes to get my name crossed with others so algorithms start linking and perhaps recommending my movies, for instance, after one of their movies have played on various platforms.

There was only one spot left over so I got it.

On the movie front, this is the height of bizarre. I THINK--but I make no promises--that I told you that the CW licensed one of my flicks. Thing is, you couldn't actually find it there.

Yesterday I remembered to look and guess what?

https://www.cwtv.com/shows/terrortory-2/terrortory-2

I don't know what it will mean money-wise. I streamed a couple minutes from that link and saw no commercials, so that's not going to pay. I'd guess that the apps and stuff that you can put on Roku/Xbox/Playstation etc probably run ads with the movie.

I'll let you know when I start seeing results.

 

 

 

The K Trip Continues

First five days down on the K diet. I'll give it this: It's an easy diet to stay on. I'm never hungry, which is the opposite of my usual diet.

I've done some research and it appears this diet's actually pretty healthy too. It boggles my mind how that could be, but seems to be a lot of evidence.

Friday night was the worst though. I usually go get my slurpee, make some popcorn in my machine, and watch a horror movie. Well, slurpees and popcorn are NOT on the list of things you can have. Popcorn is probably the biggest issue--I tend to eat popcorn two or three times a week.

Apparently I COULD have one tiny bag of skinny pop if I want, but it would pretty much max out my carbs for the day. Wouldn't be worth it.

Anyway, seems like the estimates of "lose up to 10 pounds in the first week" are probably going to be off. As of today I'm exactly 209, so have lost five pounds and change in five and a change days.

But like I said, I'm not going hungry.

Didn't see a movie this week cuz my kid and my brother are both out of town, and Nobody 2 isn't all that much of a priority to me.

On that log book I've been writing...I just passed 400 pages. I'm up to about where I was prepping to shoot "the asylum" movie and it all went bad. Really don't wanna relive that, man.

My work week was TOUGH. There's a lot of days where I don't do much, but not this week. Every day was me putting out fires all over, jumping from Teams chat to Teams chat. I did figure something out that NOBODY else in the company could figure out.

I got some props for that one. Basically something happened in an environment that forced everyone to stop working because it was so screwed up. When this has happened in the past there's been no alternative to just resetting(refreshing as we call it) the environment.

But I had an idea, so I shot it past the top man. He said, sounds promising, but he'd never been able to get past that issue in an environment. Nothing to lose though, so I should go ahead and give it a try.

It worked. He was pretty incredulous, said I should put it down in my review cuz it would look great for my next raise.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much more they can afford to pay me. I think they really wanna move me up to management, where they can sort of justify the pay raise, but I have no interest in telling people what to do if it takes me away from solving actual problems.

That seems to be the company's problem. They take our best testers, our best developers, and they promote them to where they're not actually doing what they're great at.

Then we get stuck with a bunch of people testing or developing who aren't great at it. Seems dumb. The company is pretty smart in general, so I'm not sure why they do it.

Riveting post, I know. I gotta find something interesting to do to keep whoever's still reading this entertained.

 

 

New Way To Drop

 

Seeing a lot of cool R Sonja pics lately. Is she back in style cuz of that new movie, or just the bias that happens now if you glance at anything online, your feeds will now be full of that?

Guess I didn't mention that I was going back on a diet. I've been a little out of control with my habits the past couple of months. Pretty much a slurpee every day, pizzas, whatever. I was feeling pretty fat and sorta thought I was looking it too.

Usually I'm very good at guessing my weight before I step on the scale, like within a pound. My guess was that I was going to weigh 219 when I stepped on the scale. That wouldn't be my max weight--that's 230--but would be pretty high.

When I stepped on the scale it said 214 and change, so for some reason I was feeling a lot fatter than I was.

Last week I contemplated going on the keto diet. I've had friends that did it before with success. I could go back on my regular diet, but it's harder and harder each time. Looking at the Keto, it almost looks easy with how much stuff you can eat.

So after a lot of research, yesterday it began. (on Sunday I bought a bunch of keto food, which is expensive as fuck compared to my usual stuff)

First day was successful except that I went over my protein amount. That seems to be the tough thing--how do you get to eating the amount of fat you're supposed to without going over the protein.

I had a hard boiled egg and some pistachios for breakfast. Then I had a big piece of chopped steak--basically a big hamburger for lunch. No bread, no ketchup(why did I think that was spelled katsup?) Just the burger and some pickles.

Dinner I had a piece of salmon and some string cheese. Yes, string cheese is keto. It's freaking crazy. And it's filling. When I went to bed I wasn't hungry at all.

They tell you drink 64 ounces of water a day because you'll get dehydrated due to something or other. I drink more than that a day anyway, so I blew past that but I can tell you that I started getting a headache before bed, and in the middle of the night I woke up super thirsty, and with the headache even worse.

So that's the only downside so far. I only lost a little over a pound...but that's kind of crazy given how much I ate. Today I'll try to eat a little less protein so I'm closer to what they recommend.

Riveting post, I know.

Also, Azon made my HC even CHEAPER--it's now $8.88. I've bought 12 copies(had to use two accounts because there's something that says max amount bought from seller, which is stupid) at that price cuz it's cheaper than I can buy them from the printer.

I also sent Ingram an email asking what's up. I sent them the name of the reseller who's selling them at least ten copies for $6 and asked them if this seller reported returns that they "destroyed". I also wanna know why all the copies I bought through Amazon aren't showing on my dashboard. 

Ingram's the only one who prints these HCs, so how is Azon selling them and I don't see any of them on my reports? Shady AF. This will for sure be the last book I ever print through Ingram.

Did I tell you I saw Weapons? Was not as blown away as everybody else seems to be. It was okay, but a little long. Could have lost 15 minutes in the first hour. The second hour's a little better, but not sure the weird comedy worked at times.

And there's one inexplicable thing in the movie...nobody I've asked has an answer as to why it happens. Maybe I'll discuss it later when it's less spoilery.

 

Jack It Up

 

Ya know, have I mentioned that last anthology book that I put out didn't work out so well? It's really a rare, rare misstep for me. I still am not sure why it didn't sell. It had very popular authors doing stories on a very-popular subgenre of horror.

Well lately there's been some craziness going on at Azon that I don't understand. See, the HC of this book is retail $28.95. Yet Azon is somehow selling it right now for $9.87. 

That is literally cheaper than I can buy it from the printer. HOW are they doing that? Azon doesn't print these, I never gave them the file to do it(on the HC).

To make matters even stranger, there's a seller also selling up to TEN copies of the HC for less than SEVEN DOLLARS...

How are THEY doing that? Where did they get ten copies of my book for five dollars less than I can buy it from the printer?

All this sort of leads me to believe there are shenanigans going on at Ingram. Like, I have them set to accept returns and to destroy the books. If I said I didn't accept returns, bookstores wouldn't order them. If I said I'd take returns but not to destroy, I'd have to pay shipping as well as the printing fees on any books returned.

But this sort of smacks of Ingram either not getting the books back to destroy, or they get the books back and ditch them cheap to dealers they know as well as Azon.

I can't see any other way these people could sell mass quantities of the book for that cheap. 

My first thought was to go turn off the returns, but if I do that then I'm liable for the next 180 days to take and pay for returns that were bought before I today. That could cost me more money.

So my new plan is this. I just jacked those hardcovers up to $49.95. I figure that'll get people to stop ordering them, and then after about 180 days, I'll turn the returns to No. (basically January 1st)

Maybe that'll also spur sales directly from ME, who will still be selling them for $28.95. 

Honestly, I'm so pissed about the non-sales of the book that part of me just wants to take the HC and the paperback and just put them out of print. Turn 'em into super collector items, since they won't be printed any more.

I'm spiteful like that. Might still do it.

 

 

Never a bad idea to remind people how shitty the DNC is. I mean yeah, the RNC is also garbage, but at least they let their constituents vote for the people they want without interference. Also the meme sorta fits this post since my anthology's about clowns...

New Week So What

 

So the past weekend was a total waste. I did get some plotting done. I made some decisions--though I could change my mind later--so theoretically can really start breaking this into an outline.

I'm not a huge outliner in general, but this is just way too complicated to not do.

Also I think I mentioned that I was putting together that book of all my production diary entries, as well as some new stuff, and that's currently standing at a massive 317 pages and I'm not even done the first Ttory entries...

I'll cut and trim some stuff, but right now I figure I'll make a big comprehensive thing of all of it for me. I can whittle it down more later, take out some of the less-interesting-to-everyone stuff.

It's a bit traumatic to go back and read a lot of this stuff. Certainly doesn't make me wanna go out and do part three...I mean, it's been EIGHT years since I shot the last movie, and that one was physically tough.

Imagining doing all that and more at this age...

On the TV Front:

Finished Murderbot. Enjoyed it a lot. Seems like they made it contained in case they got a second season, which it appears they did.

Finished Lioness season 1. Pretty strong show that I've heard nothing about. Pretty impressive action stuff for a TV show too--like, movie-quality. 

Watching other random stuff, as usual.

Moviewise, saw Naked Gun and was pretty shocked by how funny it was. Was expecting it to suck, even though I'd heard it was good. Couple of the jokes in there had me laughing so hard I was crying. But some of the jokes definitely fall flat...overall though, a lot of fun.

Next up I think is Weapons...

 

 

 

Plans. Worthless.

 

I had convinced myself that this weekend I was going to WRITE. No TV. No internet. Just sit my ass down and finally get to work on this novel that has been ripping up my subconscious for years.

It may or may not involved time travel. It's very complicated--not the science--but the mystery of what happened in the past that my main character is trying to figure out. That's mostly what's been stopping me.

I can't figure out all the beats of that past story. I've written nearly thirty pages of notes on this story, and if I did a count for the word "maybe", it would probably be triple digits. I haven't committed to anything yet.

Time to shit or get off the pot--that's what I was thinking.

But let's just say that Friday night was weird. I experimented with something, and let's just say that at one point I wrote this down in my notes: "Am I a duck made of felt, floating in an actual pond, trying to figure out which direction the attack is going to come from. I ask myself, 'What attack?'

"And I answer myself: 'I don't know, I just know it's coming.'"

I went from periods of feeling good to feeling anxious for no reason. I had a hard time sleeping--this is the third night in a row, not sure why. (I hadn't experimented the other nights)

When I woke up I was still woozy. I headed downstairs to my office and notice that it's completely pitch dark in there. I only keep one light one, so I figured it had burnt out.

Something made me feel...apprehensive though. I just figured, something about the dark, and me still being woozy. I had a flashlight right there, so I flicked it on and shined it into my room.

There was a giant camel cricket--some people call them spider crickets--on the door.

THAT wasn't cool. I fucking annihilated him with Raid. 

Tried to get to writing. I'd even gotten some index cards a few days earlier so I could put scenes on them and move them around. I've used that technique before on complicated scripts/stories.

But I was so tired I had to lay down--this is like 90 minutes after I woke up. I fell asleep for a couple of hours, then went down and actually did some plotting. It is very hard for me to stay focused, as you can tell by the fact that I'm over here blogging this.

Also didn't mention that I'm working for the job a little bit this weekend. It's all on my schedule, and it's nice cuz I'll be able to go in late a few mornings since I can shift the hours around. We apparently also got funded until the end of August now.

We're sorta month to month at this point, but I don't care. I'd sort of like to get laid off for a month or two, but doubt that'll happen. They're just going to move me to the other contract if this one goes tits up.

Okay, back to plotting. I have procrastinated enough! Here, have a bonus cool pic by a comic artist I've always dug.

 

 

 

 

Shenanigans

 

Blogger just gets suckier and suckier. Did I tell you about something that started like six months ago: When I first log in and start a new post, and try to upload a pic--it ALWAYS says that I must accept cookies to do so. (even though I've accepted them 1000 times)

Next screen always says that I can't accept cookies and do I want to learn more? I have to repeat this cycle a couple times before, inexplicably, I can suddenly upload a picture.

ANNOYING

Anyway, today I was like--hey, haven't checked Bellware's blog in a while, cuz he'd been sporadic about updating, and lo and behold, there are posts. I read the first--sorta looks like it's his birthday. So I type a reply and hit POST.

 This is what I get:

 

Over and over again. Can't post, no reason why. I don't see a captcha, even when I maximize the post window. Who knows, but there's what I was gonna say...

---

Started watching a show I'd heard of for a while, Euphoria. I'd heard The Sween was in it, and got naked, so obviously that's interesting to me. 

But it's a pretty dark, dark show. Like the TV version of the movie Kids, if you remember that. It makes me think, "If this is what kids are like nowadays, yeah, no wonder this country is fucked."

Well written, I'll say that. I finished season one, but am not in a giant hurry to dive into season two yet.

Might have to rewatch Ted Lasso again or something, just to counteract the other show's negativity lol.

Also, doesn't seem like my little adult-warning did anything to the views--they look about the same...

 

 

 

 

Let's See What This Does

 

I'm seriously considering taking this blog private. As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure who's reading it any more and it's averaging like 400-900 views a day.

I never really wanted this thing to go widespread. It's mostly just for me, and a couple of my friends who might be interested to see what's up with me.

And I'm not sure whether google's settings even work, because there's a check mark for making it so that search engines can find your blog, and that's been turned off for years. Yet, if you do a search for this blog under its name, you'll find it.

So I can make it private, in which case you'd have to submit your email to read it. (just the once, then you'd be able to read it every day as usual)

But what I did, for now, is to make the site Adult Only, so that anyone wanting to read it has to check a box and be logged in in order to see it. 

Guess we'll see if that does anything to bring those numbers down. If not, get ready for it to go private. 

Saw the FF movie. It was okay. Certainly didn't love it like everybody else did. Couple of things that bugged me--and don't read this if you haven't seen the movie, though I don't think there's any BIG spoilers in there.

1) Cool shot of Silver Surfer first arriving with like thousands of asteroids flying down toward Earth that...disappear? Did they land? Not as far as I know... 

2) They go invisible in their jet to enter Galactus' ship but the Silver Surfer has no problem finding them and entering their jet. But later when they escape, they use invisibility to get away from her? Huh?

3) Galactus' ship clearly can move very fast. Yet it blasts super fast into our galaxy, but then conveniently goes VERY slow past all the planets in our galaxy to give time for movie suspense...

4) Why did Galactus get out of his ship to come to Earth? Didn't do it for the other planets. Was never shown how he knew Franklin would be in a crib in that plaza--sort of expected Reed to send him a message to offer it or something. There were a couple of other little moments that I didn't buy, but those stuck out. (Oh, and yeah, what's with the ending of Thunderbolts where the FF ship is coming to that universe? That predates this movie, but the FF don't leave their universe at the end of this...?)

 

Stewie's favorite comic below:

 

 

 

Pain Has A Face...Allow Me To Show It To You...

 

Just kidding--nobody wants to see my face on here.

The back still hurts, but at least I'm semi-mobile now. It very much limits what I can do though.

Been rewatching the original Supes movies. I have fond memories of part one, but I remember not loving it when I saw it. A little too boring, not enough Superman. Still a big fan of Miss Tessmacher though.

Also, 4K is not the friend of these movies. The effects at times look pretty bad...

Part 2 is still a lot of fun, but again the 4K issue. I got about halfway through part 3 before I had to go bed. It probably still has the best flying scenes of any of them. Either they got new harnesses or they finally got used to flying, but it's very cool to see Superman run and get lifted in the air, and as much as I looked--even in 4K--cannot see a single wire going up to the crane that's off screen.

Continuing to work on that little microbudget filmmaker book. I cannot find a log for when I shot Bounty. Me--and Zig--seem to remember me doing one, but I have searched a bunch of hard drives AND my old laptop, and it's just not there.

I moved ahead to the GOH section, because I definitely have that. 

I'm over 200 pages on it...

Not really looking forward to the FF movie, but my kid wants to see it. He and my wife haven't been home in like a month, but they're coming back for two days. We'll watch the flick Thursday night if I can find a not-too-busy showing, and then they're back to the beach Friday morning.

Must be nice lol. But this is a vacation for me too, since I do enjoy solitude...

 

 

Agony Of Being Old

 

Once again, was on the hunt for a new office chair. I just can't find a super comfortable one that lasts, but this one had high reviews and was on sale so I bought it.

It's this one, if you want to see:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLJLP7FM

I put it together, which took a while. Then I leaned over to pick up my old chair and move it, and BAM--PAIN. 

I couldn't move without my back annihilating my senses. Most pain I've been in in a long time. I can't remember throwing out my back this bad unless I go back to just out of high school.

Now, my lower back has been hurting for the past week. Not sure why, other than how ancient I am now.

The chair's ok, but definitely not the most comfortable. I thought this webbing would be sort of stretchy and comfortable, but it's not. The chair also doesn't recline like the other chair.

As in, if I lean back, the chair leans but if I don't, then it sits straight. This new chair CAN recline if you hit a button, but it goes nearly horizontal. There's no way to continuously lean, is what I'm saying. Either you recline to a set amount, or you don't recline at all.

I will say the lumbar support is nice. But once again, bought another office chair that's not great.

---

Saw the new Supes movie. My kid was still at the beach, so I had my brother go pick him up and bring him back so he could see it with us. Also, weirdly, turns out my sisters were in town but hadn't told most of the family.

They ended up showing up for the movie also. I liked it but didn't love it. There's a lot of good stuff in there but just wasn't blown away by it for the most part. 

Then the next day I drove the kid back to the beach. Traffic was terrible. It took almost 3 hours, which is double what it usually takes. I stayed the night, and we hit all the food spots I like.

Definitely gotta go on a diet again soon. The big one, since I'm going to Cancun in a few months, and don't wanna be fat for the beach.

 

 

4th Over

Another low-key 4th of July.

Hadn't planned to do anything, really. I knew that I had to shoot a video the next day for the auction company, so wouldn't be out very late.

Then my mom asked me if I wanted to just come over for burgers, because my aunt and uncle from TN were in town, and I haven't seen them in like 10 years.

Now, I've never been the biggest fan of my uncle's. He was the one who, when I was young, took my Styx eight-track from me because it was the devil's music. He was super hardcore religious.

Past couple of years though, he'd mellowed quite a bit. He's still religious, but he's either learned not to try to push it, or he's just too old and tired to do so anymore. Either way, works out. I don't dislike him any more.

So I went over there. My older brother was there with his family. Had a decent time, and as a bonus I went by the store down near her that carries the best crab pretzels, and got a pack of two to eat for lunch the next couple of days.

I continued to work on that microbudget filmmaking book. It's kind surreal to look back at that stuff and realize so much of it was more than twenty years ago...

---

Next day, went to shoot this video, which the lady promised would be short.

It was not.

Short is 30 minutes. Average is 45. She went for around 95 minutes. The auction is on the 20th. 

As usual, she cuts my edit time short and makes me work on holiday weekends, I jack up the rates. Not like she can do anything; I've been looking to NOT do them for a long time, so best case scenario is she decides to try to find someone else to do them.

Though having the cash is always nice.

I'm still editing it, by the way. Hoping to be done by tomorrow.

--

Saw the new Jurassic. It was okay. Certainly way better than the last two of them, but I wouldn't put it anywhere near the original three.

But it's the perfect movie for summer, for me. Dinosaurs on rampage are my shit, man.

 

 

 

Back From The Con

 

Back from the con. I'm not gonna go into a lot of details.

Had fun in general, but the hotel was hot garbage. They'd been doing construction last year at this hotel, and it was supposed to be done, but we find out that there's no bar/restaurant in the hotel cuz it's under construction.

Like, wtf? They've created a tiny bar space, and sort of a mocked up restaurant but I never saw anyone in the place. If you walked by, there was never anyone looking to seat you, so you never even knew if it was open.

The bar, the one time I walked near it, was mobbed, and not by convention goers. There was some young girl's soccer team or something in the hotel, so all the parents went into that bar with its one bartender.

Wasn't overly crowded, which I like but that can't be good for the show...not sure whether they'll do another one or not. Was cool meeting Mick Garris--super chill dude who loves to talk to people.

I had ants in my room, so that was fun. Luckily, they don't bother me all that much as long as they don't get in the bed.

The highlight, as always when going to the PA shows, was hitting Fuddruckers on Sunday. So good. So pissed there isn't one around me here anymore.

--

Finished Coscarelli's book about his life in making movies, and it inspired me. I don't have his fan base, but I suddenly thought that maybe I should put together my book. Hell, I have logs already from nearly every movie I shot.

I could expand those. I could also go into some of the more sordid details I've kept hidden for a long time. 

I started working on that, and it's over 100 Word pages and I'm not even done the first FOC movie...

It is fun reading back through the adventures we had making movies...

--

And speaking of fans...one who I am friends on FB with reached out to me and said, "saw this message on a FB group and tagged you but you're not in the group". This was the message, on a group dedicated to asking what something is and perhaps getting an answer:

Hmmm, I think I may know the answer lol. I responded that to this friend to tell the asker that the movie is on tubi if they want to watch it, and they copied the response--I've blurred the names so there's no shaming them:

So that's pretty cool--always great to hear from twisted people who like my flicks...

 

 

 

Weird / Going Away

Yesterday. I get off work and am tired. Past couple of weeks I've been doing this thing that affirms how fucking old I am: I take fifteen minute naps after work.

I've never been a napper. Usually it would fuck up my night sleep, but now, not so much.

It just gets to a point where I feel so drained that I can't keep my eyes open. I have no idea if it has anything to do with my auto-I issue, but wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, I take a nap and have a weird dream: That I woke up and went upstairs, but sensed something in my back yard. I walked out onto my porch, and there's two vicious wolves out there, and one of them has what looks like a bloody rabbit in its mouth.

I woke up. Thought...weird.

I go upstairs and my dogs are acting antsy, so I try to let them out but only one wants to go out in the heat. I let her.

I go to the bathroom, and when I come out, the other dog wants to go out. (he doesn't like to be separated from his sister for long) So I let him out, and he sees some people walking by our house, and he bolts out there, barking like a fiend.

I don't see his sister though, until she comes racing around the side of the house to join her brother...and she drops something from her mouth as she does.

I'm instantly like...goddamn it. It was a baby rabbit, I could tell right away. Couple of weeks ago she managed to catch one briefly before I got to her, but that one was a baby that was grown enough to hop away outside of our yard.

This one was like 5 inches. I went over and got it, and miraculously it didn't seem hurt. Not bloody at all. Wanted to get away from me until I put it in my shirt and curled the bottom over it so it was hidden away.

I go around the house trying to find where the dog found it, and I see the hole right up against my house with some rabbit fur and grass mingled in. There are no other rabbits in the hole, and I noticed this rabbit looks pretty underfed.

I'm guessing the mother left it and never came back.

So...thing is, I've always had a soft spot for animals. It's really the only thing that's NOT sociopathic about me. 

I find a box for this rabbit and try to figure out what to do. The rehabilitation place that I took those two baby squirrels to wasn't open anymore.

Our neighbor's yard always has rabbits, and they're always ducking down below their big shed when my dogs come out.So I think...can I place this baby bunny near where they always run to, maybe see if the other rabbits will take it in?

I try it. The baby sort of sits there for a moment, then starts wobbling its way under the shed...I'm hopeful. Then, it comes back out.

I'm like, FUCK. So I take the baby and I decide to put it back in the nest and cover it back up. I use our hedge fencing to block it off from my dogs--but a rabbit can easily get through it--and decide, if the baby lives through the night, I'll take it to the rehab place.

Its eyes were open, btw, which is important because if it was so young that they weren't, the rehab center wouldn't take it.

I placed a tiny leaf of wet romaine lettuce with it because I read that they might eat it, and figured the water couldn't hurt.

Flash forward to this morning. Went out to check...bad news. The baby bunny had crawled out of the hole at some point and died.

Fuckin' bummer. I don't like to see animals, especially baby animals, die. Bums me out. (but I can always see the other bright side--that I don't have to take the half hour each way drive out to the rehab place)

And weird that I had that dream right before, right? Like...some sort of strange vision. Am I psychic now lol?

---

Probably the last time I'll blog for a couple of days. Going to a convention tomorrow with the Zig, and Stewie will be there too.

Hope it's fun, but if it's not it'll probably be the last time I do this con. The night life was pretty sparse last time, and this time the hotel restaurant/bar is being worked on so it's not even available. (they were doing construction in the hotel LAST year during the con...can't figure out how why you'd book this hotel for a convention ESPECIALLY if the construction closes down one of the busiest areas of the con...)

But we'll see...

 

 

 

Long Time Coming / So Dies The Dream / Bots?

 

I forgot to mention, but a couple of weeks ago I finally did something I've been meaning to do for years.

My "office" had become a disgusting, cluttered mess. You literally couldn't walk into the room and get to the sofa or my office chair without stepping over shit. 

I finally took the weekend a couple weeks ago and began cleaning. It took me 3 days. Had to empty the vacuum cleaner five times. But it's WAY better than it was. Still have some areas I have to figure out how to straighten out, but there's room to walk.

Hell, I've let me dogs downstairs now. It's way cooler downstairs, so I figured they'd like it. They're a little wigged out though, having not been allowed to come down for like two years. They're getting used to it though.

Found a couple of things I had "lost" too, so that's nice.

---

The dream being T3. At one point the odds had been a little bit better than 50/50 that I was going to push forward with it. But uncertainty about my job as well as one of the key actors not getting back to me has the odds at about 95% it's not gonna happen.

Another thing though--been reading Don Coscarelli's True Indie, and very fun book reminiscing about his adventures on making Phantasm and Beastmaster and more. (there isn't enough about Beastmaster, but what's there is fun)

One passage in particular hit me though: "It is so very hard to make a film on your own that to have a dedicated and loyal team of friends to back you up is just invaluable."

That's the thing--I don't have that many of those any more. There's a couple, sure, but some of them have health issues that preclude them from doing a lot. Most of them are up in age.

Back when you're young, man, everybody wants to help you out. Be involved in making a movie. Lot of excitement.

Now...everybody I know has a family, and kids. Making schlocky B-horror movies isn't all that exciting to them any more. I think that lack of enthusiasm is contagious...and dulls my spirit for it.

So I dunno what's going to happen. Am I done? It's been 8 years since I directed a film...the longest gap in my moviemaking career. Perhaps I'm finished.

---

Are bots scouring my blog now? Suddenly the posts are getting nearly twice the hits they got before. I don't know why this blog would all of a sudden become popular unless it landed on someone's list of most-depressing-blogs-on-the-web...

 Well, bots, enjoy the bleakness of life and be happy you're not alive.

Below: some more things I had as a kid--loved these little jigglers. I had Frankenstein for sure, might have also had the Creature.

 

 

 

Bad Month For Blogging

 

Above: Some comic book-ish pics that I dug.

Man...been a while since I updated. I think about it sometimes, but then shit just comes up.

Life is fuckin' weird right now. Still working, technically, though it just appears they're keeping me on the transition team so I don't go get another job. Joke's on them, cuz I wouldn't go looking for another job anyway.

So I don't do that much, other than still advise the client testers on how to do shit. They're really bad--you tell them something, send them docs and videos on how to do it, and the next day they'll ask you how to do the exact thing you just told them all how to do in the Teams chat.

Whatever. I STILL haven't been formally asked to join the other contract team, but I got another email from one of the top top guys that said they're trying to place me now and will let me know.

What I THINK is happening is this: They don't want to move me off, because if they put me on the other contract then that means they've fired someone from that contract. If the original contract gets picked up again, they'd be in trouble--it would be hard to move me back right away without screwing the other contract.

So they're just holding off until the very last day. The guy mentioned that if it happened then I'd start on that contract on July 1st, but I replied that I'd love to start on the 7th anyway. The first week has the big holiday anyway

I just want at least a week to chill out. Hell, part of me sort of hopes I DON'T get the new contract right away. I'd love to take off all of July.

Shit, I really want to start writing this book that I've been putting ideas down for for like two years. It's the one I mentioned to Malfi, who seemed to like it a lot. Hell, I could probably get him to co-write it with me. 

Only real problem for him is that it's not a horror book. There will be some horror in it for sure, but it's more of a...mystery with a sci fi element. It's high-concept though, so I could see studios going for it if I got it published.

Anyway, movie wise I saw Dangerous Animals. Pretty entertaining little piece.

Saw the live action How to Train Your Dragon--also fun, but not much differs from the animated one.

Went over the Zig's for Friday the 13th. Ended up watching Freddy Vs. Jason. It looked weird this time. I've seen it a couple of times, but this time it looked WAY too overlit. Not sure if that was a different blu-ray(Zig said no) or his TV was set brighter or whether I just never noticed before.

Next night, went over Luke's. We watched Sundown: Vampire in Retreat. Weird that I'd never seen it, but I blind bought it on Amazon for $3.99 cuz of the director and Bruce Campbell, and the good reviews.

It was enjoyable in a super campy way. Weird thing for me--I think their wide angle lens was defective. The top 15% of many of the wide shots was blurry. I can't figure why they'd wanna optically do it, so I think it must have been fucked.

Got distracting. Didn't know Deborah Foreman was in it. Boy was she gorgeous...

And the movie has about 10 really well known character actors...but you can really see some of the weakness of the director. He did Waxwork, which I really enjoy, but there are definite shots that scream low-budget.

Anyway, looking forward to 28 Years Later on Thursday, but the showing's getting pretty crowded...

 

 

 

Stay of Execution?

 

Don't know who this artist is--posted another pic of his a while back. I dig 'em though.

Obligatory hot chick pic.

So...been a weird week at work. Lot of redacting of stuff that we're trying to save, but we gotta take all the PII and CUI out of it. It's time consuming as hell, because Word--which is what we capture the test files in--doesn't have a good graphic editor inside of it.

Anyway, got a call yesterday from one of the biggies in the company. She said someone's gonna be contacting me soon cuz they want me on the Army project.

Guess I won't get that vacation I was hoping for...though I'm still hoping maybe I can talk them into giving me the first week of July off. I mean, there's a holiday in there anyway, so not sure why they'd care too much.

If I have to, I can always just take the PTO but I'd rather just keep it available.

Not really sure at all what the Army project looks like, or what I'll be doing, so that's a little mystery box in my head.

--

Saw Ballerina. Was decent. A little better than I expected, because I had no expectations on it. Faint praise, but gotta be the best movie Len Wiseman's done I'd think.

Also saw some Tubi 80's sex stuff. Paradise Motel: Mildly fun but weirdly tries for some serious themes in it. They're Playing With Fire: Decent, and man is Sybil Danning HOT.