I had intended to write this list of things I'm thankful for on Thursday, but I woke up that morning feeling like a hot bag of ass and have just today begun to feel better, if only marginally. It's still Thanksgiving weekend, though, so it still counts, right?
I'm thankful for my new phone. After almost four years, half with a crappy Samsung and half with an only-slightly-less-crappy HTC, to finally be back in the LG family, with a Droid, no less, is just nice.
I'm thankful for writing. Between the wonderfully brilliant writers behind the novels, comics, TV shows, and movies I love so much and the ability to write and the way it lets me vent my feelings and frustrations and ideas... yeah. Writing rocks. I always say this, but I really do need to keep up with the idea of doing it more often.
I'm incredibly thankful to John Jameson.
I'm thankful for my family, especially my grandparents. Enormous pains in my ass, but I love them anyway.
I'm thankful for perseverance. Between the fruitless job search, a cashlessness that is only just above poverty and a completely nonexistent love life, there are a lot of times... A LOT of times... where I feel like just saying "screw it" and giving up. But I never do. So I'm incredibly thankful for that.
Lastly, I'm thankful for my friends, specifically the special handful of people I can count on to be real friends. Much like my family, they can be a pain in the ass... but they are the stars in what is otherwise the dark night sky of my life, and I appreciate it more than I can ever say.
Alright, enough of this earnest crap, can I get back to being snarky and irreverent now?
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Fiction Friday - Two Goodreads Quotes For You.
No new fiction to share this week. Instead, I'm just posting two quote I came across on goodreads.com (Like to read? Go there! Sign up! Friend me! Or, you know, don't. Whichever.) that I really like from one of my favorite authors. The first is just an awesome quote. The second does a good job of explaining why there's nothing new to share this week.
Because blogger is being really weird with the html for the quotes tonight, you might need to refresh the page a few times to see both quotes instead of one of them repeated twice. Smart html, my ass...
quotes Jim likes
"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot."— Neil Gaiman
quotes Jim likes
"Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins."— Neil Gaiman
Because blogger is being really weird with the html for the quotes tonight, you might need to refresh the page a few times to see both quotes instead of one of them repeated twice. Smart html, my ass...
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Job Search Tango
Have you ever danced with someone you were really attracted to and all you wanted to do was kiss them in the middle of the dance, like some big romantic scene right out of a movie that probably starred Katherine Heigl or someone equally ridiculous? There's a problem, though; everytime you go to kiss them, something in the dance itself gets in your way. There's a spin, or a twirl... or in some cases a dip that ends in someone getting dropped on their ass. Sounds fun, right? I mean, if you're a masochist. Otherwise, it sounds like hell.
And that is exactly what job-hunting in today's world is like: an unending, nightmarish job search tango. Think about it for a second.
You start off by finding someone you want to dance with and then ask them to dance; you submit your resume. If they like what they read, you come in for an interview, and the dance begins. You're dressed to impress. You already know what's coming, all the steps to the dance: why did you leave your last job? What are your goals? Your strengths? Weaknesses? What makes you right for this position? Why should I keep dancing with you? Maybe they throw a few movies in that you weren't expecting... you think it's a waltz and they start breaking...
and you're caught flat-footed. Does anybody really know how to answer "If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?" No. But you keep dancing. Because if you stop dancing early, you don't get the job.
In the old days, in the time of sock-hops and malt shoppes, you'd either get that kiss or get dropped in the dip at the end of the first dance. People would get hired or not at the end of the first interview. Now, though, in the days of flash mobs and trance clubs, there's no such thing as a kiss in the first dance... but you can sure get dropped on your ass. If you manage to stay on your feet, that special someone you want takes your number, and maybe they'll call you back for another dance, with different steps and rhythm and even more surprises. Or you'll never hear from them again. See, there's an even bigger problem than anything else.
You're not the only person trying to dance with them. It's not like Saved by the Bell, where Kelly just has to pick between Zack and Slater.
No, in today's economy it's more like you're trying to dance with Cinderella, and so is everyone else in the whole damn kingdom. With tens of thousands of people unemployed now, competition is fiercer than ever. In a perfect world, luck wouldn't play into it, but it does. Sometimes Cinderella picks someone to dance with before you even get her attention. The only thing you can do is find another partner and keep on dancing.
But I have to be honest, I've never been a big dancer, and my feet are killing me.
And that is exactly what job-hunting in today's world is like: an unending, nightmarish job search tango. Think about it for a second.
This has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I just love Brittany S. Pierce.
You start off by finding someone you want to dance with and then ask them to dance; you submit your resume. If they like what they read, you come in for an interview, and the dance begins. You're dressed to impress. You already know what's coming, all the steps to the dance: why did you leave your last job? What are your goals? Your strengths? Weaknesses? What makes you right for this position? Why should I keep dancing with you? Maybe they throw a few movies in that you weren't expecting... you think it's a waltz and they start breaking...
The obligatory Breakin' 2 reference.
and you're caught flat-footed. Does anybody really know how to answer "If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?" No. But you keep dancing. Because if you stop dancing early, you don't get the job.
In the old days, in the time of sock-hops and malt shoppes, you'd either get that kiss or get dropped in the dip at the end of the first dance. People would get hired or not at the end of the first interview. Now, though, in the days of flash mobs and trance clubs, there's no such thing as a kiss in the first dance... but you can sure get dropped on your ass. If you manage to stay on your feet, that special someone you want takes your number, and maybe they'll call you back for another dance, with different steps and rhythm and even more surprises. Or you'll never hear from them again. See, there's an even bigger problem than anything else.
You're not the only person trying to dance with them. It's not like Saved by the Bell, where Kelly just has to pick between Zack and Slater.
Love triangles and bizarre Drivers' Ed cars do not mix.
No, in today's economy it's more like you're trying to dance with Cinderella, and so is everyone else in the whole damn kingdom. With tens of thousands of people unemployed now, competition is fiercer than ever. In a perfect world, luck wouldn't play into it, but it does. Sometimes Cinderella picks someone to dance with before you even get her attention. The only thing you can do is find another partner and keep on dancing.
But I have to be honest, I've never been a big dancer, and my feet are killing me.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Goodreads Book Review - The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor
The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert KirkmanMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
A few good moments mixed in with a lot of boring, repetitive, predictable moments. I'm forced to think that Bonansinga did most of the heavy lifting on this novel as it never really feels like it's part of The Walking Dead world, in terms of tone. It tries to get there though, mostly through a lot of graphic, depraved actions, the kind of which the comic is famous for... except the things that happen in the comic always feel earned, unlike a lot of the acts in this novel. Lastly, I don't want to give away the twist at the end, but I have to say that while it doesn't contradict anything we learn about the Governor in the comic, I don't like it one bit.
View all my reviews
Friday, October 28, 2011
Fiction Friday - Putting the Writer's Toolbox to Use
A few years ago, I bought something called "The Writer's Toolbox," a nifty little box that includes a few different props and stuff to help writers get started on stories, or just practice and have fun. It was "The Writer's Toolbox" that generated the story I posted last week actually. So, when I realized I had nothing to post today, I broke the toolbox out, and this is what came of it. It's only the first little bit and it's very rough, and it has no title or much of a direction yet... but here it is!
She
had had it all once. Laurie Dubois, star of stage and screen. Laurie Dubois:
Oscar-winner, Tony-winner, Emmy-winner. Laurie Dubois… a middle-aged actress
closer to fifty than she ever admitted to anyone; who, as the leading roles
disappeared and even the guest star spots dried up just like her looks and her
hair, casualties of what was killing her, feared her best years were behind
her.
Laurie
Dubois, born Loretta Johanski of Queens, New York. Loretta Johanski, who had
wanted to be an actress since she saw The Wizard of Oz when she was four;
although, to be honest back then she wasn’t sure what an actress was, she just
wanted to be Dorothy. Her father wouldn’t hear of it, though. Stanley Johanski
was a simple man, who believed in simple things and good, hard work, and to
him, acting fell into neither of those areas. So for years he tried to stamp
out the acting urge in Loretta until finally, when she was in the seventh grade,
he tired of her begging and pleading and allowed her to enroll in a local
acting class for kids… with her own money, of course; Stanley would never spend
a penny of his own hard-earned money from the bakery he slaved at for something
as trivial as acting classes.
Loretta,
for her part, loved the acting classes, and after the first year ended, she
scrimped and saved any money she got her hands on she could afford to pay for
the advanced class the next year, again with no help for her father. Then, as a
freshman in high school, Loretta joined the drama club and acted in two plays a
year for four years. She even starred in the two plays they put on in her
senior year. Her father didn’t go see any of them.
When
asked why not, Stanley simply responded, “I don’t believe in plays.”
“Forget
about the plays, what about believing in me?” Loretta often wanted to ask, but
she could never quite bring herself to get the words out.
Despite
Stanley’s lack of interest, or maybe even because of it, as a psychiatrist had
once told her during a court-mandated course of therapy after a particularly
wild mushroom binge, because of her father’s lack of interest that Loretta
Johanski had become Laurie Dubois, once dubbed “The Sweetheart of the Sunset
Strip” by Entertainment Weekly.
Those
nights as Loretta, though, backstage in the high school gym before opening
nights and on the bus ride home after the last shows, those were some of the
only nights in her life that the future superstar wished she had a mother.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Schedule, Part 2... and the Complete Halloween Marathon
About a month ago, I posted the schedule I had made up before the Fall season started of what I planned on watching this year, which can conveniently be found here. Now that everything has premiered, I updated the schedule for the sake of comparison.
Five shows got cut (Ringer, The Playboy Club, Charlie's Angels, The Secret Circle, and Terra Nova), two of which already got cancelled (The Playboy Club and Charlie's Angels) as I predicted, one got added (Homeland), and one more (Grimm) is hanging on by a thread.
God, I still need a life.
Now, a final update on the Halloween Marathon I've been talking about for awhile. After making my own picks and taking suggestions from other people, I've created a ten-hour marathon consisting of nine Halloween-themed programs that I'll watch on Halloween from 10am to 8pm. Here's the list:
Night of the Demons
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween
Garfield's Halloween Adventure
Ginger Snaps
Supernatural: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
Satan's Little Helper
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Trick'r'Treat
How I Met Your Mother: The Slutty Pumpkin
So we've got four horror movies, including my favorite horror anthology; my two favorite animated Halloween specials growing up; and three Halloween episodes from three of my favorite TV shows, ending with the HIMYM ep from the first season... and the new ep of HIMYM that airs that night at 8pm is a sequel of sorts to that very episode. Gotta love the synergy.
Now, this is your chance to tell me how you're celebrating Halloween. Ready? Go!
Click to enlarge the geekiness.
Five shows got cut (Ringer, The Playboy Club, Charlie's Angels, The Secret Circle, and Terra Nova), two of which already got cancelled (The Playboy Club and Charlie's Angels) as I predicted, one got added (Homeland), and one more (Grimm) is hanging on by a thread.
God, I still need a life.
Now, a final update on the Halloween Marathon I've been talking about for awhile. After making my own picks and taking suggestions from other people, I've created a ten-hour marathon consisting of nine Halloween-themed programs that I'll watch on Halloween from 10am to 8pm. Here's the list:
Night of the Demons
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween
Garfield's Halloween Adventure
Ginger Snaps
Supernatural: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
Satan's Little Helper
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Trick'r'Treat
How I Met Your Mother: The Slutty Pumpkin
So we've got four horror movies, including my favorite horror anthology; my two favorite animated Halloween specials growing up; and three Halloween episodes from three of my favorite TV shows, ending with the HIMYM ep from the first season... and the new ep of HIMYM that airs that night at 8pm is a sequel of sorts to that very episode. Gotta love the synergy.
Now, this is your chance to tell me how you're celebrating Halloween. Ready? Go!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
A Tale of Two Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm. Hans Christian Andersen. Hell, even Disney. Are you a fan of the stories these guys tell? If so, television has decided it's a good time to be you, as two fairytale-themed shows are hitting the Fall season this week. The first, Once Upon A Time, premiered Sunday night on ABC, and the second, Grimm, premieres this Friday night on NBC. Luckily for this blog though, I was able to see the Grimm premiere early.
Boy, saying that made me feel like an actual critic. Sure, NBC made the premiere available early though a Twitter contest on Friday or something so by Sunday, any schmendrick with an internet connection like me could watch it. It's also worth noting that these are the last two premieres that I planned to watch this season, so you won't have to put up with another post like this until, like, January. I'll pause to let you all enjoy reacting the way I'm sure you're reacting.
I'll start with Grimm. And boy, does the name fit. Half the show takes place at night, shrouded in darkness, shadow, and mood music. The basic plot centers around a cop named Nick who was raised by his aunt after the death of his parents in an origin that in no way mirrors Spider-Man. He comes to find out that he is the last living descendant of the Brothers Grimm, who weren't really fairy-tale writers but monster hunters; the stories they wrote were actually about creatures they hunted that exist on our world. Because he's descended from them, Nick is able to see past the human masks these creatures wear to glimpse their true faces. The mythology behind the show is guaranteed to be deeper than that, but that's how the slow build started. The show is a cross between genre shows and procedurals; the first "case" centers around a little girl who went missing on her way to her grandfather's house from school... a girl who was wearing a red hoodie. Nick doesn't have any special powers, just a partner who doesn't know the truth and a reformed creature in disguise who helped him out. Yes, it does all sound a little lame, but there's a revelation at the end that at least kept me on the fence and willing to come back for another episode. Plus, it's by some of the producers of Buffy and Angel, so I have a little faith... pun intended.
Once Upon A Time, on the other hand? Boy, I'm all in.
While Grimm is all dark, OUAT (yes, I'm abbreviating. Deal with it.) is light and fun and full of hope, despite dealing with some dark subject matter... just like an actual fairytale. It's a breath of fresh air in a television schedule that, for years really, has featured shows that are mostly dark and cynical. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy those shows for the most part, but this was nice. It reminded me of how, when I was younger, Disney would always have something on ABC on Sunday evenings, something the family could watch together. That's what this show felt like. The show takes place in two worlds/timeframes, which should come as no surprise since it's by two of the writers of Lost. The first world is the fairytale world, where Snow White and Prince Charming have married and live in a kingdom with characters like Jiminy Crickett, Pinocchio, Rumpelstiltskin, and more. The Evil Queen, sick of always losing and never getting her happy ending, sets a curse upon the fairytale world that brings them someplace where there are no happy endings... our world. Here, they have no memory of their past lives... except maybe the few that it's hinted do. Where does the light and hope come in, you ask? An adopted boy who finds his real mother and brings her to the town of Storybrooke where they all live because he believes she's the key to breaking the curse. I'm not doing the show justice, but it's definitely a good show worth watching. And for those of you worried it might go the way of Lost,
fear not; while there are some mysteries, the audience is in on the biggest one right from the start, and the real drive of the show is finding out how that mystery will be resolved, and how the characters will react when it is resolved.
One last thing to note for both shows is the lack of actual star power. With Grimm, I didn't recognize any of the cast except for the reformed creature I mentioned, and even him I didn't know by name but by face, one of those "Hey it's that guy!" guys you always see. And with UOAT, with the exception of Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin, same thing. With shows like these, I think that's important as it helps keep the fairytale aspect going, as opposed to having famous people who you'd instantly recognize breaking the spell.
To summarize, in this tale of two fairy tales, both of them are worth watching... for now.
Boy, saying that made me feel like an actual critic. Sure, NBC made the premiere available early though a Twitter contest on Friday or something so by Sunday, any schmendrick with an internet connection like me could watch it. It's also worth noting that these are the last two premieres that I planned to watch this season, so you won't have to put up with another post like this until, like, January. I'll pause to let you all enjoy reacting the way I'm sure you're reacting.
I'm sure this is how you're reacting... if you're even reading this at all!
I'll start with Grimm. And boy, does the name fit. Half the show takes place at night, shrouded in darkness, shadow, and mood music. The basic plot centers around a cop named Nick who was raised by his aunt after the death of his parents in an origin that in no way mirrors Spider-Man. He comes to find out that he is the last living descendant of the Brothers Grimm, who weren't really fairy-tale writers but monster hunters; the stories they wrote were actually about creatures they hunted that exist on our world. Because he's descended from them, Nick is able to see past the human masks these creatures wear to glimpse their true faces. The mythology behind the show is guaranteed to be deeper than that, but that's how the slow build started. The show is a cross between genre shows and procedurals; the first "case" centers around a little girl who went missing on her way to her grandfather's house from school... a girl who was wearing a red hoodie. Nick doesn't have any special powers, just a partner who doesn't know the truth and a reformed creature in disguise who helped him out. Yes, it does all sound a little lame, but there's a revelation at the end that at least kept me on the fence and willing to come back for another episode. Plus, it's by some of the producers of Buffy and Angel, so I have a little faith... pun intended.
Once Upon A Time, on the other hand? Boy, I'm all in.
Totally unrelated; I just wanted to use this picture.
While Grimm is all dark, OUAT (yes, I'm abbreviating. Deal with it.) is light and fun and full of hope, despite dealing with some dark subject matter... just like an actual fairytale. It's a breath of fresh air in a television schedule that, for years really, has featured shows that are mostly dark and cynical. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy those shows for the most part, but this was nice. It reminded me of how, when I was younger, Disney would always have something on ABC on Sunday evenings, something the family could watch together. That's what this show felt like. The show takes place in two worlds/timeframes, which should come as no surprise since it's by two of the writers of Lost. The first world is the fairytale world, where Snow White and Prince Charming have married and live in a kingdom with characters like Jiminy Crickett, Pinocchio, Rumpelstiltskin, and more. The Evil Queen, sick of always losing and never getting her happy ending, sets a curse upon the fairytale world that brings them someplace where there are no happy endings... our world. Here, they have no memory of their past lives... except maybe the few that it's hinted do. Where does the light and hope come in, you ask? An adopted boy who finds his real mother and brings her to the town of Storybrooke where they all live because he believes she's the key to breaking the curse. I'm not doing the show justice, but it's definitely a good show worth watching. And for those of you worried it might go the way of Lost,
Even I don't know why I was on that stupid island...
fear not; while there are some mysteries, the audience is in on the biggest one right from the start, and the real drive of the show is finding out how that mystery will be resolved, and how the characters will react when it is resolved.
One last thing to note for both shows is the lack of actual star power. With Grimm, I didn't recognize any of the cast except for the reformed creature I mentioned, and even him I didn't know by name but by face, one of those "Hey it's that guy!" guys you always see. And with UOAT, with the exception of Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin, same thing. With shows like these, I think that's important as it helps keep the fairytale aspect going, as opposed to having famous people who you'd instantly recognize breaking the spell.
To summarize, in this tale of two fairy tales, both of them are worth watching... for now.
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