NaNoWriMo 2009 in the books - at least for me

Once again, I participated in the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo). The basic goal is to complete a novel of at least 50,000 in the month of November. This was no third year, and also my third victory with the final word count clocking in around 53,000 words. This year looked a bit harrowing because I actually ditched my first idea on the second for a new one. In spite of that stumbling (and honestly speaking, the other idea was a better movie idea than a novel idea... maybe I'll save it for Script Frenzy), I managed to complete it.

Now if I only knew what to call it.

Quote of the Day

"He's world famous in Poland."
Anna Bronski (played by Anne Bancroft in To Be Or Not To Be)

Quote of the Day

"Now, let it be war upon you both!"
The Phantom (played by Gerard Butler in The Phantom of the Opera)

Quote of the Day

"You will not remember what I show you now, and yet I shall awaken memories of love... and crime... and death..."
Ardath Bey (played by Boris Karloff in The Mummy)

Quote of the Day

"What do you mean there's no government? There's always a government, they're in a bunker or a plane somewhere!"
Jim (played by Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later)

Quote of the Day

"Help me. Please... , help me."
Seth Brundle (played by Jeff Goldblum in The Fly)

Quote of the Day

"Rest... In... Peace."
The Undertaker (from the WWE)

Quote of the Day

"Yes... I... have... read... the file."
Swamp Thing (In Saga of the Swamp Thing issue 21)

Quote of the Day

"You rang?"
Lurch (played by Ted Cassidy in The Addams Family)

Quote of the Day

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."
Rod Serling from The Twlight Zone

Quote of the Day

"I'm sorry, I, uh... I ate a lot of sugar today."
Hannibal King (played by Ryan Reynolds in Blade: Trinity)

Quote of the Day

"Actually, it's seven men. Parts of them, anyway."
Van Helsing (played by Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing)

Quote of the Day

"I am a Death Dealer, sworn to destroy those known as the Lycans."
Selene (played by Kate Beckinsale in Underworld)

Quote of the Day

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."
Sheriff Brody (played by Roy Scheider in Jaws)

Quote of the Day

"Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."
Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong in King Kong)

Quote of the Day

"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."
Count Dracula (played by Bela Lugosi in Dracula)

Quote of the Day

"Bela turned into a wolf and you killed him. A werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet, or a silver knife... or a stick with a silver handle."
Maleva (played by Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man)

Quote of the Day

"Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun."

Ash (played by Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness)

Quote of the Day

"Muerte. That’s Spanish for death. Just in case you don't speak Mexican."
Salish (played by Clint Howard in House of the Dead)

Quote of the Day

“If the apocalypse comes, beep me.”
Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Geller in Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Quote of the Day

“We didn't come here to fight monsters, we're not equipped for it.“
David Reed (played by Richard Carlson in The Creature From the Black Lagoon)

Quote of the Day

“You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!”

Doctor Waldman (played by Edward Van Sloan in Frankenstein)

Quote of the Day

"You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by his red right hand"

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Red Right Hand

Quote of the Day

“Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!”

Henry Frankenstein (played by Colin Clive in Frankenstein)

Quote of the Day

"Are you weird?"

Elizabeth Solley (played by Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog)

Quote of the Day

"Oh crap."

Hellboy

Quote of the Day

"Okay. You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."

Jack Burton (played by Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China)

Quote of the Day

"Lights out, everybody!"

Announcer for the radio show Lights Out!

Quote of the Day

"What the frig?"

Grant Wilson, Ghost Hunters

Quote of the Day

“Children of the night, shut up!”

Count Dracula (played by George Hamilton in Love At First Bite)

Quote of the Day

"Right, 'cause after six hours that's when they're really dead."

Peter Bishop (played by Joshua Jackson in Fringe)

Quote of the Day

"Groovy"

Ash
(played by Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2)

Quote of the Day

"I'm boring myself just talking about this."

Jim Halpert
(played by Jim Krasinski in The Office)

Quote of the Day

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

Adam Savage, Mythbuster

Quote of the Day

"I'm a time traveler, I point and laugh at archaeologists."

The Doctor
(played by David Tennant in Doctor Who)

Quote of the Day

"I sent the club a wire stating, "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER"."

Groucho Marx

Quote of the Day

"Yeah, that can't be good."

Sheriff Jack Carter
(played by Colin Ferguson on Eureka)

Quote of the Day

"Quiet, numbskulls, I'm broadcastin'."

Moe Howard
(from The Three Stooges)

Quote of the Day

"I get paid for what most kids get punished for."

Jerry Lewis

Quote of the Day

"We interrupt this program to increase dramatic tension."

Announcer, Freakazoid

Quote of the Day

"Okay, look, I think you have as much of a chance of having a sexual relationship with Penny as the Hubble telescope does of discovering that at the center of every black hole is a little man with a flashlight searching for a circuit breaker. Nevertheless, I do feel obligated to point out to you that she did not reject you. You did not ask her out."

Sheldon
(played by Jim Parsons on Big Bang Theory)

Quote of the Day

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

Dr. Peter Venkman
(played by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters)

Quote of the Day

"I got it, I got it, I got it!
I got your number on the wall!
I got it, I got it, I got it!
For a good time, for a good time call...."

Tommy Tutone, 867-5309/Jenny

Quote of the Day

“He didn’t buy his walk through walls machine at Walk Through Wal-Mart”

Jack Carter, Eureka

Quote of the Day

"Why, you got some?"

MacGyver
(played by Richard Dean Anderson in MacGyver)

Quote of the Day

“You lose being trusted. Strange how important that is when it’s gone.”

Dr. Walter Bishop, Fringe

Quote of the Day

"Weather forecast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."

George Carlin

Quote of the Day

"I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed"


Marvin
(from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams)

Quote of the Day

"I love it when a plan comes together."


Hannibal Smith
(played by George Peppard on The A-Team)

Quote of the Day

"Someday, high school boys will leer at a girl and say 'she could power In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

Paula Poundstone
(On Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, commenting on a Slate story about the possibility of powering devices with jiggling... body parts)

Quote of the Day

"Elvis told me not to."

Self quoted
(there's a story behind this quote, too)

Quote of the Day

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

Sherlock Holmes
The Sign of the Four
(written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If I Were In charge - DC Comics Edition

It is a comic geek’s fantasy. A new editor in chief for DC Comics is needed. Searching far and wide, they come to one conclusion: I should be the EIC. I am given carte blanche to do what I want. Initially, I keep it down to five initial actions.

1) A two year moritorium on mega-crossovers. A crossover should be a special event. Something to draw in readers and make them want more. Mega-crossovers aren’t special when they happen every year. Initially, I would propose that we hold off on a major crossover for at least two years, which would lead into my next action.

2) Begin planning a mega-crossover for after the moritorium period. With careful planning from start to finish, we would be able to insure that this crossover would be as spectacular as such an event should be. In addition to that planning, there is also the time to build to event, planning clues in a number of books.

3) Expansion into new media - DC has a decent presence on TV and in the movies. If I were made EIC, I would explore expanding DC into new media directions. Chief among them would be the creation of an web based comic (similar to what Marvel has done with Spider-Woman), DC wikis, using the old Who’s Who format to collect information on characters, teams, events on-line and in CD format, and dramatic podcasts (similar to the audio adaptation of the Doomsday storyline as Superman Lives).

4) The creation of two anthology series - DC has begun to bring back the anthology series, but the concept can be expanded. The two new series would have multiple stories with rotating characters (one headliner, and an “undercard of stories). One of these series would revive the old World’s Finest series, the other could possibly be a continuation of DC’s Wednesday Comics weekly, if it is deemed to be a success.

5) Creator push - Bring in big name talent to pull in new readers is just a given. But, DC can work on developing new talent. DC ran a title in the 80s called New Talent Showcase, an anthology series featuring stories that fell outside the usual DC universe, and worked to bring new writers and artists to comic audiences. A title like this, either traditional or digital, could expand DC’s talent base and introduce new titles that can be licensed for other media.

The Guilty 10 from the Last 10

Following the same guidelines set in my previous post Worst 10 in the Last 10, here are the 10 movies in the last 10 years that I like in spite of themselves (and other people).

I’m still working on the Best 10 list.

The Guilty 10…

1) Daredevil (2003) - There is just something about this movie that just clicked for me. Maybe it was Colin Farrell as Bullseye, or the really cool explanation (and effects) of how Daredevil’s radar sense worked, I don’t know, but I usually end up watching this movie whenever it’s on. Check out the Director’s cut, it actually added a lot to the movie.

2) Punisher (2004) - Granted, Rebecca Romijn is way too good looking to be Joan (who was a bit mousy in the original story), but Thomas Jane is spot on as Frank Castle. Even better, we do see him wear the Punisher’s iconic skull in this movie, unlike the Dolph Lungren version.

3) National Treasure (2004) - This one I saw on DVD because my dad wanted to see it. I have to say, I was really pleasantly surprised by this neat little adventure movie.

4) Snakes on a Plane (2006) - In another decade, this movie would have been late night theatre fare much, much like Rocky Horror Picture Show, with all the audience interaction of Rocky Horror. Still, it’s just a fun movie to watch, especially on commercial cable (“I am tired of these monkey fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!“).

5) Silent Hill (2006) - I loved the creepy video games. And this movie managed to capture the same creepiness.

6) Slither (2006) - I love old horror movies, the Universal monster movies, Them, Hammer horror. Slither manages to play into the who B-movie/alien invasion movie while keeping a sense of humor about the whole thing.

7) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) - This movie captures the feel of the old serials.

8) Hellboy (2004) - a decend job bringing Mike Mignola’s comic icon to the big screen. Ron Perlman is perfect as Hellboy.

9) Blade: Trinity (2004) - The last of the Blade movies, but it is Ryan Reynolds that shines as vampire-hunting wiseass Hannibal King.

10) DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) - This is the epitome of the guilty pleasure. It’s not well acted in general, and the story is, well, it’s based off a video game where the principle premise is that scantily clad women fight each other. Regardless, I still have fun watching it, sort of like the fun you have when you watch an old kung fu movie.

The Worst 10 in the Last 10

I originally did this roughly two years ago. In that time, I felt it was necessary to revisit the list, seeing what may have dropped off, and what may have been added.

The criteria for the list is simple. First (and obviously), the movie had to have been released in the last ten years (1999 to 2009). Secondly, I had to have seen it, or at least enough of it to know it’s garbage. Finally, it had to have seen theatrical release (thus eliminating a number of direct to DVD and Sci-Fi Channel movies).

I do hope to make a Best 10 in the Last 10 list, but this one is a lot easier to compile.

The List (in no particular order)

1) Star Wars Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace 1999 - Squeaking in under the timeline wire, the first of Lucas’ new Star Wars films, and a real disappointment. The characters were flat (except Jar Jar Binks, who was just annoying), and the story was weak, a real shame considering how long Lucas had to work on it. This was the movie that made me not want to pay full price for a movie again (yay matinee).

2) Star Wars Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones 2002 - Episode 1 was a disappointment in that I thought it could have been a lot better than it was. Episode 2 killed the magic of Star Wars for me. Where the characters were flat and uninteresting in Episode 1, the were just total jerks in Episode 2. It is sad when you have a talented cast like Episode 2 had (and Hayden Christensen), and the best acting is from a computer generated muppet. I stopped watching Star Wars movies altogether because of this one.

3) Aeon Flux 2005 - Beyond the occasional appearance on MTV’s Liquid Television, I never really got into Aeon Flux. When I watched this movie, I found it incomphrehensible. Somehow, I have a feeling watching the original series would do anything to clear up the confusion.

4) Ultraviolet 2006 - It is really saying something when half way through watching a movie, you decide to do something a bit more interesting, like house cleaning. This movie just did not make me care about it at all.

5) Alone in the Dark 2005 - Seriously. Did casting really think we would believe that Tara Reid was a scientist?

6) House of the Dead 2003 - The second Uwe Boll movie on the list (Boll directed Alone in the Dark), House of the Dead was based off the arcade shooter. The movie is horribly cliched, badly acted, and just downright bad.

7) Bloodrayne 2005 - The third Uwe Boll film on the list, and probably the one that cemented his reputation as the Ed Wood Jr. of the 21st century, though that's really kind of an insult to Ed Wood Jr. Even more shocking is that Ben Kinglsey, the man who played Gandhi (and won an oscar for that role) was in this… movie.

8) Matrix Reloaded 2003

9) Matrix Revolutions 2003 - A poll these two movies together not because they are both Matrix movies, but because personally, I think the two of them, edited down and merged into one, could have been a great movie. Instead, what we got were two movies with scenes that were way too long (some almost painfully long), and action sequences that were added to say, “Hey, look what we can do!”

10) Underworld: Evolution 2006 - I had high hopes for this movie. I loved the first one. Sadly, I was disappointed in this one. The story seemed to go nowhere, the characters seemed to do nothing, and the love scene between Selene and Michael seemed to be there so that the director could say, “Oh yeah, that’s who I get to sleep with every night.” From what I heard, the third movie in the series is supposed to be vastly better. From what I’ve seen of this one, I don’t think it could be worse.

Emo the Cat

He was just a domestic shorthair. A common house cat. Still, when we picked him up from Catzablanca in Rocky Hill, we knew he was the cat for our family. He was originally going to be called Peeper, since he seemed to peep more than meow. I figured that he would eventually grow out of that and wanted to call him something else. His named ended up being Emo, after comedian Emo Philips.

Emo was an independent cat, choosing when he wanted to be around us. usually, that was by either curling up next to us while we watched TV, or lying on our backs when we slept. One time, when he was just a kitten, he even came into my room when I was a sleep and decided he wanted to be on my pillow. I'm in bed, and I feel this little paw on the back of my head. So I move over a little bit, intending to slare the pillow. Again, I feel a little paw nudge on my head, and again I move over a little more. With the third paw nudge, I found my head off the pillow. And there he was, lying on the pillow with that innocent, "What? What I do?" look.

Emo was like that. When he wanted something, he'd let you know. If his food dish was empty, he's come into my room, jump on my dresser, and start pushing books off of it, usually on me. Either that, or he'd jump on my parents dresser and start knocking stuff off of it. There were even a few times when he'd rest his paw on a small bottle or something near the edge and wait until he had our attention before pushing it off.

It seemed like his favorite hobby was getting in the way. He'd see you were walking somewhere in the house and race to get ahead of you. Once there, he'd start slowly meandering around, lingering in front of you. he especially liked to do this when you had things in hand, like groceries or other shopping. It was like he knew there was no way you could pick him up and move him out of the way then.

Only once did this hobby of hid get the better of him. It was a Sunday night. My dad, who had been commuting from here to Washington DC at the time, was getting ready so that he didn't have to worry about it the next day. Emo wanted to be in the bathroom. He had long discovered that it was a nice spot for him. It was sunny during the day, and was the one room that was most likely to have an open window. My dad shooed him out of the bathroom so that he could finish up. But, Emo being Emo, took his sweet old time in getting out. What he didn't count on was that my dad didn't see his tail was clear of the bathroom door. One closed door and one panicked cat later, he was now sporting a shortened tail. A few weeks, a few trips to the vet, a cone for his head, and one for his tail later, he was back and once more getting into our way. Still, it was something I never let my dad forget. Whenever we saw a cat in a picture that looked like Emo, I would say, "That looked just like Emo, except he has a tail and Emo doesn't. I wonder why tail is?" (It was only the tip of his tail, but the exaggeration made it seem funnier at the time).

Emo remained active, even after he was diagnosed with diabetes two years ago. Our family adjusted to it. Feedings twice a day, and shots just as often. His snacks were cut down to help keep everything under control, but he still would get a special treat of chicken or turkey every now and then. He seemed to have a sixth sense for when we were going to make a sandwich, racing down to the fridge even before we pulled out the cold cuts.

Eventually, old age and diabetes caught up with him. He began to eat less, and not be as active. the Tuesday before we brought him to the vet, he did not want to move or eat. Well, except when I went to get him some turkey to see if he would eat that. But, even then, he couldn't quite make it to the fridge. He tried, but he was just too tired.

Emo died Sunday. He may have been just a domestic shorthair cat, but he was still a member of our family. And we will miss him dearly.