the new tv shows
been busy, what with the new fall season of tv (details and opinions to follow) and working part time again (a few hours a few nights a week plus daytime on saturday) and all the rest of life's stuff still going on

the job is easy enough, though it is a weird schedule for me, tv obsessive that i am. i get home a little after 8 weeknights and am taking advantage of the dvr for just about every show...

and, as for those shows:

• heroes - premiered last night and, while i was looking forward to this one, i just couldn't be bothered to care. it started boring and continued boring and i would have turned it off after less than 20 minutes if i'd been more decisive about what i wanted to watch instead... actually, it didn't start boring; it started annoying and pretentious and pathetic and pissed me off with its stupid text scrawl about an epic beginning and i was NOT in the mood to care. and, what followed thereafter bored me into giving up completely
• runaway - and this was where i went after i turned off the broing heroes, and i regretted it (for a while, anyway, as i ended up watched the latest episode of the wire on demand instead). writing was trying to be clever for a pilot, joining the plot already in progress, leaving the audience in the dark as to what's going on even though the premise is obvious. the line about the dead grandma was hilarious, but this show is not a comedy and i turned it off a short time after that
• vanished - aka the bad abduction show of the season, but probably the one that will last, cause fox seems like it will put up with this crap. they couldn't be bothered to put up with firefly a few years back, but now, i think they will let this shit linger
• kidnapped - aka the good abduction show of the season, and the one most likely to be cancelled. nbc is not the network to let a serial like this last, methinks. but, i hope they will cause this one had a strong cast and a fantastic pilot
• standoff - a great balance between crisis drama and romantic comedy and a nice cast, if they can just keep the crisises from being too repetitive. this is one of the shows this season that would work better as a movie plot than a series plot, but i like it so far
• shark - and, as for shows that would work better as movie plots, there's this one, which, without james woods, would probably suck. as it is, though, with woods in the lead, it should be entertaining for a while, though i don't see the series having far to go. i did like that woods' character was just as horrible a person when he's doing "good" things as when he's doing "bad" but i wish they a) hadn't bothered showing us the case that broke him or b) made it better, spent more time on it. but, his dealings with his new underlings were entertaining and his daughter's choice to live with him because he's obviously still a seriously flawed guy could make for an interesting plot... for a little while. i don't see my interest in this show lasting more than a few episodes, even if the daughter's a little cute
• justice - and this lawyer show had something great going for it, but only one "something": the jury manipulation stuff. that stuff was great in the first few episodes, but the overall style of the show, the ending gimick (which hadn't really revealed anything too shocking or even interesting yet) and the dialogue, not to mention the annoying computer displays or the notion of the tv-universe lawfirm of four people doing everything, just couldn't sustain any of my interest. give me a show about jury manipulation, a straight drama, and i could watch that, but not this
• jericho - started well enough, but i don't think it will last long. too potentially dark combined with a little too much potential schmaltz (even if mcraney can pull off cheesy speeches fairly well). ulrich was good, but some beats along the way in the pilot could have been left out, notably the prison bus, an easy plot for a later episode, even the second episode, that did NOT need to be set up ahead of time
• six degrees - didn't expect to like this show at all, but the first episode was enjoyable enough, although i don't give a shit about christenson's past. the photographer's story was great and i almost wish it (and that of the woman he's got his eye on) wouldn't be stuck in this high concept, ensemble show
• brothers & sisters - the problem with this show's pilot is it didn't set up what this show is. there were hints at political content, but that seemed like it could just be subtext for family problems, there were shady business dealings but no real detail to those either... again, i think they serve more as subtext for family problems. but, if this show is just about the family problems, why bother hinting at politics and business? or, if you will be bothering with them, get into more detail, damn it. a nice cast (though i should look into the changes, since i heard a bit about pilot reshoots and cast changes and whatnot) and some great acting out of them along the way, but i still gotta wonder what this show will do with itself over time
• studio 60 on the sunset strip - and aaron sorkin is back, and he hasn't changed much, but i'm ok with that. the big tv names will have their styles and, though they may change it a bit sometimes (see deadwood or rome for examples), it's comforting when they give you exactly what you expect (and exactly what you wish they'd been giving you for years now, if only certain shows hadn't been cancelled). still not sure how well this show will pull off the show within the show--really, a pirates of penzance musical number?--but i think, like sports night, it can focus plenty on the behind the scenes drama enough to not have to bother with the sketch comedy... like early west wing could confine itself easily to the office stuff

and i'm still planning to check out the nine and 30 rock and maybe friday night lights and already watched the pilot for showtime's dexter online and enjoyed it a lot

as for not so new shows, brotherhood just finished its first season and went out strongly, the wire is back for season four and is probably the best show on television... at least until battlestar galactica comes back in a couple weeks. house is still house, lost and veronica mars return next week, grey's anatomy had a mediocre start to the new season. survivor's been boring so far, but it (and amazing race, also recently returned) have trouble early on with too many "characters"

and in non tv news, i finally edited clubhouse blues and should be putting together a cover soon and getting the book onto cafepress, and i have two chapters left to write in on the slopes of stanjantuwel, but i'm still not keeping up with that as regularly as i should

instead, i've been watching some dvds of late, notably the production diaries for king kong (pre and post), and space above and beyond (about halfway through the show, i think)

and my most recent movies were the last kiss in the theater saturday night--went out for japanese food and to the movie with sarah, kids with my dad for the night, and it was a great date and a pretty good movie (it made me want to watch other things, though (garden state and huff) which isn't often a good sign)--and the great new wonderful, which was nice to watch but ultimately didn't amount to much

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how evil am i?

You Are 54% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

the crocodile hunter... leave it to me to disagree
that is, not that i'll disagree about how a great a guy he was or how enjoyable his show(s) could be, cause he seemed a truly great guy and his show was fairly enjoyable, but one little detail regarding his death keeps bugging me

see, they keep calling it a "freak accident" or a "freak encounter" like the stinger on a stingray isn't actually there specifically to sting things that invade its space. sure, there are only 17 human fatalities resulting from stingray stings on record, but come on, being stung by something that stings is NOT a "freak" anything. it's what happens

personality disorder test
apparently, i'm nuts

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Personality Disorder:	Very High
Schizoid Personality Disorder:	High
Schizotypal Personality Disorder:	High
Antisocial Personality Disorder:	High
Borderline Personality Disorder:	Very High
Histrionic Personality Disorder:	High
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:	High
Avoidant Personality Disorder:	Very High
Dependent Personality Disorder:	High
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	High
-- Take the Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Info --

let's get naked

• contacted frank darabont yesterday
• put together a new font for the titles on clubhouse blues
• wrote a blog entry about work opportunities and whatnot
• watched mythbusters, life on mars from monday, the premiere of justice (which i rather liked, despite an eratic camera in the early scenes), and the finale of 30 days (and was confused in that one cause there was some spoiler going about (that i avoided) that seemed to involve something major happening, so i expected violence or something, but the episode was good)
• DID NOT write any fiction

but, that's not one i'm intending to be on about this morning. i wanted to discuss prudery. see, i put a picture of someone's naked back on the cover of my cafepress book, seeing her naked, and two of my sisters recently bought the book, but not before freaking out about the cover and the model and a whole bunch of silliness, like seeing someone without clothes is the most horrible evil that could ever be. of course, they grew up with the same mother i had, who would cover eyes or tell you to turn your head if a frickin sec scene came on the tv or in a movie. violence, of course, was fine. this is america, afterall. watch all the violence you want, but don't you dare look at anyone's naughty bits, even if there's nothing pornographic going on. and, when you're getting dressed or undressed, you better hide in a closet or the bathroom so no one can see you, cause, duh, didn't adam and eve cover themselves after they sinned, and didn't god say that was the way it should be?

not that i tend to listen to god anymore, of course, but all of that biblical shit is in my head forever--helps on the religion category over at funtrivia.com, which is nice--and i suppose i understand the inability to fight it, deeply ingrained prudery and whatnot. but, come on. is a little flesh on display so bad?

even when i was young, i wondered about a lot of the religious stuff, but specifically this one i remember. i liked the idea of living a life that didn't require clothes, where clothes were more decoration than necessity. i've since then toyed with the notion of visiting a nude beach, or something like that--though, my prude side combined with my layers of fat combined with what people i know might think of me after have always stopped me--but to no avail. keep the clothes on and everything is well, i guess. the world goes on, people get slaughtered over political, economic and militaristic ideals and people still fucking freak out over a little skin

hurricanes destroy whole cities (and not just new orleans), levees break and people die while the government sits by the wayside, wars are waged in the name of freedom but instead oppress a few nonwhites on the other side of the world, and all for control of oil, even as gas prices rise and gas guzzling suvs get more popular, criminals rot in prison, with no hope of rehabilitation or help, and the world goes on, as long as we all keep our clothes on

it's pathetic

found this anonymous quote in the wikipedia entry for nudism:

The best thing to do would be to designate everywhere as clothing optional, and we could leave little fenced in areas for the prudes to prance around in. Call them "Prudist Camps". They could peer out of their fences and indulge in their offensive "I'm offended" behaviour whenever they saw a natural person walk by, without bothering the rest of us.

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bold moves, so to speak; captions; and writing in general
i recently in this blog mentioned the notion of sending a screenplay of mine to a couple people, (directly or indirectly) kevin bacon and atom egoyan, and i was barely willing to do it, risk of rejection and all that, but more recently i figured, what the fuck? and i sent it. and, just this morning, i did something else i mentioned in that same blog entry, i contacted frank darabont about a story to which he owns the film rights. don't know if anything will come of any of those things, but i think it's worth noting that i did them, even if just for my own sense of... not being such a fuck-up that i can't bother to put my stuff out there from time to time. there should be a word for that, and probably is, but i don't know it

my job, part time for a website that dealt in ads for dog breeders and dog supplies (treats, grooming supplies and even clothes), recently relocated, so i'm unemployed currently. i've interviewed for a couple jobs already, applied for a few more. notable among the interviews was one at a place that does closed captions. part of the testing process after the interview was to add captions to a bit of an episode of rome from last season, which was cool, and not just cause it's my first interview to involve a sex scene, but cause i think doing the caption thing would be fun (as long as i get to sit and just watch the show first if it's something i watch anyway, that is). but, the hours might not work, busy family schedule and me being the only driver of the only car and all that. it's possible to turn that job into an at home thing later, but i don't know how much later. i would be working in hollywood (literally and in that much more important way as well)

i still want to write, though

it's weird. i'm constantly giving up on that, thinking ok, no more writing, just gonna let it slide away and be done. but, then i find myself writing again (a half dozen or so pages of on the slopes of stanjantuwel yesterday, for example). i find it hard, considering all the other things in life i have to do (and choose to do in the spare moments), to get back to old writings of mine, doing rewrites and new edits and sending them out. but, maybe that will change, now that i've gotten those crazy moves mentioned above out of my system. maybe i can finally finish editing clubhouse blues and get it sent out to an agent. maybe i can finally do a rewrite of the man with the holes in his hands, even if i just end up selfpublishing through cafepress, like i did with seeing her naked, which has sold a few copies already

of course, here i am writing a blog entry instead of doing any of that editing. not sure if that's a problem or not

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Advanced Global Personality Test

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||| 13. Stability |||||||||| 33. Orderliness |||||||||||||||| 63. Accommodation |||| 16. Interdependence |||||||||||| 43. Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 70. Mystical |||||||||| 36. Artistic |||||||||||||||||||| 83. Religious |||||||||| 36. Hedonism |||||| 30. Materialism |||||||||||||||||| 76. Narcissism || 10. Adventurousness |||||| 30. Work ethic |||||| 30. Self absorbed |||||||||||||| 56. Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 50. Need to dominate |||||||||||||||| 63. Romantic |||||||||||| 43. Avoidant |||||||||||||||||| 76. Anti-authority |||||||||||||||| 70. Wealth || 10. Dependency |||||||||||| 50. Change averse |||||||||||||||| 63. Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70. Individuality |||||||||||||||| 63. Sexuality |||||||||||||||| 70. Peter pan complex |||||||||||||||||||| 90. Physical security |||||||||||||||| 70. Physical Fitness || 10. Histrionic |||||||||||||| 56. Paranoia |||||||||||||||||||| 83. Vanity |||||| 30. Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||||||| 83. Female cliche |||||||||| 36.

Stability results were moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were very low which suggests you are extremely reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:

depressed, introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, familiar with the dark side of life, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous

data entry, lunacy, writing, and other stuff not worth mentioning
Now Playing: pandora
found the following on a post-it note in my desk drawer:

enter item number, enter quantity, enter cost per unit, hard return
enter item number, enter quantity, enter cost per unit, hard return...

and so on.

some days i wonder if these "items" even exist or if it's all just some ploy to keep we deskslaves drained of anything resembling hope or happiness. sell your sould to the gods of data entry and you won't even have the energy to be depressed about it.

and there's a note to "reference muslims to mecca, deskworkers to breaktime," and it's dated 12-2-5 with an REGB (my initials)

guess i wasn't too keen on my data entry job last december. odd to find this post-it now, when i'm looking for a new job (my current one at puppydogweb coems to an end this week or maybe next, as the business is relocating out of my commute range) and may very well end up in yet another data entry related position. got my resume into a closed caption place, which could be interesting, but who knows? of late, i've been

1. thinking on the whole giving up on writing thing, cause who's got the time when it goes nowhere?
2. thinking on trying my hand at some crazy, forward things, like contacting frank darabont about a chance to write something, or sending one of my scripts to atom egoyan's agent or kevin bacon's people

the latter sounds like a perfectly feasible idea late at night, but morning comes and i think myself a lunatic (literally, i suppose). and, also last night, i was looking forward to writing a bit of "on the slopes of stanjantuwel," my gardea version novel of my old vikariad online comic--i'm halfway through chapter three, of what looks to be nine (as opposed to the original seven), and it's in now way a regular everyday writing thing--but morning comes and it seems more another waste of time. i've already got to go by the post office today and i've got to try listing some comics on ebay (again) to make a little money, and of course, i've got to find a new job (an activity i'm not eager to do--the finding part, i mean). been up for more than two hours already and i've looked up contact information for darabont (already had contact information for egoyan and bacon in that same drawer where i found that bit about data entry), copied some photos off the digital camera to the hard drive--for a book cover of all things, as if i'm about to put together another self published book (i've got seeing her naked available on cafepress already, but i've only sold a copy to one person, go figure). i like designing covers, i like writing, i love the idea of selling my work to an audience, but i really suck at making that audience grow

speaking of "seeing her naked" though, when i wrote it originally, it built an audience, emailed chapter by chapter to an audience that reached near a hundred, later posted to two different message boards, chapter by chapter again, to an audience the number of which i couldn't be too precise, but all in all, read by (benefit of the doubt to me, here) a couple hundred people. still, it isn't much, but it's a lot more than one. and, i've got newer stuff--my gardea books, a novel called "clubhouse blues," a novel called "beginning," various short stories and some older novels that could probably use rewrites--that, often at night, as i mentioned, i think could use a wider audience, deserve a wider audience. but, who am i to decide that last bit, you know? i've got a weird combination of low self esteem and arrogance that tends too often toward the low self esteem side when it counts and tends too often toward the arrogance when it doesn't, getting me to work on project after project over the years and get hardly a one out to any real audience. of course, i must consider that half the problem is my work isn't really that good, my biggest fans being folks who obviously relate to me personally anyway and have a biased (consciously or not) view of things, and that it isn't all about my inability to get stuff out there, though that is a big problem

and i've gained weight of late, and it's been a horribly hot summer here in california, and now i've got to find a new job, so my future schedule is blurry... which i suppose explains why i like my moxi dvr so much, watching all my tv on whatever schedule i can manage, and why i like knowing what's coming of late, specific times and dates, things to do, the more specific the better i suppose...

except, even that isn't exactly true. some of my best times are when i get to, on the spur of the moment, pop a dvd in and watch a movie or an episode of some old show (currently making my way through space: above and beyond) or when i get to pull out some lego blocks and go to town building whatever occurs to me, or often a movie or tv show while i build with lego blocks, all the while checking that the kids are alive in the next room (cause, you know, that's a must)

and one of the kids is gone right now, a couple weeks into a four week visit with her grandparents on the other side of the country, so the house is different all around, different feel, different tone, not drastically--not like she runs the place or anything--but noticeably. and, i really should be writing about vik (formerly "vike") right now, headed into the balkor (formerly "the woods") with his pere (formerly "father"). so, i suppose i'll cut this entry here

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airports, agnostics, atheists, asylums and alcatraz (or the lack thereof)
Now Playing: pandora
hayley left the state this morning. had to get up at 6 to go to the airport. was asleep about midnight, after the colbert report, so it wasn't too bad.

been wanting to write an essay about agnosticism and atheism, but just can't stand reading the various "proof of god" websites thismorning. there's arrogance and inanity all around--even from my side of things, i'll admit--and i'm just not in the mood. did find a nifty little quote about agnostics though, then lost it when i did a copy and paste and can't seem to figure out which site in the firefox history had it (clicked each one and can't find it again, which is odd). it was something like--and i wish i could get the wording right as i saw it--"how can you be sure you know enough to decide you can't know everything?"

busy of late in my spare moments building a few lego things, using the new batman sets. built an elaborate batcave:

and now arkham asylum:

and after watching murder in the first the previous weekend, we went on a whim to san francisco this last weekend, got around to chinatown, fisherman's wharf, pier 39, lombard street, ate at a chinese restaurant in chinatown, at hard rock cafe, at ghiardelli square, but alcatraz boat tickets were sold out. had a good time, did a lot of walking (just left the car at the hotel and walked everywhere) and a bit of swimming (in the hotel pool, not the bay).

by the by, that urge to write about agnostics came from a guy on pbs friday night in the hotel in san francisco, talking about politics and the mideast and whatnot, then asked about his agnosticism, he proceeds to ask why the universe is so complicated, why this and why that... and that bugs me to no end, when folks claim they don't believe in a creator then presume to ask "why?"

see, if you think the "how" of it is complex, fine, i'll grant you that; i will never know everything, but i allow for the possibility that everything can be known, even if it takes a lot of time and a lot of research. but, throwing out that "why" question assumes a reason, a purpose, and if you're going to bother with that, i say pick a diety already, be it allah, jhwh or even cthulhu. at least, then, we've got a debate

magic crap lady in the water
m night shyamalan, like those folk in the village, isolates himself from the world at large, from hollywood, and does his thing in his own way, with nary a dissenting voice getting in his way--though his delivery of his latest script, it seems, wasn't received well by his people at warner. they thought him crazy, thought he'd lost touch with reality, with film, with, well, anything normal i suppose...

and, they were right

lady in the water amounts to a nice looking piece, but a self-indulgent, often silly, thing that makes itself up as it goes along, purporting to be about finding purpose in a world gone crazy (and we're reminded by every tv and radio in the background that the world is caught up in wars and rumours of wars), or some shit like that, even while the end of the movie puts to an end any purpose found within by any of the multitude of characters were get to meet (and, really, we do little more than meet most of them, shyamalan only allowing time to get to know a handful, including his own character (but i'll get to his character in a moment))

a fairy tale in structure, but far too complicated within to really work for children, i'm betting, and far too obsessed with bryce dallas howard's legs (not that there's anything wrong with that, in theory) as a constant reminder that she's wearing nothing more than a borrowed man's shirt, cause, remind us and remind us again, she's not human... cause she's got so few lines and so little to do, oddly enough, that we really need those constant reminders

then, there's paul giamatti's schlubbish caretaker, isolated even from the rest of the cast by living in a small house at the edge of the apartment building property, scarred by the trama of losing his wife, a la mel gibson's minister in signs, and his kids. and giamatti, as usual, puts his all into the role, makes cleveland heep into a real person, even if he then gets dragged into exposition scene after exposition scene--which, you'd think would be even more traumatic than losing his family, but no, apparently, saving the narf from the scrunt that wants to kill her so the giant eagle can take her away--seriously, that's the plot--we're supposed to believe is saving his life, even though it only supplies him a day or two of adventure, and localized adventure at that

but, there's another character worth mentioning as well. and it isn't the recluse who we're supposed to believe is a well respected old man, when he just seems like a crabby old hermit in his early scenes. and it isn't any of the other myriad of characters--not even the film critic, shyamalan's obvious attack on similar ilk in and around hollywood after his previous film was so poorly received, who tells us exactly how the film is structured, when important characters would have been introduced to foreshadow their later importance, and all that, even predicting his own surviving of an attack by the scrutn to be important later, then, surprise surprise, getting killed like all those hateful film critics need to be, apparently). no, it's shyamalan's own character, his largest role yet in any of his movies, a writer who's work is going to change the world. seriously, he's arrogant enough to cast himself as a writer who will change the world. i mean, i'd like to cast myself as that sort of thing also, in real life if not in a story, but, i don't know, i'd like to think i would have the presence of mind not to present myself as such to the audience with a big "fuck you, it's my movie and i'll do what i want" attitude. although, i do wish i could do a movie and be free to do what i want with it, i hope i'd have a better grasp of narrative structure, a better sense of subtlety, and, hell, the wherewithall to at least get a nice mermaid butt shot at least as brief as that in the disney produced splash instead of lingering so much on legs...

and what was with putting the camera in the position of story--that's the narf's name--so often? is shyamalan that desperate to speak directly to his audience?

and, why try to be clever about storytelling--the amusing back and forth and forth between heep, the korean student and her mother withstanding--with the critic's exposition about how the introduction of characters works, nevermind that cleveland would have been introduced to all the characters long before we meet them, and the critic's final scene, commenting specifically on film structure and unlikeable characters, only to die and turn immediately into a useless character, a misstep among missteps in a script riddled with them... and i think all that paragraph was supposed to be a question, so... ?

why make up your own mythology when you can discuss purpose and meaning much easier if you use something more familiar?

and why cast yourself when you can barely emote and just come off as a self centered, arrogant prick by doing so?

and, why build your own apartment building? were there none available at all in philadelphia?

and, why the fuck did you cut to the two villagers finding the costume missing when the drama would have been heightened by us NOT FRICKIN KNOWING THAT NOAH'S DRESSED UP?!

oh, scratch that last one. wrong movie