Ba ba baba baba baBAH!

Yes, it’s my birthday (Thank you for remembering, Tim). Cue the bad Beatles imitation.

49 years, if you care. One year short of the half-century mark. 14 years more than I expected to live, due to various health problems when I was young.

And not a damn sight wiser.

I think that if I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that blogging is not for me. Being of the if-you-have-nothing-to-say-don’t-say-it persuasion, a daily sort of journal isn’t going to yield much fruit, outside of a laundry list of perceived wrongs and blatant whining about life in general. Rather too much of that these days, and I’ve done more than my fair share of contributing.

Paradoxically, one of the things that bugs me most these days is the lack of creative output on my part. I know people who work at least as many hours as I do, and still do a prodigious amount of writing/art/theater. So why not blog as a daily exercise, a means of keeping the tools sharp?

Eh.

As ever, that’s some catch, that Catch 22. The Best one we got. There are a couple of bloggers I check on regularly; they are bright, witty and interesting. They establish a very high standard, one to which I feel I can aspire, but then there is the other consideration…

…shouldn’t I be working on something else? One of the moribund stories that have been rotting in my file cabinet for years? That website I once updated weekly? Something that, I don’t know, might actually earn money?

One of these days. Meantime, it’s my birthday, it was a longer day than usual at work, I’m home now, and screw everything else – I havin’ my cake and watching Heroes.

See ya around.

October 23, 2006
Categories: Senile Ramblings . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments

Part-Time Celebrity

You really want to know what I’ve been doing since the last entry? No, no you don’t. It really is best left to your imagination. That way, I would have been involved in foiling Space Nazi plots in their secret moonbase or working far into the night decoding the fabulous Book of the Vishanti. Alas, what I’ve been doing is far more prosaic.

I’ve been picking colors.

That’s over-simplifying. While still reeling from the dual onslaught of New Air Conditioner and Summer Dentistry, my Home Owner’s Association (speaking of Nazis…) sensed my weakness and swooped in for the kill, demanding that my house be re-sided and re-painted. “But….” said we, “New air conditioner! No money!” “Lien upon your home,” was their reply, and lo, the debt was deepened. Looks like I won’t be giving up dentistry to return to the riskier world of full-time writing anytime soon.

I now sit in a house of two tones, old siding and new siding, while we wait for the Nazis to approve of our color choices, which consist of gray (house), lighter gray (trim) and red (door). These are, I admit, radical choices, which may explain the delay.

Really, one day someone will explain to me why it was a good idea to buy a house. And oh, yeah, my car’s air conditioner died back in June. Sorry old paint, there is no money to repair you, yet. It does make driving back and forth to a job I hate especially…. character-building, I suppose.

Alright, that isn’t all I’ve been doing. For one thing, NC Soft, the publishers of the game that maintains my excapist sanity, City of Heroes (speaking of character-building), asked for volunteers to speak to a reporter, who was writing a story about cross-gender gaming. To put it in simple terms, people who play the opposite gender in role playing games.

Now, amongst my 35 characters, I have 13 males. 15 females, 4 robots and 3 cosmic abominations, and I’m halfway articulate, so I volunteered – the goal being to offer a viewpoint beyond the cliched “Chicks get more free stuff” or “If I’m going to stare at a butt for hours, it might as well be a nice butt.” Very little of that got into the final story, but at least now I can say that an AP photographer has been in my house. Yes, it was an Associated Press article, which meant it appeared on Abc.com, Foxnews.com, Wired News, my local paper, and newspapers across the land. Detroit and Seattle are the only two rags I could track down that used the photo.

Major outcome of this? I discovered the neologism “Cybertrannie”, had it applied to myself, and received a little razzing in-game. So why do I do it, you may ask? The same reason I tend to have an equal number of male and female characters in my stories – I like the balance. Admittedly, that does not make for provocative copy, so I suppose I failed that goal.

That week in August was sort of a banner time for me, as I also turned up at the top of a story in the Baltimore Sun. Though supposedly about Snakes on a Plane, it was felt necessary to tap my expertise on bad movies in general.

Given my generally self-destructive bent, I will point out that in the Snakes article, I tap Glen or Glenda as my favorite Ed Wood movie, and it took mere seconds for my so-called friends to light on the fact that it is a movie about… transvestites.

Speaking of escapism, it’s time to indulge in some. Why doesn’t City of Heroes have an angora option?

August 20, 2006
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 8 Comments

Summer. Phoo.

I was told that Summer is a crazy time for dentistry. That made little sense to me at the time, but I have found that it is true. Kids out of school = OMG get them to the dentist when we don’t have to get them out of class, or something. We’re currently booked up through the first week in July, for pity’s sake… and that’s just the scheduled cleanings, fillings, root canals, und so weiter. Getting emergencies in involves quite a bit of triage, diplomacy, prior experience with Tetris, and sometimes just being a bastard.

Probably no wonder that I come home late in the evening muttering about “Frickin’ people and their frickin’ teeth…” Smaller wonder that when I log onto City of Heroes for my catharsis, my avatar, whilst kicking villainous butt, can be heard screaming “I bet you have teeth too, don’t you? DON’T YOU???!!!”

But why dwell on this, past the fact that my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week, which means that I, too, am staring the half-century mark in the face, and still have not achieved the great things for which I was destined?

Ah, screw it. Let’s talk about music.

As I mentioned earlier, my broadband cratered just I was finding a large world of vinyl share sites in the Blogosphere. These hardy obsessed souls rip and clean up audio files from out of print records and make them available, usually on the rapidshare.de site, with which I was familiar from my obsession with Datajunkie. The only trouble with Rapidshare is that, of course, they’re trying to turn a profit, and would really like you to purchase an account there. If not, you’re limited to one download every hour or so. Fair enough. If I were serious about this, I would plop down the $12 or so (9.90 euros for one month), but I’m still paying for that new air conditioner.

Anyway.

Through these sites I have lucked back upon music I thought lost forever (to paraphrase Roger Zelazny, enemies don’t steal your records, friends do), like Black Mass by Lucifer… Lucifer being one Mort Garson, in one of the first and best purely electronic albums. In fact, it is through these sites that I’ve found that Garson produced some other memorable albums.

Indeed, if I have found out anything, it’s that I will never have enough time to listen to all the music I want. I made that realization about movies a long time ago, too, so I’m in for some serious frustration.

Anyway.

lelebelle is a good place to start. The link is the January archive, which is particularly awesome.

Garden of Delights is aptly named.

For sheer length and breadth of postings, it is hard to beat Time Traveller at this point.

And, if you are so inclined, simply peruse the links at each of these sites; your journey will be long and – hopefully – fruitful.

June 19, 2006
Categories: Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 5 Comments

The Return of the…uh, guy

Broadband finally returned late Wednesday night, and good lord, how behind I have gotten. Admittedly, there is stuff I could have been doing, like writing things so they would be ready to upload. Do I do this? No. I do ridiculous, obvious things like cleaning house, watching Star Wars with my son, going to job fairs. You know. Wasting time.

I’ll try to share the stuff I missed with you later. For right now, know: it’s good to be back.

June 9, 2006
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

EXILED

Yep. gone for a while again. And not by choice.

Almost two weeks ago, my broadband ceased to function. Should I name names? Roadrunner. Only broadband available in my hinterland.

They assured me a technician will be by to assist me. Next Monday. That date was set when the Net went bye bye. Nearly two weeks ago.

At least they’ve credited me for this downtime. I will give them that.

But my world has gotten… very small, of late. Of course, this happened just as I discovered a world of websites dedicated to posting whole albums of long out-of-print and obscure 60’s vinyl; stuff like the legendary Kak album, the live album of H.P. Lovecraft (the band, not the author), Dantelion’s Chariot. Unable to update 50 Foot DVD, which had been pretty regular, of late.

And I’ve not been able to play City of Heroes, the game that was arguably keeping me sane. Well, I am still rather sane, so perhaps that wasn’t the case at all. I have cleaned my home office. Interviewing for a new, hopefully less crazy-making job tomorrow. Could there be a correlation?

But after Monday… dammit I am downloading some acid rock while my tanker busts Freakshow heads. Or there will be hell to pay. Correlations be damned.

June 2, 2006
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

On a somewhat less-sullen note…

If you haven’t been perusing Datajunkie, and are at all interested in pop culture… well, you should. People interested in what my childhood looked like, for instance, should click over to the entry that reprints the Outer Limits trading cards. i had all but one of the damned things before they stopped production, and since I was the only one in my small town who collected them (that I knew of, anyway), never had a chance to trade. And now, in the far-flung future, I have no idea which card was missing. Ah, well. Enjoy.

May 13, 2006
Categories: Pointless Nostalgia . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

Whine Moan Bitch Complain

Whole lot of water under the bridge, amigos.

Yep, I’ve been gone for a while. In the physical world, at least. Two weeks ago, the antique air conditioning unit – which I believe was original equipment when this house was built in the late 70s – finally gave up the ghost. No problem, I thought – this is why I pay lots of money to a home warranty company.

Those of you familiar with my writing style will know that those last thirteen words are a prelude to disaster.

It took two days for First American Home Protection – no names will be changed, screw them – to send our information to a contractor. It was then two more days before the contractor could come. (That, at least, was understandable. This is a very busy time of year for the industry)

It then took the technician less than five minutes to reveal the unit had a hole in it, it had lost all coolant, would have to be replaced, and the claim would be denied because the unit was dirty. We had obviously been abusing the poor thing.

So I do the usual thing you hear about in these stories: do research, far too late. You see, I had been told I had to have a program like this in place in order to obtain a mortgage. Thereafter, it was somewhat comforting to keep it in place. I called on them perhaps once a year, a clogged drainage pipe here, a busted thermocouple there. Now, on my first major claim, my eyes got opened to the truth of the organization.

Doing a Google search on First American, the first hit I got was, of course, their website; practically every hit thereafter was page upon page of people complaining about them. Well, except for the second from the bottom, which was their financial statement for last year. They made a $64 million dollar profit.

It took me two weeks to find the money for a new unit – which was, incidentally, a THIRD of the price the First American contractor quoted – and we are finally back in our home. Now I just have to find the money for the cosmetic repairs the Home Owner’s Association is demanding before they put a lien on said house, closely followed by those damned property taxes which will not go away.

One of these days I am going to figure out WHY it was a good thing to buy a house. Until then, I will be contemplating a return to heavy drinking.

One of the things that the consequent divorceage from the Internet enforced was a return to some, you know, actual reading. I had downloaded some PDFs of Doc Savage novels from Black Mask Online (which has since gone missing – turns out those pulps were not in the public domain after all….). I devoured these things in the Bantam Paperback reprints of the 60s, and returning to this trough, discovered that they are merely entertaining and diverting garbage. In other words, pulp. Formulaic and highly addictive. The demise of Black Mask Online would not be near so irksome if these were available though some legitimate source.

On the other hand, a visit to a local used book store I had meant to visit forever (it’s literally right across the parking lot from the office I manage) netted the first volume of Brian Daley’s GammaLaw series. I’ve always enjoyed Daley, from his first Coramonde books: Doomfarers and Starfollowers. Excellent fantasy/science fiction war books with large casts of engaging characters. But just to add to the sorrows of this period, I was reacquainted with a fact I had managed to forget: Daley died ten years ago, and we won’t be getting anymore books from him.

So, to recap: First American Home Protection = Satan, Brian Daley dead, Doc Savage and The Shadow unavailable.

I freakin’ hate the 21st Century.

May 9, 2006
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

W00t Redux

DING! Level 50!

Now gimme my damn squid.

April 7, 2006
Categories: Old Men Playing Videogames . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

W00t.

Ah, it has been a rare 24 hours. Firstly, before hitting the sack last night, my main character in City of Heroes hit level 49. That means nothing to most of you (i.e., the sane people), but the level cap in the game is 50 – once you hit fifty, you can go no further, but you do gain the ability to create a new character – a human/alien fusion with special powers. Gee, it only took me a year – and twenty-five characters – to reach this point.

Then I wake up this morning to find that Tom DeLay has retired from politics. My word! It seems I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to vote him out of office, and now he is scampering quietly into the night. Man. Now who will I be pissed off about?

I’m sure I’ll find something…

April 4, 2006
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant, Old Men Playing Videogames . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

How much bad can fit in a week?

So. In one week – hell, just the space of a few days – Buck Owens. Dan Curtis. Richard Fleischer and Stanislaw Lem.

Christ.

Not helping my general stressed-out funkedness last week was my ancient habit of watching movies that everybody says are horrible, hopefully finding the buried heart within, erratically beating and gemlike, being able to honestly say, aw, this ain’t so bad. That’s often the case, anyway.

Lately, though, that practice has bitten me on the butt at least twice. The first time was Alexander, and most recently – last Sunday night, in fact – I thought it was time to finally give Van Helsing the fair shake it deserved. Truer words were never spoken, by which I mean deserved.

I hereby admit it: you were all right. Van Helsing is an awful movie. It’s not even a good awful movie. It doesn’t even present the mesmerizing spectacle of a train wreck: it is just… awful. Pretty, but awful.

Given my love for the source material, I suppose this angry dismissal is understandable, but no less dismaying to myself, the guy who has nice things to say about Robot Monster. I could reproachfully insinuate that I dislike the movie because of that love, but given the general opinion of the flick, no, this is not some misguided loyalty – it is a sad and colossal failure, and I should have listened to you.

This time.

A reaction like this is almost grist for that other, dormant Web project of mine, The Bad Movie Report, but that would mean actually watching the thing several times. Were it not for the near-universal disdain this movie engendered, I would truly suspect that it is the cavalier attitude toward what is, for me, a personal mythology, that so fans the flames of my dislike for the flick. But I’ve seen any number of, say, Italian or Mexican takes on this material that were light years away from being this slick, but that I enjoyed nonetheless.

It comes down to, I suspect, bad storytelling; I also suspect that anyone new to the Universal mythos might be totally lost at sea (I could be wrong on this point, however). I think it’s because I’ve not been given a reason to care about anybody. Breakneck story speed has not allowed a chance to develop an attachment for anyone, except, as usual, the Frankenstein Monster. And it seems an entire generation is going to grow up thinking that Mr. Hyde was the Victorian equivalent of the Incredible Hulk.

Alan Moore made that work. On Paper. In film, it seemingly has become a given. Two movies, I realize, do not constitute a trend, but when you’re as bruised as me, it only underlines your worst fears about the future.

April 3, 2006
Categories: The Wonderful World of Crap . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

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