Born to Cat Blog, Baby

Here goes...

Suck on that!

Quicksilver

...and by that I mean the movie about bike messengers starring Kevin Bacon. I don't have anything to say about it, but I was trying to come up with a title for this post and that was the first thing that popped into my head.

First off, I've been posting every day, but due to a computer glitch, only persons with a G7 or Pentium IX processor were able to see them. Citizens of the future have been marveling at my wit for the past month.

Do visit thrillomedy.com. For a neophyte designer, I like what Casimir has done with the place.

If you ever lose your pants button while at work, either because you have eaten too many Christmas cookies, or you just go about zipping up post-potty with a little too much vigor, a good temporary solution involves winding a paper clip through both the hole on the zipper handle and the button hole itself, then twisting the clip secure. Theoretically, both could fall in tandem, but this will hold you until you locate either a sewing kit or the nudity-permitting privacy of your own home.

And now for my year-end awards.

Favorite film of 2004: Before Sunset
Biggest Disappointment: The Chronicles of Riddick (chances to make good sci-fi adventure are too precious to waste on this pap)
Guilty Pleasure: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Honorable Mention: Extended Cut of Return of the King (I don't normally cry at movies, but when they bow to those midgets at the end, forget it)

Favorite book of 2004: Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (although the ending was a bit abrupt)

Favorite Video Game: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (an amazing encapsulation of the west coast... I wore a cowboy hat and enjoyed flying my harrier across the desert)
Honorable Mention: ESPN NBA 2K5

Okay, a little digression here. I've been playing Sega's basketball game for about six years now. They finally made it hard enough to justify investing myself in playing a season as the Knicks. I even stole Allen Iverson from the Sixers with a package of Damon Stoudamire (who I picked up somewhere along the way) and a 1st and 2nd round draft pick. After several moves, my starting five looks like this:

PG: Stephon Marbury
SG: Allen Iverson
SF: Darius Miles
PF: Brian Grant (Kurt Thomas is down with an ankle injury, so I traded Penny Hardaway for Grant)
C: Nazr Mohammed

...with Allan Houston, Jerome Williams, Vin Baker, Qyntel Woods, Jamal Crawford, Reece Gaines and Travis Knight coming off the bench. Houston usually comes in to relieve Iverson, and then later in the game, after I've worn down the opposition, I'll go small and stick Houston at the three. And while Knight is indeed on the bench, rest assured he never comes off it.

It's a fun team. When Iverson is hot, and the crowd at MSG starts going nuts, it feels so right. Somehow, even with all this firepower, I'm only 28-26, currently slotted for the sixth seed in the playoffs.

Back to reality. I have two new web projects coming up soon, one musical in nature and one cartoon related. Check back for the launch of the Aaron Hill & The Crimson Guard website, as well as Shame and Folly, the web comic to end all web comics, or at least to make them feel a little dirty and uncomfortable with their own bodies.

Very Slowly and not that surely

I recently developed a newfound ability to really suck at posting with any regularity. I honed the skill, polished it and finally unleashed it on Nerdcake - pulling up the blog window, staring at it, writing something clumsy and passing out before I had a chance to post it. It's been fun not posting in the same way that a farmer enjoys a drought-ridden harvest. But complaining about not posting is maybe worse than just keeping quiet. So let's end the excuses here.

Let's turn our attention to self-promotion instead. I don't know if you've ever looked over the links to the right there but the one called Thrillomedy is my personal website. Eagerly perhaps you clicked on it, looking forward to some reverence for Gremlins 2 or perhaps Arachnaphobia. Alas, you discovered it for what it has been for some time: a cluttered main page with broken links abounding. Now, I can't do anything about the clutter with my affinity for roughshod, inexperienced design nor can I give you a better explanation for the name save the appeal that genre-merging movies and stories hold for me. But I can at least say that 2 - that's right a whole TWO - of the features of the page are at least semi-off and running.

1) Movies

2) Scripts

A little bit of explanation: The Movies page is basically an assortment of Graham Avenue Films FILMS that I directed, in some cases wrote and in all cases made with a lot of really talented people. That page links to the Regret Films page which have some movies a little lower on the production value totem pole and usually made a little further back but close to my heart nonetheless.

A little more explanation: The Scripts page is something still in its prototype phase. I have some scripts for movies that I will probably never make - not always but occasionally because they are not that good and/or not that complete. Mostly, they're just a little impractical to put into production with my current financial wherewithal. One script - Glass - involves a glass elevator that gets flooded with water and shattered by overzealous firemen in a crowded atrium-style mall. I'm saving my pennies but that particular stunt seems a ways off. Still, I like that script and all the scripts up there and want people to read them and if they really, really like them or like something in them, take them and make them or incorporate elements into their own screenplays - hence the name Open Source Screenplays. I can't say I wouldn't like a little credit if one of these screenplays gets made by someone (film students? producer? puppeteer?) but I don't want to presume any of them will go that far. For now, I'd just be thrilled if people nosed through one or two and maybe laughed at a joke.

Making websites - while not my forte - is a lot of fun with Photoshop/Image Ready. I recommend exploring that software even if my efforts don't immediately inspire.

Stay tuned for more stuff happening at Thrillomedy soon. And thank you for listening. Happy Holidays!

This is important.

I wore a scarf today. It was warm and comfortable.