Thursday 8/15

AHHHHHHHH! I'm back to work! AHHHHHHHHH!

Today is going to be a wild and crazy day. Thankfully got plenty of rest because I'm gonna need it! Not only do I start my new gig - of which I have to do much researching and planning before I can get going on my first projects but I'll keep you posted on that - but tonight is also Rifftrax Live: Starship Troopers! The moment all the fans in the world have been waiting for! The product of a Kickstarter campaign - of which my wife and I contributed to - this is a one night only event - and sadly due to the home video department at Sony Pictures - they will not be able to sell a VOD or DVD of this event like they usually get to. That means dear readers if you want your head to explode from too much laughing - you gotta go TONIGHT!

You can search your area for tickets at the FATHOM MOVIES SITE. I really hope that if enough people go to this thing tonight, the money crunchers at Sony will see that there is a market for a release of this version! - Hell they could do a 2 pack anniversary edition with the real movie and the Rifftrax Live edition - I would be TOTALLY cool paying a premium. I kind of like the movie still and it desperately needs a new HD transfer as it is. Come on Sony - Do the RIGHT THING!

I hope someday a version of this image will grace the box art of a DVD or a Blu-ray on my shelf.

Well because I really do have to get going on this - I have to leave you for the day. Be good out there dear readers and remember - make your dreams happen, they're not going to happen without you. So if you expect to be the best pole dancer it takes practice, practice, practice!

Tuesday 8/13

Wait - Does this mean I have to get pretty every morning now?

Life is a funny thing and you have to just roll with the punches. Or if you're like Rocky; get punched in the face a whole lot before you get angry enough to hit Clubber Lang back. OR let Apollo Creed get mashed like a potato in the ring by the big Russian before you get pissed off enough to go to Siberia to train in the mountains before jumping back into the ring yourself. Point is when life gives you lemons, squeeze the juice in the open wounds, let the sting surge the adrenaline before you get back into the fight and hit back harder than before. The only way you lose in life is if you give up - and I'm glad to say my efforts are paying off!





Talk About One Hell of a Day!

To start the ball rolling - lets talk book. Well it keeps trudging along, I think the greatest lesson I re-learned in this process is that writing a novel is not at all like writing a screenplay - even if the novel is based off of a screenplay you've already written! This is a much longer more involved creative process than I anticipated but I'm loving every moment of it. Writing a novel is like directing a movie in your head, you have to get all the blocking, staging, set design, script, and casting done in your brain before you really can get the camera rolling - in this case the camera is my fingertips on the keyboard but you get the metaphor. As I skip along the pages in my screenplay - adapting them one at a time - I get to reevaluate each character interaction, wording, and sequence of events and it is one hell of a great ride. While I might not finish this thing to any specific deadline I still complete 3-4 average book pages a day; that's about 1200-1500 words. That is not the obscene pace I set during NanoWriMo of 3000+ but then I'm not writing absurd long winded dialog to fill out the word count! I want this one to be good! The challenge I have for myself come November is to actually write a good book I can self publish for NanoWriMo!

Next - I have to give a HUGE shout out to all the great readers I have in the greater United States, Canada, Russia, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Hungary, The UK, Germany, Spain and Italy! At least a dozen or more from each country are reading regularly and because of your activity I hit a huge jump in ad revenue! And by huge I don't mean like Gold Rush money, I mean I can take my wife to a matinee movie and not buy popcorn - but still, it counts! So with that, Thank you all for reading! I know I haven't been as consistent as I was when this thing got rolling along, that is a large part in not wanting each post to be stale and wanting to maintain my pace for my book. And now there is a new wrinkle that might delay posts from time to time.

I have got myself a part time contract gig! That's right dear readers - I can now afford at least one of those amazing toys I keep posting about! Well... maybe I should pay down my credit card some - but you get the idea! It is part time, which is fine because from the sound of things 99% of the affair will be telecommute -  so now I get to write off the square footage of my workstation, a portion of my internet costs, and my electric bill from my taxes! Which - once I get my novels selling I can do anyway - but still cool eh? I may not get to go to as many movies and write as many reviews for ya'all but since this summer was kind of a bummer overall -  is that really so bad? But now that I am sorta employed I feel like I need to look my best each day -  and I can't shake this scene from my head for some reason.

 Thankfully in my case though I only need to get a haircut and maybe wash some clothes. 

Well that is pretty much all I have for you at this moment in time. Not a whole hell of a lot of interesting stuff going on other than the above listed. Sure I could post the latest Thor 2 trailer -  which is awesome - but I'll let you suss that one out for yourself! Besides with tomorrow being a pretty hectic day - I gotta get as much novel writing time in as I can - shooting for 2500-3000 words! Be good Dear Readers and remember, when life gives you lemons, skin the lemons, squeeze the juice add an appropriate amount of pectin and sugar, make a nice flaky crust, whip some egg whites and sugar until your arm falls off, set your oven to 350 and make a lemon meringue pie - way better than lemonade!  

Monday 8/12

The only thing lawmakers should really criminalize is waking up before 6:am - There's something Psychotic about that!

Ever have such a long, fun, and relaxing weekend that it just seems to go on and on forever and then when you wake up on Monday morning, you doubt it's actually Monday? Yeah that's pretty much sums up the first 25 minutes of my day. Didn't help that I kept forgetting if I put brown sugar in my oatmeal and then grabbing the bag of sugar from the cupboard and then realizing I had, then poured myself a cup of tea, and in that space of 15 seconds forgot all over again if I put brown sugar in my oatmeal and repeated the process again only to realize I did. The other way to tell if I've woken up way too early to be functional are the two paragraph length run-on sentences above.



Anyway!

Yeah a crap ton has been going on since I left you all those many days ago that required more attention of me than I was willing to give to this blog i.e. I rediscovered the awesomeness that is Red Dead Redemption. Not really...well... not entirely. While I freely admit to firing up that classic game and getting stuck in Zombie mode again, truth of the matter is I got a lot more writing done, and spent a fair amount of time trying to navigate the changing landscape of our weekend plans. Some family was to come out here while my brother in law rode in the Leadville 100 mile cycle race (he finished at 10:04 - that's 10hours 4 minutes! - Way to go Bro!) Sadly other members got sick and weren't able to make it out. Then to cap that off, we had Tommy Wiseau in town!

The Man, The Legend, The Wiseau

You read that right good folks - the brilliant mind behind The Room was here in Denver along with cohort and partner in crime Greg Sestero( I love that I typed as far as "Greg S" into Google before it auto completed the spelling for me! Proves A: I'm not the only one that can't spell it, and B: He's so awesome Google knows his name!) - at first my wife and I were pretty certain we wouldn't make it to the show. Then things started changing and it proved we could! Only the night kept changing on us - so at one point we literally had 4 tickets for this thing. Even if we couldn't get a refund for the other pair and had to go BOTH nights, it would have totally been worth it!

Oh yeah! That's right we got to meet Tommy and Greg! BTW blog world - meet the pretty blonde lady in the middle, that's my wife Mary sporting her "You're Tearing Me Apart Lisa!" T-Shirt I got her for Valentine's Day! Also awesome - sadly no photographic evidence exists to prove it - but I was the first person Tommy shook hands with when he got out of the car! But it was a great experience, we scored an official "The Room" mini football that Tommy and Greg signed, and the Johnny talking bobble head. Tommy was awesome, really worked the crowd, very friendly and cool. Greg was a nice pleasant calm normality by comparison and I think he was more than a little surprised at the turnout for this thing.
People came out in costume! There were Johnnys, there were Lisas, there were Marks, and more than a few guys in Tuxedos! I think Greg and Tommy were genuinely surprised at how big this movie was in Denver. I overheard Greg ask people at random times if they'd seen the movie before and the look of surprise when they'd say 4, 5, or more was great! While we were standing in line, my wife and I tried to figure out how many times we'd seen this movie, specifically at the Esquire, and now after Friday night's show - we figure it has to be at least 7 if not 8 times! And every time we've gone the crowd in the upstairs theater is always a fun rowdy bunch and is a major part of why we love living in Denver. That said I was even a little worried about the turn out. I mean I figured it would do pretty good that first night but two nights? At our screening and I hear it happened the second night as well, the main floor 400 seat theater sold out, and they moved the spillover to the top theater! I also heard that many people went to both nights! While these guys tour around and do their thing, I hope they find time to drop by our way again. Hats off to the great staff at The Landmark Esquire Theatre for getting these guys to come out! If you're wanting to see one of the greatest cinematic events but want to do it right and see Tommy and Greg too - check out The Room website - they list all of the tour dates as well as all the crazy stuff you can buy. In addition to goofy The Room stuff, Tommy has his own clothing line including leather belts, and yes - even underwear apparently is on the way! I've ordered from the site before, very easy, and if you ask, Tommy will personally sign anything you want in your order - this might delay its shipping a little, but it will get to you!

Now for a little nice Personal musings!

In addition to all the cool stuff that happened Friday night - Sunday was 6 years to the day that I met this wonderful lady: 

Today is also 6 years after our first date! It's pretty amazing how something like that can sneak up on you. We woke up Saturday morning and were like "Oh shit! The 11th is tomorrow!" 6 years, when you say it like that, doesn't seem that long in compared to how ling it feels. We've been through so much together in that time, it feels more like 12 instead of six - in all the best ways. Life is a funny adventure, the day before I met her I told everyone I knew, family, friends, and coworkers, that I was going to be moving to L.A. after the holiday shopping season. I wasn't enjoying Chicago at the time, real steady work was hard to come by being fresh out of college and I was ready for a change. Just didn't expect the best thing to ever happen to me would come walking into the video store I worked at looking for a copy of Manhattan! Life is full of great moments like this and I'm glad I get to share mine with this great lady. Love you tons Mary! You're the reason I try to make each day a little better than the last one.


And with that, Dear Readers, I will leave you for the day. And Remember taking your dog to poo in your yard is not composting, it only counts if you go in the same spot too.