Lost on the buffer.

(A guy operates a Star Trek transporter console, let's make it the TOS era, cuz I just prefer the old-school look of the tech)

Transporter chief- Ope, ope...we're losing him....losing him...come on...ope, getting him back....almost...shit...lost him...lost on the buffer.

(That's it, all I got. Fucking thing has sat inside my head doing nothing for 5 fucking years) Read More......

How I spent my summer.

Where to start...

Whelp, came down with the fucking gout of all things, and that sucked away most of my summer.

June and July, was mostly recovering from that.

Either writhing in bed with mind-blowing agony that felt like my foot was trying to transform into tree roots, slowly, and crunch-ily like "American werewolf in London", OR, hobbling about the house like a penguin.

Not fun.

Sooo, while I was laid up with that, I worked on Harry, and churned out Issue #2, #3, and #4.

So, at least that got done, anyway.

It put the kybosh on my fucking camera trips, so, didn't get to do those, at least not with nice summer-y weather.

Like doing those for summer.

But, couldn't even get a shoe on my shitty gout foot, much less drive, so, pppt.

Wish I could've cut the damned thing off.

Bastid.

Ohhh, and it got better slooooowly, so damned slowly.

That last little tiny ache in the joint of the big toe juuust finally left..last week!

So, anyway, once I was finally good to drive again, which was about August...shit, there was nowhere really left to go that I haven't been already.

Wasn't worth taking the camera.

After wrestling with gout, I just felt like sticking to familiar comfortable places, wasn't in the mood for goddamned Portland.

I gotta bite the bullet, and tackle it though, don't I?

Well, the one good trip I did make, and I shoulda brought the camera, but didn't feel like it, was back to the Mall, via Best Buy.

Wanted to get the cheap DVDs of the Nightmare On Elm Street series.

(2 2-sided DVDs a pack, 2 packs, 20 bucks all together, nice)

Needed 'em to go with "Never Sleep Again".

Man, if you dig the Freddies, you will love that documentary, it's got literally everything.

I have more fond memories of watching that series in the late-80's early-90's then my actual high school experience, so seeing all those people again felt like my high school reunion.

Yeah, that sounds geeky as fuck, but I don't care, it was that cool a documentary.

So, yeah, that gave me a buzz, and I figured "shit, not only do I need all those movies upgraded to DVD, to see them again in good quality, but I need them fucking NOW! Fuck Amazon, I ain't waiting!".

So, into the car I hopped, and away I went.

Actually, tried Wal-Mart first, because, even though I despise them, they have everything, and their DVDs are especially cheap.

No dice, the Freddies were the one thing they didn't have.

Sonzabitches.

Well, good, I wouldn't like the idea of having to thank them, anyway.

I loathe that there's no local mom n' pop shops for videos anymore, Wal-Mart fucking killed everybody.

So, anyway, found my movies at Best Buy, and got in and out of there as quick as I could.

Clerk tried to strike up a conversation about the Freddy remake, I wasn't having any of it.

Needless to say, having the Nightmare series along with "Never Sleep Again", is pure fucking bliss.

But...I needed to keep the buzz going, I needed more, so, it was time to collect more Robert Englund flicks.

So, nabbed "2001 Maniacs", "Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon", and "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer", offa Amazon.

Of course, the arrival of Jack Brooks is where you came in for my little 9/11 story.

In order of goodness, they go Behind The Mask, 2001 Maniacs, Jack Brooks.

Behind The Mask is brilliant, if you love the horror genre, you'll totally dig it, I think it's the next step in postmodern horror-comedy after "Scream".

And the other two are just fun. :)

So, that's the Robert Englunds,...but..y'know, I left out "Zombie Strippers", cuz it looked so schlocky...but fuck it, it's got Robert Englund.

Yeah, I'm getting it...who am I kidding?

Anyhoo, postscript to the acquisition of the Freddies, I know I'll never watch old tapes again once I get the DVD upgrade, and I need every inch of file cabinet space I can muster, and you can't get shit for tapes on Ebay, you're practically paying people to take them off your hands once you ship the things.

So, with an ache in my heart, I took the Nightmare series, Creepshow, and Fright Night out to the curb for the garbage man.

*Sigh*

So many memories.

I mean, I still have the flicks, and in better shape than they ever were...but, I quested for those damned tapes.

Riskier quests than the stupid trip up to Best Buy, lemme tell ya.

Lotta work back in them days.

Like I bemoaned in the Westbrook one, that age of video is long gone.

Tch.

But, I guess it's the flicks that really matter, isn't it?

Anyway, got the Freddies, got more Robert Englund, still needed to keep the buzz going, so, I expanded it out to DVD upgrading all my 80's flicks.

The most beloved ones, anyway.

That quest is still ongoing, but it's closing in towards the end.

But, that's been jazzing me, I really do fucking love movies.

Been great re-connecting with that.

Oh, and to feed my Robert Englund/Nightmare jones, I recently got "Hollywood Monster", the Robert Englund autobiography.

Plowed through the whole thing saturday night.

Excellent. :)

Hmm, what else went on this summer?

Not much else...

Didn't get out much, so, been trying to cram it all into August and September.

Don't think I made it, the cold weather is already creeping up.

Kerosine stove has been firing itself up at nights.

Summer's done, methinks.

Well, did my little entry on the wood road.

It was still nice out then.

Got out to my favorite Dairy Queen a couple times.

(See the Westbrook one again).

Got myself some Lindor truffles.

My 35th birthday happened, it was kinda "meh", but at this age, I guess they're gonna be that way from now on....

Saw "the human centipede".

Did my walk on 9/11, it was beautiful out then.

Still gotta tackle Portland.

Like to get that done before snow starts.

Man, time's flying.

So, yeah, that was summer.

Tch, wanted to do so much more....

Well, that's life....

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How I spent my 9/11.

"Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer", arrived in the mail, started watching that, but, it was a perfect day, temperature was perfect, air quality was perfect, so, I said "fuck it, I gotta be out in this", so threw on my shoes, and just took off.

Took a nice walk down the road described in my first location entry.

It was beautiful out.

Lotta birds and crickets chirping away.

No dogs ran at me, nor fucking pickup trucks pop out of driveways just as I went by.

Everything went smoothly.

Saw two big 3 inch long ants jaw-wrestling in the sand on my way back.

Stepped over 'em.

Let 'em handle their own business, I figure.

Heard creepy voices jabbering from the cornfield.

Could've been sound carrying from somewhere else, but it sounded like they were out there.

Wasn't creepy-creepy, just kinda...empty-creepy, y'know, just sounded like a veeeery boring conversation about veeery boring people, but I couldn't make out the words.

Just un-enthusiastic Eeyore-ish droning that wouldn't shut up.

Just, a weird conversation to be having in a fucking cornfield, y'know?

Even "hey, look at all this fucking corn, help me pick it", would liven things up, y'know?

So, yeah, people can make corn boring.

But...they can make corn evil too...(item 17 on this list)

But, that didn't get me down, it was kind of amusing.

Like animals, y'know?

Oh, and litter is making a comeback.

All the environmental guilt tripping of the 90's had the ditches cleaned up all nice, now strawberry milk bottles, drumstick cones, and cigarette packs are creeping back in.

Tch....

Bastids.

And bitches, women are stupid slobs too...

Didn't let it get to me though.

It was too gorgeous a day for that.

Fuck people.

Nature is the real world.

Washington, Wall-Street, that's just mass psychosis.

So, got home, drank, peed, laid back, finished watching Jack Brooks.

And not once did I even remember that is was 9/11.

Well, once, for a minute.

Followed by "hmph", and listening to the crickets.

Yep, it was a goddamned good day.

Gotta appreciate those when they float by.

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Happy 9/11 day again!

One more to go before the decade anniversary!

Aren't you so goddamned excited!?

Whelp, checked Movie Web just now, and no one had the bad taste to go out of their way to release their fucking schlock today.

Unlike last year.

So, maybe people saw my ruthless mocking, stroked their chins, had a discussion with their loved ones over the supper table, and they all discussed it with their friends, and so on, and so on, and it made a ripple, and no one went and saw those awful movies on 9/11, and it hurt the monsters in the wallets, and now, thanks to me, they've stopped it forever.

And maybe that's turned the tide against making this morbid occasion into a creepy jingoism fueling holiday.

Maybe.

I'd like to think I had a hand in stopping evil in its tracks.

It'd be neat to think that...

Anyway, not much new going on this 9/11.

Freedom Tower's finally being built I hear.

Took 'em fucking long enough.

Oh, right, that first batch of money that was gonna do it vanished down the gullets of bureaucratic termites, and they all just simply got away with it.

Mentally add those fucks to the legion of sociopaths.

Not much else for commentary, said it all on previous 9/11s...

2009.

2008.

Wow, three of these, the blog is growing fast.

I remember when it stood knee high to a grasshopper.

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Location blogging #16- The woods out back.

Haven't been down here in years....
Here we go...

Okay, so, after hacking one's way through with a machete for a bit, one finally hits this spot where the trail clears.

Here, lemme illuminate the path....

Clear now? Okay.

So, we walk forward, and the path really gets nice and clear, and like something out of a painting on the cover of a fantasy novel, minus the critters.
Photo doesn't do it justice though.


I'll outline that in case it's a bit too fudgey...

So, we keep heading this way, and we finally hit what I consider the end.

It gets REALLY overgrown here, so, here's the path....

Now, one COULD keep going, but you'd need a machete, gloves, galoshes, bug repellent, goggles, a sack lunch, and an I-Pod, and you'd just pop out of somebody's back yard, and get shot, or have a dog running towards ya or something anyway.
Not worth it.

Now, off to the side here....


....is where there used to be a wild blueberry bush.

Used to be like, the point of coming up here.

(Highlights trail relative to location)

(Blue is edge of trail, red is direction of trail, green is where bush was)

Also past, and buried in the machete-shit, was some wild blackberries.

All gone now.
*Sighs*

Anyhoo, last bit..

Turned completely around, and heading back to where the first pic was taken....


'Nother fantasy novel shot.

Path higlight...tippy top relative to the arrow is roughly the spot we started at...



So, that's it, that's "the wood road".

Spent a lot of my childhood up here.

Coming up for the blueberries, bringing toys, hacking down plants with toy swords, et cetera, et cetera.

Hmm, looking back, I think all that play planted the seeds for Harry Hembock.
Think it? I KNOW it.
Before I even gave him a name, Harry and the Harryverse were born up here.
Sweetser was just finally where he got written down.

Y'know, the spots up here would be good locations to shoot a horror movie or something.
I always jokingly call it "the Blair Witch woods".
It's got that quality to it.

Horror, something medieval, maybe Robin Hood-y, it's a cool woods.
(Well, that's why I played in it....)

Not with my equipment though, my camera is just this thing, remember.

Still...

Lotta good memories down the wood road.
I'll try to unlock/remember some more, but at least I got this entry to link back to for the reference when I do.
Read More......

More.

Saw this once on TV, fell in love it at first sight, never saw it again, finally found it!

More - The best home videos are here

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The Geography Of Nowhere.

By James Howard Kunstler.

Here's a podcast with him, download that, and skip to exactly 25 minutes in.

Linky.

Yeah, this is about 3 years old now, and I first stumbled onto this looking for podcasts for Sansa almost a year ago now.

Anyhoo, at the time, it had me almost cheering, the revelation that cities making me gloomy wasn't just me, it really is the cities that suck, and that there's a reason why they suck.

I immediately thought of the whole fucking Portland Mall area.

Especially the outside bit, with the trees all in the fucking way as a cynical affectation.

Exactly what Kunstler rags on.

Preach it, brother.

EDIT-

Ooo, here's a TED talk with him.

Linky too.

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History of the internet 6.5- The Crumple-Shit.

A.K.A fuck insecurity.

(Makes a good companion to fuck angst)

Alright, last one, I referred to the bulk of the "innerspace", section as "crumple-shit".

Y'know, the shit a writer normally crumples and flings.

Well, what better way to symbolically crumple and fling the crumple-shit, then to walk back through it, like a hurricane devastated old childhood home full of memory-ghosts?

So, here we go, my reviewing of the crumple-shit.

1 was good, it's in greatest hits, 2, ditto, people loved that one, it got people pumped, I was on a good roll, 3, one of my best,...shoulda quit while I was ahead...

Between 1& 2, there was 1.5,...and here's where the Godzilla/King-Kong metaphor starts to creep up...

Ehh, not too bad, it really encapsulated everything that followed, I sorta beat it to death after this.

I put it to good use in part 2, but again, shoulda bailed on it after 3....

Innerspace 4- The Politics Of Godzilla...eh, it starts to turn, I liked it, didn't get a big reception, little too blatant in knocking the neo-cons...but..y'know, fuck 'em.

They are lizards.

Innerspace 5- Godzilla & King Kong Across History, hokay, this is where it started going to hell.

This is where I lost a lot of RD.net people.

Crickets & tumbleweeds on virtually everything from here on out.

I dunno, I was still enjoying myself, thought it was a great metaphorical device, I could see it so clearly, I could see all of human history as one big solid ugly/silly picture, and I was trying to cut it up into MRI slices for everyone, to like, mind-meld it in, y'know?

Didn't work...didn't work...only got worse...

Head full of pretense...didn't pay off...

Inner-space 5.5- Godzilla & King-Kong Across History 2.

Okay, this is really where it trainwrecks.

It it irritates me, because I worked so FUCKING hard on it.

A whole afternoon, non stop, collecting the pictures, getting them into the right sequence, fixing all the little code glitches the builder page kept puking up a zillion times, just utter agony to build this fucking thing.

Now, okay, look, Godzilla is primal animal shit, King-Kong is monkey shit in-between animal shit, and enlightenment, Jet Jaguar is enlightenment, right?

So, as the sequence evolves, I'm saying Godzilla is the undesirable primitive shit to get away from, Jet Jaguar is where we should go, and King-Kong is like, the middle ground that's acceptable for awhile, but when we get up to modern civilization, less so, so, it becomes just a pure struggle of enlightenment vs, lizard shit, with enlightenment hopefully winning.

And, enlightenment being represented by all the cool subversive people, and inventors, and progress makers.

Pretty easy, right?

But, I threw a couple monkey wrenches in there, it's not a straight back and forth, you really gotta pay close attention, there are reversals where the bad guys won, and the good guys had to regain ground.

And every now and then, King-Kong was the good guys.

But see....if I gotta explain it, it doesn't work.

But...I see it being clicked on my Feedjit map...someone out there gets it, and likes it, they just don't speak up...

Or, maybe some Google spider or something keeps tapping it, dunno....

But, from here on out...talking to a brick wall...empty house...or, it felt like it...

Inner-space part 6- The Bullshit Buster vs. King Kong & Godzilla: aftermath.

Okay, I was hoping to find "answers", at this point...and they weren't forthcoming.

I was just hoping they'd emerge from the fabric of this thing, the way rant 2, and 3 just organically grew.

The King-Kong/Godzilla shit is really being abused at this point.

I had it at the first three all along, and didn't know it.

Wanted another 3 to appear, I was gobsmacked at the cold reception of 5.5.

In hindsight, I was thrown off my stride by that.

The roll I was on, gone.

Yeah, insecurity, I've learned to not give a shit, and do it for me now.

If people like it, cool.

It it gets crickets, fuck it.

Inner-space part 7- Meaningless slogans: The Revenge!

Man, I really shouldn't have done these.

See, it was a combination of wanting to go back to old rants that had worked, and insecurity in trying to remake them, to wash what I saw as the Carlin-ness off them...but...fuck that, I injected my own voice, my own life experience into them, they are mine, fuck it if they seem similar, everything looks like something, it wasn't worth these watered down rehashes.

Yeah, I got possessed by George Lucas here.

The originals of all of 'em were better, Han Shot first, fuck special editions, and remakes.

Part 8.

Ditto.

Part 9.

Ditto.

Part 10.

Ditto.

Part 11.

Ditto.

And...it becomes clear to me, I was trying to pre-empt my imaginary critics by having all this shit nailed down to the atom.

Not just head them off, but placate them.

Fuck that.

Fuck them.

Fuck it, I stand by the original slogan series, the whole damned thing.

Eat shit, motherfuckers.

Part 12.

Ugh, look at me try to soften and mitigate that one...*facepalm*

Fuck you, FPS games ARE from the fucking military industrial complex.

Part 13.

Summary? Fuck everyone.

Didn't need to make that into a whole dragged out deal.

Crumple-shit indeed.

7 to 13 , *crumple* *fling*

Inner-space part 14 fighting back.

Okay, so, here I try to give the audience some hope.

Fuck that, get your own fuggin' hope, I'm here to be funny.

And it contradicts what was good about rant 3.

It ain't my job to fix the cancer, a comic/humorist/satirist/whatevethefuckIam is just the x-ray technician.

See? There's the dark spot.

Get an appointment with the surgeon.

Now, time for my coffee break.

Mmm, fruit pies...

Part 15.

Another funny rant hadn't emerged, so I kept trainwrecking...

Still trying to sort out solutions, and "meaning".

Dammit, Mike, snap out of it.

Part 16.

Ditto.

Part 17.

Di-fucking-tto.

Part 18.

Trying to almost half-heartedly apologize for that whole indulgence.

Self-awareness at long last that part 3 had it all tied up and locked down.

Part 19.

A month or so goes by,

I go on the location blogs, and I realize my happy place was in being a snarky critical bastard.

No, duh, idjit.

Get back to Hembock, you fool!

Ugh!

Yep, that's what went wrong, retreated up my navel, thinking the cosmic answers were there.

Had to learn it the hard way.

Shouldn't have done it on the blog though.

Should've been crumple-shit.

*Crumple, fling*

Part 20.

Okay, so here, it merges with the location ones, and the ghost of MAD magazines past snaps me out of it once and for all.

People start liking my shit again.

Part 21.

Merged it with the politics ramblings, tried to be "hopeful", again.

Argh, dammit.

So close, then a reversal.

Sap.

Part 21.

The positive series.

No hippy-dippy self-esteemer horseshit, just the good things in life.

Just the fun shit that makes life worth living.

That's all it needed to be, that's all it ever needed to fucking be.

Could have done it right after rant 3 or 4.

On Weirdness.

And here it transitions into Podsville.

Not bad, back to my old form, back to being confident.

Yep, that's what it was, trying to please.

Trying to get pretentious, trying to be all motivational speaker, trying to silence critics.

Comedy death.

Fuck that.

Learn from me, children.

Keep your crumple-shit on paper, and kill it with fire.

Or, failing that, wait awhile, and mock it mercilessly.

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