Author: Toren

Coffee is for Closers.

Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Steve Wright, Steve Buscemi and Alfred Molina. Yes, I will go and see Coffee and Cigarettes when it comes to Tinseltown.

Did I mention this before? Bill Murray played Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters movie. Lorenzo Music did the voice for Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters cartoon. Lorenzo Music did the voice for Garfield in the Garfield cartoon. Bill Murray does the voice for Garfield in the Garfield movie. Weird, huh?
(Lorenzo Music is dead, by the way).

Clearly I am wasting time watching trailers online. Nevertheless, I heart Tony Shalhoub, and this film The Last Shot looks like it could be entertaining for a mainstream comedy.

http://leech.dk/dodge.html
You get three tries. Then post your score. Me: 137.04
Thanks M.T. Promises.

Laney, 39, a deeply religious woman who home-schooled her children in the tiny town of New Chapel Hill, 100 miles southeast of Dallas, called 911 just after midnight on May 10 and told a dispatcher: “I’ve just killed my boys.”
She said God ordered her to do it.
Deputies found 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke lying in the yard in their underwear, their skulls smashed and stones the size of dinner plates lying on their lifeless bodies. Their 14-month-old brother, Aaron, was found in his crib, alive but bleeding from a fractured skull, a pillow over his face. He is recovering.
Laney’s husband, Keith, who apparently slept through the attacks, has supported his wife, attending several court hearings over the past year along with other family members.

I want to hear more about the husband who supports his wife.

Andrew Migliore announced today that the 2004 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival
will be held October 1-3, 2004 at the Hollywood Theater [in Portland, Oregon].
The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival is also open for feature film and short
film submissions. The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, now entering its 11th year, features an
annual banquet of features and short films based on the influential works of
H. P. Lovecraft, as well as vendors specializing in related work, and
discussions and interviews with filmmakers.
For more details: http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/

Last night Kirsten came over and we watched a few episodes of Mr. Show, and The Royal Tenenbaums. Well mostly I drew while she watched. And we ate chocolates. This afternoon I helped Deanna move and that was good. My only complaint was that there was too much time spent standing around not moving things. I didn’t stay for pizza and pop because I had to get home to draw, which I’m starting right now! Well, right after I go to the store for dinner. Lentil dahl will have to wait.

“I mean, where are the unicorns? Come on!”

I get flack from time to time when I tell people that I don’t believe in the human soul. Some people can’t believe that I actually believe that, but I do. As far as I’m concerned, human perception, memory, et al is nothing more than a collection of chemicals and electricity. It’s a pretty damn amazing and sophisticated system of chemicals and electricity, for sure, but from where I’m standing it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that it’s nothing more. Isn’t it possible that bags of organic matter can become self-aware over the course of four BILLION years? Must they have some soul (which I equate basically with magic) breathed into them by some mysterious higher power? We’re not that different from monkeys, who are not that different from rodents, who are not that different from insects, who are not that different from amoeba, who are not that different from plants. Do they all have souls? And if they don’t, what makes us so special? We’re all made up of the same gunk, after all. As Bjork almost said – how Lovecraftian of me.

What’s interesting is that, historically, it’s very rare that I offer up my beliefs vocally or in print, for the simple reason that 99% of the time people look at me like I’m nuts. But maybe, just maybe, more people than I think share my point of view. Here’s your chance to neatly encamp yourself in one or another category, in a completely good natured, non-judgmental and non-adversarial way.

SOULLESS——–SOULED
Toren————-Anghold
Marlo————-James
Naomi————Warren (leaning)
Janet————-Stewie
Joe—————Kate
Denzil———–Slater
Jess————–Kathryn
Mike T
Yvonne
Aaron
Kirsten
Jon

Comment with the side you’re on and I’ll modify the entry to get a big fat list.

And let’s be clear: I do respect the beliefs of others. Maybe I do have a soul, I don’t know for sure. I’m not trying to belittle or poke fun. I’m just interested in how my beliefs measure up to yours. And maybe my definition of soul is way off the mark from yours. Tell me about it.

Tonight is D&D. I’m going to be working like a guy who works a lot throughout the week and the weekend, and it looks like PALM (Saturday) is a no go anyway for the regular origami party-girls, so if you want to see me, you’ll just have to come by, because I won’t be poking my head out of the apartment until I’m done all my drawings except for food and possibly some short tennis bouts.

And you’ll notice I rearranged my links to the left – they’re now in order (more or less) of frequency of updates.

I was walking downtown with Kirsten today (The Chinese Garden in Chinatown is closed on Mondays, for future reference) and a lady who didn’t look so hot came up to us and pleaded for change–real “please help me” sort of stuff. I stopped in my tracks and started to dig around in my pocket to see what I had for her, and as soon as I started to do this she began saying “oh you’re an angel, thank you so much.” Now I like to keep bus fare ($2 as I’m sure you know) in my pocket at all times when I’m out and about, and when I pulled out all my change all I had was $2.10 so I said “all I can give you right now is a dime.” I didn’t know what she would say or do, but I certainly didn’t expect “A dime? What am I going to do with a dime? That doesn’t help me!” She continued berating me but I wasn’t going to stand there and take it so I put my money back in my pocket and we kept walking. That whole situation really bugged me. I’m not living on the street; I’m not destitute; but if I needed some money and a close personal friend, much less an imperfect stranger offered me a dime or even a nickel, I would give thanks. I wouldn’t throw it back in their face.

As it turns out, I could have given her the full $2.10 because my bus pass barely had enough time left on it for me to use it again (it was so close that Kirsten, who got her pass mere moments after mine was given the evil BUZZ of rejection from the transfer machine), but her ungracious attitude didn’t leave me feeling very guilty about that. I mean I know that she may be psychotic or going through withdrawal or something, but I think Jesus Christ himself would have that moment of chagrin where his internal monologue reads “oh…I see. My dime’s not good enough for you, eh?”

Ization (formerly Civilization)

“WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit? An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons. On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn’t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.” more

Enhanced vinyl from the 80’s

“…actual [computer] games included in the grooves of records. In 1984, The Thompson Twins released ‘The Thompson Twins Adventure Game’ in both regular vinyl and flexi disc formats” Hail Satan.

It’s over!

It was fun. As usual, there was an unpleasant surprise. The last time we played (Hallowe’en) the opening bands played over their time and we only got to play half of our set. I think we were officially cut off after 5 songs and then we squeezed 3 more songs on simply because we just would not get off stage.

After that disappointment I was insistent about how our next show should go down: we would start at 10 and we’d finish at midnight. The other band could play before us or after us, I didn’t care – but we would play a full set during the spot on the clock where our fans would actually be in the club. So it was agreed, and in fact we went one further by playing two sets tonight, complete with a costume change and a change of bassists (from Troy to Bob!). Merrick was up in arms when he heard that the other band, GG Dartray was going on after us, and I did feel bad for them because after we finished playing about 90% of the crowd left, but you know what? I think we’ve paid our dues after 11 years and we deserve to have a show go as planned. GG knew what they were getting into I think, and also – they were pretty good! So go and see them the next time they play because that will ease my conscience.

This time around our plan was threatened once again when we found out – once we got to the club, mind you, and not before – that the bands “had to” be playing until 2:30. In theory this meant that we would have to start playing between 11:00 and 11:30 instead of 10. Frankly, I wasn’t interested. If the sound man was willing, I was keen on going on when we wanted to go on. And the sound man was willing. In fact, Adam (sound man) was great. I could provide stories about bad soundmen but I’d have to consult Warren’s memory. But look at me, all digressing.

So we didn’t go on quite on time, but after being constantly asked how soon we’d be going on by various fans, I gathered the troops and asked Adam if we could go on in 10 minutes (this was about 10:20). We wore our Spaceship Zero uniforms for the first set, we had a 20 minute break and changed into our monster costumes, and played another set, including some encore songs that we had not practiced. In fact Warren just got back from Antarctica 2 days prior. All in all, though, I was really happy with the show. The fans came out, old friends and new friends finally saw us play, I sold a whackload of CDs, and we had a lot of sweaty, stupid fun. We played a slow version of Burrow Your Way to My Heart that we had just made up on Tuesday, and we had a little impromptu song about Marlo, and I gave out some D&D miniatures to those who answered the space trivia (the answers to which were Sedna and Kuiper Belt). Oh, and we video taped the show from three different cameras so we’ll have some good stuff for the Thickets DVD.

I don’t know what time GG finished up – but I’m just going to go ahead and say 2:30 and Stewie can contradict me when he gets home.

Big old Thickets show at the Railway Club tonight.

Miss it at your peril. Everyone will be talking about it when it’s over.

Everyone.