Aoh, fuck. It's only just now hitting me real hard that I'm missing Halloween this year.

I just can't do holidays. Not even my favourite ones. I prefer things to be on my schedule and holidays always have to be on their schedule.

Halloween's a social holiday (wait, I guess all of them are) and the fact that I mostly don't care to know the corporeal people I see, I, in Halloweens past, have had the task of making Halloween a one man thing. Sort of.

The best one so far was several years ago when I dressed as a witch and frightened people in the Super Market.

See, I'm all spirit and no revelry. I am damned committed to reminding people that Halloween's here for us to know we oughta be scared once and a while. I'm not here to join in your merrymaking. I'm here to play with you.

Well. There'll be none of that this year. I'm too fucking tired and I can't spend money on that.

My one act of Halloween--here's an old drawing of mine called "Awkletes";

Are you an alien scientist in need of a human being to use as a battery? I might just be your man.

Forced out of the house at 11am by the maids, and into the pouring rain, I might add, I went to Denny's. I there had eggs, potatoes, and several cups of black coffee. Afterwards, I went to the mall where I had a large cup of tea. Upon returning here, I immediately fell asleep again and slept for several hours, quite peacefully. Yeah, caffeine'll do that to ya.

Oh, and I dreamt of Wendy's. I dreamt of baked potatoes and a scandal that can be summed up with one word; pyjamas.

Anyway, it's beginning to feel like for all intents and purposes I'm "skipping" Thursday. I don't want to do this. I had grand big lofty hugemass plans. Surely I can do one of them.

The Iranian women in this photo are so cuuuuuute!

I'm not gonna play Morrowind any time soon, damn it.

Eh.

Vote Kerry.

I had a dream last night wherein I befriended a squirrel who'd been hiding in the house. No one wants a squirrel in the house, of course, so I was his political protector and so long as I was around, he couldn't be kicked out.

He was basically very happy that he didn't have to hide any more, that he could roam with relative freedom about the house. Towards the end of the dream, though, he started to get in trouble when the ceiling fan frightened him and he'd run all over the house, knocking a few things over. The cats had been surprisingly pleasant with him, but they had not, unfortunately, managed convey to him the harmlessness of the ceiling fan when one does not venture too close.

If you follow my link in the previous entry to where you can watch The Super Mario Super Show, you might also notice that there're a number of other shows you can watch. Looking over them earlier to-day, I spotted Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. Now, I am always up for anything done in the name of Sherlock Holmes and I'd been wanting to check this series out ever since I noticed it on Yahoo!'s TV listing. Unfortunately, it was on at a very awkward time of night/day so I never had opportunity to see it . . . until now!

For the most part, it's not very good. Holmes comes off as somewhat blinded by arrogance and ill temper. In fact, he doesn't seem especially smart at all. Lestrade seems more level-headed--in the series, Lestrade's now an attractive young woman in form-fitting cybernetic armour. I didn't really mind that idea, since it was the 22nd century. If only everything else'd been updated!

The show bases its stories loosely on Arthur Conan Doyle's originals, for which I would give it props if not for the fact that it doesn't bother to update these stories to account for futuristic crime-solving techniques. The show writers do bother, though, to dumb down the material and rearrange the plot so that there's no mystery at all.

The sad thing is that the animation, while far from good, looks like it probably cost some money. Why can't production companies spend their money properly? Don't they want to make a profit?

A few days ago I heard that the writer director of Alien vs. Predator has been hired to write the new Alien movie, presumably because of the success of AvP. Yes. Someone at 20th Century Fox looked at AvP's success and said to himself, "Well it must be the writer/director that made this the marginal success it is! It couldn't possibly be attributed to the fan build-up of more than a decade, or the rock-em-sock-em spectacular nature of the advertisements, no no!"

You know you have insomnia when, at 8am, you find yourself excitedly downloading an episode of the Super Mario Super Show.

It's amazing how bad cartoons were just ten or fifteen years ago. Looking through TV Tome, I was amazed how many of the "goofs" for episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to do with the wrong voices coming from characters or the characters being coloured wrong. And Ninja Turtles was popular.

I watched The Treasure of Sierra Madre earlier in the evening. Not as good as I'd hoped, but still very good. Certainly not my favourite John Houston movie, but it was neat seeing his cameo so I don't have to always picture him as the ghoulish old man from Chinatown.

Ugh. I haven't seen the sun in a couple days. I oughta go out and do something before class . . .

Last night I watched William Wyler's The Big Country. It was about Gregory Peck in the old west, having travelled there from the east to marry the daughter of a wealthy major. But he finds himself the only gentleman in the middle of a small, vicious war between two communities. I gotta admit, I like stories like that. A guy with very good principles sticking to them in the middle of a snake's nest, and who better for that than Gregory Peck?

It was a three hour movie I watched until 6am, and I slept in especially late to-day. In fact, it's now just after 6pm and I still haven't had breakfast. Or coffee. Things to do . . .

I also caught some of Read or Die, an anime movie being shown on Adult Swim. At first I thought it was a television series and I began considering it on that basis--I thought, "Hmm. Good character design. Relatively interesting concepts, good animation, but generally bland direction. Still, for a television series, not bad." But then I realised it was going for movie length. At which point I realised it'd probably been a far superior manga that was hastily purchased by some lame movie production company. Or maybe it's just another of what seems to be an endless supply of anime series with good character design and bad almost-everything-else (see Big O, Witchhunter Robin).

But I was, of course, watching the dubbed version of Read or Die. The Japanese version may make a far better impression as the English voice cast of Read or Die seemed to be the usual cadre seen on Adult Swim anime series with their heavily affected, peculiarly self conscious deliveries.

Now I shall get coffee and read . . . or die. One of those.

"That was the year I first met [John Kerry], at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the president's lawn." -Hunter S. Thompson

The new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up. Not a whole lot happens in it, but I made a special effort to make Nesuko sexy. So go see!

I just watched a very wonderful movie called Johnny Eager. Robert Taylor and Lana Turner . . . two actors whose abilities I've not yet been impressed by, impressed me very much in this movie. Perfectly cast bad actors, which I do believe can happen. In this case Taylor's shallow straightness was perfect. And Lana Turner just . . . happened to be rather good in this. Of course, the only other movie I'd seen her in was Cass Timberlane, so maybe she was just turned on by the material. Gods, I like thinking about Lana Turner turned on. Er, I've been awake too long.

But lest ye miss it--Johnny Eager is awesome. A crime, film noir movie from 1942 directed by Mervyn LeRoy, it had a kinna story I really respond to with great dialogue and a drunk, perfect Van Heflin . . .

Aw, I'm too tired to talk about it. But it was cool crimes perpetrated by characters in dark clothes and one sweet, innocent dame with the most perfect physical features imaginable. Gods, I love seeing a good movie.

I need to go back to blogging at a time of day when I'm more articulate.

Missed me? Well, I missed me, whatever you did of me.

Hmm. So yesterday was another Thursday, another Thursday now blessedly dead. The maids came early, at 11 am. I, of course, hadn't managed to sleep until 6am . . . So, about four hours of sleep there. For some people, that would be good enough. Oh, not for me. Because when what I wanna get done by the end of the day is drawings, it means I'll be sitting prone for long periods, trying to bring full concentration to bear. Look, I know my drawings aren't perfect, and I know I'm not a perfectionist. And I know I'm not getting paid for this and that I'm devoting my time in a manner many would advise against. But I'm obsessed and that's that.

So at eleven, because I'd dreamed of it during the brief repose, I went to University Town Centre. Finding no breakfast there and peculiarly annoying crowds, I drove across many miles of San Diego, down the great Genesee avenue, turning through a good sized Korean community, through the impressively sprawling College Whose Name I Can't Remember, plummeting at the speed limit (35mph) down a hill towards the raging sea . . . and then turning left, driving up a ways, and parking in a crowded little shopping centre, I finally decided to breakfast at a new Greek place.

Wish I hadn't. The Spanakopeda tasted like tire. As did the salad. And the rice.

Wandering strangely had more than eaten up the three hours I'd needed gobbled and I came back here to sleep. Victoria the cat hopped into bed with me and I proceeded to have a dream wherein she was a superhero. At the conclusion of this episode of astounding feline heroism, Victoria woke me up, apparently confident her story had at last been passed on, and jumped out of the bed.

Then I pretty much worked on Boschen and Nesuko the rest of the day. I finished page 39 and got a good start on page 40. So the new chapter oughta be up on time.

Oh, and Wednesday night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. Not as good as Notorious, which he made pretty close to the same time (also with Ingrid Bergmen), but very good anyway. A baby-faced Gregory Peck, a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, and neat 40s quasi-authentic psychology came together in a real nifty package. And that Hitchcock guy? I'm beginning to notice that he has something of a talent for suspense!

I'm currently on track. I'm not behind on anything. But I've been behind twice in the past week, mostly from feeling like-a the crap (as Chico Marx might say).

And yet, in spite of that, I've been watching lots and lots of movies. Farscape: Peackeeper Wars was great . . .

SPOILERS AHEAD:

This mini-series might've been called Farscape: Bigger and Shorter. In a lot less time, a lot more happened. But it was always fun--bracing. A great ride. What Star Wars has lost.

And isn't that amazing? With lower budget and with less time, Peacekeeper Wars managed a better impact than the prequel films.

I had some favourite moments, although I'm not sure the writers meant for them to be my favourite moments. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed everything well enough. But I loved the moment Scorpius pushed Sikozu to the ground, revealing her as spy, and their subsequent brief, mysterious exchange. And I loved everything Rygel said. Especially when Chiana asked him if he thought she gave a frell about him and he said, "Yes."

And the climax was great, the big red death storm. I knew all along that the Eidolons weren't gonna fix everything, because that would have sucked. And Farscape doesn't, as a rule, suck. Really, I wanted all the Eidolons to die, but I guess they were a good distraction, a avenue for the heroes to dally with before they finally admitted to themselves there wasn't gonna be a clean way to do this. Anyway, I liked seeing Jool in her sexy cavegirl outfit pounce on Crichton. For some reason, it really turned me on that she resembled Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock.

The ending-ending was all right. It feels wrong somehow that Farscape should have such a happy ending, but saying that makes me wonder if I oughtn't to be a happier sort of person.

Two things about the end reminded me of ends of other shows, and I'm wondering of it was done on puprose. First, Harvey's farewell in the remarkable reconstruction of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey reminded me of the last Comedy Central episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which had Dr. Forrester in the bed, reaching, instead of towards the monolith, towards a giant video cassete labelled "The Worst Movie Ever" or something.

The second thing was the camera pulling away from Crichton, Aeryn, and their baby to pull back, out of Moya, turning into an exterior shot, being the very last of the show. The same thing was done in the very last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, after Picard sits down to poker with his crewmates.

Probably just coincidences. It's reading Moi's journal that makes me think this way (not necessarily a bad thing).

And now I'll sleep.

It rained for almost twenty seconds last night--it was exciting! Anyway, my car is bizarrely clean this morning. Er, this afternoon, I mean.

I've got a lot to do! But I'm not behind like I was yesterday so I'll have time to watch Farscape on the Sci-Fi Channel at 9pm. Why don't you watch it too?

Nice to see William Gibson is blogging again. And it's nice to see he's angry.

I know some of you don't like Jon Stewert, but this shit is just beautiful.

I dreamt there were two Linuses and one of them was going to kill Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown didn't actually show up in my dream but the Linuses were uncommunicative, dangerous black-cloaked (black blanketed?) characters who could run faster than cars and for some reason they enjoyed running north. They were kind of scary, especially as I was sure one wanted to kill me, too.

Last night was kind of interesting. I went to see a movie called Maria Full of Grace. Not the sort of movie that would usually capture my interest by its advertisements, but I periodically like to stave off stagnation of my appreciation for diverse art.

It's very easy for a drug movie to become boring and/or preachy but I was pleased to find this wasn't the case for Maria. On the whole, I found the movie oddly relaxing in the way I may've found a good movie from the thirties or forties. The reason I draw that comparison is that Hollywood movies from the mid 20th century had a tendency to want to be decently pretty and stress-relieving no matter how dark the story, in essence, was.

Maria Full of Grace is about a seventeen year-old Columbian girl who, finding herself without work, pregnant, and without the baby's father, decides to become a mule, carrying cocaine in her stomach for delivery in New York.

It's not that the movie sugar-coats anything (although Maria is improbably pretty and everyone has perfect hair and skin) so much as it avoids overdramatic gloom and doom. Maria shows herself capable of keeping a cool head in a tight situation, which I found engaging. And, as Ebert and Roeper pointed out, all the characters behave realistically and the people involved in accepting Maria's drug delivery are shown as being realistically stupid and macho instead of villainous. And there was a basically happy ending, which is just fine.

So I came back and decided to interact with the internet community a little more and made a lot of replies and posts on different Live Journals. One topic of conversation I was keen to engage upon was one taken up on both Poppy Z. Brite's journal and Caitlin R. Kiernan's, this idea of whether or not the artist's suffering is a requisite for good art. I finally found a forum where people were talking about it, and posting was possible, at prime_liquor. But this morning I found my post to it was inexplicably deleted, in spite of the fact that I didn't say anything mean or rude. Methinks I have a secret enemy.

But basically my take was that it's not necessary for an artist to suffer. The idea seems to me based on the idea that suffering is regarded as a kind of field research but, as I've already argued, experience with a subject is not necessary for creating good art about that subject. Experience is a tool, not a component, of good art. There're lots of tools and methods for putting those components together.

Yes, you have to know emotions and the only way to know human emotions is to have them. But there’s no reason to go overboard. To look for suffering is silly as, unless you’re a cartoon character, you’re bound to’ve suffered at some point in your life.

Finally punched through a muthafuckin' barrier last night.

I'd been roaming the desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape for months, occasionally getting my ass handed to me by mutant geckos, aliens, or bandits. And why? Well, in New Reno I'd decided to do jobs for the Mordino family. Things were goin' well until I was ordered to take out old man Salvatore, owner of Salvatore's bar. What Senor Mordino didn't tell me was that Salvatore's men were armed to the fucking colon. Many times I died in that bar, listening to Ron Perlman wish me peace in the afterlife. I was weak, see. I needed to be fucking badass, badass enough to slaughter a whole room full of well armed men.

So I roamed the wastes, looking for my break, and finally the clouds started to part.

I stumbled on a little foray between some bootleggers and some bandits. I helped the bootleggers, then helped myself to the bloody corpses of bandits, obtaining for myself some hunting rifles, some grease guns, and plenty of ammo. Took these to New California Republic, got myself well outfitted. Well enough to come back to New Reno, walk into New Reno arms, and kill not just the bastard who owns the place but his dogs too. That got me real well outfitted. Grenades, combat shotguns, the works. But sometimes it's the simple shit that makes life good. My favourite thing? The sledgehammer. Just a big, sweet fucking hammer.

Salvatore's boys were real impressive in their shiny metal armour, firing their laser pistols. They're less impressive after an SMG has made 'em into Chef Boyardee.

I did that to the first guard. After I realised their silly little lasers weren't doing shit to my armour, I started a little system; first, sledgehammer meets groin. Man falls over. Then sledgehammer meets skull. Man is dead.

Yeah, they started to run. But I'm faster.

And what ever happened to old man Salvatore? He was already a cripple but he was eight times the cripple before I turned him into stain. Then all that was left was his sad little oxygen tank.

Needless to say, Senor Mordino and I're good pals now.

(I love Fallout 2)

Hola, mes tomodachi. And what a wonderful morning this is, here at 4pm. The only way to sleep, I tell ya folks.

I think the house guests are leaving to-day for which I'm glad. I don't hate the guy for having autism, but I miss having time alone in the evenings. I think this has illuminated for me the true, primary reason for my sleeping schedule; as Miss Garbo put it, I want to be alone.

So last night, with the guy, who's name is Justin, who wanted to sit close to me, I watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Justin was quiet for the whole movie which makes me wonder how much he understood. Hell, I don't know that autism inhibits comprehension that way. Honestly, I didn't know anything about autism until a few days ago.

When I first met Justin he didn't talk very much so I was compelled to fill the uncomfortable silence with my babbling. Somehow the subject of obsession came up at which point I delivered my standard line, "Obsession's a good thing. I think it's very healthy," said with utter sincerity.

Justin got a vaguely incredulous look on his face and said something about how he had a kind of obsession. "Good!" I said, "That's very good. Very healthy."

Yesterday, I was making myself some lunch when I overheard my grandmother talking on the phone about my aunt, Rumi, "Justin's obsessed with her! He can't go to bed without a hug from her--well it's part of his autism." And I smiled to myself wondering what malignity I may spread in this world. But then again I wondered where this philosophy could go when applied to an actual mental impairment.

So what did I think of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? I think Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Sidney Poitier are great actors. I particularly enjoyed Poitier's edgily unpredictable gesticulations. His conversation with his dad, which Roger Ebert is rightfully uncomfortable with, was barely audible for me, fixated as I was on simply watching Poitier move. This is only the second movie I've seen him in and I'm hoping one day I'll actually see him with good material.

For 'twas the three actors that made Guess Who's Coming to Dinner any good. The supporting cast were almost thoroughly awful, especially the gratingly perky Katharine Houghton, Hepburn's real life niece. How Poitier's character could possibly have fallen in love with her is truly mysterious. Then there's the stereotypical catholic clergyman and the stereotypical black woman maid.

Stanley Kramer again shows himself to me merely to be a basically competent, uninteresting director. The best thing you could say about him is that most of the time he's not doing something stupid.

Before the movie, I watched MGM's 1939 cartoon "Peace on Earth", a movie that cheerfully points out that after mankind destroys itself, there shall indeed be plenty of peace on earth. Really lovely, I thought. And great animation, from the cheerful grandfather squirrel to the dying human soldier sinking into the mud.

I drew it a few minutes ago. Don't know why. He's my mood, I guess. Not so pretty is he? I wonder if anyone can see the necktie growing out of the asshole on his shoulder?

I wonder why the clock next to computer keeps giving me random, inaccurate times?

Installed some old computer games this evening, including Quake, which I can't remember how to get working with Windows XP. I also installed Fallout 2 but what I ended up playing was TIE Fighter. Dear, sweet TIE Fighter. I played the first training mission and was able to hold my own against several waves of hostile Z-95 Headhunters before they got me with the three or four shots necessary to take out the plain, unshielded TIE Fighter.

Sheesh, I remember the days when my piloting skills were such that I could survive a mission in a TIE Fighter that had me up against TIE Advanceds and Imperial Star Destroyers. Gods, I love that game.

The primary theme of the past twenty hours or so has been waiting.

I waited for several things after discovering late last night that there was a house guest wandering the house that I wasn't expecting. A quiet, mildly autistic guy, a friend of my aunt's, who seemed nice. His mother was (or maybe is) staying here as well, but she, like everyone except me, the guy, and the cats, was asleep. I don't mean to belittle someone with a condition he obviously can't help and I feel for him but there was a lot of waiting involved in talking to him. Not that I minded, mind you. It's a theme, is all.

He got sick, which my aunt and I only discovered at 4am, a time which I had waited (you see, waited) for to go to sleep because I was a little jittery with the strange situation. My aunt knocked on the door, saying she needed a ride to work because the guy's mother needed my aunt's car to get the guy to the hospital.

I got dressed, and drove my aunt at 4:30am to work, through fog that made going slightly slow. One could say I was forced to wait (you see, wait!) longer before arriving at the destination. My aunt works at Starbucks, so we waited for thirty or so minutes outside in my car for her co-worker to show and unlock the doors. I had the wonderful Vertigo soundtrack playing and felt slightly like Jimmy Stewart waiting for Kim Novak to come out of her apartment.

I took the long route back, was diverted by a major car accident, and stopped at a gas station to wait for an especially slow pump to fill my car. Then I came back and tried to sleep until 9am (but mostly waited) at which point I had to call my parents and tell them I couldn't go with them to L.A. to-day (as planned) because I needed to wait until noon to pick up my aunt.

I managed some sleep before my alarm went off at 11am, got dressed and all, and found a note saying my aunt wasn't to be off work until 1pm. As I didn't particularly feel like trying to sleep for one hour, I decided to go to Starbucks and wait. I read a lot of Murder of Angels there, which is getting a lot better--and I was enjoying it before. The second half so far seems to be absolutely wonderful.

I was feeling numb and was having difficulty concentrating, though, as I eventually had to wait until 2pm before my aunt was released.

Then there were some other things I had to wait for but I'm sure I've bored you enough (it gets a lot more boring). But needless to say, I'm really glad I uploaded the Boschen and Nesuko chapter early or I'd have been in really bad straits right now. As it is, I feel flattened.

I've put up the new chapter a day early (blogger's being a shit about perfectly simple html tags right now so you'll have to click the link to the right). While others may talk of getting naked, Boschen and Nesuko are wrapping it up.

Interesting presidential debate. It was good seeing the two guys not anchored by podiums, roaming about like vicious dogs (or as close to vicious dogs as two fairly stiff guys in suits can be). Kerry has content on his side but Bush has cleaned up some of the embarrassing facial tics from last time (although not all of them). says he seemed shrill, but maybe that didn't stand out to me because I'm accustomed to all of Bush's mannerisms being repellant.

In the world of critical viewers, Kerry won. But as to who actually will end up benefiting . . . There are, of course, factors of which we are all aware and which I find too depressing to mention right now.

I am a hybrid of: Indie Girl Academic Girl Click on the pictures below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

Tired. That's the kind of girl I might be in the other reality. A tired one. Colour me faded pink. Salmon. Actually, though, I hate that colour.

So what've I been up to? Not too much. I decided to tackle two pages of web comic yesterday so that I'll have more time to-day to go over things I wanna change before uploading. I also saw The Year of Living Dangerously, which I thought was pretty good. Mel Gibson before he was crazy or American (redundant?), Sygorney Weaver's wonderful odd accent covered by a fascinating false British one, and Linda Hunt playing a male. And all of it in tumultuous Indonesia. Not to mention directed by Peter Weir. You know, I'd really like to get Picnic at Hanging Rock on DVD.

Tired . . .

Yesterday was basically pretty good. I got to work early on my web comic, and was rather happy with how the page turned out. Then I went to Submarina for a sandwich. As I was sitting there eating, a very small girl with glasses walked up to me and asked, "Are you a wish?"

I starred at her dumbly a moment, trying to figure out what she was asking. "I'm sorry," said her mother as she led her away.

"It's quite all right," I said, smiling. But it was only after they'd left that I realised the girl was asking me if I was a witch--she saw me wearing all black with a black hat. She'd probably just been Halloween shopping with her mother and had been told that the black hats on the shelves were what witches wore.

So then I was in a very good mood. I took it to class where I proceeded to get pissed off as a few of the more vocal students praised a badly written poem about Hitler being chosen by God to be a martyr of evil. A couple of the students seemed very enthusiastic regarding the idea about all the social reforms that came about as a reaction to the existence of Hitler.

I tried, sadly, not in my best words, to explain to them what juvenile idiots they were being. What I wish I'd said is, "Sure, good things've happened. Bad things've happened, too. But more good things than bad things? Probably not but we can't really say. All we really can say is that things happened because things happened . . . in which case, no shit. It's common sense, not a revelation. And if you think you can pass off Hitler as some kind of divine lightning rod for good social change, well, you may as well say the same for all the ills you would have it that his example was a remedy for; racism and cruelty. In which case, you're basically saying, 'when we get rid of bad things, we can have good things in their place.' Your argument is based entirely on your teenage desire to shock people with 'logic' and you're unwittingly setting back the standing of real logic in this world."

What I actually said was a more confusing and shorter version than the above before the teacher told me to desist when another student and I began discussing whether or not the idea was fundamentally Judeo-Christian (I don't think it necessarily is).

And last night I dreamt I was made to wait in a doctors office several hours with Hayden Christensen, who was also there for an appointment. Awkward small talk consisted of me trying to say nice things about his performance in Episode II.

Anyway, I needs coffee.

My interest in the presidential race has prompted me to watch a bit of the 24-hour news networks. Damned scary stuff. I mean, I'd heard there was a right wing bias on most of these channels but it was nevertheless astonishing to see it at work. From so-called "fact-checkers" who wilfully misinterpreted or brazenly misquoted Kerry in order to make him wrong, to panels of political journalists who argue the most absurd and irrelevant points.

The other day I watched a show on MSNBC called Scarborough Country consisting of host Scarborough debating with a number of people, most of whom were right-wingers. The two representatives of the left wing were young women whom I suspected may've been either plants or were simply chosen because they were cute and not very bright. Every single one of the right wingers harped on Kerry's display of flip-flopping in the debate and not one of the left wingers thought to point out that Kerry did not display any flip-flopping during the debate. The item Scarborough was primarily alluding to, the fact that Kerry called Hussein a threat while also calling the war a mistake, was never even suggested as not being a contradiction. It was telling that when Al Franken came on for a one on one with Scarborough, Scarborough carefully avoided the issue; Franken was too high profile to be owned by the network.

Ugh.

I watched Anthony Adverse last night, a late 1700s melodrama made in 1936. Every time I see Olivia De Havilland in a movie I like her just a little more. Which is, I guess, the way with great movie stars. It's hard to believe that she's not only still alive, but is currently teaching Sunday school at a church in Paris. A woman born in Japan to British parents, who became an American movie star, and now lives happily in France.

Anthony Adverse was itself a strange mishmash of nationalities and I had trouble figuring out where it took place half the time. The confusion culminated in one scene where Claude Rains, a British actor, said to Edmund Gwenn, who was speaking with a Scottish accent, "Au revoir, senor!"

Last night I dreamt I met a Japanese girl at Parkway Plaza who insisted she was Indian. I flirted with her until her hyperactive older brother showed up and insisted I go for a ride with them. In the back seat of their small car I listened to them tell me about a movie made in the 1930s about some Korean immigrants living alone in the Rocky Mountains.

It's weird how I get these flirt dreams. Must be my Victorian soul (although I do dig this immensely. Anyone who says there’s nothing erotic about ballet is sadly deluded) . . . Last night I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a pretty good movie starring Gene Tierney as a young widow living in a house haunted by a dead sea captain played by Rex Harrison. George Sanders shows up as The Man the Lady Falls For Instead of the Lead and We're Therefore Supposed to Hate (though I thought he was quite charming). The cinematography's really good with some beautiful darks and lights in clean, high contrast. And of course Bernard Herrmann's score is absolutely great.

Gene Tierney's good and quite pretty although you wouldn't know it from the DVD cover. For some reason, the image pads her normally strong cheekbones until her features are floating aimlessly in a strange peach void. Another funny thing about the DVD cover is that it refers to the movie as an Academy Award nominee of 1942--even though the movie was made in 1947. Some memo-writer has bad handwriting.

Looks like everyone agrees Kerry won the debates. Even the Republicans are saying that Kerry won "on style," which essentially translates to solid victory. Bush seemed like a kid who got called into the principal's office for breaking a window.

I'll be interested in seeing the Vice President debates next week. With the level of control Cheney's purported to have in the White House, it seems almost like the presidental candidate debated the sitting vice president while the vice presidental candidate now has to debate the sitting president.

Anyway, I've got a lot to do this evening . . .

I liked Sky Captain and the World of To-morrow. I walked out of the theatre feeling like a kid.

Its main virtue is its full body slam effect. If that doesn't hit you, I can see plenty of reasons why you wouldn't like it. One of Franklin's main gripes was that the movie stole actual robot and ship designs from other things. This didn't bother me too much because, for one thing, I'm easy-going to a fault, and also because I knew these designs'd never been like this before. Max Fleischer's robots never felt so actually huge and the nostalgic look not only served in its own right, but also as an edifice of alienness. It ain't just designs that are reviewed in the film, there's also Lawrence Olivier. And I think if you can appreciate the reasons for which Olivier is resurrected, you can also appreciate why the designs were. It has to do with ghosts whose meaning has become pure atmosphere.

That's the key to this movie halfway between colour and sepia. It's not about how great movies were back then. It's about hitting the right chords for the audience by any means possible. Alfred Hitchcock said, "I enjoy playing the audience like a piano." And I think that's the foremost rule of storytelling. And, as it turns out, employing these designs simultaneously creates freshness while creating a wonderful atmosphere of ghosts. That they're sometimes employed enormously out of context is even more appropriate, emphasising the feelings of these antiquated goggles, if you will, rather than the statement.

I did have some problems with the film. Although I liked all the actors, I didn't think they were appropriately cast. Part of me thinks Gwyneth Paltrow would've been better as Sky Captain and Jude Law better as Perkins. Law's gorgeous, but I really wanted to see Clark Gable in his place. There's something too vulnerable about Law for the role. Paltrow looked great, too, but I wished she'd been more forceful. But I think that may be an issue of personal taste.

There were a number of problems of plot, such as characters referring to World War I in 1939, when they ought to've been referring to it as the Great War. It kind of bothered me, though at the same time I wondered if it had to do with the innocent mindset of the story's vision--that it infected the writer.

Anyway, though. Good movie.

To-day I've eaten a doughnut and purchased a coffee, which I'm currently drinking. Good morning, world of 7:30pm. I have an appointment to-morrow at 2:30pm--which, in any case, is Thursday so . . . damn, damn.

Something really shocking happened last night but I won't talk about it for a few days. Not until all my notes are together.

I really ought to get some things done. There's nothing I particularly need to do but getting things done seems appropriate . . .

Actually, maybe I oughta go to a movie. I oughta see that Sky Captain people are either worshiping or condemning. I oughta see it so's I can worship or condemn it, too. Or maybe I'll do both! Crossfire, with Setsuled! By Himself, Even!

I've been reading web comics a lot lately. Figured since I'm making web comics I oughta have a look at my contemporaries. I like Scott McCloud, of course. And everyone seems to like Something Positive, which I find decently funny, and suspect I've not been reading it long enough to appreciate its chief virtue, which is that it's updated a lot.

Beyond that, I've been checking out things McCloud links to in his blog, which I won't bother linking to here as anyone reading may as well go and see McCloud's blog themselves . . .

Now I'll go do my thing, whatever that is.

Slept strangely. At around 9:30am I finally had to admit defeat when I was having a half-dream about a strange face. It seemed an old woman with leathery, puckered skin and a mouth on her right temple. This mouth had no lips and thin, needle-like grey teeth. The scary thing about her was that she seemed to know all about me; she knew I was lying there trying to get to sleep and that she was a half dream I was having. And the more I thought about her, the more she cackled at me. She seemed pleased with each new detail I noticed--first the second mouth, then the wiry hair, the bulging eyes, and the long, limb of a nose.

So I woke up, drew something for about four hours, and went back to bed at 2pm. This time I had a dream about living in a very cold valley with big dark trees. I lived in a poorly lit wooden cabin on a pile of rocks and there was a pretty girl sleeping in my bed. She seemed worried and continually wondered why the lights weren't working very well. She told me her boyfriends were looking for her and she didn't want to be found--she wasn't very enthusiastic about that. I looked out the window which, since the house was on the hill of rocks, gave me a good view of the tree tops. There was a heavy mist on them and cartoon witches occasionally bobbed up out of it as they flew by on their brooms.

What've I been up to? Let's see . . . Last night was the Acorn Review class. A week earlier I'd voted "no" on a piece most of the other students had voted "yes" on and the passage of time had made me sorrier that I hadn't put up a stronger argument. It was a poem about white people being told they can't "dress black" or listen to rap. Before, I disliked it because it seemed silly but, after having seen how important most of the students seemed to feel the issue was, I'd been wanting to scream at them, "This isn't a social problem! It's a social quibble! If your worst problem is that people are telling you [as the poem says they are] that if you listen to a song with drum and bass it must have electric guitar . . . Well, count yourself lucky! And while you're at it, laugh in the person's face! How the hell can someone think this is a big deal in a country where some people aren't even allowed to marry who they love because of a prevalent bigotry?! This poem is the voice of the spoiled teenager!"

That's what I wished I'd said. Probably better I didn't as having put up the meagre argument last week, that "the emotion is disproportionate to the subject matter," I could tell I'd already made enemies. Not a good class for making friends, although some of the old campaigners (people who've taken the class multiple times) are starting to seem like okay people to me.

Ugh. I feel like I'm missing something . . . Oh, yeah, food . . .

The newest Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up on my site. Have a look.

It was a pain in the eema this week. I was working on it until at least 4am every night. Hope it doesn't suck. I don't think it sucks but, then, I'm the daddy.

And so I've finished early to-night and I think I'll go watch a movie . . .

A few days ago, someone was making the case that a writer can never be very good if he or she suffers from an almost complete absence of human society and a lack of interest in procuring any. This idea is demonstrably wrong when one thinks of the likes of H.P. Lovecraft or Kafka--or, well, any number of writers. Just last night I was watching the special features on the Naked Lunch DVD and William S. Burroughs mentioned in an interview that writing requires a commitment to solitude. In fact, it seems to me that a sociable writer is more of an exception to the rule than anything else.

But this is probably almost obvious to most of you and I am indeed a little surprised that anyone would attempt to argue to the contrary. The only reason I bring it up is because I got to thinking last night about the relationship between sociable people and fiction. Someone who spends most of their leisure time interacting with groups of other human beings will obviously spend less time with art. And for one for whom art is a lower priority, it's not unreasonable to suspect that their exposure to art is governed by a narrow set of prejudices; if they're going to waste valuable time on art, they will obviously want the piece most likely to yield pleasurable results and, without having taken the time to study art in general or to exercise intellect to reason that one can benefit from an open mind, they're likely only to seek out those pieces that, to their untrained eye, have similarities to those pieces they either enjoyed in the past or, more likely, were instructed to enjoy by their society.

That's also pretty obvious, but I think it pays to think about it in this detail. And by the way, I don't mean to suggest that someone who spends more time with a social group necessarily places art at a low priority. There're a myriad of reasons as to why someone might feel the need to be surrounded by people often. But as this becomes a comfortable situation, one falls in danger of becoming someone whose poor attention to art taints their perception of it.

So the question on my mind last night was . . . what is therefore the value of art to someone who is afraid of solitude? How could I explain the benefit of art to the poor students obnoxiously gabbing their way through movies?

My suspicion is that there is no answer and that we're all mad here. The person who is alone writes for the person who is alone. Perhaps the writer exists as the emissary of fixation, whose job it is to fill the strange aquarium which the average person now and then has need to look in on, to gain a perspective?

Well, I've got a page to draw . . .

Finally got a decent amount of time to-day! I feel oddly giddy and unsure of how I want to spend this time. A thousand different things are occurring to me. I picked up the Criterion edition of Naked Lunch a few days ago so I'll probably watch that. It's got all kinds of features, included commentary from David Cronenberg and Peter Weller as well as a piece written by William S. Burroughs about the film. And more than that even.

It's weird to think back to the days when I thought of Howard Shore primarily as the composer for Cronenberg movies. Maybe Cronenberg will do a fantasy adventure movie?

A lot of my time's been taken spending time with my grandmother, who's still in town. I watched North by Northwest with her--a movie I haven't seen since high school. And of course, I can appreciate a lot more of it now than I did then. Watched it on a huge, widescreen television on DVD--looked absolutely beautiful.

Speaking of movies I first saw as a youth that I can better appreciate now, I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit last weekend. I can appreciate a lot of the dialogue a lot more now (I now know what a drunken reprobate is, for example). But the more interesting thing is how the animation looks now, after time has passed. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was made years before cgi was commonplace, and absolutely no cgi was used in the movie. And much is done in the movie that to-day no one would even think of doing by any means other than cgi.

I remember as a child marvelling at how extraordinarily fluid much of the animation looked--remember the cartoon at the beginning where we see the jar slowly tipping off the broken shelf? No cgi there--meaning animators had to go through the trouble of mathematically figuring out the appearance of the jar based on the changing perspective as it moved--and with a subtle distortion because it was close to the "camera". It must have taken forever to draw each of those frames--and that was just the jar. How many other virtuoso examples of animation were seen in the film?

You might remember that the older Disney film Oliver and Company actually employed some crude cgi--so it was available. But the director of animation for Roger Rabbit felt that cgi would not have been in the spirit of the movie they were making. We're fortunate he felt this way because now the movie stands as an artefact of a kind of motion picture that we may never see again. It does have a different look from cgi--sometimes it's very subtle but it's definitely there. It's fascinating and almost unnerving, feeling more unpredictable and less cold than cgi. I suppose because somewhere in all our brains, we can see the true, natural three dimensions and are acquainted with them. But the three dimensions in Roger Rabbit are subtly different--in fact, no matter how perfectly calculated, we're inevitably looking at an artist's impression of the three dimensions. As a consequence, the movie seems more like a voice communicating with us.

I feel kind of sad thinking that no animation studio large enough to carry off something like this would now consider it cost-effective to make a movie this way. Even Trail Mix-Up, the newest Roger Rabbit short, employed a bit of cgi. Just not right at all.

Oh yeah . . . And what's the deal with Kathleen Turner not being credited as the voice of Jessica Rabbit? It sounds like her. IMDb says it's her. Very strange. I'm noticing all kinds of uncredited performances these days. Y'know Teri Garr wasn't credited for her role in Ghost World?

"A sea monster ate my ice cream?! A sea monster ate my ice cream!"

So said Scrooge McDuck on Duck Tales this morning.

Where is all my time? I want so much more. I've a lot to talk about . . .

Euh . . . Bloody gods in formaldehyde . . . I feel like . . . complete shit . . .

Grandmother from out of town, in town. Told yesterday to meet relatives for brunch. At 10am. I'm used to going to bed at 6am. I tried my damnedest but couldn't do otherwise. Slept for one hour.

Managed anyway to be human-like for b-runch. It was a buffet at a hotel called Hanalei--Hawaiian themed and stuff. I hate croissants and muffins. Then I noticed all the tiny flies on the croissants. I sat there wondering how many flies I'd eaten. I was managing my brain in my skull like an egg-yolk in a teacup. I had the feeling if I stopped concentrating I'd start screaming meaningless obscenities at people who didn't deserve it. Got back here at noon. Slept 'til five, awakened feeling, as Spangler said, like the bottom of a taxi cab.

By the way, the Amazing Caitlin, who's probably felt worse than this due to sickness in recent weeks, has uploaded the latest Nar'eth manga chapter I did to Nebari.Net. And now, although I can scarcely believe it myself, I'm gonna draw a page of comic . . .

Reading Murder of Angels this morning at Starbucks, I was startled to notice a sticky, black fissure opening up through the centre of the world. And then I realised it was the book's binding giving out. Yes, I love the book well, but actually I think the San Diego sun is at fault in this case.

Last night I watched the truly beautiful 1945 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The film won an Oscar for best cinematography and was nominated for best art direction. In this instance, the Academy was spot on. These were definitely the strongest aspects of the film, and in precisely that order. Fascinating shadows, textured edges of ancient walls, exquisitely framed shots of staircases seen through drawing rooms, and even the titular painting was great, holding up to the praise of the narrative. Much narrative in this movie, taken, of course, from Wilde's book. Generally a cop out for a filmmaker, but I didn't mind in the slightest because it's always nice hearing Wilde read. The movie would have been appreciable as an abridged version of the book accompanied by images, but the gorgeous look of the thing elevates it.

Dorian was played by a guy named Hurd Hatfield, who was definitely not a good actor but, astonishingly, was absolutely perfect in the role. In fact, I almost think this was a job for a bad actor, and that a good actor would have made for a lesser movie.

His pretty, androgynous face barely moves throughout the whole movie. Which is, of course, perfect. His look was fabulous--not merely pretty and androgynous, but also slightly gaunt and a bit creepy. He looked like someone an artist would want to do a study of, and also like someone who may have sold his soul. His mask-like face, conveying little, never positively communicated a person who'd sold his soul for vanity or was just an innocent kid. The only problem I really had with him was that he couldn't do a British accent.

The supporting cast, meanwhile, was generally solid, including a very young Angela Lansbury as Sibyl Vane. Gods, it's weird thinking Angela Lansbury is hot.

George Sanders played Wilde's avatar, Henry Wotton, very well. It's with a kind of fascinated chill that I read on IMDb that he committed suicide in 1972, leaving a note that read, "Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored."

Nesuko's ship, the Raithuras, will make an appearance in the next Boschen and Nesuko chapter, so I've been tearing apart my closet looking for the schematics of the thing I made in high school at some point. I considered drawing up some new ones but, the truth is, I don't have as much of a taste for such almost mindless mathematical endeavours as I used to. High-school-me liked putting together plastic models of spaceships and drawing endless maps and schematics. I haven't been in that mindset for so long that I look back at these old things and I marvel that I actually devoted such time to getting precise measurements and adding all kinds of little details. Actually, I think I didn't so much fall out of that mindset as I did transfer it--to writing, especially to the writing of characters. But now I'm hoping me-of-the-past and me-of-the-present can forge a fruitful partnership.

I've found the starboard, dorsal, and cutaway drawings, but I'd very much like to find the one where I detailed the Raithuras's strange, somewhat silly, atmospheric flight system . . .

I had this very vivid dream the other night. In it, Tim and I were at a music store in El Cajon. There was a skinny girl with bright, dyed red hair who was giving me nervous looks. Finally she asked me to draw something on her chest, which I did. I asked her out, she said yes, but still seemed like she had something else on her mind. Tim and I went outside and discovered my car'd been stolen. A large man with a messy pony tail, a Van Dyke, and a pointy scalp, nervously approached and asked me not to go out with the girl because he was in love with her. I shrugged and said, "Okay."

After dreaming of a zombie infested office building where only Indiana Jones could save us all if only I could bring him his whip and hat, I drove to Grossmont Centre to buy Bjork's new album and some liquorice flavoured Altoids. Because both items have black and white packaging, the sounds of Bjork's Medulla shall forever be tied for me with the flavour of liquorice.

It's a good album, although nowhere near as good as Post. It shares the same virtue as her previous album, Vespertine, which is atmosphere. A very different atmosphere, though, and more striking than Vespertine's weather-like busy ambience. Medulla is an experiment to see if she can rely almost exclusively on voice for all of the music. Results are interesting and, while I certainly like it, many of the results are more fascinating and enjoyable than truly good. Meaning, much like Vespertine, Selma Songs, and, to an extent, Homogenic, this is an album not to be listened to twice within a short period.

After Grossmont Centre, the plan was to drive to Mission Valley Centre, buy a sketchbook at Michael's, and settle down at Starbucks with Murder of Angels. Only Michael's was totally out of sketchbooks--or, at least the kind I wanted. So I drove off to UTC, ate lunch, and went to Tim's.

Tim installed Doom 3 and I watched. It is, really, a . . . decent game, I suppose. I found myself unable to get as excited about it as was Tim.

Like most games of its ilk, it is, essentially, what a bunch of guys came up with after wondering what they'd make if they were licensed to make an Aliens game. Aside from a variety of perfectly fine nods to the original Doom, the game clearly takes some pages from the books of Half Life and System Shock 2. Unlike Doom, or Quake, or so on, Doom 3 begins without action, instead establishing your characterless character, the story (heh), the environment, and, most usefully, the controls. It does this in a manner reminiscent of System Shock 2 by having you stroll through the marine base talking to people.

There are some very impressive things going on in this game, and many of its strengths are sadly neglected. I liked how you were able to naturally overhear a conversation between some workers. I only wish there was more to the dialogue than obvious exposition. The great realism hinted at by the impressive engine with its awesomely sophisticated dynamic lighting is harmed significantly by the fact that all of the people talk like animatronic characters on a Disneyland ride. And so, a lot of the potentially frightening action is dampened by the feeling that you're on Splash Mountain. There's a particularly laughable moment just before the exposition sequence ends where your character encounters a scientist who's hurriedly trying to get out word about the escaping monsters. He takes a moment to slow down and ham, "The devil is real! I know. I built his cage," gazing wistfully around the room while, supposedly, things'll go to hell if he doesn't do something fast.

I had a chance to play it myself and, once past the exposition sequence, the game's another shooter. Decently fun, and it was nice having the Doom/Quake shotgun dynamics back, where it's beneficial to get as close as possible to the enemy before firing.

Many of the people you talked to earlier are now zombies, which actually makes them seem more lively.

And then I went home and watched Murder by Death. Great performances, but a bit too hell-bent on being silly. The plot involves spoofs of famous detectives (Dick and Dora instead of Nick and Nora, Sam Diamond instead of Sam Spade, Perrier instead of Parrot, etc.) being summoned to a mansion by someone who wants them to solve the ultimate crime. Or something like that. A lot of it didn't make any sense but I suppose it wasn't meant to. I suppose Neil Simon (the writer) thought that would be a good idea.

Personally, I would have kept the humour that worked (I really liked the scene with the blind butler and the deaf mute woman he thought was the cook) and not tried so hard to make humorous the things that didn't work as such. I think it would have been cool to have the actual detectives try to actually work their way through a similar situation. But then, I suppose I'm missing the point, the boorish point about Simon pointing out all of the nagging, characteristic flaws of the various mystery fictions. This point is, after all, jabbed home at the end by their host who literally ceases to address them as people but instead as characters in stories he's been reading for a long time . . .

Oh, what could have been. The movie had David Niven, Maggie Smith, Alec Guinness (playing the butler brilliantly), Peter Sellers (surprisingly unfunny), Peter Falk, and Truman Capote.

And I spent much of the evening compulsively researching details of the various film adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, lamenting that nearly all of the remotely worthwhile versions are unavailable. I would very much like to see the 1948 French marionette version that Disney tried to suppress. Even the 1933 version with W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty and Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle doesn't seem to be available. Nor does the Jim Henson produced Dreamchild, starring Ian Holm as Lewis Carroll. Well, that one at least has old VHS copies available, but I know they're pan and scan (get this; Gates McFadden, Star Trek TNG's Dr. Crusher, is a puppeteer on that movie). There is currently available an intriguing 1966 BBC TV-movie available. It's got John Gielgud and Peter Sellers. In fact, as far as I can tell, Peter Sellers is the only person to be involved in two Alice productions.

Well. I think that's enough fun and games for me . . .

Meme taken from Poppy Z. Brite's journal;

Five Things You May Not Know About My Time in School Are:

1) My teachers usually liked me.

2) My sixth grade teacher found an excuse to dress one of the more mature looking female students in a slinky gold gown. He also had a kissing booth in the back of the room one day, where he had two female students practise kissing one male student.

3) In fifth grade, I was once sent to the back of the room for coughing. The teacher was angry at me for not covering my mouth with a fully open palm.

4) In first grade, I had a crush on Sarah Visces (unsure of the spelling) because she had short hair.

5) I once saved a paper lunch bag for weeks because it had a picture of Tweety Bird on it. And I didn't even especially like Tweety bird.

Five Things You May Not Know About the Job(s) I Have (or Had) Are:

1) I got paid more than ten dollars an hour for my first job, which was also an extremely easy job.

2) For the job I held the longest, four or five years, my boss was the father of Roman Dirge. It was a job straightening merchandise in the aisles of a value store now called Big!Lots.

3) I used to be an ice cream scooper at Rite Aid, and was frequently told by customers that I was the only Rite Aid ice cream scooper that wasn't rude. I even got called into the office once to be commended by the manager for this.

4) I've applied for work at Victoria's Secret several times. I'm a pervert.

5) I've applied for work at The Disney Store several times. I'm a pervert.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Online Life Are:

1) I used to be on aol.

2) Up until a couple weeks ago, I never had any means to pay for things online.

3) I have a couple web sites up that I can't take down or modify any longer because I don't remember my passwords for the various web services.

4) My friend is a hentai guru.

5) I once had David Bowie comment on something I said on the BowieNet message board. It was a long time ago, and I have a suspicion he doesn't pay attention to his boards any more.

Five Things You May Not Know About Where I Live Are:

1) Tom Waits grew up near here.

2) It's getting almost as expensive to live here as in L.A.

3) Never try to drive to the San Diego Comic-Con. Always take the trolley.

4) We have a Mormon Palace--at least, that's what I call it. They probably call it a church or something. But the place is twice as large, and twice as decadent, as Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland.

5) Horton Plaza has two Starbucks.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Core Personality Are:

1) I'm easily amused.

2) I'm not at all arrogant.

3) I firmly believe that most of the idiocy I see--in a distressingly large amount of the people I see in the world--is not innate.

4) I live by the "art for art's sake" idea, even when I vaguely suspect it's not very wise.

5) I don't understand the appeal of most social gatherings.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Home Life Are:

1) I live at my grandmother's.

2) I often see opossums in the back yard.

3) I often shave before going to bed.

4) I use a desk my grandfather built that was later, unwisely, chopped in half by my grandmother.

5) I don't know any of my neighbours and I try to ignore them.

Five Things You May Not Know I Would Really Like to Have Are:

1) A space station.

2) My own movie theatre.

3) Shape-shifting abilities.

4) A better laundry detergent.

5) Sovereignty.

Five Embarrassing Fannish Admissions I Have That You May Not Know Are:

Not that I am embarrassed by doing anything fannish, but . . .
1) I make fan-fic manga for Nebari.Net

2) I know everything about how the Enterprise-D works.

3) I have more than a hundred Star Trek tapes.

4) I have Deanna Troy's autograph.

5) I used to want to be Donald Duck. In elementary school, I even used to angrily sing an alternate version of the Mickey Mouse Club theme--"D-O-N-A-L-D! D-U-C-K!!"

Five Things You May Not Know About What I Do On A Typical Day Are:

1) I read a lot of blog entries and posts in the morning, hours before I reply to anything.

2) I walk aimlessly around the mall, thinking.

3) I don't usually get to bed before 5am.

4) I bring the newspaper up.

5) Hmm . . . er . . . I don't watch much television.

Five Things You May Not Know That are Really Important to My Character Are:

1) I'm a slow reader.

2) I have, what many people seem to consider to be, an irresponsible absence of concern for what strangers think of me.

3) I think too many people enjoy being told what to do.

4) I hate salad dressing.

5) I don't lie to people because it really pisses me off when I sense people are lying to me.

I watched Mrs. Parkington last night. A pretty good movie. Greer Garson did a remarkably good job of portraying someone several decades older than herself. But she was absolutely gorgeous as the girl in the mining town.

Last night's episode of Venture Brothers was particularly good. How could I not like a show with gratuitous David Bowie references? And the Major Tom zombie was plain awesome. It's on again to-night at 12:30 if any of ya'll would like to catch it . . .

Now I'll go meet my parents for dinner. Having been awake now for more than an hour, now seems like a good time for dinner . . .

There. The new chapter of Boschen and Nesuko is up on my site. Have a look, I beg you.

I guess it took me, what, two and a half weeks to update? That's bad. I promise it shall be no more than two weeks from now on.

And it's September 11, so . . . hmm. The September 11 is a day I, like everyone, still remember well. Memories of it for me are somehow appropriately tied to William S. Burroughs. I went to the mall that morning and I sat there reading Burroughs' Last Words before everyone at the mall realised that they were closing. Somehow Burroughs' voice seemed perfect for the strange, fearful atmosphere that reached all the way to San Diego.

Yesterday, I was driving between two large hills listening to Tom Waits' Mule: Variations. The sky seemed perfectly clear until I looked in my rear view window and saw a strange, enormous mass of clouds. It occurred to me that if the clouds were coinciding with a terrible noise, I probably wouldn't hear it from that distance and with the Waits music.

Which brought my attention back to Waits, who was singing, "Why wasn't God watching? Why wasn't God listening? Why wasn't God there . . ."

My mind played a movie of San Diego devastated by a strange attack of clouds; a montage while the Waits song played. The usual apocalyptic imagery--burnt, empty stores and mangled street signs teetering in the wind.

I guess I was thinking about those moments when it's irrefutable that there is no benevolent, omnipotent deity out there. Why wasn't God watching? I remember the old Iraqi woman in Fahrenheit 9/11 who was crying in the rubble of her destroyed home where several of her family members died, asking where God was. Maybe it's because I believed in God when I was a kid that this sort of thing gets to me . . .

And so . . . I left a big scary face on the woman's desk. She wasn't in her office, so I left the flyer there, waiting, staring . . .

Last night I dreamt I was in an elevator with Neil Gaiman (who would probably have been in a lift). The thing got stuck and we had a few nervous moments of listening to it creak and moan before the cable snapped and we plummeted eleven storeys.

We actually survived, although Gaiman was very quiet from then on. I left and went to my high school where I was barely in time for some class. But my teachers, a pair of large women with cunning faces and old grey robes, told me I was too dirty from the accident, and told me to go home and take a shower.

On my way, a girl wearing an enormous yellow wig and a red cheerleader uniform jumped on my back. She laughed in my ear as I kind of staggered, and she said, "Remember me?"

My mind automatically started running through the names and faces of every girl I'd known in high school, but I never precisely pinned down her identity. Looking back, her costume was reminiscent of Karen from Street Fighter: Alpha.

Anyway, I told her I had to go home and shower. She whispered wickedly; "Let's go together!"

But then I was suddenly home--although it didn't resemble any home I've had in waking life--and she was gone. I was watching a cheap movie made in the mid-1980s. It starred Ian McKellen and Andrew McCarthy and had a soundtrack by Howard Shore. I remember thinking it wasn't very good.

hulllruuuuuunnthh . . . I'm not meant to be up this early. It's NOT NATURAL. How I hate Thursdays. And this looks to be the Thursdayingest of Thursdays.

I couldn't get to sleep, of course . . . I ought to've just stayed up all the way. It's worse somehow to settle into a deep sleep with your measly four hours only to have to be jarred up again, even if it is by the Hope Sandoval/Jesus and Mary Chain song "Somtimes Always".

I finished the Boschen and Nesuko page early, but was not allowed to savour that. No, I had to be asleep. But first I had to find a way around my printer whose lack of a fresh fifty dollar ink cartridge made it feel justified in not printing out a black and white image. I finally figured that it wasn't printing the shades of grey, so I very quickly drew up an entirely black and white image for the Acorn Review flyer I'm supposed to deliver to-day, or thereabouts. Why don't I feel so enthusiastic about the Acorn bloody Review right now? Why am I not sending my stories off to more real magazines? Do I mean "more" as in quantity or are they more real somehow? I'm sure they are more real. The Acorn Review is unreal. Hoo-ha.
So for the Acorn Review--sweet, bitter calcium drop on the brain tongue just to keep typing it--for the Acorn Review last night I hastily drew a face . . . staring with big, dark googily eyes at any hapless passers-by, telling them they have to submit to the Acorn Review, but something horrible shall probably happen to them (the passers-by) anyway.

After that I read a bunch of Scott McCloud comics. Now there's a site with great content. That's what I need; content.

Then I lay awake thinking about the nature of comics. I thought about how comics relate to films and figured the writer is closer to the director while the artist is closer to cinematographer. I thought about how I wish I could work faster and better. I thought about people like Jhonen Vasquez who wrote and drew their own big comic books, and I wondered how long it took them put out a 24-or-so page book. I felt ashamed that the best rate I seem to be doing is sixteen pages a month. I tried to think about what I could take out of my day, but there's not much left to take out. Iiiissssssh. I thought about the sound "Iiiissssssh."

The two predominant things I felt yesterday; happily creative and bitter. I thought about whether I wanted happiness or the continual pursuit for creative fulfillment. I concluded that I don't think happiness is possible, and I'd better get used to the latter, although I think part of that latter is its inability to be comfortable. Like a toothed inner-tube.

I don't feel like listening to myself. The gods clearly meant for me to be asleep right now.

I wonder if I'm the only one who's discovered that mozzerella cheese is best served with mustard?

So many film stars didn't survive the advent of talkies.

Mall Mexican restaurants are depressing.

There. That was cohesive, wasn't it?

All right, back at it. Just three pages to go . . .

I've been working on Boschen and Nesuko every night, wanting to complete at least one page a day. This has regularly taken until 5am, but last night I somehow finished at 2:30am. So last night I watched Body and Soul, a film from 1947 about a boxing champion played by John Garfield.

It was pretty good. A typical story of athlete fights for friends and family, athlete gets corrupted by fame and fortune, athlete has climactic fight where he might salvage both his soul and the faith of his girl. But it's put together by a very smart screenplay. You're never really sure what who's gonna say next, but it always seems natural. My favourite scene was Peg (Lilli Palmer) answering the door early in the morning to find Charlie (Garfield), her estranged former fiance. The conversation they have is really neat, particularly the part where Peg mentions not being "very bright" that morning because she'd worked late the night before. Just a nice moment of a character's "real" life making itself known subtly in the dialogue.

I'm a lot more tired right now than I oughta be . . .

Tim and I went last night to see Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman. At last, the good blending of the musical with the martial arts genre that I've long dreamed of has finally occurred. It's only too bad Fred Astaire wasn't in it.

Partially, it was a good, old fashioned samurai movie with quick but deadly action sequences interspersed with story and character development. As Roger Ebert notes, the director, Takeshi Kitano has a very keen sense of timing, so this old format seems very lively. But it doesn't stop there, folks, no. There're also choreographed farmers, smacking dirt in a rhythm to correspond with the movie's soundtrack. And the musical number at the end is fiercely smile-inducing. Even the homophobe jackasses sitting behind me went quiet, evidently at a loss for words, or even guffaws.

I knew they were homophobes because of their reactions to one of the film's characters, a transvestite. When I could get past my irritation at the two chuckleheads, I found myself pleased at the all-to-rare example of a transvestite, or other gender altering characters, being portrayed respectfully in a period piece.

Gods, movie audiences are getting too fucking annoying. Behind the homophobes were another couple of noisemakers. One of them commented to his companion, "I don't understand anything that's happened so far." I wanted to turn around and scream, "Well then you must be AN IDIOT!"

Er, so . . . Zatoichi is excellent. Go see it. And don't murder anyone in the audience.

I've gotta learn to pace myself. I find if I actually work too much on my web comic, I end up behind the next day. It's very strange. It looks like I'll have the next chapter up a week from to-day, though.

I've been desperate for unsweetened beverages lately. They're hard to find in this country. I swear we were a nation of humming birds in a past life. So to-day I went to Mitsuwa and bought a jug of unsweetened green tea. I may go back to-morrow as it looks as though there's a sale on ramen. A man was standing next to the stand yelling at passers-by in Japanese. When I smiled at him, he giggled oddly. So it's probably good ramen.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

Intending to go to bed early last night, I began watching Quo Vadis at 2am . . . and watched the whole thing. Three hour long movie. Damn.

I like long movies, though. I like when the cinematic narrative gets to stretch itself out comfortably. There ought to be more three hour movies.

Quo Vadis had a lot of week points. Robert Taylor, as the lead, is astoundingly bland. There's an irritating pro-Christian thrust that does even Christians a disservice. In an earnest attempt at converting Taylor's Roman commander, and obviously intended as a portrayal of righteous evangelism, Deborah Kerr and the numerous Christians fail to even really explain their philosophies very clearly. Yet we're meant to feel sorry for Taylor when, even though he's had the word "Christ" repeatedly shoved in his face, he resists becoming a Christian.

So the most likeable characters have nothing to do with Christianity. Mainly I'm thinking of Peter Ustinov's Emperor Nero. It's fun to watch the deluded, bad artist cream-puff and his cadre of fluffers. Ustinov's absolutely wonderful. He's positively soaked with self-adoration and self-pity.

A part from this, the movie was fun to watch simply because it was Ancient Rome with action, great costumes, great, huge, expensive looking sets, intrigue, and all that. Usually unrealistic lighting pisses me off, but here the vibrant Technicolor made everything look like Pre-Rahpaelite paintings. So I forgive it, even for a big banquet scene where a single wall sconce in the background is supposed to explain to us why the room is so bright there aren't even any shadows.

Anyway. I'd better start drawing, now.

Watched an episode of Ducktales a few minutes ago. I had a revelation.

Scrooge McDuck says he's happy to have Launchpad back. Launchpad asks if he's still gonna get a raise.

Scrooge says, "I was already paying you twice what you're worth!"

Launchpad says, "All right, Mr. McD. I'll come back to work for you only on the condition that you pay me half of what you were paying me before."

And they shake hands.

When I was a kid, I never got the joke even though I saw the episode over and over. Which probably goes to show you what my math grades looked like. Anyway, this morning, I saw and understood.

After Ducktales was an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (I was watching Toon Disney). I want a show that gives you that same, sweet, pastel, adventurous feel as Pooh, except with a lot of blood and horrendous violence. Before Toon Disney, I was watching Taxi Driver.

These are the kinds of things my brain can do at 5am. I'll get back to you when I'm fully brain certified again . . .

I called this picture "Flower Eater";

I drew it. It's appearing in the new issue of Acorn Review, Grossmont College's litarary magazine. I suppose it's nice having it in the magazine and stuff. It'd been nicer if the other five submissions I'd told had been accepted had also appeared in the magazine. And it would have been really nice if another, really shity drawing of a faerie, appearing elsewhere in the magazine, which I did not draw, were not attributed, in the magazine, to me.

Julie Cardenas, the lady who runs the magazine, seems to feel really bad about it. And she's a really nice lady but . . . I'm still mad. Really mad.

It's not as though it would have been difficult to contact me to verify if a drawing, which they had obviously been confused about, was mine. It's obvious that they guessed. Which is sloppy and unprofessional. Of course, it is only a community college literary magazine . . .

It's stupid to get upset, I guess. No one reads the damned thing anyway . . .

To-day shall be about evenly divided between drawing and writing. I'll do the writing first, since I can do that at Starbucks . . .

Not feeling great. I think it was the breadsticks with Frappacino I had earlier. Perhaps it was the new Wal-Mart next door. In any case, gahk.

Last night I watched the absolutely wonderful Shanghai Express. A few minutes in, I realised I wasn't in the mood for a movie but I still loved it. I finally understand Marlene Dietrich's charm--before this I'd only seen her in Manpower (made in the early 1940s) and Witness for the Prosecution (made in the mid-1950s). Both were good movies. Dietrich was subtle and cool in the former and scarily, hideously thin in the latter. But in Shanghai Express, made in 1932, she was absolutely ravishing. The film, and Dietrich in particular, is beautifully shot.

It also was nice to see a Chinese movie star, Anna May Wong, in the 1930s. And playing a really cool, really deadly character, too. Reading up on her, I discovered she was in a mid-1930s production of A Study in Scarlett. It is a Sherlock Holmes movie, and A Study in Scarlett is the title of the first Sherlock Holmes novel but, of course, similarities end there. It's too bad a faithful adaptation seems destined never to be filmed, what with over-zealous political correctness. So what if it demonises Mormons? The Church of Latter Day Saints actually is kind of scary.

No offense to any Mormons reading. We're all of us kind of scary, after all.

Got my copy of Aladdin Sane back from my sister yesterday. It sure is nice to hear it again, nice and loud. I went out to get coffee earlier and I was originally planning on only going to a Starbucks a few blocks away. But "Watch that Man" convinced me otherwise and I had to drive much further in order to listen to several other songs.

To-day, I draw. I'm gonna try sticking to a regime of at least one page a day. I drew a page last night and I was surprisingly happy with it. Usually I can't draw as well at night, for some reason.

Not much time to-day so I'll just share some screenshots of some of my Morrowind characters;

The first one is Raequeoa, a breton vampire mabrigash weilding Gimli's axe. The second is Rey Inna, a wood elf thief wielding a civic knife.



This is my most powerful character, Grushenka, named after a character in The Brothers Karamazov. She's weilding Narsil and is dressed without thought for aesthetics--with the exception of the pauldrons, she dressed in the best armour in the game. And the pauldrons are second best. Everything she's wearing is available in un-modded Morrowind. This is her with and without the Masque of Clavicus Vile.

I was awoken from a dream about a woman petting a porcupine while talking on the phone by my ringing cell phone. My sister was on the other end of the line but who knows what animals were near?

I got to thinking last night about how I never watch my DVDs. I then proceeded to have a very, very nice viewing of Blue Velvet.

David Lynch movies are best taken all in one gulp. I find if I watch half of one, then wait for even a brief period, the second half loses some of its lustre. I believe this is in some degree true of all movie, but particularly true of Lynch's. The man's tapped into the secret logic at the back of our brains and everything we see and hear must naturally follow something previous to it. It has to unscroll like a dream.

And last night was able to watch Blue Velvet straight through with no interruptions and almost no intrusive sounds from my environment. You see, because I have this belief that David Lynch movies ought to be viewed in something like a vacuum sealed environment, there's some kind of Murphy's Law thing goin' where I'm almost never actually allowed to. There was one point last night where I could hear my grandmother upstairs using the bathroom, and it kind of broke up the very delicate flow of Sandy describing her dream about the robins. And later, Lucky the cat started freaking out when he noticed that my attention was absolutely focused on the screen (and away from him). But for the most part, it was pretty pure.

When I was younger, there was a lot more I didn't understand about Blue Velvet. I loved it, but I enjoyed it for some slightly different reasons. The primary difference being my understanding of Frank and Frank's relationship with Jeffrey.

Frank was impressively frightening to me in high school as a very ingenious sort of monster. Everything he did was unpredictable and had something to do with hurting people in ways and at times I wasn't expecting.

By now, of course, Frank can't help being less predictable to someone who's seen the movie several times. I respect the fact that he's frightening, even though he doesn't frighten me as much now, but I'm also now able to see him as pathetic and, in this way, I'm able to see his connexion to Jeffrey.

The scene where Frank says to Jeffrey, "You're like me!" was one I've always loved and always felt had a deeper resonance, but for a long time I never understood the specific dynamics.

But now I can see it--Jeffrey's huddled there all vulnerable and larva-like in front of Frank. And Frank sees a chomping caterpillar like himself. The same soft, greedy little baby Frank behaves like when he's raping Dorothy.

Perhaps it's a fault in the movie that I never really feel like Jeffrey could be a bad guy. But then again, I love Jeffrey's innocent voyeur detective thing so I don't think I could call it a fault.

Anyway, however you slice it, it's a great movie.

So my site's gotten a number of hits. Many of which are probably due to Caitlin very kindly mentioning it in her blog. I hope people've enjoyed it. I'm gonna try to keep it updating once a month, hopefully even more frequently than that. Thanks for looking at it. Tell your friends, enemies, and appliances.

I want to go back to bed. I probably will, too. Last night was the first night of Fiction Writing Class, which is a class that I think shall be useful because I think the teacher's . . . er, what's the most diplomatic way of saying this . . . got some decidedly unwise opinions and prejudices regarding the nature of fiction. I find I work well, or at least interestingly, with an adversary. So there's a use for a fiction writing class; battle!

To-day's been good so far, particularly for a Thursday.

Yes! Finally! The fucking thing is up. My web site, I mean. Drop in, please.

I was originally gonna charge money for some of the content, but I started to feel like a bastard. It's just not enough to charge money for, I think. I'll probably try to sell stuff on it eventually, though, because I'm sort of poor.

But, please, enjoy. Now!

A couple days ago, I finished reading the advance uncorrected proof of The Dry Salvages.

Written by Caitlin R. Kiernan, a lady whose work is invariably good to read, this thing is an absorbing shade, a terrifically fascinating story that successfully demonstrates the awesome potential for fear inherent in the literally strange. Performing the deliciously ingenious trick of taking us beyond what we hate or fear or know, and reminding us that the darkness always waiting under the trap door is absolutely alien. She reminds us how little we know of the truly alien--of what the word "alien" really means, after all--and brings us to the logical conclusion inside ourselves, which is fright.

The story is of a team of scientists who're sent to a distant moon called Piros, where they are to rendezvous with another ship, one which has already met with some interesting misfortunes. The story is told in first person narrative, a form which Caitlin has expressed some displeasure with as she feels it's inherently artificial. No one could possibly remember everything everyone said, or all of the small minutiae that are typically revealed in fictional first person stories. I don't agree that this weakens the form, but Kiernan's dislike of it has fostered some fascinating techniques that very cleverly become part of the story, almost subverting the readers' conscious mind.

So the story is not only that of the scientists' strange and terrible encounter, but also of a whole human world where some of the more quietly terrible faults of the species have risen to the fore.

What's wonderful about this book is the elusive definability of what is frightening, even at the same time that the threat makes a fierce impression. It's even fiercer, in fact, because of this. There are no psychological safety barriers the mind can construct against something more mysterious than wind, or currents, or light.

Anyway. An excellent book.

...

Gods, writing in this thing always feels more serious at night . . .

Yesterday, I was sure it was gonna happen. But, of course, it didn't.

You can't blame me for thinking it. It seemed full proof, and with contingencies.

Sunday, Tim's sister informed that banks will take birth certificates and California IDs as secondary IDs. And on Monday morning, I finally got my registration for Grossmont college.

So that's three possible IDs. The odds of this thing not happening, I thought, were too fucking slim.

Turns out, the only appropriate part of that expectation was the "fucking."

I paid for my classes okay (230 dollars for two classes, sheesh!), and then wandered over to the ASGC office, where one gets one's school ID . . . to find that it was closed until August 16.

"Okay," thinks me, "'tis time for plan B. And, if that doesn't work, there's plan C."

I decided to try the birth certificate first, as that would be the easiest to acquire--the California ID required a trip and probably a long wait at the DMV.

So to Washington Mutual I went with my certificate that said I been born . . . I stepped up and shook hands with a pretty young woman named Erica and said to her, "Now, I've tried this twice already so before we talk about anything else, I have to ask you . . . is a birth certificate an acceptable form of ID?"

She gave me a wincing smile that was a very clear "no." Talking further with her revealed that a California ID would also be useless.

Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . . well . . . I guess I'll just . . . wait for . . . August 16th . . . and see what goes wrong then.

Still no fucking checking account!

I got up early on Tuesday, all ready to go ahead with the whole she-bang. But no, I did not have the fall registration thingy for my school, I could not get a student ID, I did not have two IDs, I could not get an account, could not get my web site going, and I will not make a tired Monopoly joke here.

Arrgh! This . . . is . . . really . . . getting . . . under . . . my . . . fucking . . . skin!!! I wanted this site up a week ago. Everything's done. Graphics. Content. Voodoo. Crap. But this lousy speed bump is too big!

Two forms of ID. It kills me. I've got a government issued driver's license. Ought to be enough. I mean, if they think I'm forging that, then how the hell would they trust a student ID for fuck's sake?!

Oy. GLLLAAAAGH!!!