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.

 

 

 

Not Quite Over Yet

 

So this past week was like a funeral at work. People panicking, asking for their severance letters so they can get ready for unemployment stuff.

This company is super cool to their people, I'll tell you that. From telling us within HOURS of finding out about the loss of the contract money to also giving everyone two weeks severance pay, to ALSO paying everybody's health insurance premiums for June even though they won't be working there...

Anyway, found out on Friday that they're keeping a few people on to be a "transition team", whatever that means. From the list I saw, I'd guess they're just trying to keep their best people from looking for other jobs while they see how this is all gonna shake out.

So, yeah, I'm on that team. Means I still have a job for all of June. After that, if nothing changes I either go on furlough or I get put on another contract. If I get put on another contract, I may just ask for two weeks off, unpaid, to get a breather.

Unless something super solid happens though, prolly gonna abandon the T3 thing...cuz I don't think I'd be able to kickstart the whole budget--hadn't intended to, was just gonna kickstart what we could, and I'd cover the rest.

But if my financial situation is in doubt, gotta jettison the flick.

----

Saw the new MI movie. It was decent, like the others behind it. Same old same old, but still exciting cuz you know Tom's REALLY doing that shit.

Saw the new Karate Kid. It's weird, but fun. Super short, too, so it doesn't stay long enough to annoy you.

Also, got my Jurassic Park tickets even though it's a month out. Definitely wanna see it in the Dolby theater. I bought five tickets, but am not sure if the wife and kid will be here--they might be at the beach.

But if they don't go to the movie, will probably just eat the tickets so I know nobody's next to me. It's more expensive than I'd usually do, but those movies are special to me, even if I didn't really like the last two.

Always hoping for a return to the fun of the first three, and the fourth to a degree.

Hey, look below--those were my SHIT, man. You can still get this brand, but it's a little different than it used to be. Still, pretty good.