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

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

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

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

More on Ghost Story . . .

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

Had a headache to-day until I bought coffee.

But you know, I have to pee . . .

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

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

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

You know what I want even more? Barbara Stanwyck.

Oh, hi, yeah, blog.

Catching up on a lot of things to-day.

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

The book? Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh. Feeling warmly washed out this morning.

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

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

I hate Thursdays.

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

It is strangely warm in this room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

Ridiculous!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writers shouldn't need honey with their vinegar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One very good thing that happened was this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now to find some clothes . . .

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

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