Okay! Doll Merchant is back! And with a snazzy new format.

Watched Annie Hall last night. Egad, what a brillant movie. Woody Allen skillfully exploits the human thought process for silliness and great fun. Definitely one of the most believable and entertaining relationships between some of the most believable and entertaining characters I've ever seen in any work of fiction. Diane Keaton comes off as naturally nervous and nerdy, conveying all sorts of things at every half-second. And her clothes are great. It ends up being a meditation on relationships in general and makes some truly keen observations that make you sort of want to swoon.

And now to-day, I think I'll go and see Hellboy, which I think shall turn out to be a slightly different experience. I'm the only person I know who wants to see this movie and I'm not even entirely sure why I want to see it. I've never read the comic books, although I've heard them spoken well of. Dunno. Maybe it's just Ron Perlman seems so perfect in that role and I thought he looked a little like Tom Waits in City of Lost Children and I know there's a Tom Waits song used in Hellboy. Maybe it's 'cause John Hurt's in it. Maybe it's Selma Blair. We'll see, we'll see . . .

Had coffee with Trisa yesterday. Her shirt was deceptive.

Damn you, Syme!

I started watching the 1934 version of Treasure Island last night but couldn't finish it because Jackie Cooper is too fucking annoying. It angers me--I was really looking forward to that movie.

I think I've found a solution for Doll Merchant but I don't know if I'll have time to implement it to-day.

When I was at my parents' house yesterday, I watched with my mother part of an episode of Oprah that confirmed to me that Oprah is in fact a daemon of some kind. In a segment about "That one moment in time you wish you could take back," Oprah brought out for display a twenty seven year old woman who'd been burned alive when her car was hit by a drunk driver, who's now in prison. The young woman no longer looked like a young woman, even after plastic surgery. Her nose had been burnt off, one of her eyes turned into glazed over skin, and her fingers were gone.

But of course, the people at Oprah couldn't trust the audience to feel bad for her just for this. Oh no. We needed to have it punctuated by sorrowful piano music and misty montages of footage.

These people have got to be the most emotionally disconnected people in world, I must say. That they would sit through this spectacle, allowing their heartstrings to have acid thrown at them, could only suggest that they would not feel emotion for any lesser sort of stimuli. They've gotten so's they need a kick from the mule just to wake up in the morning, so to speak.

Of course, everyone assumed something healthy was going on when Oprah bade the mother of the drunk driver to cry in the burnt woman's arms. Thank you, Oprah, Ring-leader of the damned.

Cold bread. Mouldy soy pepperoni. Mozzerella cheese. Excessive amounts of mayo.

A good sandwich.

Great number of things to do to-day . . .

Dreamt last night about a friend of mine from high school named Matt Laubacher. Matt was valadictorian and he now lives with wife and kid in Arizona somewheres and works as a teacher's assistant. In my dream, he was at Grossmont Community college with me and we got in a big fight, starting out with him knocking my hat off and trying to run away with it. I caught up with him and we came to blows. Never did figure out what he was so mad at me for.

Watched part of The Cure Trilogy DVD last night. I'd already watched the Pornography set, so I watched the Disintegration set last night. Brilliant and made feel depressed and nostalgic and good. It occured to me that, with Disintegration, Smith seemed to've been trying to write the arch of any lovers' relationship by trying to strip it down to the biggest strokes, the broadest themes. And it goes right for the heart.

Of course, I was also depressed watching it because it reminded me that I'm not actually going to see The Cure at Coachella, due to the fact that the person I was going with renegged on me. But that's another stomach of fish . . .

Edited more of my novel yesterday. I'm about two-thirds through with my first run-through.

Saw Jersey Girl last night. On the whole, a very sweet film. I do sort of wish fewer movie cliches were used but the movie had enough of its own unique charms that I wasn't overly bothered. The kid, Raquel Castro, was either a very good child actress or the director/crew was able to tease a good performance from her. I suspect the latter. But she was good, regardless, which is surprising in a kid. Affleck was also good, although the audience automatically laughed at him at occasionally inappropriate times. My favourite performer in the film, though, was certainly Liv Tyler who similtaneously carried out the duties of romantic interest and surrogate Jay and Silent Bob. The girl created a character out of her dialogue, adding self-conscious giggles after her own lines that were too obviously funny not to be noticed, and adding an interesting nervous energy.

I felt slightly that music was used too often. There were too many montages were characters weren't talking and instead doing things to a tune. Generally good tunes, though. I did very much like the uses of the Aimee Mann song and the Cure song. And I was pleased to hear Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" during the credits, even though it was Bruce Springsteen's version. It's okay, though; Springsteen seems to be one of the few people who've covered Waits well.

Still haven't cleared out web space . . . feels funny not doing a page of Doll Merchant to-day . . .

New page of Doll Merchant. Could be the last for a while as I am now completely out of web space. I may take down part 1 and just leave part two. I suppose I should really do a web comic that isn't any kind of serial. I had to take down one page just to get 62 up, in fact, so don't try looking at page 17.

Dreamt last night about an overweight girl I used to know. I ran into her recently (in the dream) and found that she had become really, frighteningly thin. Like Marlene Dietrich.

Speaking of weight issues, I'm so behind on my laundry that I'm wearing a pair of pants that're so tight I didn't think I could possibly squeeze into them. But not only did I manage to put them on, I put them on easily and without any discomfort. Very odd as I've gotten almost no exercise in the past couple months.

A few minutes ago, I discovered that my thumb was coated with dried blood. It took me a while to figure out I'd cut my thumb shaving fifteen minutes earlier. Are my pain receptors just too lazy?

My play was workshopped in class last night. I was basically told it needs to be longer. Earlier in the class, a gentleman who wants to actually produce it for some kind of campus function told me that it needs to be shorter.

How I do enjoy a challenge.

Here that, oh Laws of Physics, you? Setsuled doesn't back down, even when the object is to defy all logic and reason! Especially when the object is to defy all logic and reason!

I shall make it . . . longer and shorter! Haha! I can do it, I tell you.

There's a new page of Doll Merchant, yo.

I think, to-day, I shall look for things I'm missing.

. . . and yet I've done a new page of Doll Merchant!

Watched the William Wyler Wuthering Heights last night. The ending was a slightly too happy spin on the original story but Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon made the thing well worth watching. Although the context was weirded, Heathcliff cursing Cathy when he learned she had loved him gave me chills.

I've decided that Thursday doesn't exist.

New page of Doll Merchant.

Watched High Sierra last night. Sorta got teary eyed halfway through when it occured to me that the production code forbade a happy ending for Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart). Some film noir, I think, must have arisen from screenwriter ranckling at the code and being thusly filled with a desire to show those Catholic jerks that sometimes a situation where the criminal doesn't get away is more a victory for the devil. I almost think there was a definite point in the story--when Roy held up the convenience store--where the screenwriters (one of whom was John Huston) said, "Okay, fine, we'll play it your way but its only gonna barely make sense." If Roy hadn't've held up that convenience store, he may well have gotten his money and he and Marie (Ida Lupino) woulda been Scott-free. Well, then again, maybe not.

Finally caved in and watched an episode of Witchhunter Robin because someone wants me to do fan-art of Robin Sena. The character design definitely looks to be the strongest point of the series. Otherwise it seems like it vaguely wants to be Lain/Evangelion/Cowboy Bebop and the animation isn't as good as any of those series. Here's a series that really made me appreciate the attention animators in Cowboy Bebop gave to the way people actually moved, and even when the budget didn't permit full-fledged movement, a single, subtle gesture could convey so much about a character's attitude or mood. Not so with Witchhunter Robin.

Was up until 6am editing my novel. Good or bad, its definitely depressing. I also think it's funny, though.

Damnit, Roy and Marie deserved to be happy together.

A new page of Doll Merchant to-day.

Watched Sadie McKee, which was a movie that had the kind of melodrama I think I would have appreciated more as a teenager. But it was not a bad movie and Joan Crawford was brilliant as always.

Ha was wearing an adorable dress in class last night and I don't think I have anything else to report. I slept in rather late so I must bust a move . . .

New page of Doll Merchant.

You know, Paramount should give over the Kirk already. Seems only the fans know that Star Trek oughta be bigger on the fun and make less with the pretentious. I mean, c'mon, where is the big kick-ass space battle of the twenty-fourth century? And I want Sisko back!

Watched The Cross of Lorraine last night. It's a little disappointing to see a Gene Kelly movie where he isn't singing and dancing. But once the French soldiers escaped from the prison camp, the movie wasn't so boring and had some really nice action sequences. Peter Lorre was also in the movie, playing a blood-thirsty Nazi officer who dies in a way particularly graphic for a 40s movie.

Almost watched The Big Lebowsky with my sister last night but she changed her mind at the last minute and wanted me to leave the DVD with her. What is it with people not letting me watch movies with them that I've already seen but they haven't? I love doing that! It's like watching a favourite movie again for the first time. It's not like I talk during any good movie so I really don't know what people don't like about it.

Oif.

Yester-day, Tim burned me a copy of Alien 3 Special Edition. I'd forgotten that movie was directed by David Fincher.

We played some Mario Kart: Double Dash without sound because he's too lazy to hook his sound up for some reason. It's weird when you play certain video games for so long that they sort of modify your methods of dealing with reality. When I left Tim's, I got my car and immediately started accelerating like you do in Mario Kart--you obviously don't cap your speed in that game, you just hold the button and try to stay at top-speed. As I approached 40 on the little residential road, I suddenly realised I was doing the same with my gas pedal and had to consciously force myself into real-automobile-driving mode. It's lucky I don't play Hentai games.

So far to-day, I've been sleeping.

I also did a new page of Doll Merchant.

To-day, a new page of Doll Merchant.

I've discovered that the reason that there aren't any Safeways around here is that there are Vons' around here. And Safeway owns Vons. Why they have a different name here . . . I do not know.

Cut my hair again this morning. Not quite sure yet how well I did. It's just finished drying and at the moment looks only like a tangled mess. Needs to be brushed before I can give it a grade.

Another day, another massive track-load of things to do . . . Well, it's true!

Last night watched It Happened One Night, a movie that, oddly enough, took place over the course of several days and nights.

It was a very nice movie. I was sort of pleased to see how doughy Clark Gable looked when he took off his shirt in the famous hey-guys-let's-not-wear-an-undershirt scene. Nice to see that, at some point in history, my physique was the prime kind.

Claudette Colbert won best actress for the movie. But I think it must have been a slow year for great acting because, while she was believable enough, it wasn't exactly the most challenging role in the world. She did look cute, though. I like her nose. And her legs.

The movie itself was a perfect romantic comedy. If you wanna see a top shelf romantic comedy, this one does the trick nicely.

Dreamt something about Castlevania last night. I think I was wandering around its gloomy, abandoned halls with the strange feeling that I'd betrayed someone.

Anyway, there's a new page of Doll Merchant.

Fucking Thursdays.

New page of Doll Merchant.

New page of Doll Merchant.

I finished typing up my novel and have begun the very arduous task of editing. It's amazing in how many simple ways I screwed up. But there's a bigger issue than that . . . I did a rough word-count and it turns out the bloody thing is around 240,000 words. Actually, maybe a bit more. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of things to edit out. But I can't think of anything of significant length. I guess I'll just have to go ahead and finish editing this draft and maybe see if I can find some people good enough to read it through and tell me whether or not anything feels superfluous to them. Of course, the fact that nothing feels superfluous to me probably means that nothing is. But the liklihood of me ever getting this thing published is dim enough without the added difficulty of it being too fucking big.

Well, what I really need to do is write more short stories.

I'll just put that in my pile of projects and hope I'll figure out proper priority for everything soon . . .

'nother new page of Doll Merchant up. In case you haven't noticed, I've been trying to do a new page every day. We'll see if I can keep it up--or if I should.

Watched Trouble in Paradise from 1932. Gods, Hollywood was neat before it started paying much attention to the production code. Both Kay Francis and Mirium Hopkins turned me on. And the movie itself was wicked fun.

Class last night sucked. A bunch of people liked a bunch of crap. I walk amongst monkeys, I tell you.

And now I'm off in search of the new Rasputina album. Wish me luck . . .

New page of Doll Merchant up. I'm starting to run out of web space . . . Gonna need to figure something out . . .

But right now I'm in a hurry so . . . bye!

Watched Bell, Book, and Candle last night. Mostly fun, sort of Beatsploitive (if that's a word) movie. Made me realise that there's something Kerouac-ish about Jack Lemmon.

Kim Novak's feet looked really good. And Jimmy Stewart managed to come off as sweet, funny, and likeable when jilting his fiance on the day of their wedding because he'd had sex with Novak's character the night before. He makes you forgive him, and just kinna look at him and say, "Garsh, that old dog. And anyway, it's only 'cause of the witch's spell--he's really a decent fellow."

I sort of disliked the ending--yet also liked it. I'm a sucker for happy endings in these situations. I just kind of disagree with what the screenplay thought was happy about it. Still, it had Kim in Jimmy's arms, kissing, which in the long run is quite sufficient.

Another new page of Doll Merchant up. I think I draw them better during the day. I had a bad headache and it was late when I did page 48, although I suppose it turned out basically okay. But I like page 49 better.

Saw Secret Window yesterday. It was cute. Johnny Depp was attractive and fun, John Turturro was fun. Depp's hair looked sort of like mine. The surprise ending was slightly predictable but still kind of fun. It's the sort of ending you used to see more often twenty years ago.

The film was directed by David Koepp, the same guy who wrote the mediocre screenplay for Panic Room. Fortunately, Secret Window was based on a Stephen King novella, embuing it with a quality plot.

I sort of want to just goof off to-day but I know I'll feel sick at the end of it if I do . . . Now to decide which project(s) to work on . . .

I drew a new page of Doll Merchant last night. Also, yesterday, Caitlin uploaded the lastest Nar'eth pin-up on Nebari.net. I drew it a few nights ago in a fit of Japanese school-girl hallucinations.

"Danny's body ached for junk. But it was a dull ache now. Dull and hopeless." -William S. Burroughs

Just realised my favourite Morrissey album is missing. Where on earth are my CDs disappearing to?

Gods, I'm sleepy . . . And hungry.

Watched I Married a Witch last night. I was unprepared for how sexy Veronica Lake was. Otherwise, the movie was perfectly cute.

I bought the wrong pens yesterday. Considering that they were fifteen dollars, it really was a tragic mistake. Their tips are 0.7 mm and it turns out I need 0.5 mm. Who would've thought that 0.2 mm would make such a difference? I may try to return the 0.7 mm to-day. We'll see.

Frelling, stupid, damned, ugly, type--Thursdays! Ugh!

Wednesday saw our Setsuled escorting a Russion scientist through Horton Plaza and Seaport village--this was my Aunt's friend Anna who's leaving to-day. My aunt and grandmother were sick so it was foisted on me to be tour-guide Wednesday--a task I am far from equal to. Especially when the person I'm escorting can barely communicate with me.

We went, upon her request, into the San Diego City Store, where I learned that San Diego is known for hot sauce as I stood gazing in wonder at two walls full of little bottles with labels like, "Liquid Stoopid,""You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce," and "Viper Juice."

We also, upon my request, stopped in at The Village Hat Shop and I stood dreaming over a Sherlock Holmes-style, deerstalker hat, wondering if I could get away with wearing it regularly.

Tuesday night, I watched Der Golem, a monster movie from 1920 about a Rabbi who tries to protect his village by calling on Astaroth to animate a big-clay man. It was a very pretty movie with excellent costumes and high contrast black and white. I loved the golem's expressive face; his wide eyes and perminant frown. Not to mention his big clay hair-piece.

And now I've done yet another page of Doll Merchant.

Not much time--apparently I have to take my aunt's friend Anna around town before she leaves to-morrow.

I did a new page of Doll Merchant last night and boy are my brains and things tired (was up 'til 7am for no good reason).

Having trouble making landscape in Morrowind last night, so I gave up and started working on a page for a comic. Only to discover I was having trouble with a landscape in the background of a panel. Some problems you can't avoid, ne?

My brains got the coffee-less throb as I sit here listening to the Quake soundtrack. I feel like I could sleep for an eternity. Why do I keep staying up so long?

I actually felt a little like I contributed to class last night. Eh.

I am also hungry.

Not very much to say to-day. Gotta go to class to night and there're a few things I wanna do first . . .

Watched the Here Comes the Circus short on Mystery Science Theater 3000 last night. It seems almost supernatural how that show never gets old. There're number of jokes I didn't get the first time I watched it that I get now. The damn thing's immortal.

Ah! A marathon of seven Sherlock Holmes movies on TCM to-morrow! Sure, I've already got five of them, but you can be damned sure I'll tape the other two, even the one that Yahoo! movies only gives two stars.

Blog, I think you're the only one that appreciates my Sherlock Holmes obsession.

Tom Cruise is not very articulate. Watching him on Inside the Actor's Studio, I've so far learned that he feels an actor should be "in the moment" of the character. But he seems like a nice guy with reasonably honourable philosophies.

Last night I watched Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone's 1964 remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It felt pretty cool that I had opportunity to watch Yojimbo before Fistful of Dollars and was able to compare the two. I'd have to say that Yojimbo was definitely the superior film. Tochiro Mifune was a more expressive actor than Clint Eastwood, there was better drama in pitting the sword wielding hero against a gunfighter than there was in pitting the pistol-bearing hero against a guy with a rifle, and the ending of Yojimbo was far more satisfying.

But Fistful of Dollars was good. Leone's instincts for close-ups and angles was pretty keen. Eastwood was cool, even if he wasn't as cool as Mifune. And the location--very dry, hot looking spanish desert--was very effective atmosphere. The costumes were not the garish, bright colours of a 50s western, but instead a more realistic and interesting collection of earth tones. I liked how everyone's pants were really tight and how very skinny Eastwood was.

I was up until 5am watching it, then I woke myself up at 9am to tape The Postman Always Rings Twice and was unable to get back to sleep afterwards. So I typed up a few chapters of my novel, editing as I went. Already I've been more productive to-day than yesterday--in fact, I think yesterday was the single least productive day I've had in a year. Mostly it was eaten up by Morrowind--I've finally gotten around to figuring out how to make my own maps in the editer and have begun assembling my own mod. Too, too addictive.

"Only one important thing has happened in the last three days, and that is that nothing has happened." -Sherlock Holmes

Watched a particularly good episode of Slayers last night. The group was up against a creature whose teleportation ability resembled Nightcrawler's in X-2, in that it was quick and all the fuck over the place. And the manner in which Lina beat him was still satisfying--she used some big shadowy thing called the Ragna Blade that was able to cut through the monster's dimensional barrier. Neat stuff. I love Lina Inverse.

What I learned in class last night; comedy is easy, dying is hard. Frustrating a little, too.

Watched the 1927 Metropolis a few nights ago--or what's left of it, anyway. It seems that about a quarter of the movie was lost forever. What's left is truly great. Visuals of the convoluted future city put me in the mind of Coruscant in the new Star Wars movies. And in fact, Metropolis's city shots looked about as real.

Last night I watched Johnny Guitar, in which Joan Crawford was a damned tough old gal. It's a western from the mid-fifties that's about the battle between--not two cowboys, but between two women. Which was neat. Not a perfect film by any means. But great fun.

Am I the only one who thinks there should have been a wrestling match between Joan Crawford and Katharine Hepburn at some point? Of course they'd be naked, but that goes without saying . . .

I hate Thursdays.

My eyelids plead with me, they want to touch each other. But I've an obstacle course to run . . .

Sitting here eating girl scout cookies, noticing that the cookies are marketed as being "old-fashioned" and it occurs to me that it's kinna old-fashioned to market something as old-fashioned, particularly with the font they're using.

The back has a photo of girls hoisting a U.S. flag. Looks like the cast of a third rate spooky mystery cartoon, complete with a token representative of every race and weight.

I wish I had been in girl scouts. I've been thinking about girls a lot lately. Maybe 'cause we're heading into spring, huh? Wow, I bet that's it. Huh. I've never before marked this occasion but, yes, suddenly, mysteriously, vaginas matter a lot more to me to-day than they did a few months ago. And it's not like I was indifferent to them back then.

I will say, though, that I caught myself thinking that if I ever married a man, I would want to wear a wedding dress. Mostly I think there're just omnigendered daemons piroetting about my brain-land.

How about some manga? The famously brilliant Caitlin, one of the great females of this world, has uploaded my chapter 5 of The Adventures of Nar'eth to Nebari.Net. I'm kind of sorry now that no one gets naked in this chapter.

Speaking of Caitlin, you might wanna look at her Girl Who Sold the World in the chronicles section of Nebari.Net.

No time to-day
and nothing to say
anyway
so, hey
La doipie doipie lay!

Guess what? I did another new page of Doll Merchant, hey hey!

Watched Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution last night. The movie gave me the smug feeling all the way through that I knew what the surprise ending was. Then at the end, it turned out I was right but not right enough!

And Charles Laughton was delightful in the movie.

I thought it was kind of funny that Tyrone Powers' character was uncomfortable being the object of a 56 year-old woman's crush--even as his character was married to Marlene Dietrich's character and Dietrich was, at the time the film was made, 56 years old! She looked gaunt.

"When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it." -Sherlock Holmes

Oscars to-night . . . I have no picks. I know nothing!

Yesterday I . . . come on, think. Yesterday did happen . . . I must have done things . . . By the gods . . . Um . . . Almost got cut off by a guy in an ugly truck. Bought some nice, nice coffee. Beat team-mode in Soul Calibur 2 with just Xianhua (on maximum dificulty, of course).

Eef. Er, oh. Watched Dressed to Kill, a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie. Seems like this one wanted to harken back to the classic stories a bit. But it still came off as too innocent and Holmes made puzzling decisions. (why wouldn't Scotland Yard be the best place to hide the sought after music box? Why the Baker Street flat, with just bumbling Nigel Bruce--er, Watson--to protect it?)

Anyway, to-day I put up a new page of the almost never updated Doll Merchant. Enjoy.

More on Ghost Story . . .

The book is not at all misogynist. In spite of the fact that it's, I feel, largely about man's difficulty with women, the character of Stella Hawthorne, who brazenly goes out with men other than her husband, somehow, curiously, comes off as someone you not only like, but respect. Even as you, as a reader, dislike what she's doing. And that's a hell of an acheivement, especially as it strengthens the sense of Ricky Hawthorne's helplessness. And yet there's something kick ass about Ricky. Just brilliant, brilliant.

Had a headache to-day until I bought coffee.

But you know, I have to pee . . .

You know what I'd really like right now? A girl. Yup. Pretty typical, but true.

Not even necessarily for sex. Sometimes you just want female company, no matter how good Peter Straub is at scaring you about it.

But it looks like I'll have to settle for Morrowind girls to-day . . .

You know what I want even more? Barbara Stanwyck.

Oh, hi, yeah, blog.

Catching up on a lot of things to-day.

Visited Marty and finally returned one of the books he let me borrow more than a year ago.

The book? Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

A book about being a man and having frightening interactions with women. In a small town where nearly everyone cheats on their spouse--and usually to sleep with Ricky (protagonist) Hawthorne's wife, Stella Hawthorne--there're a number of deadly supernatural incidents that seem to go back to something that occured at party involving a beautiful young actress that old Wanderley was in love with. Wanderley died at the party and the actress disappeared.

Or maybe it goes back to something more horrible . . .

Wanderley's nephew Donald falls in love with a mysterious and captivating young woman, only to have her bail on him, get engaged to his brother, and then perhaps cause his brother to kill himself. Then she disappears.

This is a brilliant book that plays on so many of the discomfort strings in the human mind. From the innocent mishandling of love in youth, to the confused vista of betrayal in adulthood, to the guilt and despair of old age. All of it literally comes back to haunt and to kill.

But what's going on in the whole of this novel is far subtler and more disturbing than I could ever hope to give justice to in any analysis. Read it!

Ugh. Feeling warmly washed out this morning.

Spent a lot of time last night writing a counter-agrument to an article by Orson Scott Card ( Card's article is here and my counter-argument is here. )

It was a bit easy, really, I know. But I figured someone had to do it anyway.

I hate Thursdays.

I few things I need to do very quickly . . .

It is strangely warm in this room.

I'm having a hard time typing properly . . . fingers keep slump over keys . . . unedited sentence; Iltyi Ouioing sinriomthing kikke this, klooks bad,.

Hung out with Trisa in Hillcrest yesterday where the faux-Mardi Gras crowd consisted of one guy in a pokka-dotted dress and a clown wig with Christmas ornaments around his neck. I mean the big glass ball kind. If that poor bastard tripped, just imagine how badly he'd cut his neck up . . . All that just for San Diego's Mardi Gras.

Talked to Olivia the cat last night. It seems that, so long as she doesn't see my face (which I hid behind a chair), she lets me pet her. It's kind of a father confessor relationship we have.

I have so very many things I want to do to-day, so I'll start by keeping this entry short, and then going for coffee.

Cold, headache night in class and I just wanted to go to sleep. Why does everyone have to talk so much?

Dreamt something about ogres that I don't remember clearly . . .

Oh, and I watched The Lady Eve, which was smashing. I want sex with Barbara Stanwyck. The scene where Henry Fonda was holding her foot drove me mad, I tell you.

I've decided to wear my contact lenses to-day. Ow.

And I have a tooth-ache. Inflamed gums or something. Life a pain? No, I say, no!

Must stop drinking soda. Must gather thoughts. Wait. No. Must drink more soda . . .

Decided to play a Castlevania mod for Morrowind last night. In spite of its many problems and the fact that it conflicted with the Firemoth mod (why does everyone have to build their islands in that precise or general area? What's so attractive about Vvardenfell's west coast?) I actually found it pretty enjoyable. Even my level 74 character, the by now legendary (well, at least to me) Paelwynna, had considerable difficulty with it, even wearing, as she was, her best armour and jewellery I'd personally enchanted. Plus, she was carrying Narsil (some cool frood had made some of the Lord of the Rings weapons for Morrowind).

The difficulty was in the endless rows of skeletons and "mermen" (which were in fact pumped up clannfears). Very like a Castlevania game, actually. Only in Castlevania, most enemies do not take more than four hits with even the weakest whip. And I think the labrynthine dungeon would have been more enjoyable for me if my videocard let my map work.

I guess the coolest part was the eerie, surprisingly well-made, stone stairway leading into the sky to meet up with Dracula's floating castle. Although it was here that, I think, Firemoth was screwing with things because somehow the ground had gotten seperated from the castle structure, resulting in many bewildered zombies and skeletons being relocated miles away, to the bottom of the ocean.

You know, considering how very much I need to get done, I really oughtn't to have been spending so much time with Morrowind last night . . . ah, well.

Last night I also watched Woody Allen's Sleeper. It was a very, very fun movie. And I was surprised to be reminded of Farscape at times. Especially when Diane Keaton's character was pronounced irreversably contaminated by her extended company with the alien (Allen).

...

My horoscope to-day says that I'll have a lot of extra energy. My numeroscope says I'll probably feel a bit sluggish all day. I'm hoping to break even.

Ridiculous!

Conan shouldn't have to apologise for those infants having a stick up their asses.

In other news . . . I watched To Kill A Mockingbird to-day. I hadn't seen it since high school and I'd never seen it in widescreen before. Gregory Peck really kicks ass in that movie.

I realised something . . . Brock Peters, the guy who plays Tom Robinson, later played Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek IV and VI. And he also played Benjamin Sisko's father on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Just seemed strange to me. Why wasn't Gregory Peck ever on Star Trek? (He did appear in the US production of Moby Dick with Patrick Stewart, but it's still not the same.)

Why can't Patrick Stewart get more and better roles? That reminds me, I want my copy of Excalabur back from Tim . . .

I was up until 5am working on a play for my playwriting class. Figuring it would never get made anyway, I've so far not skimped on nudity, makeup, or violence.

Dreamt last night that I got hold of a bake sale flyer that the mob had put out--the only problem was that at the last moment, the mob had decided not to have a bake sale and to recall the flyers. It turned out there was only one flyer remaining out there--mine. But they didn't know I had it. My friend, who in my dream was Jack Black, convinced me that I could make so much money if I held onto the flyer. So I put it in a mannilla envelope and hid it under my pillow.

Then one day a couple of toughs in suits showed up. Somehow they knew I had the flyer and they proceeded to beat the crap out of me--but I wouldn't tell them where it was. Finally they said they'd give me money so I took them into my room and pointed to my pillow. They had asked if I had made any copies of the flyer and I had said "no." But unfortunately, they found inside the envelope, with the flyer, a copy I'd forgotten I'd made in pencil on lined paper.

Before the guys left, one of them gave me a crumpled, balled up piece of paper. When they'd gone, I opened the paper to find a used tissue inside.

I had another dream, too--I was walking across a bridge over a little river near my grandmothers house when I came across a busy Olive Garden, nestled amongst the trees. I went inside and began trying to take some of their tomato sauce without paying for it. I almost got away with it because there was a restaurant reality television series filming in there at the time.

When I awoke, my first words to Lucky the cat were, "Tomato sauce."

Maybe Bush is losing because he fell asleep during the Superbowl?. Could very well be.

Class last night involved a workshop. Having taken part in discussions on Caitlin R. Kiernan's message board where it was widely agreed that workshops were almost useless to writers as they generally consisted of coddling sessions, I had decided that I would be absolutely honest. And I was. And I think I really hurt someone's feelings and . . . I'm glad. Sure, I felt a little bad. I thought about those times when people have said bad things about my work and I'd gone and driven around thinking, "Gosh, am I really cut out to be a writer?" I thought maybe this guy was having one of those nights. But I feel better when I think about how truly awful and dull and spiritless his little one-act play was. I feel good knowing that I either permanently discouraged him (in which case, he'd never be able to handle the stresses of trying to be a published writer) or encouraged him to do better. In any case, it's a step towards a world with slightly less crap in it.

Writers shouldn't need honey with their vinegar.

Went to see The Triplets of Bellville to-day. It had a lot of clever little things about it--I particularly enjoyed how nearly every American was drawn terribly fat and the Hollywood sign was changed to Hollyfood. But there were a number of things I disliked about the underlying concept--I was quickly bored by all the old women animation. I'm generally bored, in fact, by silent old woman charicitures. Guess it's a silly hang up I have. To me, the grandson, with his enormous pointed nose and skeleton body with peculiarly muscular legs, was far more interesting. Unfortunately, the writer(s) decided it would be cute if he had less cognitive ability than his dog and that the movie be mostly about his grandmother rescuing him. I suppose I'm not bothered by the idea of other people enjoying that sort of thing, but to me, well . . . it was boring.

The whole movie didn't live up to the very cool first few minutes--and neither did any of the rest of the movie explain most of what happened in the first few minutes, most notably the fascinatingly terrifying sight of Fred Astaire being eaten by his shoes. I also liked the topless dancing woman with the banana skirt.

Whoa . . . the sky just turned orange rather abruptly . . .

Almost got actually sick yesterday! And I don't mean the colds I get from time to time . . . But an actual, honest-to-goodness flu! My eyeballs felt like they were suspended on rubberbands stretched between my ears and my stomach demanded that I sit still for long periods of time.

So I wasn't very productive yesterday. I watched The Heiress last night, which was the first William Wyler movie I'd ever seen. It starred Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Richardson, and Montgomery Clift and was captivating. De Havilland was particularly brilliant and convincingly conveyed a bright, innocent, shy young girl happily in love at the beginning of the movie and just as convincingly portrayed that character's metamorphosis into a crueller, wiser woman. And I enjoyed Richardson's performance a lot--he would have been quite at home commanding an Imperial Star Destroyer.

I'm eager to get out of the house to-day . . .

*Toshiro Mifune voice* HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH! */Toshiro Mifune voice*

I have overcome it! Ah ha! I will not be sick, do you hear? Hah! All I needed was a glass of orange juice and some Tori Amos and I tell you . . . I AM REVIVED! Did not throw up, did not lose my balance . . . Three hours and I am at MAXIMUM STRENGTH! Eat that, demon! Fwa!

Eyes . . . rolling in head . . . erratically . . . stomach . . . stingy bad feel . . . oh . . .

Watched Touch of Evil last night . . . Directed by Orsen Welles it stars Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orsen Welles, and Marlene Dietrich. It was good. Apparently it's a restored version--the version originally released to theatres was a version butchered by the studio. This recent restoration was put together to reflect desires expressed by Welles in a memo to the studio, but for forty years, the movie was known only in a form that Welles didn't want. Poor guy.

The movie is pretty good--it's damned full of tension at just about every moment. The viewer's continually disoriented by shifting, jagged angles and close-ups--yet it still all comes together to tell the story coherently. Everything moves fast under the heat of constant danger and the desires of sinister men. Janet Leigh is beautiful and vulnerable, stabbed by shadows and noise brutally before a single human hand is laid on her.

Charlton Heston plays a Mexican police chief--amusing, given the actor's current views regarding minorities. He's certainly not the best actor in the world but he does an adequete job here; all he really needs to be is the straight hero.

Welles' character, the alcoholic American police chief, was a little more interesting. Having put on a great deal of weight by this point in his carreer, Orsen was a big dreadnaught of ominousness under a fedora.

The story itself was pretty simple. But above all, this was a movie that was good for how the camera moved and how things were edited. It does something to the brain.

Hung out with Ha yesterday while she bought presents for her Valentine(s). I didn't even remember that it was Valentine's Day until she'd reminded me. So, having almost passed under my radar, it didn't suck so bad.

Ha has now been to Parkway Plaza exactly twice. I was amazed. She introduced me to grape leaves, and was amazed that I had always ordered the same meal from the Greek Gyros--spanakopeta.

One very good thing that happened was this.

My grandmother's already grumbling about it but I hope people will look at this and say, "You know. It don't hurt for gay people to marry each other. What the hell was I worried about?" A little Valentine's Day gift for the whole human race--less bigotry is good for everyone.

I watched, I guess, an appropriate movie for V-Day last night; Gate of Hell. A Japanese, colour film from 1953 directed by Teinosuko Kinugasa, it was about a samurai named Moritoh (Kazuo Hasegawa) who falls in love with a woman named Kesa (the beautiful Machikyo Kyo). After protecting her when she serves as decoy for the Empress, Moritoh is promised a boon by the Emperor. Moritoh asks for Lady Kesa's hand in marriage. The only trouble is that, unbeknownst to Moritoh, Lady Kesa's already married to another samurai, Wataru (Isao Yamagata). But instead of backing down when he discovers this fact, Moritoh becomes violently obsessed.

It was the kind of bitter, terrific love story that one might expect when samurai get involved. It was very good. My feelings about love were properly reflected by this work.

Don't think I've ever been so far behind on my laundry. I literally have nothing to wear. Wonder what I'll do . . .

Was in a hurry yesterday because I had to babysit my sister's dog--a half chihuaha, half yorkie named Bella. She's very fiesty and enjoys biting people and things. Reminds me that I'm more of a cat person.

Slept in spurts last night as I set my alarm to wake me at intervals to either stop a tape, start a tape, or switch a tape. When I came to for reals finally, I was a little upset that I'd missed Wuthering Heights at 6:30am. But then I was organising my tapes to-day and discovered that I had already taped Wuthering Heights, at around tape 30 or so. And then I discovered that I'd already taped The Philadelphia Story, which I was recording at the precise moment I discovered this, prompting me to immediately press "stop." I also appear to have two copies of The Lady Eve, two tape 31s, and no tape 65. Yes, it was certainly high time I'd organised the things.

Yesterday I watched Only Angels Have Wings starring Cary Grant, Jean Arther, and Rita Hayworth. It was directed by Howard Hawks, demonstrating that Howard Hughes was a fool to fire him.

Only Angels Have Wings is about pilots in some South American country. Lee (Jean Arther) stops in while coming ashore from her cruise ship. Leather jacket wearing, hot young pilots quickly try and woo her, but the fellow who was supposed to take her to steak dinner ends up having to go up in his plane in bad weather--he gets killed. Lee's astonished when the boss, played by Cary Grant in a ludicrously large panama hat, and the rest of the boys go on having their rowdy night in the bar.

The movie goes on to be about these men who fly, risking death, and the inability of their loved ones to cope with the pilots' precarious lifestyle. And good for that. Arther's character is spunky with her out-of-towner, high pitched voice but not overplayed. Grant is a sympathetically hard-hearted bastard. I only wish Rita Hayworth had had a bigger role. But then again, I suppose it wouldn't have fit, exactly.

Now to find some clothes . . .

Yesterday involved ninjas, Star Trek, a new DNA model, ritual suicide, and the undead.

I can't say much else though, 'cause I'm in a hurry! Perhaps . . . more later!

One of those days when a dip in the bacta tank sounds really good. Got a store throat and feel like there are thistles stored behind my nose. This just had to happen on a Thursday, didn't it?

Last night I watched The Outlaw, directed by Howard Hughes. It was a bad movie. Apparently it's more famous for how it was marketed--advertisements focused mainly on Jane Russell's cleavage. It was only released briefly, then pulled when family associations and the like screamed for its blood. In light of the whole Janet Jackson thing, one's forced to note how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And like Janet Jackson, Howard Hughes appears to have had almost no artistic talent. Originally, Howard Hawks (The Big Sleep) was supposed to direct The Outlaw but was fired because Hughes felt he had better ideas. These ideas seem generally to have consisted of bizarre, oddly-timed close-ups with a massive overuse of cresendoing orchestra for the soundtrack (not to mention an overuse of goofy "wa-wa-waaaa"s). At one point, Jane Russell's character decides to stay home. She says so, then walks out of frame, and we're subjected to several moments of the camera meaninglessly watching the empty wall while the music gets grand.

The story is simple enough. One day, Doc Holiday shows up in town (it's a western, by the way). He's friends with the sheriff, so they're hanging out when they discover that Billy the Kid had stolen Doc's horse--the actor in the role of Billy the kid is a monotonously charmless fellow who was obviously always polite to his elders in real life.

The Battle For the Horse is a running gag throughout the film, one of the many things which provoked me to scream, "Why don't you shoot him!"

Billy sleeps in the stable to protect his horse from Holiday. Billy's attacked here by a young woman named Rio (Jane Russell). She's awful mad about him having killed his brother. But then he rapes her so she can't help but love him. She loves him so much that, later, when he's been injured by a shotgun at point blank range, she patiently nurses him back to health, even pressing her naked body to him to keep him warm (for truly, the warmth of a woman is the cure for having your body scattered into pulpy meat--okay, so the shotgun only gave him a minor leg wound).

From the uncannily lustreless performances by Billy the Kid and Rio, to Rio's ridiculous figure, this movie feels like a porno. There are a number of scenes that fade to black, practically telling you, "And then they had sex." But of course, you never see any of the good stuff.

The moral hijinks--like Rio's rape--would have bothered me except I didn't believe for a single moment in anything that happened in this movie. It was filled with long, dull scenes that we can figure out the ending to long before they reach said end . . .

Why did I watch it? Well, it's Howard Hughes!

I'm gonna get things done to-day. I don't care what happens or how late I have to stay up--Wait, damn, I have to get up early to-morrow. Oh well, so much for that. I'll just ooze through to-day.

I need more Altoids. Cinnamon. Tried the peppermints but all they did was freshen my breath.

And I'm hungry! Food, I need. Do any of you realise just how difficult it is for me to get out of this chair? I'll frequently starve until 5pm.

My hands are cold . . . Getting near the end of Peter Straub's Ghost Story . . . Wonderful book, but actually really taking a toll on me psychologically, I think.

I dreamt last night I met a denim wearing, black haired, mad girl named Peter, sleeping on a tatami mat. I was delighted that her name was Peter--I told her how brilliant I thought it was that she should have that name. She glared at me, but smiled faintly.

The packet of works submitted that were discussed in the Acorn Review class last night was completely comprised of crap. There was not a single, halfway decent item in the dispiriting lot. They were all poems. They were all bad poems.

Particularly the last one--something about learning how to fly and kayaking and rainbows in waterfalls. I gave my most emphatic speech about how the author should die a thousand deaths. But what hurt the most is that this absolute piece of dren was voted in! The majority of the class liked it!

Rarely have I felt so let down by humanity. Rarely have I seen a clearer indicator of shear blandness of the mass-human consciousness. I truly want something absolutely bizarre to happen to all of these people. Something to remind them what true excitement can be, that life is more than eXtreme sports and Skittles commercials (two things that the poem was inferior to but probably influenced by). I want these people to wake up and smell the squid men. I want these people to wake up with a hangover, discovering they'd slept with Minnie Mouse.

I want their worlds to be so rocked that when they try to tell their former friends about their uncanny experiences, they find themselves shunned by souls who are unable to accept anything stranger than reality TV. And then Ebenezer Scrooge shall have learned a thing or two.

Feel like I've got a hairball in my throat . . . Been hanging out with the cats too much.

Went to the Olive Garden with my parents and sister yesterday and ate far too much. Actually felt that stretching pain in the stomach.

To-day's school and I've gotten to thinking about how very much I've assigned myself to do and about how little I've gotten done.

Grr! Must . . . activate . . . energy . . . productivity . . . C'mon you lazy bastard, where's the gusto?! . . . Must . . . do . . . things . . . !

Last night's dream involved a sinister sequence of events involving grotesque, gargantuan sealife, beautiful people, and souls that are at times doomed.

Myself and around fifteen other people were working for a mysterious, shadowy agency at the biggest aquarium in the world. At least, we thought we were working for them. There seems to have been some confusion about that.

Anyway, the trouble began when one morning I was strolling outside one of the larger tanks--about the size of a large town--and saw that it had been emptied of water. Terribly enormous, dark skinned tentacles with ruffled suction cups and the dark, gleaming smooth bulks of dead whales were piled in overbearingly ominous hills for as far as the eye could see.

Well, it turned out the strange time machine that had been activated in one of my previous dreams was still active, and my team and I were forced to replay the mission that ensued upon finding the dead sea creatures, over and over again. I was the only one who remembered anything from previous cycles.

There was a young Arab man who I remembered as having been killed in a previous cycle. He was a decent fellow, so I decided to wake him up and warn him.

The team had a set of carved, airtight, wooden dorms in the middle of one of the tanks and the only light inside these dorms was given by the spider-webby water reflections coming in from the window, making the place dark, soft, and blueish.

I didn't find the Arab man in his bed. Instead, there was another team member, a beautiful woman who was always topless.

Later, during the course of our mission where we were trying to get past the mazes and traps at an enormous, marble castle, she and I decided to stop at a Subway sandwich and get dinner.

We were having a pleasant, sort of exuberant conversation, when suddenly she realised that her sandwich had been made wrong. A dim, confused waiter approached, asking if he could help, and she began yelling violently at him. The waiter and much of the rest of the staff were soon brought to tears by her ferocity. Myself, I sat quietly thinking about a question I'd asked her that she'd never answered.

When she ran outside in a beserker rage, I decided I'd go back to the castle and see how the rest of the team was doing.

On the way, I spotted another beautiful female member of the team walking under a stone bridge.

I jumped down from the bridge to land next to her and asked if she'd mind if I walked with her. She said that no, she didn't mind.

When we reached the castle, we saw that the Arab man I was worried about had managed to miss the pit that would have claimed his life. I was sort of glad, but it was an empty kind of gladness, because I knew this whole thing would repeat itself again, and he would probably die, if not the next time, at least some other time in another cycle.

We never completed the mission.

Finished the first draft of my novel yesterday. Oy . . . Lots of typing to do still. Lots of editing--I can already think of things I definitely want to fix and who knows what I'll find once I go over it carefully.

But writing The End is probably a significant step.

I'd seen a number of people speaking well of a movie called Drunken Master, including Roger Ebert and Franklin Harris. So last night I at last watched it. It was very good. Jackie Chan's an entertaining, delightful rascal. And just fun to watch. One thing that annoyed me was that the DVD continually switched between Cantonese and English dubbed, all by itself, in the middle of scenes.

To-day . . . I have to go to the laundrymat. I don't want to go. I hate that place. Fuck.

My eyes hurt.

I got up early again to-day. I hope this won't become a habit. Then again, it is kind of fun being up early. It's also fun to stay up late. I just need to stop sleeping.

But sleep is fun too, oh no . . .

I figured out that I've taped around one hundred forty movies in the past month or two. I just made tape sixty yesterday. As the old man say, there be all kinds of wealth in this wide world, yessir.

Yesterday I ate only an Egg McMuffin (without ham) and a burrito. Yet I was not hungry unil I woke up this morning.

I'm feeling weird about to-day.

Oof . . . I feel steamrollered . . .

My cousin, Josh, put my spare tire on my car for me last night, so I got up bright and early (8am!) to go and get my new tire. In twenty minutes, it was done, and I was on my way to getting an oil change--the first oil change I've ever had to get because of time instead of mileage. The incapacitation of my car for tire and insurance added it up that way.

Then I was driving. Not really sure where I was going but I ended up at Plaza Camino Real mall. In their interesting, cosy, coffee place I wrote what is essentially the climax of my novel. It left me with a twist in my gut--in a good way, I suppose. I felt devastated as I walked away from the mall. I suppose I ought to write the denoument but quick.

To-night's the playwriting class. I read the reading assignment in the obscenely expensive book but I'm not sure I've done all the work I'm supposed to. Typical academic me, I guess. Cross your fingers for me.

Oh, hello, I've got that bitter wakeful feeling in my stomach. Was it the tamales with the two different kinds of stale fast-food hot sauce (found Del Taco's Del Scorcho and Taco Bell's Fire in one of my bags)? Was it all the altoids I complusively plunked into my mouth? Was it all the writing I was doing yesterday, the fact that I'm a hair from finishing my novel's first draft? Is it woman trouble? Is it Dr. Pepper? I'll tell you one thing, it's certainly not the taste of originality . . .

Maybe I'm spooked. I fell asleep to the cat snoring only to wake a few hours later to find the cat gone--somehow my door had been opened without waking me. And this bothered me. I obsessively thought over all the possible ways the cat could have gotten out of the room. Maybe I was sleep walking? Wouldn't be the first time.

When I was a kid, I once woke up with all my clothes inside-out. I asked my mother about it and she said I'd been wandering the house naked and that she'd had to dress me.

As I keep going with this novel thing and with other things, I'm finding myself feeling an increasing lack of hope about life.

Maybe it was a ghost cat to begin with? Lucky just came into the room now. He doesn't look like he's afraid he won't get let out if he needs to be.

I'm feeling a big dislike for some things right now. Or disinterest. I have so many movies to watch . . . I think I'd rather sit and watch them than do anything else ever again. I guess I'm excited about where my novel is, but it's making me cry, and I'll probably be the only one it does that to.

Actually my eyes are rather stingingly dry at the moment. Lucky looks startled by the motionless door . . . He and his mother, Victoria, have this way of just looking casually startled. Although he can certainly look restful. I was thinking last night of what a business-like expression is on his face when he sleeps.

To-day I'm gonna make a real effort to get my car up and running. Maybe I'll just drive on the flat to the discount tire place? I once drove from Ocean Beach to Santee on a flat (because I'm that kind of scary-stupid). I should be okay.

Hello, Wednesday.

Was very fortunate to be driven home by a celebrity named Ha last night. Very fortunate--it was raining cats, dogs, and robot locusts. Then Ha and I shared toquitos before she had to leave. Hope she got home okay, come to think of it . . .

To-day . . . I actually slept in later than the cat, which almost never happens. He got up, paced up to my face, said good morning, and then jumped off the bed.

Watched Yojimbo last night. For action sequences, I must say I greatly prefer swords over guns. Sorta makes me sorry that guns ever came into existence.

And now the only fatigue remaining on my brain is the kind that wants only coffee to alleviate it. And coffee I shall have.

I'm a little miffed that I missed taping Julius Ceasar at one o'clock . . .

Right! No connexions, no reason in this world but the need for espresso! Ikimasu yo . . .

AH . . .

Forgot to mention that I finally got the Twin Peaks pilot on DVD on Saturday. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. And neither could the guy at GameStop who asked me, astonishment in his voice, where I'd gotten it. I'd gotten it at Barnes and Noble, where it was slightly expensive. But well worth it.

I could do with some walking now. Which is good because it's precisely what I have to do.

The computer's noisy again . . .

Dream last night was about a cunning system of mirrors arranged around people's bathrooms to allow their private activities to be viewed in secret. I discovered one in my bathroom and felt strangely sure that no one had used it and any who might have noticed it had thought nothing of it.

The past several weeks, I've mainly been doing all my movie-watching in the evening. So it's only fitting that the first movie that I should watch at an unusually early time should be a movie called The Remains of the Day.

I'd seen this movie before a very long time ago. I didn't really remember it very well so it was an essentially new experience. I'd read the book by Kazuo Ishiguro upon which the movie's based . . . not very long ago. I have to say that in several ways, the book was better. The book's told in first person and the movie, rather than have Mr. Stevens narrate, chose to try and incorporate all the information within the action or dialogue. Occasionally there was a voice-over of someone's letter to another person, acting as a kind of narrative. Mostly, the attempts at reforming the narrative felt pretty artificial. And I know some, like perhaps Caitlin R. Kiernan, who would say that first person narrative is distractingly artificial enough. Me, I think I'd rather have the single big artifice--which worked well in The Age of Innocence--than a bunch of little ones. I'd find it less jarring.

Of course, the excellent performances by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson made the movie well worth watching. The music was good, too.

And what else have I done to-day? I walked a bit and bought a sandwich.

Urrr, I'm so very hungry. It would make sense to eat, I suppose.

Yesterday I saw Return of the King again. Like its predecessors, it gets better every time I see it. I felt more emotionally involved for some reason.

I'd planned to do a number of things to-day. Definitely too many. I haven't even gotten breakfast-eating done with.

To-day's going to be a bunch of Alfred Hitchcock movies on TCM and I'm going to try to tape all of them.

I made the mistake of putting my contact lenses in my eyes to-day.

So tired . . . Can't sleep. Promised myself I'd sleep in . . . yet here I am . . . can't sleep. Isn't that funny, now?

What a day yesterday. Wrote more in my novel, which really seems to be going into hyperspace or something as I near the end. I wouldn't be surprised if I had draft one finished by next week.

I paid for my classes last night. Even though I'm only taking two, the cost was one hundred twenty dollars. It's really unbelievable. And now it's not just that I'm too busy to be a full-time student . . . I just can't afford it. I can't even conscience spending that much money on school. And I'm not even figuring in the cost of books. I've still gotta buy books for the playwriting class I started last night, and they look to be expensive. But the class seems to be fun so far, and I like Mr. Karl Sherlock. In addition to having one of the best names in the school, he also has the best wardrobe.

Then, of course, I walked home. And I really hated it last night. Not sure why. I was just cold and miserable and I wanted my damn car.

I hope I remember what classroom to go to to-day. I've written it on my hand, but that's not really any guarantee, now is it?

I want to go back to sleep very badly.

Yesterday I taped movies nearly all day . . . And I wrote a bit here and I wrote a bit there (Starbucks). It seems odd that I don't have memories of doing much else yesterday. Huh.

Bass!

I finally signed up for AOL Instant Messenger last night. Doesn't seem like such a bad service.

Watched an interview with the late Ann Miller last night. She seemed very interesting and lively for a woman of her age. She seemed like "a pistol" as Robert Osbourne (interviewer) said.

I wonder if she really did invent pantyhose, though? And I wonder if she really did introduce Lucille Ball to Dezi Arnez? There were an awful lot of things she said that she preceded by saying, "Now, the history books don't give me credit for it but I . . ."

She almost reminded me of the Albert Finney/Ewan McGreagor character from Big Fish. But I think I'll choose to believe her.

I think I'll probably spend most of the day indoors, taping movies, writing, and drawing. There are far worse ways to spend one's time.

I shall make one trip to Starbucks, though, for my health. I mean, I'll be walking, as I have been for about a week now. I have money for a new tire, but I need to find someone who knows how to put my spare on . . .

Lots of doing yesterday. Wrote an awful lot at the Grossmont Trolley Starbucks. Then I went to school, where I met up with Ha, who's taking the Acorn Review class as I am. She gave me some much appreciated food.

There're a number of people in the class, far more than the two previous times I've enrolled in it, but mainly there seems to be a very loud guy named James. I'm hoping I'll have an opportunity to crush his ego some time this semester. Not that I think he's a bad guy, it's that no-one should be that happy.

I did a new page of Doll Merchant last night--long overdue, I know.

And the other day, I found something buried in my car that I thought I might share with you people--very old photos of me. I guess they're from seven or eight years ago. It seems like ages ago--I really can't believe my skin once looked so good. I'm pretty glad there's photographic evidence, actually. Anyway. I've always wanted to post photos on this site, so people know what I look like. No-one ever wants to take pictures of me. But here's what I used to look like:

Just about time for me to leave for school.

There are many things to despise about this world.

But I think to-day should be okay.

There are so many things I wanna get done over the next couple weeks. Maybe too many things. I hope not so many things that I get nothing done.

There was a cat killed by coyotes in the street last night . . . None of the cats living here, but a cat I knew. The poor thing was torn apart so's only pieces of white fluff remained.

Coyotes are strange creatures. One night, a few weeks ago, I saw a coyote in the middle of a very busy street called Friars Road, looking very confused.

I found my copy of Tom Waits' Alice. I'm so glad about it. It was wedged between the driver's seat and cupholder in my car.

I'm supposed to go and watch the Golden Globes with my mother and sister to-day. Since there shall be pizza, I suppose I shall definitely go.

Watched Martin Scorcese's The Age of Innocence last night. I hadn't seen it in many years and I hadn't yet read the book the first time I saw the movie. The movie is surprisingly faithful to a book that I would have thought difficult to translate into a motion picture. Although it does, of course, sidestep the primary difficulty by having a narrator--a woman's voice, presumably the voice of Edith Wharton. Filmmakers generally perfer to avoid narration when they can and the reason is pretty well illustrated in this movie--it slows the action and makes the movie a more passive entity. But it was absolutely necessary in this case and since the movie is so brilliant in every other way, it all works out. I liked the tricks used to make people standing around, saying things vaguely, into a scene that communicates the violent emotions underneath--be it use of colour tinting or unexpected close-ups or clever uses of sound. Daniel Day-Lewis does much for this, too, being able to express a great deal without saying anything.

The movie lacks some of the humour of the book, particularly at the beginning. But it does very well capture the characters and their incredibally subtle, delicate relationships.

It really is a beautiful, terrible story.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 may leave television forever.

I know, they stopped making new episodes years ago. It's just such a sad statement anyway. I've, for the past couple weeks, been taping the episodes Sci-Fi shows in the early mornig on Saturday. But soon there shan't even be that . . .

I last night watched How to Succeed in Business Without Trying. It was a fun, occasionally cheeky musical that seemed to involve lots of colour and several people who seemed quite comfortable casually rubbing their faces on pieces of others' bodies. Especially the star, someone named Robert Morse, who looked something like a slightly bloated, manic Mark Hammil. I got to admit I kinna liked his faintly disturbing, hyber-creepy energy. And then-president Lyndon Johnson has a cameo.

I have to get coffee now.

Last night was kind of spooky.

I sat in bed, reading Peter Straub's Ghost Story to Lucky the cat (he seemed soothed by it) when suddenly Lucky's head jerked up, startled as he was by the sounds of coyotes howling outside. I did my best to calm him but an illusive air of menace seemed to hang about. I said to Lucky, "Something feels . . . evil . . . doesn't it, Lucky?"

I have a lot of things on my plate. I have to figure out what I'm gonna do about my tire and I have to think about school on Monday. I have to think about saving five dollars for the trolley.

There're other, secret things on my mind, too.

I last night dreamt I was in an enormous old mansion where a countess in the upstairs bedroom wanted me to kiss her.

Well. The recommendation from four girls finally added up; last night I watched Donnie Darko with my sister.

It was predicted by two girls that I would not enjoy it as much now that it had been built up by being recommended so often. I can't say for sure anything about that but I know I did enjoy the movie.

In a lot of ways, it felt like an old Steven Spielburg movie. The interaction amongst the Darko family was both weird and realistic in the way the interaction of the family in E.T. was. Since the movie takes place in the late 80s, you even sort of feel that Elliot's family might live a few blocks away.

There was a scene near the climax that was extremely evocative of E.T.--when Donnie, acting funny, tells Gretchen that they must go somewhere now and they automatically take off on bicycles and his two buddies automatically follow on their bikes. And it's Halloween.

Mainly an enjoyable film. It's only flaw is that the whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts. A series of very interesting or weird situations with good characters (mostly)(I didn't like the overweight girl who got booed in the school play. She was too After School Special). But by the end, it just seems to about how cool Donnie Darko is and how sad it was. Which was fine, although the movie doesn't become a masterpiece like some of the David Lynch and Steven Spielburg movies it paid homage to. And I will say homage, and not "ripped off from," because there was genuine respect and creativity.

Another flaw in the movie was Patrick Swayze's character. Well, maybe not a flaw as he did fulfill his function...well, no, yes! I will say flaw because it bothered me that his self-help video was more simplistic than the annoying self-help stuff in real life. It's true that one of the problems with self-help stuff in real life is that it is too simplicistic but Swayze's was lacking the veneer to make us believe people could plausibly become obsessed with it. If he had been Wane Dyer or Anthony Robbins, then Donnie's reaction to him would have been far more satisfying. As it is, it works because you want to cheer for Donnie, but it's strained.

Swayze's character reminded me of Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia and, perhaps unfortunately, it reminded me that Tom Cruise did a much better job with it.

I really liked Gretchen. Am I old enough for it to be sick for me to lust after her? I'm still only twenty-four. Not officially twenty-five until April. I'm still young! ish! Anyway, the actress is probably thirty.

Dreamt that my Dad was giving me a ride to school about a week before class started. He took a strange route and I ended up falling out of the car without his knowing. I found a gas station next to a nearly deserted airfield and I found an old, rusty, non-motored lawn mower (the kind I mowed the lawn with when I lived with my parents).

Between the airfield and the freeway, on a road that looked a bit like Magnolia just before the land changes from Santee into El Cajon, I pushed the reluctant mower. I was going, I realise now, in the direction of Parkway Plaza (mall).

But the rules were a little different in the world. The road and the freeway peeled apart to display different world layers. I lost myself for a time in a layer populated by soft clay people who smooshed and silently screamed when you touched them. Then there was a layer of curiously small, breakable buildings. Finally there were two infinitely large sheets of sticky black paper. Between were stuck people, arranged in groups starting with the most living on the left and the most dead on the right. When I peeled back the top sheet, the people on the left screamed for help and seemed uncomfortable with the air on their red, glossy open wounds. The people, or the shapeless slabs of meat, to the right were twisted into increasingly inhuman expressions of pain. Some people were no more than blackened, crying faces.

I left and found an apartment near Parkway Plaza that was filled with my family's furniture. I stashed the lawn mower in a corner and my Dad showed up to tell me that I'd been missing for nearly a decade.

...

When you drive through a Taco Bell and you hear echoing wobbly rumbles around you, it could mean you have a flat tire. That's what it meant for me last night, anyway. So once again, like clockwork, my car is incapacitated. And class starts next week. Guess it's back to the trolley for me...

For those interested, Caitlin's uploaded my latest four pages of Nar'eth manga to Nebari.net. Have a look.

Oh . . . do I feel like shit . . .

Watched Porco Rosso last night. A Hayao Miyazaki film about an Italian WWI fighter pilot who's become a bounty hunter by the early thirties. He's also become a pig, which, interestingly, does not seem to impede his flying abilities. It was a brilliant film.

Felt zombie-ish yesterday, fully numb and stuff. Then I bought a coffee, went to Tim's and, all of a sudden, in the middle of beating team mode with Mitsurugi, I became very jittery. After that, until I finally went to bed at 5am, I was similtaneously terribly hungry and very energetic.

To-day, so far, I've been lying in bed with Lucky, feeling like I have a harpoon in my gut, wondering if someone's fucking with me.

Trisa and I were going to try watching a bunch of film noir yesterday, but we only ended up getting through Double Indemnity before she fell asleep.

I feel like violent dren to-day. I wanna grab cartoon caterpillers and chomp their heads off. I wanna soak paper bag grounds with rancid water, breaking them when innocent feet set foot . . .

I still haven't gotten around to breakfast. And it's 3:10pm--late even for me.

I currently hope I don't come across very many people to-day. The liklihood of me punching them for the fact that they're conscious is too great.

Perhaps I can dull things with some Soul Calibur 2 or Morrowind . . . Are computer game titles supposed to be italicised?

I . . . can't remember yesterday very clearly. Let's see . . . In the evening I was at Tim's playing Soul Calibur 2 . . . I had brought Taco Bell with me to eat . . .

I received an e-mail from Cryptess who'd taken the time to tell me that my love for Cowboy Bebop was loathsome . . . Oh, gods, now I remember. What a fucking night. I was up until 5 am looking . . . for what, I cannot even remember. I tore the place apart, kicking up so much dust that at one point I simply collapsed in the closet, feeling miserable. I did find an awful lot of CD cases, though. Now my stack of empty cases whose CDs are missing numbers at only about thirty. And I still haven't found Alice, of course. I'm missing a number of CDs, but most prominent in my mind are two Tom Waits albums; Alice and Heart Attack and Vine.

I will find them. Oh, yes, I will find them.

I did laudry last night, too. Something I very sorely needed to do.

Last night I dreamt about Gollum trying to lead a reformed life in Hobbiton. He was, at times, successful.

Watched Real Time with Bill Maher with my mother and my sister last night. I was a big fan of Politically Incorrect, especially in High School, and back in those days I would occasionally try to get my mother to watch it but of course to her, back then, all of my tastes were patently foolish.

Now, she and my sister, who's becoming a bit too distressingly like a younger version of my mother, are quite taken with Bill Maher and I'm kind of sorry. Because while what I liked about Pollitically Incorrect was that it was a collection of interesting, often intelligent people having intelligent arguments, what mother and sister seem to like is Bill Maher. And I like Bill Maher. But I don't take all his words as The Truth as they seem to. And this Real Time show, unfortunately, seems to be more about Maher than the panel.

And I'm busy again to-day.

Yesterday was a good day. Better than my horoscope predicted.

Spent lots of time in the morning looking for a coffee shop Trisa'd recommended to me that I thought was called Zoams, but was in fact called Bassoms. So I didn't find it, but instead ended up writing for a long time in a Starbucks--wrote a scene that made me feel the whole of the novel like--and here's a hackneyed metaphor--reaching a point while climbing a mountain and looking down to see an indeed great big mountain. I hope, anyway. I'm feeling good about it.

Drove, after that, past a lot of aircraft carriers which were really close to shore. In their midst was a big fat cruise ship. And there, my friends, is America.

In the evening, Trisa and I had much fun going first to Olive Garden, and then to see Spike and Mike's Twisted Animation Festival thing. The best shorts were definitely the Happy Tree Friends, which seemed to perfect what most of the other cartoons were trying to do. After Happy Tree Friends, most of the others seemed dull and plain. Little wonder that there were three HTF episodes throughout the proceedings.

Now I'm in a hurry, so bye.

"As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent you asked for the latest party . . ."

Thursday again and I've got quite a mess here.

Finished watching the Cowboy Bebop television series last night. Definately a series with more style than substance but what style. And what damn fine animation for a television series. I frequently wondered how they managed it. And there was a lot more communicated about characters in this series by the way they moved and there was great use, in that capacity, of subtle gestures. And people had more distinctive physical features. Even many of the women looked different from one another for reasons other than hair.

And I felt sad at the end. Especially during Faye Valentine's words with Spike. It was almost as if she was saying, "I like this Cowboy Bebop series. Don't let's end it!"

I'm very glad I waited to see it with its Japanese language track instead of watching it on Cartoon Network. The English voice actors are never up to snuff.

Continued my hopeless search for some of my CDs yesterday. Digging about in my back seat I found, buried at the bottom, Richard's cough drops bag and Cryptess's fruit juice. Which is weird.

But damn it, why can't I find my copy of Tom Waits's Alice?

I did find, at Mel's journal:


You are a black cat, stubborn yet friendly, you
stick to your values and preferences, and no
one can convince you otherwise! You are the
legendary cat of mystery.


What color of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

What can I say about yesterday? Hmm . . . Well, I was trying to organise my CDs a bit and discovered that my copy of Annie Lennox's Medusa had broken. Somehow--and this's never happened to me before--the CD itself had gotten split almost in half. Not sure I wanna buy it again. Maybe I'll just download it.

Anyway, now there are two large stacks of empty CD cases for CDs that I simply cannot locate. There must be a huge cache of my CDs that I haven't seen in forever stored in some remote place. Many of the missing CDs are ones I clearly remember having when I came back from Seattle so they must have gotten lost in the little storm that promptly followed my return.

Ugh. I wish I had more places to put things. I'm tired of so many of my possessions just being lost somewhere in the hastily bought trash bags.

To-day, well. Can't make plans while this hungry.

Gods . . . Slept until 2pm again. Not good. I'm gonna melt into sludge one day.

Hung out with Ha at Grossmont Centre yesterday. It was fun.

She showed up while I was writing a bit for my novel and I stopped right after a character asked something of another character. So, naturally, ever since then, my mind has been turning over what the response ought to be to the question. And I wonder if having had this much time to think about it shall help or hinder the bit.

Watched "The Devil's Foot" episode of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes last night, which was entirely more gloomy than I remember the short story being. But that's okay.

Dreamt about Jeremy Brett haunting a little girl.

Dreamt Helen Mirren was playing Sherlock Holmes in a new movie. Not an alternate universe female Sherlock Holmes--but actual Sherlock Holmes. She also played another character in the movie, a woman. All in all, she didn't make a very good Holmes. For some reason, she was always trying to speak with a Brooklin accent.

I also dreamt that Parkway Plaza was being overrun with Aliens and Predators and that I was fleeing for my life in the mall's vast, underground sewer system that was also in space. I came accross a very aged and bearded Han Solo and he and I tried to escape by modifying a lift so that it could go very fast and outside of the place. Only it malfunctioned and I woke up as it was being torn open, exposing us to the void.

At some point, there was also a dream where I was buying stamps at a bicycle shop. There was a woman in line next to me with very pretty, short, bright red hair.

Right now I think I'll go have a salad.

Whoy, I just slept nine hours and boy are my arms tired!

I taped three Fred Astaire movies while sleeping--I would've gotten up at around 9 am except Lucky the cat was lying next to be, showing me how asleep sleep can be.

Now its 2pm and I'm wondering what I'll do first . . .

So many things . . . *yawn* . . .

I dreamt about a Hobbit girl with a bowl haircut and freckles.

I need more blank tapes so that's one thing I'll definitely be doing to-day. So's I can get The Searchers, West Side Story, and Rebel Without a Cause. To-day looks to be all too lucrative.

Went to see Big Fish with Trisa last night and it was a very charming movie, moreso in the Ewan McGreagor flashback scenes than for most of the Billy Crudup scenes though.

Trisa and I also stopped by Tower where I purchased a pack of three Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. I watched The Woman in Green. It was curious--the filmakers, in their attempt to jazz up and mature Holmes ended up making something that comes off as far more innocent and simple than the Conan-Doyle stories ever were. I liked Basil Rathbone as Holmes but could see why he didn't enjoy the character as much as Jeremy Brett did. Rathbone felt that Holmes's superior intellect made him too super-human while Brett was able to use that very intellect to make a very human Holmes. So Rathbone's performance is a lot plainer but, still, he's convincing, a good actor, and rather resembled Holmes.

I am hungry.

If murdering someone would do something on the road towards allieviating how I feel to-day, I wonder if I'd do it? I suppose I might. Hard to say, as I can't clearly imagine how murdering someone would help. I'd be willing to do something drastic, though. But there are no solutions. And I'm just angry, helpless, and I'm going to spend all day watching movies.

Woke up early yesterday, as I said, and decided to go for a drive. I aimed at a mall near L.A. I overshot it, and ended up at another mall with a two storey Barnes and Noble. It also had a neat looking store called Manga House and the most efficient Rubios I've ever been to. There was also a miniature museum featuring metal sculptures of various sci-fi movie things, including the alien from Alien, the Predator, and R2-D2 and C3PO. Although C3PO's pectoralis plates were a bit overdone into mammery gland-ishness.

I also visited a place there called the Tea Station, which seemed like an excellent place to write. The tea was also phenominal.

After leaving this mall, I finally spotting the one I had been trying to get to originally. This mall had a Tower Records and a Disney store. It also had Soul Calibur II in its arcade. It was for sale for around 3,400 dollars. I have built myself up to expert level in a game that apparently no one else plays. I wonder if I'll ever be able to talk anyone into playing against me?

And no, none of this is why I feel shitty to-day. Don't ask me why, I don't wanna talk about it. I wanna do something about it, there's just nothing I can do.

Hung out with Trisa last night. She has a nice new coat and nice new boots.

Wednesday was a visit to the doctor--at Wal-Mart--to get my eyes checked and a new set of contact lenses ordered. The entire staff of the doctor' office and glasses/contact lenses purchasing area was comprised of young, pretty, and inefficient girls. There was an awkward situation where my mother's credit card number (my mother was buying me new contact lenses as a Christmas present, see) was misplaced and thought not to have existed. It's a little discomforting, particularly as a young man, to have the details of your medical needs and your physical condition being bumblingly handled by gossiping, giggling little angel-faces.

And I think I've said enough about that.

I have to be up at NINE A.M. to-morrow so I better get to bed now so I can be wily enough to defeat my enemies or something.

The sheets of my bed look like a giantess has used them to remove her mascara. The dye in my shirt seems to be rubbing off, see.

I just spent a lot of time trying to find a sketch I did a long time ago, thinking I might now use it as an illustration for one of my short stories. I tore the room apart (while Lucky slept blissfully on) looking for the sketch only to find that it sucks. Oh well, I'll just draw something new.

Also spent a great deal of time making a desktop scheme to go with the Ingrid Bergman wallpaper I just put up.

No time! I'm late! Time waste I! Go now must! More later possible!

Lucky the cat seems to have taken up perminant residence on my bed. He's even learned to move to the side when I get in bed at night.

My aunt comes back to-morrow so I suppose then we'll see where his loyalties lie. He seems to enjoy listening to Hope Sandoval CDs.

I've felt very slugglish the past couple of days. Yet I've been getting stuff done anyway and I'm starting to wonder if that was a mistake. Maybe feeling sluggish is a sign that you're not supposed to do anything.

Yeah, that's it.

I am gonna go and get coffee, though . . .

Last night became something of a Megumi Hayashibara festival for me.

I dropped by Tim's to find the huge order of anime--the order worth around a thousand dollars that I'd bought for one hundred forty--had arrived. So I enjoyed Megumi as Lina Inverse in Slayers, as Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop, and as girl-type Ranma in Ranma 1/2. I also acquired the entire Neon Genesis Evangelion television series on DVD--plus the movies--which features Megumi as Rei Ayanami and Pen-pen.

A prolific lady . . . And she's a nurse.

...

Woke up at 2pm. Taped two Greta Garbo movies while sleeping. Do I have enough to watch? Hmmm, I think so.

I probably ought to pick up the class schedule for next semester . . .

Okay. So, yes, some days I do spend ungodly amounts of time poring over photos of Jabba's Slave-Leia.

And on some days, I even end up doing things like this.

But I'm an economic guy. I'm still working on the same can of soda I opened last night. And it's hmmm good.

I've given myself a lot of assignments for to-day, too. I suppose I should get to a few more of them . . .

Saw Paycheck with my mother yesterday. It wasn't so great. It was marginally entertaining, but an overall sad waste of a good premise.

Dreamt last night that Trisa and an older man wearing a rug were in bed and I was sitting at the foot of the bed playing with their dog. They were discussing Subway Sandwich and bread folding.

Watched Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky last night, and it made me feel good for its shear Miyazaki-ishness; the sweet, Alice in Wonderland with physical comedy and genuinely menacing villains added in. Wasn't as good as Princess Mononoke but still great.

After this, I watched the 1946 version of The Big Sleep. And in spite of the '46 version having more Lauren Bacall in it, I think I prefer the '45 version. It makes more sense, or something.

Apparently, no one working on the film was able to figure out who killed Carmen Sternwood's chauffuer. So puzzled were they by it that they ended up contacting Raymond Chandler, and even he was puzzled. Personally, I think Joe Brody did it. Or at least, he's the only one who really could have, unless the driver was killed by a random passerby.

Yesterday I bought The Big Sleep--no, I didn't die. I mean the movie based on the Raymond Chandler book.

I also got The Cure Trilogy DVD. And with that, I think I'm nearly out of Christmas money. I sure got a lot of good purchases . . .

I wanna go back to bed so badly right now but I promised my mother and sister I'd see a movie with them. So here goes . . .