drfreex.com

Yes, I’m still standing, so is my house, so is my neighborhood. I got a little wind, some rain. Did not lose power, which was a considerable surprise and relief. The worst effect was no sleep, as the wife did not feel safe sleeping upstairs, and I attempted to get some rest in my amazingly comfortable recliner – but it ain’t no bed, and the animals were severely freaked.

In all – we dodged a large bullet.

To get everyone’s mind off the approaching hurricane, I rectified a terrible error – my son was only familiar with the prequels, so we watched Star Wars (none of this “Episode IV” nonsense in this household). Despite his moans of “I don’t need to watch this, I’ve played the video game,” (damnfool kids!) he enjoyed himself very much.

Most of the sleepless night was spent watching a movie on my notebook, employing my noise-cancelling headphones (when I wan’t using my wireless network to keep up on the storm, that is). No, I didn’t break out The Bela Lugosi Collection as promised – though I need to – instead, I went for full-bore escapism and watched Troy instead. I found it surprisingly entertaining, even if these scions of Gladiator feel their progenitor’s need to rewrite history. Very well cast. I definitely recommend it if you’re waiting to get hammered by a hurricane – not a drop of rain anywhere in its dusty climes.

Thanks to the modern miracle that is bitTorrent, I didn’t miss last night’s episode of Threshold after all. I think the series is developing nicely, and will hopefully get to watch it next week in its native environs.

Now I have some crimefighting to catch up on. I’m sure all my non-Houston based City of Heroes compatriots have become gods in my absence.

September 24, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments

Damn but that’s a big storm.

The preparations are all but finished – the last-minute stuff like taking a shower to cleanse off the rancidity of the last couple of days and filling the bathtubs thereafter still remain. The ache in every one of my injured joints is palpable now, seemingly radiating out from my body in pulses. Good thing I buy ibuprofen(tm) in bulk, since I haven’t seen an open store in two days.

I’ve mentioned before this isn’t my first hurricane. It is, however, the first time I’ve witnessed the ghost town effect.

There are still people stuck on the highways. I think back to yesterday when I was hearing , over and over again, that the evacuation was a success. Successful in that the low lying zones near the coast have emptied out, I suppose, but look for a lot of argument in the weeks to come about what a dog’s breakfast the situation on the evacuation routes has become.

I’m a nasty, vile little cynic, so there are two thoughts uppermost in my mind: in case of an actual terrorist attack, we are so screwed, and I truly believe the sound I keep hearing in the background is coming from the heads of many oil company executives, and that sound is ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching. I filled up Wednesday morning, and that paltry 10 gallons may have to last us a very long time. And when we are able to get more gas, it will likely be over $4.00 a gallon.

But these are things I will only say in this space, as my family deserves my brightest, bravest face. I called my parents, about 100 miles inland, on Tuesday night, just to talk to someone who wasn’t looking to me for guidance. My misgivings were much stronger earlier in the week, because if life has taught me anything, it’s that I have the amazing capacity to be wrong. Unfolding events have proven me right so far, but like everyone else in the region – damn, will I be glad when this is behind us.

Everything done, my wife and our neighbor are downstairs, watching Because of Winn-Dixie in this lull. I’ve put dinner in the slow cooker, enough for a couple of days if need be. I’ll probably be watching my new Bela Lugosi Collection this evening for a little escapism (looks like I won’t be watching the next episode of Threshold – all local stations are too busy saying the same damn thing over and over again, ie., “DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM stay tuned DOOOOOOOOOOM!“).

See ya on the other side,
– Freeman

September 23, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 3 Comments

You know, I would love to continue talking about some stuff I read over the summer, or share my thoughts on the current crop of science fiction shows on the fall TV lineup (or as I like to refer to them, the Children of Lost), but right now I’m making hurricane preparations.

This means things like trimming back the trees that might threaten the house and securing things in the yard that could turn into projectiles. Taking that carefully nurtured pile of gallon jugs and filling them with water. Finding out where my son has hidden all the flashlights. Those are the things you expect. What’s taking up a lot of my time is answering the phone and explaining to well-meaning friends that no, I am likely not running away.

In the aftermath of Katrina, a lot of people are a whole lot more scared of hurricanes than they were before, and that’s likely a good thing. However. Every local newscast I turn on might as well have a background graphic behind the immaculately coiffed newscaster reading WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE…stay tuned.

So I’m spending a lot of time explaining no, I am nowhere near an evacuation zone, no, the area I live in is not low-lying, no, I do not understand that merely being in the path of a hurricane is surely a death sentence. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

And yes, I am sick and tired of being told how terrified I am supposed to be every waking second of my life. It is not my first hurricane. I have been through this before.

On the other hand, if you don’t hear from me again, please feel to smugly think, I told ya so.

September 21, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 3 Comments

The Blocked Project seems to be in semi-permanent hiatus, awaiting the convocation of experts who will hold forth on what will surely be the Magic Formula for the script’s success. That hasn’t alleviated the overall depression and deep funk the failure has engendered. I’ve been burying myself in non-writing activities, trying to spark something somewhere; reading, performing, helping out at the church, playing City of Heroes.

After such a gap in enterprises like this blog, I generally log back on with a jocular “lot of water under the bridge, huh?”, but given the events of the last couple of weeks, that would be in spectacularly bad taste. I would feel guilty even referring to the influx of evacuees into Houston from New Orleans as being a “flood”, you know? Seeing the devastation of the Big Easy referred to in the Chronicle as being of “biblical proportions” also seems suspect to me, for reasons I cannot quite comprehend.

And comprehension is a problem, no matter how many distressing images one sees on TV or how many angry messages one reads on the Net. We are told on the one hand this is happening, then told no, this is not happening… but one thing that is becoming clear: generalities often become that because they contain truth, and the generality that such events bring out the best and the worst in people is so obvious that I am ashamed to bring it up.

Mere miles from me is the now-overcrowded Astrodome, where health scares have apparently prompted FEMA to step in, rumor has it. Go a few more miles and you’re at the relatively new Convention Center, slightly less crowded and apparently more accomodating (they had a little more time to prepare). As more than one newscaster has put it, Texans have opened their hearts (as one Chronicle blogger has groused, “Houstonians opened their hearts! Houstonians!” – and I’m concerned about being petty!) – and this good.

But I am in a funk, so the Cynic is ascendent in my worldview, and he is quite vocal in his musings about how long the charitable outpouring will last. History tells us that once the initial rush is over, charity will taper off, and though I read today that residents of Jefferson Parish are being allowed back in for “brief inspections” of what used to be their homes, this crisis is going to be months in the clearing. Months. At least. How long before the bonhommie sours into resentment? Though there’s another voice inside my head that hopes for the best, that voice is becoming increasingly desperate, and the Cynic’s voice is the one that seems to ring truest.

Of course, the cynic is being egged on by the fact that yours truly is once again looking for employment, and tens of thousands of jobless people just arrived in this town. There is another voice, different from the cynic and the optimist, which approaches that observation with a resounding, My God, but you’re an asshole for thinking like that.

Unfortunately, that voice also rings very true.

Next time, let’s talk about something more pleasant. I have been reading some good stuff. Let’s talk about that, hm?

Stay healthy,
Freeman

September 5, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 6 Comments

Okay, let’s try some analysis.

The line I’ve been staring at for so long is “I’m not going to school today.” From this line there are two paths obvious to me; one is preachy and boring, and will wind up in the same dustbin of ridicule as Reefer Madness. The other leads to the Columbine Massacre, which would be a sensational, disturbing conclusion no matter how it was handled. Impactful, as we used to say in the marketing world, and it would never, ever fly. More appropriately, it would never make it past the written page.

There is another path, to be sure, the path that eludes me, the path that the script will eventually take. The path that is interesting and entertaining, at least to the people holding that paycheck. The fact that these nebulous qualities are about as concrete as any indication to the direction or even content of the script by these Powers That Be doesn’t help. Add gun-shyness into the mix.

Here is likely the worst part of the equation: anything else I write at this point is at the cost of time spent on the script that is giving me problems now; any time devoted to anything else, the Calvinist angel on one shoulder proclaims, is delaying payday, and that’s bad, it’s so very bad.

Yes, to be frank, I don’t give a rat’s ass about this project outside the money. If I can get to the point where there is anything of me in the writing, that will change, but right now, that magical property of involvement is locked up in a very real and very impenetrable fortress. And writing anything else feels like stealing from myself.

That’s some catch, that Catch 22. And the proper response, as you know, is “It’s the best one we got.”

August 11, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 9 Comments

There has been much drama around here of late, though on such a rarefied, general level that it hardly seems worthy of inclusion here. Still, I haven’t done anything here in a longish time, so I should likely bore you with details, anyway.

I believe we’ve already gone over the storms of the last few weeks – after the last dramatic outage I spoke of (Iron Giant vs the Power Station, indeed, thanoseid) there was another outage, this time during the day. Lightning strike on a pole, apparently. Unconnected with that was a major freaking outage that put much of the area northeast of Houston in darkness for the entire night, and that was due to an entire dynamo going down.

That’s not what I’m here to preach about today, brothers, oh no. A little over a week ago, we returned from dinner to find a fire truck parked in front of our neighbor’s house. My wife, Lisa, being the demure, quiet type, immediately leaped out of the car and bellowed to a nearby fireman, “What happened?” Turns out there was quite a gas leak from the neighbor’s meter – the hiss was audible, nearly sixty feet away, and the fire fighter opined that since the repair crew had not yet shown up, it might be, um, wise for my family and myself to make ourselves scarce for the next hour or so. Just to be safe.

Safe is a good thing, so we gathered up our other neighbor, crazy Ronnie, and got back into the car. Where to go for an hour? Lisa went to her defaults, declaring that we should go to Garden Ridge Pottery, so she and Ronnie could ooh and aah over cheap, mass-produced folk art for an hour – especially since there was a Best Buy next door, so my son and I wouldn’t be too bored. I said that could work, since I haven’t been to Best Buy since a Fry’s Electronics – or as I refer to it, “The Man Mall” – opened much closer (and with a far better DVD selection) than Best Buy.

Well, Ronnie had never been to the Man Mall, and the kid was now chanting “Man Mall! Man Mall!” so we went there instead.

Now, much has been written, and in a far more scholarly manner, about the difference between men and women shopping. The hunter vs the gatherer mentality. Suffice to say that even confronted by the incredible bounty of the Man Mall, I was hard pressed to find enough to ooh and aah over for an hour. When I finally caught up with the women folk in the CD section after 55 minutes, and asked “Are you ready?” I was greeted with a disgruntled “We’ve been ready.”

I’m sorry. I will pay for this for the next… oh, however many years I have left… but I immediately flashed on every time I’ve sat, useless and morose, on one of those uncomfortable laundromat chairs that stores like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s have at the front, for useless and morose husbands. The trip to Walmart for wood screws and twine that turned into a two hour search for bathing suits. The many times my wife has brandished the tenth grotesque wood and paint creation at me, brightly asking, “Isn’t this cute?”

And I replied, in my best Abe Simpson, “Welcome to my world.”

As I said, I’ll pay for that for years.

It was worth it.

June 27, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

As the spouse of a teacher, summer always blindsides me. It makes my life seem so schizophrenic; nine months of being left to myself, followed by three months of “Whatcha doing?” “Wanna go to the store?” “Just checking on you.”

Other things occupying my life:

Remember the storms I mentioned earlier? Lightning struck a tree in my back yard and sheared off the top half. Luckily, given the fact that I love trees, the rest of the tree seems to have survived, but I discovered it is simply amazing that I have managed to get to this point in my adult life, living in a Gulf Coast state, without owning a chainsaw.

Returning to the summer disruption trope, I have also discovered that a simple trip to the store to purchase wood screws and twine can suddenly turn into a two hour shopping expedition.

Lisa also decided it was time once again for a pool in the back yard (luckily, after clearing out the half-a-tree) and splurged on one of those largish inflatables that actually has a circulation/filtration pump. When summer is over, it is going to look like a flying saucer landed, leaving a perfect circle of crushed, dead grass. I have informed Lisa that when my father, aka The Lawn Nazi, comes over for Thanksgiving, she gets to deal with him about that.

I visited the set for one of the video games I scripted; that is to say, the one where the cut scenes are being shot with live actors on a bluescreen soundstage. Many familiar faces there, from my days of jobbing into video shoots as a teleprompter, so I got to play catchup during the ebb and flow of Setting Up The First Shot. This is fairly exciting for a while, but unless you have a specific job to do, a movie set is one of the most boring places on Earth. I was mainly there to record a couple of lines of dialogue, since apparently I do the Airport PA Voice very well.

Oh, yeah, that and I’m researching for a new script that’s due the end of this month. Nope, can’t go into details about that, either.

Yep, I am The Exciting Guy.

June 13, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

It has been one of those weeks, the week where you are suddenly aware that 7 days have passed, but you have no idea what just happened.

Well, I have a few suspicions. I do know, for instance, that last Saturday Chris Holland and his wife, Christina, dropped by to ooh and aah at the kittens and, not coincidentally, go see Revenge of the Sith with a fellow nerd. Then there was a LAN party, and then… things get murky.

Because I realize the entire world is holding its breath for my pronouncement on Sith: it didn’t suck. In fact, I may have liked it. The Anakin/Padme scenes were limited and not too horrible (shame that Christensen and Portman have zero chemistry, though). The FX were stunning. For once, Lucasfilm presented us with an archvillain who was not killed with little fanfare after minimal screen time, proving Darth Maul was not a fluke. The fight scene with General Grievous, in fact, kicked total butt. The final duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan was pretty satisfying, given that we’ve been waiting twenty-five years to see it and build up our expectations.

But. If you’re going to trumpet a big Wookiee battle scene in all the publicity, you better give me a big Wookiee battle scene. And, we all knew how things were going to end; that’s a tough row to hoe, and Lucas was almost completely successful in keeping it interesting despite that problem.

I really do know where a lot of that week went. Extensive use of my beloved notebook has given rise to heat problems, and my wife needs her own computer to attend to her work, so I bought a new desktop computer, and at least one day has been sacrificed to getting that beast up to speed. More will have to be done; the most thorny problem facing me now is the new puter’s apparent inability to recognize a graphics card. More and more I appreciate the Necronomicon, which worked out of the box beautifully. More importantly, City of Heroes worked out of the box on it beautifully.

The animals are now playing well together. Except that the white kitten has developed a fondness for dog food, which has led to an inevitable tiff over the dinner bowl. Pugzilla has been remarkably tolerant, but even her tiny walnut brain is starting to feel some resentment.

Speaking of resentment, this is the last day of school here. The shattering of my quiet workdays begins….. now.

May 26, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments