Thursday, December 26, 2002

Back from Hiatus

Okay, well it has been an eventful week or so. I moved last weekend and spent most of the previous week trying to get that to happen. Been a bit crazy up there. To make a long story short I spent all of last weekends waking hours packing, moving, eating, or shitting. Fun stuff. I no longer have Internet access and I do not know when I will. It may be a few weeks so my email/blogging will be a bit erratic. Anyway I am down in LA right now until sunday evening. I will give you guys more gory details later. I just do not feel like typing it up. I will be around.

Yo Momma


Wednesday, December 25, 2002

Leonardo De Suckio

Went to watch the Gangs of New York last night. Theatre was mostly empty as people are probably out somewhere skiing or having Christmas celebrations at anywhere but here. The movie itself had less than 20 spectators, most of whom probably had nowhere exciting to go either. The movie followed with the mood of the entire evening: unorgasmic.

As a child, Leonardo's character was born in the life of 19th century brooklyn ghettos, AKA 5 points, was populated mostly by poor irish immigrants that flooded the ports of New York. While Ireland was plagued by the potato famine, the Irish came to the US in Hordes, seeking of a better life. The portrayal of life in the 5 points was quite shocking and pictured fairly well. Living in the ghetto, money was scarce, your life would have been one born into a local gang and your daily occupation was to be a hooker, thief, or murderer. Death... it seemed was almost welcomed and accepted as much as living. One can get robbed at any corner, killed for a dollar, or murdered by one of the local gangs. Life was cheap. You got a feeling that life was almost meaningless and wondered how these people maintained their sanity.

That was pretty much the only good part of the movie. I'm not going any more into detail, incase some of you might actually go watch the movie. However, be warned, this movie served better as a documentary of life in 19th century new york/brooklyn, than anything to do with gangs or mafias. It was a far cry short of movies such as The Godfather. A lot of grotesque scenes (butchery, murders, fights) and a lot of nudity (Nude tits). Very inappropriate for children.

Final Grade: B-

Also finished up the book, Kingdoms for Sale, by Terry brooks. The plot of the book was interesting. In a department store catalog, much like the one's you'd find at Ross or Macy's, was advertised a kingdom for sale for 1 million dollars. Why or How that land became for sale, you'll have to read the book. But basically the Protagonist of the book, Ben Holliday, a successful but lackluster lawyer, purchased the mythical land, and became it's king. However, he later finds that all was not as seemed as written in the Ad. He inherits a crumbling castle, with no retainers, no army and no money. He has a few followers, a court magician, 2 kobold cooks, and a dog as a court writer. On top of that, a demon vyes for the throne. Will he succeed in bring peace to this mythical land or would he pay the ultimate price, his life, in his attempt at kingship?

Read the book and find out...

Kingdoms for sale: A-

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

Move to where they got the best ****

Fuck Minosota . Move somewhere cool Jael!

Anyways: I just got a new vid-card. Not much- an older Voodoo3 - anyways- disabled my onboard crappy card and made this one the primary (in the bios) but somewhere in the process, my computer doesn't see my cd drives (F and E) !!! WTF!?!? Any ideas? I'm kinda stoaked right now cuz I'm getting some good frame-rates, whatever, but I'd like to eventually get access to my cd drives again. Don't see them at all in the Device Manager- when I boot- it looks like windows is seeing them, but it also looks a little off (like the id numbers its givving them looks generic) once Windows is up, I can't find those 2 drives to save my life. I hate computers.. :\

HAPPY X-MAS AGAIN!
Actionteam Gang

Jon, I have a proposal. You need a roomate in Minnesota or whereever the fuck your going? I need to get away from it all. Fuck parents that treat me like a 10 year old. It's time that I made it on my own. It's time that I flew this crazy coop. I don't know if job's going to be a problem. I'm sure I can leverage something.

Johnny
Merry X-Mas

Hope you guys all have a safe and sane x-mas! Yeah, I read about the Clash guy dying yesterday morning- that is a total bummer. I'm not real familiar with any of his solo stuff, but the Clash are a great band- truly sad.

Anyways- take care guys- later

Monday, December 23, 2002

Rock the Graveyard

Joe Strummer has joined such famous rockers as Joey Ramone, Darby Crash, and G.G. Allin in the great Rock N' Roll graveyard in the sky. He died of an apparent heart attack at his home. Nothing cool like Darby, but it still sucks.
Congrats!

Good job on getting that Zombie short story submitted. You said it was the third book right? So I'll pass by the ol barny an boobs, and get a copy. Hey man, it's a start. You got to write some fantasy novels like the pervert pierce anthony. Some stuff about virgin sex and underaged love. Be sure to include lots of random races so that you can explore that incestual side of the characters. And then you can lieu that into their human side so that you can insinuate that the characters were actually like us, so the "young adults" can get a kick out of it. See? It's a book already! You can throw a couple of Thai Hookers in there just for twists. haha! D'oh.

Got 2 books at the library. I haven't read any novels since last year. That's a pretty long time. Anyways, I wondered if my library card still worked or if I had like a million dollar fine from a book I don't even remember being checked out. Turned out uneventful. Checked out a book "kindoms for sale" by terry brooks. Terry is a good writer? I don't remember much from sword of shannara. We'll see. Libraries are cool. There are now software, videos, cd's, DVD's that you can rent. I remember perusing the library over at redondo and they had a huge selection of Vtapes. Anyways, I rented this really cool video on Ukelales and it's awesome! I'm going to go buy a ukelale. It only has 4 strings so the playability is more like a solo instrument! yah!

Wish you all a Merry Christmas! Aaron did you trek down yet? Did you end up taking the Grey Hound like you were saying? Let me know! If you don't respond in 3 days, I'm presuming your missing somewhere on the 5 freeway chopped up so I'll call the cops. Mykel! Hee' ey!! How are things now in the archeological digs? I hope things are better with that ex bizzatch/supervisor issue. Hopefully you can come up with Jon, Eric and Rudy when they come and visit. (key note: when) =)

Happy Holidays!
Jael

Sunday, December 22, 2002

Writing at $2/hour

Yeah... you get paid diddly-squat for short stories. They aren't a way to make money, at all. Typically you are paid a flat rate (usually a few cents per word) rather than any sort of royalty agreement (like you might find in the music biz). The only places that pay anything like a good price for shorts are the top-notch magazines like Playboy, and those usually only publish one piece of fiction per issue. Obviously even a very very good writer's chances of getting published in the upper-tier magazines is so close to nil that it's foolish to assume you'll profit from it. In the old days guys like HP Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard could eke out a living on short stories alone, but sadly those days are gone. Instead the goal with short stories is not to make money off of those alone, but to a) use them as practice for something more profitable (ie, a novel) and/or b) write enough good-quality ones that you can publish a book of them.

Writing's a pretty tough business.

Hey Ja-el, come down and you can be a member of my family for Xmas!

Ohhh... starting with this camping trip last weekend, I've been eating so much that I feel totally bloated. How did I used to eat this much on a regular basis? Come the New Year it's time to take a few pounds back off, methinks. I learned this new way to do it... what you do is you don't eat for two days, and then on the third you eat a ton, but you throw it all back up and eat like a piece of toast or something. It's really healthy and supposedly it really works!

I finally played Upwords today. Twice. It has truly been a day to remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!

burnt
Congrats

Click here and over here for the AMAZON.com write-ups on the 1st 2 zombie books. Pretty awesome dude. Is that all they're really gonna pay you though??? Also, Johnny's home is up north now, so no JAEL for xXx-Mas. :\

"LARPing brings out those raw emotions that have driven people to greatness."

There's a pretty cool site at http://www.legendsroleplaying.com/Gallery.html Plus they're located in central Massachussetts so I'll have some pals when I move!

$174 closer to fame and fortune

It looks like your boasting at JP's art party was not in vain Rudy. Pending their acceptance of the final revision, it looks like my cannibal/zombie story will be published in Eden Studio's "Book of Final Flesh" anthology of zombie stories. Eden Studios is the publisher of "All Flesh Must Be Eaten." I've never seen either of the first two anthologies anywhere (Book of Flesh and Book of More Flesh), but then I don't usually peruse the undead section of Barnes & Noble.

Anyway I do want to hang out with you guys, when is a good day? Sunday isn't so hot for me but most other days are pretty good. Aaron, Johnny, are you guys home yet?