A meteor came down in a swamp and created these plant creatures, which are turning people and animals into plant zombies with their spores. That’s on the Superfriends right now, so remain calm – but there’s a meteor shower tonight so be on guard. I’m toying with the idea of going down to the beach to watch.
Say it right, Frenchie!
Tomato soup
Tomato stew
Tomato chowder
Clam soup
Clam stew
Clam chowder
Beef stew
Beef soup
Beef chowder
Think about it. We have these traditional names but they pretty much mean the same thing. The dictionary calls chowder “a thick soup in a milk or tomato base”, in which case cream of mushroom soup could easily fall into the chowder classification. The verb ‘to stew’ means “to cook by simmering or boiling slowly” so by that definition most soups are already stews. I say nuts to tradition! The rampant arbitrary renaming of soups begins now!
Knitting in the Buff
Knitting in the Buff tonight consisted of only 5 shows:
Reboot 5: The Crimson Binome – Introduces Captain Gavin Capacitor who plays an important role in the 3rd season
Black Books 6: He’s Leaving Home. Possibly the weakest episode of the first season. Still lots of yuks though, especially the beard fetish uh…business.
Buffy: The robot demon one from first season. I thought this episode was pretty awful, actually. Invariably when TV or film tries to feature computers or the internet, they might as well be magic boxes because any semblance to the constraints of real-life technology are tenuous at best. That’s not the only reason I didn’t like the episode though.
Look Around You: Ghosts.
Buffy: First episode from second season. I didn’t much care for this episode either. It seemed like a really generic, standard, story-rehashing episode and I really didn’t enjoy Buffy being all bitchy because she was dead for a few moments in the previous episode, even if it may have been “realistic.” When I first saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow bugged the hell out of me with her milquetoast delivery and sleepy-time voice, but now I would go so far as to say I like her – she makes a good underdog. I think Charisma Carpenter does a great job as the bitch but she’s always looked like she was 35 even in the first season, and that has never stopped bugging me. I think Xander’s my favourite. He’s got the most personality out of all of them, and is the most accessible.
In attendance was Marlo, Dalia and Anghold. We ended early (10pm) because everyone had to go. Also it was and is really hot in the apartment. Next time I look forward to some more Firefly. I like everyone in that cast.
Boring Old News
Actually- quite a few interesting stories in addition to the standard ‘Bush is a twit’ announcements.
George W. Bush acknowledged that the war on terror has been “misnamed”; he said that it ought to be called “the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.” [Whitehouse.gov]
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi signed an amnesty law for Iraqis who have committed minor crimes since the American occupation began, and he ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of Al-Jazeera for one month.
Britain banned toothy smiles from passport photos.
The United States announced that it will insist that the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would ban countries from making enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear bombs, be stripped of any mechanism for enforcement, such as inspections. This position, which would render the treaty useless, apparently was reached because the Bush Administration does not wish to submit to inspections. [New York Times]
Prozac was found in Britain’s drinking water.
Missouri’s voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. [Reuters]
Several Nigerian sorcerers were arrested after skulls, body parts, and 50 corpses were found in shrines belonging to a cult called Alusi Okija; the chief priest of the cult was not arrested, however, because he’s an old man and police didn’t want him to die in custody. [Associated Press]
What? No Yog-Sothoth?
Many of you have seen my felt Cthulhu on the bookshelf in my living room. Tim Emrick made it along with all the other characters in my “Where the Great Old Ones Are” drawing. He’s put up the last two on ebay- Chaugner Faugn http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5513207614 and Ithaqua http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5513207006
Meanwhile, not far away: The Cobalt is closing.
Fear of God/Dad
Written sometime after 1996 in a very small book (transcribed here in 2020):
I remember once when I was very young I was throwing rocks – not just rocks but big fist-sized (mind you my fist be be half the size it is now) stones and maybe jokingly, but I hit a kid – a kid I knew from my neighborhood and he was really hurt, bent over crying hurt. And I felt huge pangs of guilt but even more so fear. Fear for myself and the repercussions of my actions. If my dad beat me up for not washing the dishes, for saying “what” too many times – what could I expect for braining someone? I ran home and I don’t know that I’ve ever believed in God more that day, or at least wanted to believe in some all poerful force that would save me from pain if only I would beg it from Him and make empty promises. But even then I knew it wasn’t enough and so – and I have no idea if this was courage or cowardice – I went to the kids parents and at first they were livid with me but they could see the regret or at the very least fear in my eyes and I begged and pleaded with them not to tell my parents through fountains of heaving sobs – quite real I assure you.
Sometimes you cry so much your glands hurt – your ducts get raw and bitter. This hasn’t happened for a while but I remember the feeling.
Tell me why? I don't like mondays
I played tennis for over two hours today. And my shoes are falling apart. And I’m still working on The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. I’m not going swimming tonight. I need to work work work.
Scare Tactics
scary
Function: adjective
Definition: frightening
Synonyms: alarming, bloodcurdling, chilling, creepy, hair-raising, hairy, horrendous, horrifying, intimidating, shocking, spine-chilling, spooky, terrifying, unnerving
Let’s agree on some ground terms as there are different types of horror films. I’ve split into four categories the techniques (tactics, if you prefer) commonly used in, and often defining, horror films.
The Gross-Factor: they pull out all the intestines and eye slashing stops; most zombie films I’ve seen rely on the gross-factor to get by.
The Creep-Factor: Ringu, Jacob’s Ladder and even Donnie Darko are great examples.
The Suspense Factor: this is my favourite – think of the part in Alien when Dallas was crawling through the ducts with a flame-thrower. Terminator, Jaws & The Shining had lots of it.
The “BOO!” factor: this is the one where your senses are assaulted by sudden flashes of visuals and audio – it’s all I remember about Event Horizon and it’s the cheapest kind of horror.
Now let’s look at a few really good horror films.
Alien. This came out when I was 9. I don’t remember when I saw it. Very little gross-factor, as far as I’m concerned. There’s the chest bursting scene and apart from a few short scenes of blood, that’s it. They’re all well done and I wouldn’t say they’re gratuitous. Oh, I guess the scene where Ash goes nuts is kind of gross, but still, I’m sticking with my low GF rating.
The Ring. High on the Creepy Factor. Disturbing and unsettling. I don’t remember any GF but there was definitely some Suspense Factor. If I recall correctly the BOO Factor was minimal to nonexistent.
King Kong (’76). I saw this when I was quite young, and it had an impact on me. Fighting with that snake had some GF but to me the most horrifying will always be the part when Kong was spinning that log to make the people fall down into the chasm. That was probably a bit too intense for me at my tender young age, so that’s stuck with me.
The Shining. Lots of creepiness, lots of suspense. No Gross-Factor to speak of. A real class-act.
John Carpenter’s The Thing. There was a fair amount of Gross-Factor in this – but it was divided between the blood ‘n’ gore kind of gross and the horrific-looking-slimy-shapechanging-alien kind of gross. Mostly it was suspense, with a touch of creepiness and a tiny smidgeon of BOO-factor at the end.
The Blair Witch Project. No Gore-Factor, no BOO-Factor. All SF and CF. I saw this in the theater and it actually had me shivering, but that could have been because the air-conditioning was up way too high. Also it played upon my fears of being in the woods at night (which comes down to bears, actually).
The Exorcist. Demon vomit definitely qualifies as gross, but I would say the main technique here is the Creepy-Factor.
Yvonne asked me if there were any movies that scared me. Well, if we’re talking about jumping in your seat because the scene went from quiet and serene to violently loud, then yes, Punch Drunk Love scared me when the semi came out of nowhere.
However, if you’re talking about a movie that leaves you with nightmares and noctiphobia, then the only movie that’s truly given me the heebie-jeebies in my adult life would have to be The Blair Witch Project. But they have yet to make a movie that is so scary that I wouldn’t watch it alone.
Too much fire and not enough works
The fireworks were good (imagine a big screensaver in the sky) except for alllllll the people (and by extension their honking cars) and the screaming kid(s) and the sand. The last of which I wouldn’t have minded except I wore my second best pair of shoes which I’ve only worn twice before. Nobody told me the beach would be so sandy! I hadn’t seen any of the fireworks this year – I was saving up for the finale. There was a BBQ at Ursula’s before that with Andrea & Brian, Janet & Brian, Yvonne, Satomi, Marlo, Laura, Heidi, Heather, Allison & Caleb and afterwards we played Mario Party 3 in which I got 5 Millenium Stars. Ursy had 2 and Marlo had 1. I feel justified in saying “now that was an ass-kicking.” The moon looked like an orange wedge without the orange.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, I ate a quarter cup of mustard straight as part of a bet. They wouldn’t give me $100 to eat the entire jar though. And we all learned an important lesson about peer pressure.
And Yvonne gave me a hair cut. I enjoy being the head that first-time haircutters experiment upon.
Last night I started watching The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Night before I watched Alien Nation (6/10). Next it will be Gosford Park. I’m making 3 tapes of Clone High for Janet.
You're my fact-checkin' cous.
In September I’m going to a family reunion. I guess that could be the reason as to why I’m asking my mom to try to find me email addresses for all of my cousins. Otherwise it would be a pretty random thing to do. Maybe you come to a time in your life when you say “hey – I’m 34, I wonder what my cousins are up to?” I haven’t spoken to any of them for years. I haven’t seen them for years. As most of you know, I’m not really that close to my family. I don’t have any family in town and I never have since I’ve been in Vancouver, though my cousin April is apparently moving here in September to go to university. So, I thought it might be interesting to email them all and say “hey, I’m alive – I have a blog. What’s up with you?”
So we’ll see how that goes! Maybe they’ll have some fun epiphanies to share. I’m kind of excited.