Dear Diary: A more "bloggy" attitude...

September, 2009 

...So, during one of our two weeks of vacation over the summer, we (my wife and I, natch!) were hanging out at our humble cottage in Canada. I always say "our humble cottage" because it is. I think people may be misled by the concept of a "getaway cottage" and envision something more elaborate, or indulgently luxurious.

It ain't.

It's very nice, but it's extremely simple and small. It was built from a kit (from Sears, I think) in the early 60s by my wife's father and her maternal grandfather. Mostly, it's an escape from the real world. For instance, there's no phones or internet.
Mostly, we go there to hang out and read, or write (my wife) or draw (theoretically me).
But, whatever. (Sorry for the self-conscious apologies...)

Anyway, I was working on a blog post one day over this vacation, and it went on forever. I told my wife this, "Man, this blog post I'm working on is taking forever!" and she goes, more or less, "That's not really blogging."
I'm terribly misquoting her, of course, I'm sure.
But my point is, and what I got out of that exchange, was this: I'm not in the frame of mind to just write something quickly and candidly when I post on one of my blogs. I tend to approach it like an article or essay or something. I think there's a place for those longer pieces of writing on blogs; in fact, a lot of the blogs I check out subscribe to this philosophy of extended self-expression. But, a more immediate, diary-like impulse makes up another aspect of blogging, I think, and that's something I need to get in touch with more.
Because, all I do is start things and never finish them!
Very frustrating.
So, anyway, I'm just saying, and warning you, I guess, dear reader, that I may try to be a little more spontaneous, for lack of a better word.
At the very least, perhaps I'll make more frequent appearances on my blog, huh? Huh?

Yeah.

Meanwhile, I still have remnants of my cold. I have a day off today (so I'm NOT playing hooky, so stop thinking I am!) but there are some things I should work on.

Ugh!

Right now, I feel like my life is a little bit of a mess, at least with regards to where I'm involved. So, I guess, I'M a little bit of a mess.

Lately, I've been feeling broke all the time, due to a combination of circumstances: the gradual cutting back of my hours at work as they try to save money at the company (they've slowly gone down to 37 hours from 40. Not a huge cut, but it's there.); the additional costs of our three cats all requiring separate kinds of food from the vet and one of them also being diabetic, so there's the cost of insulin, too; the cost of cat-sitting as we frequent our cottage during the summer (we take the diabetic cat but the the other two we leave home and so we have some cat sitters and that adds up as well).

[NOTE OF EDITORIAL INTRUSION: Because this post covers so much time, some contextual info, as best as I can remember it.
First, where I worked: Metro Community News. Metro was a weekly shopper paper (similar to a Penny Saver) and I worked in the printing department on their web press. Originally I was simply a fly-boy, one of the lower rung assistants in the department, but eventually I was promoted to roll tender (although I'm not sure if that happened yet at this time). As one of the roll tenders I'd be responsible for keeping the paper loaded and running on the press when we were printing. I would operate a clamp truck, similar to a fork lift, except instead of a "fork" for lifting wooden palettes, the truck had a set of jaws (or a clamp) that enabled me to grab a roll of paper to load on the end of the press. The rolls weighed approximately half a ton. At this point in Metro's history, the owners were having issues trying to sustain the level of income they were used to prior to the digital age due to the various alternative methods on the internet available to consumers to advertise things. See, a weekly shopper paper's bread and butter is classified ads. It would take another seven years, including a change in ownership, before the Metro Community News finally went belly up as Community Papers of Western New York in July 2016.
Second, our cats: we still had our three original cats! Our first born, (El) Zorro (the diabetic), and our first pair of siblings, Allie and Kodiak (Kody). Aww... ]

March 14, 2018

EIGHT AND A HALF FREAKIN’ YEARS LATER...

So, in my attempt to write 50,000 words of blog posts in 2018, I've been re-visiting the numerous unfinished blog posts I have at all three of my blogs but never finished or even re-visited again after my initial burst of inspiration, and this was one of them. I felt one of the ways I could address the frequency of posting on my blogs was to simply finish some of these damn posts I’ve started but now lie unfinished, three blog closets full of loose ends accumulated over the years... cripes.
This post’s title caught my eye. Even though I started it almost a decade ago, I understood what the title referred to (that whole exchange between my wife and I at the cottage).
In my various persistent ambitions to write more and draw more, I’m hoping that the increased consistent frequency of such activities will naturally improve my abilities in those areas. Of course, the key phrase here is “consistent frequency” and I’ve yet to establish anything like that, ever, except in terms of drawing decades ago, twice: 1) when I was working for two years during the 80s on The Record, the Buffalo State College newspaper, including a formal stint one year as Co-Graphics Editor and 2) a brief, glorious time when my friend, actress Lisa Ludwig, agreed to model for me as I did drawings of her from life. And then she got pregnant with her second child and that ended that. That kid, her son, has now been out of college for a couple years. I’ve yet to get back into a regular rhythm of drawing since then. And I’ve never had any period of time when I was writing (even blogging) regularly, as you can tell from my various blogs’ spotty archive history.

Although, this year (so far) I’ve made a little headway with regular posts.

December 16

However, NINE FREAKIN' MONTHS LATER...

What the hell.
So, my train of concentration is not really focused on any one thing, as usual, but I'm trying to plow through and get things done or wrap things up that I've started a while ago.
Right now, my biggest other "loose end" is our old house. We still own it and we're still making mortgage payments on it. But we've moved into our "new" house over a year ago.
So, this is becoming a huge issue because of the money involved. The house we live in now (my dad's old house which we inherited when he passed away in 2016, and also the house my family moved into in 1969, so I've actually moved back into my old family house) is paid for, so no mortgage payments there. But, paying the utilities for two houses is really beyond our current income, so I need to get my shit together and finish cleaning up the old house, etc.
But, I can't help thinking about personal projects and goals, like blogging more, making comics and movies, etc.
So, my focus is struggling TO stay focused.
Also, with the end of 2018 looming ahead and bearing down upon us very quickly, I keep thinking about things I wanted to do this year that I haven't accomplished and trying to see what I can salvage and also anticipating next year's goals. So, that's all in my brain right now.

Right now, my goals for the last 15 days of 2018 are:

1. Try to get over to the old house as much as I can and continue cleaning.
2. Get my Christmas shopping done.
3. Keep working on my 2018 goal of writing 50,000 words of blog posts (my progress is being posted in the margin to the right). I already know I won't complete 50,000 words before midnight, December 31, but I'm going to keep at it and by doing so I'll hopefully start developing some regular discipline of writing going into 2019. And then, re-set for myself ANOTHER goal of posting 50,000 words for 2019.
4. Try to clean my basement living space here in the new house. At the very least, set up my TV which I got LAST Christmas and also set up my drawing table. Plus, figure out where to put all these T-shirts that I have had folded and sitting in an orange laundry basket for several months now. These all seem like pretty simple, straight-forward goals, don't they?
5. See if I can somehow create at least one piece of merchandise on my Society6 account.

I think that's it.
Jeez, for me, that's enough.

December 17, 9:25 pm

ONE FREAKIN' DAY LATER...

Oh, that's actually not too bad.
Actually, just writing that I'll be back tonight after this month's BM-VM meeting.
I want to finish this post up, but I have a lot of running around today, including "zipping in" to Canada to take care of some banking. I'm just trying to stay focused (as I mentioned above) and apparently, that in itself is a task. I'll cut myself some slack and blame the general stress and attendant distractions that comes with it on Christmas preparations (just a week away!). Anyway, back tonight when I have a little more time.

December 18, 3:53 am

Arghh!
I'm a lost cause!
Instead of writing when I came home, I spent my time obsessively wasting my time searching for crap on the internet. Dammit!
Anyway, I should go to bed, but I'm trying to maybe jog my attention and thinking towards more constructive activities, like finishing this post just before I go to bed in the next 5 minutes or so, and maybe that will carry into my dreams and subconscious while I sleep and my brain will work on that... rather than the soul-destroying bullshit I was looking at for the past few hours (give or take... I dozed off a couple times so it wasn't completely a non-stop waste of time, I took spontaneous breaks. Whoo. Hoo.).

This makes me think of an idea I've had years ago and which still applies to me: the devil is laughing at me because I'm so easily tempted not so much into being evil but wasting my time. Although, much of my time is wasted on not the most uplifting subjects. I'll leave it at that.
So, let's talk about something else...

...Alright, it's after 4:30 am. I'm going to bed before I totally fuck myself up sleep-wise and rest-wise. I do have to work (and close) today, after all.
Ugh. I'm just pathetic.

8:16 am

Wait, did I just miss something there?
Ah, there's no fooling you, attentive blog reader! Or not.
Before I went to bed at 4:45(ish), I started writing about three filmmaker-related documentaries I recently watched on Netflix. And then I removed what I wrote.
While I've been trying to write more blog posts, I've noticed that some of my haphazard writing efforts on my three* blogs have caused a lack of thematic continuity, at least, among other content issues. In other words, I started writing about these filmmaker documentaries, but this morning I removed those paragraphs and started a new (unfinished) post on my film blog with those paragraphs because that's where those thoughts should be.
Yeah, "should."
Well, yeah. Should.
Arguably, all these blogs reflect myself, why not just write one single blog? Because I feel it makes more sense to have some idea of thematic organization, that's why I made a point of starting separate blogs.
So, there.

Good, I'm re-affirming my sense of writing purpose!
Alright, I should wrap this up. Writing purpose affirmations aside (why, yes, here's my business card), I'm having some difficulty trying to maintain the point of this particular post. Gee, I don't know why, I only started it OVER NINE FREAKIN' YEARS AGO.

I'll leave with a coming attraction of sorts, some ideas for my 2019 New Year's Resolutions. Actually, my resolutions are typically goals and creative projects I say I'm going to work on, like the aforementioned 50,000 words worth of new blog posts.
But I've been thinking more in terms of directions I'd like to pursue.
So, here's a list:

WHAT DO I WANNA DO (WHAT DO I WANNA BE) WHEN I GROW UP:

A debater
An essayist
A history major
A filmmaker (director, writer, editor)
A cartoonist (comic books, webcomics)
An illustrator/painter
A merchandiser and marketer (specifically re: WNY filmmaker Sam Qualiana's Metroshia Productions... more on this later)
A documentarian, historian about WNY filmmakers
Financially successful
Oh, and though I never think about it, but I should, a homeowner.

I think all my life I lacked actual ambition. I had daydreams of things I wanted to do, but I never really acted on it.
But, I'm going to be 59 in less than two months. In less than eight months I'll be able to withdraw from my IRA without a penalty. I'm getting old, man!
I need to fucking shit or get off the pot.
And on that note...

*kinda, sorta. Holy crap, I have so many blogs I've impulsively started, they're like bastard children I've fathered and abandoned during my impulsive and compulsively promiscuous youth, some of them forgotten but lying around somewhere on the internet. Right now, I'm focusing on the "main three": Behold! The Wanna-be Filmmaker/Etc., King of Unfinished Projects, and A Rambling Wastrel, I.

Dear Diary: Just trying to work through my inconsistent working habits...

December 3, 2018  11:08 am


Yo.
So, it's Monday and I have the day off. Actually, I had today and tomorrow off and then a guy at work, KJ, wanted to see the Sabres game tomorrow night. Anyway, after some schedule switching, etc. with another guy, he asked me if I wanted to work tomorrow from 7:30 am - 4:00 pm and I said sure. I work part-time but I like to have at least 30-32 hrs/week, and more if possible. This week I had three days off, so an extra shift, especially during Christmas month, is excellent news.
Coincidentally, I got a call this morning asking if I wanted to come in for a few hours because the person working today's 7:30 - 4:00 had availability issues and couldn't come in. So, they wondered if I wanted to come in for a few hours just to give some back-up for the two guys on already today.
I told them I couldn't because I had to do stuff today and I already got a shift for my other day off tomorrow. So, I had to turn them down, which I felt really bad about, but they understood.
Which brings me to my topic of today: how I invest my energies.

After working yesterday, a Sunday, which is typically pretty busy throughout, at least until 1:00 when the Bills game usually starts, I came home very tired, filled with the knowledge that I worked hard and consistently so throughout my shift. In general I think I'm a good worker, but yesterday I thought I worked particularly hard throughout the day. I think I have a reputation already for being a good worker amongst my colleagues and the management, but yesterday I thought my performance throughout the day underlined that fact, at least to me. I'm not saying all this to say how great a worker I am, but yesterday was just a solid fucking working day.
Having said that, I am nowhere NEAR as consistent applying the same productive energy to my own personal life: artwork, creative projects, household responsibilities, etc. And that's something I really need to address.

12:00 pm

Hmmm... if midnight is the "witching hour," what is noon?

1:20 pm

Well, so much for trying to work through chores and occasionally taking "little breaks" to write here a little bit. I've been pretty much goofing off on the internet for the last hour and 15 minutes.
Nuts.
Well, I was also FB messaging a friend, so that was constructive.

Man, all I want to do is eat and goof off.
ARGHH.

1:59 pm

Okay, dammit.
I put the wash in the dryer and put the underwear in the wash. But, I also made some Uncle Ben's Creamy Four Cheese Ready Rice! This Uncle Ben's Ready Rice is great! It reminds me of when I was a bachelor living at 78 E. Oakwood Pl in Buffalo and I would regularly eat Rice 'n' Sauce or make spaghetti but without sauce (so I didn't have to clean a pan!) and I would just use seasoned salt and hot sauce for flavoring. This Ready Rice is really awesome because you just microwave the package for 90 seconds, let it sit and then eat. You don't even dirty up a pan! Amazing! And they have a number of flavors, too.
NOTE: Alas, the house in Buffalo is no longer there. About five years ago I was shocked to discover the place was completely GONE. Poof! I drove over there just to check the place out and it was just a grass lot! Holy crap. So much for revisiting childhood memories.  :(

2:39 pm

Goddammit.
I am NOT getting ANYTHING done. Jeez, thank goodness for machines being able to wash and dry clothes or I wouldn't have accomplished anything today.
FUCK.
And oh yeah, so much for not swearing too much in my blogs.
ARGHH! Okay, I'm going to do... something...
*stomps off crankily*

3:15 pm

Okay, I cleared the kitchen sink, meaning I put the dirty dishes, etc. in the dishwasher or manually washed them, depending on whatever it was.
Next!

5:21 pm

I also folded some clothes and stuck a load of wet clothes in the dryer. Then I went outside and grabbed our extension ladder and trimmed some branches that were hanging over our front gutter. When they load up with snow, they dump the snow straight into the gutter and plug it up. Last year, the gutter seemed to be frozen in parts and overflowing. So, we assumed it was plugged a bit where the, uh, bush/tree/thing was hanging over it (I have no idea what kind of shrubbery it is, dammit!).
Then I dragged the trimmed branches to the back. We also had collected some branches from over the year and piled them in front of the garage out back. So, I picked those up as well and brought all of it to the way back and dumped it off. Then I hung up the extension ladder on the garage wall again and came back in.
Anticipating negotiating that extension ladder sort of kept me from jumping into doing this chore, but now that it's done, it really wasn't too bad and I'm glad I finally got it over with. Plus, I managed to, more or less, accomplish it while there was still overcast daylight outside.
Yay!
So, that was good.

But, it's dark now and my original plan to do some chores here before heading out to our old house and clean it some more didn't happen. I mean, I'm not going to the old house now. So, that was a fail on my part.
I'll have to try and make it up later in the week.

Meanwhile, while fucking goofing off on the fucking internet like a fucking fuck earlier today, I saw that Sam Qualiana, a local filmmaker, was selling on eBay an autographed copy of the script for his latest film, POST-APOCALYPTIC COMMANDO SHARK, including a magnet and DVD of the film as well. Or so I thought.
Now, in the last month or so, I've been talking a lot to Sam because of a number of creative accomplishments he recently had. In November, at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, Sam premiered his latest film, the aforementioned POST-APOCALYPTIC COMMANDO SHARK (PACS). But he also revealed he had written a sci-fi fantasy/adventure novel called Journey of the Avenger and he was doing an Indiegogo fundraiser to raise the cash to pay for hiring an artist to do the cover and also to pay for self-publishing the book.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, both of those events kind of got me communicating with Sam far more often than I normally do. In fact, I was kind of going out of my way to see if he'd be interested in working together on some projects. And he was definitely interested.
One of the projects was doing a comic book adaptation of PACS and I thought that would be fun.
So, in an effort to both support Sam the filmmaker and also get a copy of the script to get some ideas for the comic book, I decided to bid on the script he had on eBay. Well, it was after I bid 26 bucks that I realized he was actually offering only the autographed script COVER PAGE, not the script with it.
Whu-- wait. What???
ARGHHH!

So, yeah, four hours later and the auction's over and I won the bid.
I then FB messaged Sam and said I was actually looking to buy the script and then realized my error, so I just straight out asked him for a copy of the script. He laughed and immediately sent me the files.
D'oh!
Buyer, don't make assumptions and read the product description better!

Whatever.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll elaborate more on my involvement with Sam and his Metroshia Productions film empire in future posts at my film blog. Stay tuned!

6:11 pm

Finally, I did ANOTHER impulsive thing today. I don't even know why I did it TODAY. I had been thinking about the idea off and on now for several months but there was no real reason to initiate anything towards fulfilling it today, but that didn't stop me because I'm compulsively impulsive.
Anyway, there's a young woman I know who is a big horror fan and she regularly participates in a local haunted house during the Halloween season. She also is an actress and that's how I first heard about her. She's starred in a couple movies made by local low-budget horror auteur Emir Skalonja (which is where I really first heard about her), but I made a point of contacting her after she did a short film with John Karyus last year, made by Rochester filmmaker Curt Markham. I'm friends with Curt and John and I loved Curt's short film, so that prompted me to FB friend request her and she accepted. Anyway, I had this art idea percolating in my brain for a few years but I actually thought about using another local model, but for some reason I was going back and forth about it. But after seeing this other actress and hearing how enthusiastic she was about the horror genre, she seemed a better fit with my idea.
Anyway, I happened to be commenting on a FB status she made today, and I think that's what arbitrarily prompted me to propose this project to her. Since I haven't heard back from her yet, I'm going to hold off revealing her name.
But, stay tuned for that as well.

Alright, I'm gonna end this.
My wife's home and I should eat. Plus, I could probably do something else constructive tonight.
Oh! Actually, I have to watch a movie and then review it. So, I do have shit I have to do!

Later!

Please excuse my whiney stream-of-conciousness.

November 26, 2018  9:52 pm

GOD, I hate everything.
NO, actually, I don't hate EVERY thing. There is some degree of sustained self-loathing going on, but actual, active hating on anything or anyone else, no.

I'm restless and distracted because there's so many things to do or that I want to do, but nothing can be done quickly. I need to just focus on one thing at a time. there's no short cut to getting all this shit done. Instead, I just need to pick a project/objective and then proceed to fulfilling the needs of each particular project.

But right now I just want to eat.
Right now I just want to sleep.
Right now I should do something constructive, like some domestic chore; nothing elaborate, just something simple, like, folding laundry. or cleaning up some of my basement living quarters.


10:27 pm

Well, okay. I folded some laundry.
Whoo. Hoo.
WOW, I'm really in a shitty mood.
Okay, I think I know why, too.
I haven't gotten enough sleep lately. Today was my day off but I didn't really sleep in. And I don't usually go to bed at any reasonable time, either. And my job requires some steady physical exertion. And I'm fucking 58 years old. So, all this adds up to: GET MORE SLEEP, OLD MAN.
Yeah, so not enough sleep and then just general stress and/or obsessive preoccupations with matters that I don't seem to actually try to deal with. Like, thinking about stuff to draw, or film, and having various ideas for comics, film, whatever, and then, when I have an opportunity towards working on any of these ideas, etc., I don't. Instead, I go braindead on the internet. Or I sink to deeper depths and rush over to free porn on-line. Porn, for god's sake! I'm a fool.


November 28,  2:36 am

I should go to bed. "Get more sleep, old man," indeed. Although, actually, I did fall asleep on my bed, then had to get up to go the bathroom. So, I'm off to slumberland again, but let me try to move a little further along in this post.
Tonight we had another BM-VM Screenwriters meeting at the Alberta Dr. Wegmans. This is the second season we're doing this. We initiated this second group of meetings apart from the main group, the Buffalo Movie-Video Makers. I just thought it would be constructive to establish a core group of local writers and a meeting place for them. Also, BM-VM's core meeting structure (starting at 7:15, a 10-minute intermission, ending at 9:00) seemed somewhat restrictive to any extended discussion of screenwriting, too. Well, okay, that's debatable. But, I think the club's interests for a focus on screenwriting was limited, so attempting to form a splinter group seemed like a worthwhile experiment, and I think we're getting some traction. I'll elaborate more on my movie blog at some point.

Meanwhile, it started snowing yesterday afternoon and there's a winter advisory going on until 6 pm today. And so, yeah, I should go to bed because I have to open today at work and I'll have to deal with snow and that assorted winter bullshit. Ugh.

I was thinking about the fastest way to get my word count and I started thinking about THE SHINING and Jack's novel-writing efforts.
Maybe if I just kept repeating "All work and no play makes a Jack a dull boy." over and over ad nauseum. Let's see... count that sentence as 11 words, divide into 50,000... so I just have to write 4545.454545 times.
Er... nope.
But, an interesting thought. Okay, if I did do something like that (um... cheating), I'd have to come up with a more appropriate phrase. Like...

Um...

"Time waits for no man."
Okay, that has more significance for me, but it's only 5 words, so I'd have to repeat that 10,000 times.
"I hate everything."
No! That's only three words!
Actually, wait: "I hate everything. No. That's not true. I sometimes feel that way at my most frustrated, but what I actually feel is not hate for the world, but self-loathing."
Ah, who wants to read THAT over and over again.
Screw it.

Oh, I came to sort of a realization/epiphany about my stalled approach to wanting to do a comic for myself: remove some of my restrictions/ambitions. Specifically, allow myself to be free to create a story and draw using all the generic, derivative conventions of comic stories I'm used to. Like, genre tropes, typical depictions of female characters, etc. That's the main reason I want to make comics is to work in these tropes. But then I feel self-conscious about doing something so stereotypical and derivative. Then it occurred to me, that's my older creator speaking, the personality that wants to create something "lasting" instead of something disposable. But, then it occurred to me that since I haven't produced that much art/comics, part of my need to create still resides in a much less developed artistic self, who still has to take his beginning steps, who has to learn BY treading these derivative paths of self-discovery. Once I do these for awhile, I think some developing maturity will  kick in and I'll start to be compelled to do something more than just create sexy babes, etc.
So, with that in mind, I have an idea for a title to experiment with such drivel: GROTESQUE: SUPERLATIVE TALES OF DERIVATIVE BULLS#!T. That's my self-conscious title.
We'll see if that frees me up to finally start putting ideas down on paper that actually sticks.

ARGH!! 3:18 am!
Alright, I'm off to bed again.

...to be continued...

Dear Diary... Still trying to get my shit together. Oh, and it's also time for NaNoWriMo!!!

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Dear Diary:

Well, I'll try something here. I'm calling these "Dear Diary" posts (at least, for now) because I'm sort of in a ruminative mood but also working on other stuff in the house. So, I'm


Wednesday, November 2

Hahaha.
Well, I must've had a burning desire to write something down on October 23.
Yeah.

Dear Diary:

Well, I'll try something here. I'm calling these "Dear Diary" posts (at least, for now) because I'm sort of in a ruminative mood but also working on other stuff in the house. So, I'm

I got interrupted  (distracted? bored?) in mid-sentence and I never went back to it. Although, at two words it really wasn't much of a mid-sentence. So, I'm not sure what I was going to saying in that sentence.
Kind of sums up my blogging output: iffy content and incomplete.

But, that's not why I'm here now.

My original intention was to sort of think out loud as I was doing chores in the house. Little drive-bys at the computer keyboard as I tried to be productive around the house. Well, that didn't quite work out, but I'm sure that impulse will come up again. So, moving on...

Since October 23, Time and Life continued to move along.
On my film blog I tried to do this thing I called the October/Halloween CRAM-A-THON. The goal was to watch 31 "Halloween" movies during October. The initial impulse was to watch horror films, but then some other genres snuck in there (a pair of Marvel superhero films), so I opened it up to more genre-y fare but not necessarily horror. Anyway, I wasn't completely successful, but I did see a lucky 13 films, which wasn't bad. If I kept up that pace of movie-watching through the year, I'd be at 130 films (instead of at 69 films, so far). So, okay. Not successful, but an improvement. Similar to my usual mantra, "Better late than never" and "I'll take what I can get." Um, and "Completion not perfection" is in there, too.
I was also hoping to write some more blog posts (namely movie reviews) for the CRAM-A-THON but that didn't happen at all. But, that's okay, because it's November. Time for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)! So, I'm going to subvert the initial intentions of the early 30 day challenge to write the first draft of a 50,000 word (at least) novel and just focus on trying to increase my blog post output (by a coincidental minimum 50,000 words).
Most of those blog results will be at my film blog, especially with this year's Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival starting in just 2 days (Friday, November 4).

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

January 1, 2017

...Or not.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

But, I digress.

So, yeah, as I mentioned above my so-called CRAM-A-THON only achieved modest success in that I actually saw some movies, just not 31 of them. Instead, I was dyslexic and managed 13.

However, though that battle was lost, the year-long war was more successful.

November 23, 2018  12:52 am

Well, here we are, almost two years later.

52 minutes ago was Thanksgiving Day, just to give you some sense of where we are in time, if not space.

I've only recently started looking at old, unfinished blog posts and seeing what I can finally wrap up in an attempt to:

- Finish something;

- Get back to working on my 2018 New Year Resolution to write 50,000 words of blog posts over the course of the year.

- Uh, that's about it.

Anyway, it's both interesting and constructive re-reading these post fragments. Some of these pseudo-posts are so impulsive that when I re-read them their subject matter is somewhat alien to me. I mean, yes, I actually wrote these things, but some things don't ring a bell. I'm, like, really, I wrote this? I thought this? For instance, in this very post, above I talk about my usual mantra, "Better late than never." Yes, I say that a lot and that really is my mantra, especially when it comes to creating something/anything for a deadline. But, in the same sentence I also add, "I'll take what I can get" and also add, "completion not perfection." Both of those are additional pseudo-mantras I made up while writing in the moment, but I don't really say either of those things to myself or even feel that way.

Especially, "I'll take what I can get." That really means nothing to me. It sort of sounds similar to "Things can always be worse," at least, in terms of the spirit of it, although "things can always be worse" sounds more like a constructive, positive approach to Life, while "I'll take what I can get" sounds more desperate to my ear; although, I can also see how it can be used in the same constructive, positive spin as the other saying. Anyway, more to the point, "I'll take what I can get" is not something I really say or embrace at this moment. I don't know what I was on when I said that above.

However, in hindsight (and conjecturing out of my ass), "completion not perfection" sounds like a spontaneous pep-talky aphorism I spewed out. It's not a bad principle to follow while striving towards the goal of finishing projects and following through on various impulsive objectives I have. But, so far, I haven't really followed through enough on things to actually try and use this mantra regularly, so it's still an abstract idea to me, if that makes any sense. But, having said that, maybe I should try to adopt that as an active approach to following through on ideas, projects, and general Life objectives.

And maybe I will, goddammit.

Sorry, it's the holidays and that's adding stress, i.e. I'm swearing more, motherfucker!

It's also getting near the end of the year and all my resolutions are starting to re-surface, goals I've optimistically set to accomplish in 2018 that I soon forgot about, or more to the point, I didn't then attempt to come up with a strategy/strategies to accomplish those goals. So, my frustration at seeing yet another unsuccessful year at accomplishing my list of recycled New Year's objectives is bubbling up as well.

BUT... I ain't dead yet. And the year ain't over.

There is another saying I sometimes use, especially when I feel overwhelmed about accomplishing something that seems to have too many components to it: ""One day at a time."

I don't know if that saying has a biblical origin or not, or if it's origins are primarily from 12-step programs (I'm pretty sure it's one foundational saying from Alcoholics Anonymous (or any other addiction recovery program) as members attempt to stay sober and work their way through each day to avoid drinking alcohol and remain clean. Although, in this case, I'm not trying to give up a destructive habit so much as trying to establish a constructive habit. And more specifically here, that constructive habit is trying to post more often in my three blogs. 

Okay, bla bla bla.

Let me try to wrap up here and actually focus on what I think may have been the original subject of this particular post when I started writing it over 2 years ago...

November 26,  6:28 pm

Well, Thanksgiving not only signals the arrival of the shopping season, but also the holidays in general as we prepare for Christmas and then New Year's Eve. So, for me, it's kind of awakening my usual panic or despondency about how little progress I've made with my list of New Year's Resolutions/Goals for the Year.
So, with 35 days left to 2018, let me re-commit to, at least, trying to achieve some of my goals for the year.

1. Watch 100 movies.
2. Write a blog post a month for each of my three blogs (i.e. 12 new posts each).
3. Finally do my comic book story for the Apple Corps Comic. In my original game plan which I mapped out at the beginning of the year (more or less), I felt a reasonable goal was to accomplish writing, penciling and inking my 12 page story for the comic by the end of January 2019. So, I'm going to see how much I can achieve of this still.
4. Create a product to sell on Society6.
5. Get our old house on the market.

So, we'll see how that works out.

...to be continued

Dear Diary 2018 - #1: A Blog Post of Miscellaneous, uh... Stuff

March 2 - 10, 2018

Friday, March 2

Dear Diary,

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day.

Busy as hell, though.

I worked from 8:30 am – 2:00 pm and got there on time, too! (Day 11-in-a-row!)

Afterwards I went to our old house and did some more cleaning. Managed to bring home my drawing table and bulletin board.

And then I finally finished editing the chat about the Rolfe Zanefsky flick, THE BLACK ROOM (2017), between Mermaid Heather, Zombie Dawn, and myself and posted it to my film blog.

Also cleaned one of the litter boxes and put away some more books on my increasingly crowded and double-stacked bookshelf.

Alright, I need to go to bed. I have to be at work at 8:30 am and it’s been snowing. So, tomorrow’s drive in is going to be a non-stop party, dammit.

But, again, the most important thing is: yesterday was an EXCELLENT day.

Saturday, March 3

Holy crap! It’s 1:25 am! What am I still doing up???

Okay, so it definitely snowed last night. I thought maybe all the doom and gloom weather forecasting about the incoming several inches of snow was going to be a bust. Which would’ve been fine because my wife had to stay late at work (9:30 pm) which meant she was going to be coming home in the middle of the predicted snowfall (it was supposed to start around 7:00 pm Thursday night and continue until 1:00 am Friday).

As it is, due to the persistent weather announcements, the school where she works postponed the event and she came home early.

Still, I thought the snow was supposed to be preceded by rain, and that didn’t happen (not that I’m complaining), so when I went to our old house, it was still relatively good weather.

But it did finally snow and this morning I had some digging to do.

Also, at work I had some digging to do.

It was a good day at work, but physically exhausting. The majority of the snowfall we’ve had this winter has been fairly fluffy snow, so even large or extensively accumulated snowfalls haven’t been too bad to shovel. But today’s snow was wet, slushy and heavy.

Ugh!

It was a workout.

So, here it is 1:32 am now, and I have to be at work at 7:30 tomorrow, so dammit! I need to go to bed!

But let me finish this post first.

So, let me do some thinking out loud.

This particular blog is supposed to be my (arguably/theoretically/supposedly) “introspective”/catch-all blog and I’ve yet to post something on it this year.

So, a sporadic “Dear Diary” post seems fitting for this blog.

With regards to blogging more frequently I’ve also been thinking of setting an ambitious goal of trying to match 50% of my friend Mermaid Heather’s blog-post output. Heather is a writing machine and I… am definitely not that. So, I thought maybe I should use her persistent output as in incentive to produce more content myself. Hell, I’m usually starting posts, just not finishing them. So, it’s not like I’m arbitrarily thinking of writing in the first place. I’ll just try to finish some of these damn things.

Anyway, this “50%" is based on the number of reviews she posts at her own self-named blog, Mermaid Heather, and NOT including her Top Horror Movie Blogs reviews, etc. Even with this narrowing of her output, that’s an ambitious if not impossible goal already. Well, for me, that is. I mean, hell! She’s already at 16 posts this year!

So, we’ll see how this works out…

In general, I’ve been slowly trying to initiate some other incentives this year for myself in order to accomplish more besides writing/blogging as well. Although one of those incentives also involved Heather and my blogging. I asked her if she’d be interested in doing a movie club sort of thing with me as a way to get me to write more. So far, it’s working. You can read more about it here.

But, now I’m trying to crank up the pace a little, hence the “50%” idea.

Saturday, March 10

Well, it’s Saturday, 8:49 am and I’ve been up for almost 2 hours. I fell asleep on the couch after watching this month’s Netflix Connection selection picked by Zombie Dawn, THEY LOOK LIKE EVERYBODY. I liked the film, and I have to write a review and post it before the end of tomorrow. I actually liked it a lot and hope to watch it again, but I think writing the review will be a challenge. Well, it usually IS a challenge, but in addition, this is one of those films where I think the less revealed the better. The complete OPPOSITE of one MY reviews, dammit! Holy crap! I’m like, throw in the kitchen sink and then look for more stuff lying around in the garage when it comes to my latest reviews, cripes! From that perspective, I’m envious of Dave B.’s film reviews at 2,500 Movies Challenge. His reviews are economically written word-count-wise, but I love reading them. They're informative but don’t give away too much, and I know exactly how Dave feels about the movie. I’m TOTALLY envious from a wanna-be writer perspective. And on an additional envious side-note, Dave’s goal of reviewing 2,500 movies almost up! As of this writing, he’s at #2,487!

Anyway, that’s going on this weekend.

This morning I changed the title of this post. I decided not to make it specific, because I feel that there’s no one subject to this post other than impulsively describing what’s going on in my life on a certain day.

But, if there were any unifying theme, or if I had a desire for a unifying theme, it would be a unifying theme, but not for this post alone, but also for my life in general: How I’m Trying to Take Specific Steps to Become a Better Person (whew!).

Originally, I wrote “…to Improve My Life,” but saying I want to be a “better person" makes me accept more responsibility.

And what does that exactly mean?
Uh... okay... 

I’m trying not to react but to act through my daily life, being more assertive about my goals daily and in life.

I’m trying to follow through on my various creative ideas, which I think are usually worth following through on or exploring. Hell, some of these ideas I think are outright awesome.

I’m trying to consistently establish new daily habits or life changes in order to yield better, positive results towards my quality of life. For instance, getting a job as a parking lot attendant at a grocery store. This was a two-fer: 1) I got a job after being unemployed for over a year and 2), I walk so much at work during a shift, I’ve lost weight. 

So, re: “new daily habits/life changes” brings me back to those “incentives" that I mentioned about earlier in this post. One such incentive includes building on a relationship with a colleague at work to do more drawing. That’s been proceeding very slowly, but I think it is happening. We both seem interested in doing this, now it’s just a matter of both of us finding the time to sit down and do the actual drawing. Tim is younger than me and has an ambition to get into tattooing, plus he’s a big fan of anime and turned me on to Crunchyroll. NOTE: And yes, I’m still meeting Pam semi-regularly as part of the Apple Corps Comic Book Club, which has been going on for over 15 years (at least) with no real comic book, whole or in significant part, to show for our efforts, but we’re not giving up, dammit!

And as I’ve also mentioned above, I’ve started this monthly movie review “film club" with Mermaid Heather and Zombie Dawn in order to methodically increase some of my writing/blogging, and so far, that seems to be actually working. But, I’m also trying to step on the gas with my posting ambitions with this new “50%” idea. We’ll see how that works out...

But, my biggest challenge currently which started months ago when we moved is getting our old house ready to sell. That’s a MONSTER task. More on the specifics of that later [NOTE: We moved into our new house last August. And no, we still haven’t finished wrapping things up with our old house.]. But, in a nutshell, what makes this task so daunting is that I have to address some self-destructive personal behavior in order to do it: 1) stopping my disorganization as I continue to move my personal possessions to the new house and do so in a way that isn’t just shifting a massive amount of clutter from the old place and simply installing clutter in the new place and 2) also attempting to neutralize my hoarding tendencies as a default lifestyle. Yeah, right. I’m attempting to undo/change 58 years of deeply ingrained behavior, and that is not a pleasant process. That’s still a wide-open issue for me and source of incredible stress (for me and my wife), but the bills continue to mount for maintaining two houses now so I really need to do this.

Okay, that’s enough for now. These topics and themes will continue throughout the year.

Oh! And also coming to grips with my mortality!

I mean, I’m old enough now that that’s a real consideration in terms of career and life goals. I mean, we’re talking math now, not philosophy. If I lived to be as old as my dad did - 90 - that means I have only 32 years left. That’s not much. I mean, okay, that’s a lot of time, if I don’t waste it(!) but it all goes so fast. SO fast. But if I’m serious about wanting to create comics and movies and write..! And, of course, 32 years is only IF I live to be 90..!

Alright, I’m going to get depressed or freak-out if I talk more about this.

But... more to come.

So long, Bob.

Friday, September 30

Well, sadly, we had to put our one male cat, Bob, to sleep this morning. 

He was also the oldest of our three cats. We knew he was terminally ill. He had a tumor under his tongue, first discovered during the late spring. Over the last few months, his tongue has been swelling, getting disfigured (and starting to visibly peek out of the side of his mouth), but also its been, basically, starting to deteriorate and necrotize.
But, Bob still had frequent moments of liveliness and animation, especially when we fed him. But the damage that was happening to his tongue affected his ability to feed himself. About a month ago, he began go up to his food bowl and just stare at it. So we started blending his food and that seemed to do the trick. We'd mix some canned food from the vet that was higher in nutrients, and also add either chicken breast or tuna, add a packet of some FancyFeast Broth (a "cat gourmet complement"), some chicken gravy and a bit of water and blend it all up. The last couple weeks we've been feeding him like a baby with a plastic syringe because his tongue simple wasn't cooperating. We'd go back and forth about his quality of life, but he always seemed animated around feeding time, so we thought it wasn't time yet. But he definitely had been losing weight. He was our biggest cat and he used to be around 9 lbs, but the last couple times we went to the vet, he was under 6 lbs. 

Wednesday night he had a particularly bad bleeding episode (he'd occasionally bite his tongue and there would be some temporary bleeding in the past) and after taking him to the vet yesterday, the vet discovered that Bob's tongue had developed gangrene.
We knew this day was coming.
We brought him home for one more night. He used to habitually find me sleeping on the couch and immediately jump up on me and sleep on my chest. Last night when I went to bed, I brought him over from the kitchen and he spent some time on me again for a couple hours.
During the summer we'd occasionally go up to Canada on the weekends and we got into the habit of bringing him up with us not only to watch over him, but because he started perking up being the sole cat. Trips to Canada soon became trips to the "Cat Spa."
(In case you're wondering what our other cats, Velvet and Pixie, were doing back home, we'd leave them a debit card, take-out menus and numbers for local eateries (like Meowlinaro's*), and a stack of DVDs... although judging from my computer history, I think they just liked to surf the net and leave snarky comments on TMZ...).

Bob used to always be the alpha male, comparatively speaking. The dynamic changed so much when he got ill. He sometimes used to be an occasional bully to Pixie. But when he got ill, I think he started feeling vulnerable, and the change in dynamics made an impact on him emotionally. Over the course of this summer we wondered if he was actually suffering from some sort of depression when he came back to our house after being the solitary cat for two or three days. This past weekend (Sept 23-25) he really sacked out on me while I slept. At one point, I was sleeping on my stomach and I woke up with this dead purring weight on my neck, and I realized he was draped across it like a yoke.
Bob's trademark was his stoicism. He tolerated more-or-less whatever you did to him (giving him medicine, cutting his nails, giving him a bath which we had to do numerous times in the recent weeks because his attempts at cleaning himself actually made his fur messier because his drool was more copious and ever-present and let's leave it at that...). He'd look at you sort of wide-eyed and with his heart rate going up a bit but he'd take it quietly, along with trips to the vet and their examinations. UNLIKE our chubby, neckless calico, Pixie, who acts like you're trying to skin her when you simply want to trim her nails.

He was purring as they gave him the injections this morning, and he went very quickly after that, settling down as if to sleep and then he was gone. Bon voyage, Bob. You'll be missed, you little nazi ghost cat (it was a stupid joke of mine: he was white (like a ghost) with some black spots and he had a bit of a black mustache, like Hitler).

Anyway, I hope his full spirit has been restored.
It's nice to think that Bob's hooking up with Kody. Our cat Kodiak, a grey tiger cat, passed away two summers ago, and he and Bob hit it off. Bob sometimes would even groom him.

And wouldn't it be nice if my mom happens to be around, too...

*Lockport residents will understand this hysterical cat pun of a local Italian restaurant!

A Long Story About Nothing Unusual for Living in WNY in the Winter...

February 18


SHEESH. 

Went back to my old workplace to pick up some papers to deliver for a friend. Half hour before I left, I noticed some flakes blowing around in the driveway. Not big flakes, just a bunch of little flakes. But nothing crazy.
Half hour later, I walk outside and both cars are in the process of being buried.
WTH???
I immediately change my mind about running additional errands-- I'm just gonna do what I need to do.
I'm furiously brushing off snow as it keeps falling and covering up the windows.
I finally leave and am caught behind various people driving slowly and very slowly. Also, lots of hazard lights being used. Okay, I get it, we're warning everybody we're going extra slow. But, at a certain point, you have to notice you're not the exception to the rule. We're ALL going extra slow. Now we just wanna know if you're gonna turn or not.
I'm grabbing at my driver's side wiper and "plucking" it mid-wipe while I'm driving, trying to clear the ice forming on the wiper, hoping it'll clear the icy rainbow streak starting to form at eye-level on the glass. Occasional success. I'm hoping I don't break the wiper while I keep doing this, or accidentally bend the metal arm-- it is my wife's car after all. I was going to switch cars in the driveway and use mine, except the snow was coming down fast enough that that seemed mostly impractical and more mostly (uh, yeah, that's grammatically correct) a pain-in-the-ass. Part of me wants to stop somewhere and clear the wiper(s) properly, part of me says screw it.
At one point, visibility was really becoming an issue, not only with the icy streak, but just partial white-out issues. I still hadn't made Millersport (this is coming from the City of Lockport) and I'm following a truck as closely as I can because I'm not quite sure what my side of the road is. Suddenly, the truck disappears into the white. Like, he's gone. We haven't hit an intersection yet. Am I going that slow? How could he just vanish? I accelerate a bit, occasionally plucking that wiper, looking for a dark mass ahead of me indicating "truck" and I finally catch up. At a stop sign, I check behind me and see no one, so I jump out (after taking off my glasses and putting them on the dashboard so they don't get wet) and try cleaning the wiper better except I forgot to stop them. Well, it's working much better than my previous method. I get back in the car.
When I finally cross MIllersport at the Millersport-New Rd traffic light, the weather starts to ease up. By the time I get to Casey via Dodge, it's just snowing a little bit, more like what I was originally expecting the weather to be like, and I can see the road.
Holy cow. Much better driving conditions to my old job.
I thought I was going to be parked on a severe incline at the loading dock with my hatchback open trying to load papers in a blizzard. Totally relieved.

Back on the road, headed towards the Colvin exit going west on the 290, I see the weather getting crappy again up ahead. We slow down, but it's more active snow condition versus the whiteout nightmare from earlier. But, I have to be on my toes. Listening to Carl Russo on 97 Rock talking about an insane line of traffic on the I-190 backed up waiting to go across the Grand Island bridge. Later, it seems the problem isn't the south bridge but the north bridge, but everyone's backed up across the island? Oy. Glad I'm not going there.
Significantly snowing as I head into NT. Finally, I'm on Vandervoort and I park and start unloading papers onto a snowy porch.
These are going to be some damp papers.
I finally get that all done, try to clear as much snow as possible that got in the back while I was unloading, clean the car, slap the wipers clean, brush off my snow encased carcass, get in the car, clean my glasses, take a deep breath and head out.
After getting onto Schenck and going past the Ghostlight Theater, I eventually turn north on 425 and then go right on Erie continuing on the 425. Traffic slows down a lot.
And as I crawl my way towards Niagara Falls Blvd., it totally clears up. The setting sun is behind me, and there's no snow whatsoever.
As I eventually head north I see a wall of clouds ahead and wonder if Lockport's being pounded still. But no. It's clear. Just really dark and grey now.
I get home and there's 5 inches of snow in the driveway, but my neighbor's a sweetheart and cleared our sidewalk along with theirs. There's some snow to clear but I'm shoveling tomorrow cuz, dammit, now I gotta pee. And if I'm taking off my boots going in the house, I ain't putting them back on and coming back out. Not tonight.

I "survived," hahaha!
JEEZ.

Time for leftover spaghetti and cheesecake, baby.

This was originally posted on my Facebook account.

Hey, time for my triennial post! (Diary of a lame lamer)

JEEZ.

My last post was in 2013. And it took me a few minutes to figure out what the term was for once every three years-- well, I actually made it up after I found out what "biennial" meant.
Anyway, here's a Facebook status from Thursday, Nov. 26:

Without really expecting it (other than Thanksgiving being on the calendar), this has quietly turned out to be a rather amazing week. 
A former student of my wife's came to visit from out of town and it's always neat to see him for a variety of reasons, one of them being he draws and he's also a comic book geek. But that's not why it was amazing to see him. Some of the stories he was sharing about being married and being at work were quite wonderful to hear and also touched with some melancholy. I guess what touched me about his visit was that all of us on the planet are living human beings just living our lives, but sometimes you meet some people who are living a little more and connecting with other people more as a matter of habit. So, upon further reflection of his visit, just talking with him was inspirational in terms of being a better and more connected human being. That may not be the most eloquent or even comprehensible way of putting it, but uh, I'm still waking up. And, even though I haven't heard the song "Cough Syrup" before, I'm already talking about it (at least the first line) to other people. It was great seeing you, Daniel, happy holidays and safe travels!
Then, I get home last night and there's a package on the dining room table and 1) it's awesome I can immediately see this package because 2) we cleaned up the house in preparation for Daniel's visit so the house is kind of civilized looking, but 3), mysteriously the package was from my best friend in high school, Steve. What the..? A package was unexpected so I was a little confused. I open it up and holy crap! There's no letter of explanation, it's simply... a screenplay he wrote. An awesome looking 106 page script he wrote and that he mentioned as an idea when he was in town for a friend's wedding in the summer of 2014 (which, coincidentally, a social event my wife happened to reference obliquely in a story that occurred at the reception and which she told during Daniel's visit). So, holy crap, he finished the damn thing! Steve's always writing, so this isn't the first thing he's finished, so this is his latest. He's one of my favorite screenwriting inspirations because 1) well, I know him, 2) he's very "old school" about his standards for what he wants to achieve in a story and 3) his concepts are always exceptionally accessible on a plot level but then deepened on a thematic, character level. Plus, his use of adjectives in his script are very entertaining because he's articulate and very specific. I was cracking up at page one over some of his descriptions. My dad keeps pointing out (more or less) that I'm kind of blessed to be living in an active community of creative people (filmmakers and theater people, just to mention two groups) (and actually, my dad puts it this way: "I'm glad you know people who like the same things you do, even if it's crazy, bloody movies"), and I wonder what Steve would think about the filmmakers here if he lived here. Actually, I think it would drive him f***ing nuts on a variety of levels. I think his ambitions are more Hollywood, while I'm kind of comfortable in our micro-micro-micro-budgeted independent film community. But his high personal creative standards and goals are worth aiming for in terms of writing, even when they don't seem lofty in a quick description (his ideas aren't necessarily high-minded art films, but it's his execution of an idea that's important and distinctive). Anyway, if I wasn't being eloquent before, I'm being more blah blah blah now, sorry. More to the point: I'm looking very much to sitting down and reading this damn thing of his.
Finally, it's a PAID HOLIDAY today!
Hope everyone has a terrific day and safe travels. My best to everyone I know on Facebook, all who read this and all you know. Take time to be thankful for what you have and to appreciate what you enjoy and share. 
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Well, let's see if I can post something else before 2018...

Hey, time for my yearly post! (Diary of a fat fatty)

Yo!
Well, I'm actually kidding about posting yearly DELIBERATELY, but having said that...
After New Year, I thought I'd try to pick some goal(s) for the year, and of the usual default resolutions, one was to lose weight (along with eating better, exercising regular, etc.).
So a few months ago, I started weighing in on Mondays, and I started at 172.5 lbs.
I had a vague goal of getting down to 150 lbs.
Well, I think I kept to actively pursuing that goal for about half a month or so, and "lost" 2 lbs.

A few weeks ago, my wife asked me how my weight loss goal was going. And I was vague in my answer to her ("Could be better") and so, with her gentle but insistent prodding (seriously, I'm not being the sarcastic spouse here), I decided to try again.
So, April 9th was my "first" weigh-in, and surprisingly, it was 170.5 lbs. I say surprisingly because I WOULDN'T have been surprised if I was straining that scales at above 172.5. So, that was somewhat comforting.

April 16 I was still at 170.5.
But I wasn't really exercising in any meaningful way on a regular basis. I did have a good walk once or twice.
Well, my wife has been cracking the whip a little the last couple days, and I don't know what my weigh-in will be tomorrow (Monday), but yesterday it was 168.5. I actually exercised with her yesterday, a rarity (and at her suggestion/invitation, too) and earlier in the week I walked a good hour at a healthy-ish clip. I've also started drinking caffeine free diet soda. Everyone seems to be recommending I stop drinking diet soda, but that's gonna be a tough one to do. My alternate is fizzy water, and so, I'm experimenting with caffiene free soda. I think caffeine in soda sort of retains fluids in your body, so I'm looking to see if this does anything.
I think my big change I need to do (among others) is really to try and stick to a solid sleeping routine. Sleep a lot more and regularly and to use my C-PAP machine (I have sleep apnea).
Coincidentally, I just did another sleep study. I guess the last time was in 2001.
I'll be having my old machine reset tomorrow.

Let's see how well I keep with up with this, huh?

Oh, and actually, I want to get down to 140 lbs.

More to come.

PS. BTW, "Fat fatty" is another PRODUCERS reference...

As usual, back to square one...

Yo!

Well, it's been quite a while since I last posted something. Nothing new there.
So, I thought I'd rectify that right now.

But, this decision isn't as arbitrary as all that.

A couple weeks ago, I was put on temporary lay-off at work. I only work one day a week, 12 hrs a week now. As to how long that will last, I don't know.
In the meantime, I thought I'd... watch more movies!
This is not a new strategy. Back in December, 2009, I was injured at work and was on disability for three months. Among the most constructive things I did was watch more movies.
Coincidentally, this summer I had already been watching more movies than usual with my wife, particularly newer releases, and when I say "newer," I actually mean, still playing in the theater! That is uncharacteristic of us, generally. Usually it takes us FOREVER to see something, even when it comes out on DVD.
But, my wife's a teacher, so she has the summer off, and this summer (especially this summer), she's been embracing her time off, so we've actually been going to the theater fairly regularly.
So far, we've seen: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, COWBOYS & ALIENS, and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
I've also been trying to watch more movies on DVD that I've rented or borrowed from the library, and I've also been trying to watch more of the DVDs I actually own (crazy talk!).
My next step is to try and process all this watching of movies into some sort of written assessment of the films themselves, most obviously in terms of scribbling out some movie reviews.
Now, although that is writing, I'm actually going to post those reviews (if I ever finish any of them) on my Livejournal site, "But what I really want to do is direct," because my intent was to concentrate my "film thoughts" on that blog.

But, since I've been working part-time, I've also been reviewing some of my other unfinished writing. A short story, various story ideas for comics and movie scripts, and some new comics-related writing.
So, I'm trying to resurrect this whole writing side of myself.

That's where I am right now.
And I'm going to end right there as well, for today.
But, more to come-- soon!

Apples and oranges, a variation...

So, I was talking to a close female friend of mine recently...
I'll call her "Maruschka." She's not interested in any publicity, even peripherally, hence the pseudonym.
I will confess that I chose the alias from an actress I like, Dutch actress Maruschka Detmers, who I primarily know from Italian director Marco Bellochio's DEVIL IN THE FLESH (1986). She also played Antonio Banderas' wife or girlfriend in THE MAMBO KINGS.
But seriously, I don't know Ms. Detmers personally, so don't misinterpret and think this account is of me talking with the lovely screen thespian.

Anyway, bla bla bla...

So, I happened to tell Maruschka this story about something I recently wrote in a blog comment.
I thought it was amusing, but Maruschka took some issue with it. She took it more, personally, let's say, as a woman, than I intended my comment to mean.
I won't elaborate on the actual thing I wrote (man! what kind of story IS this? Aliases! Censored context! This has "lame" written all over it!), but after she responded unfavorably, my mood noticeably changed.

So, she apologized. "I'm sorry," she said, "you were all happy about sharing your comment, and then I went and peed in your soup."
I thought that was kind of a strong analogy, but I know she was being funny.
Then I said, "Or you sneezed in my milk."
To which she immediately reacted: "Eewww!!"
"What? Sneezing in someone's milk is grosser than peeing in someone's soup?"
"Well, soup already is a broth and salty, so you wouldn't notice the difference... But the other thing, you're talking about snot in milk..! Blecch!"
"No, I'm talking about SNEEZING in someone's milk, not BLOWING THEIR NOSE in someone's milk! But you're talking about actually urinating in someone's soup!"
Maruschka laughed. "Well, it's different!"
"You act like you could actually get away with peeing in one's soup!"
She laughed.
I continued: "Jeez, you and this guy I used to work with should get together. When he was younger, he worked in this restaurant and he pissed in the soup once."
"Eewww! Let's stop talking about this now!"
I always thought that was a horrible personal anecdote to know about someone, and compounded by the fact that to this day he still finds that "defiant act" (my description) of his amusing, perhaps a highlight, of his younger, wilder days. But, he tends to be bitter and cynical about people in general, so that makes sense.
Anyway, we quickly dropped the subject of which was more disgusting, but I thought that what Maruschka felt was the grosser example still mind-boggling.

NOTE: My analogy of "sneezing in someone's milk" is actually taken from something written in a foreword to a collection of comic strips that Berke Breathed did at the University of Texas at Austin before he became famous doing Bloom County. The collection was called The Academia Waltz. My friend Pete attended the university, and he loved the strip which was printed in the school newspaper, and he bought me a copy.
In the foreward, the writer (whose name I've long forgotten, unfortunately) tells (and I'm paraphrasing, as usual) about Breathed working on his strip in his dorm room. He describes Breathed sitting at his desk, head bent over the paper, and the steady "skritch, skritch, skritch" sound of the metal nib of his ink pen drawing on the paper. So, as the writer says, if you were to suddenly stick your head into Breathed's light and suddenly ask, "Whatcha doin', Berky?", Breathed would simply turn to look at you, saying nothing, but have an expression on his face like you just sneezed into his milk.

That's basically it.

Great... I have a cold.

Uh, I guess that's all I wanted to say.
I'm playing hooky and I guess I'm gonna go watch a movie and fall asleep in the chair while it's on. Yes!

Cripes! Autumn is officially here NEXT WEEK???

Yo!
A very quick howdy, mostly.
Well, I should be glad I scribbled something down in June, but still, how annoying.

Mostly, the one significant thing that's happened lately is that I finally got my big procrastinating, disorganized butt over to visit a couple friends that live in the area, Sue and Paul.

I know Sue since, uh, 1984? Is that right? We happened to be doing a musical together (IT'S A DOGS LIFE) and we both played both dogs in a gang of dogs.
Yes.
(To clarify, the whole cast was pretty much dogs).

Anyway, besides being quite an interesting indiviual, she's also done cool things, like, live in Turkey, which I always thought was cool.
She and Paul also have a great couple of boys, who I finally met in person, and they're quite wonderful and precocious. Like, they draw their own comics and make movies precocious.

So, basically, that's why I'm writing this today, to say how humbling it was to meet these two kids (ages 10 and 8, I think?), and to see that they are arguably more productive than me with regards to my pet enthusiasms, comics and film!

I SUCK!

Sue also hapens to be a fan, incredibly, of my little bit of prose writing (the "Femme Ferines," natch!) and she asked about how my re-writing plans and finishing that story were going and I informed her that that little bit of creative work has yet to take place, dammit. But she very kindly seemed genuinely interested in reading my progress on this story idea, so, I really should get back to it.

While it's been a awhile since I've made contact with Sue, in person, I seem to keep running into Paul every now and then. The last time we happened to meet while attending a Q & A visit by comics writer Harvey Pekar, courtesy of the local library's program to interets kids in reading comics and graphic novels. So, it was a very nice get-together with both of them at their home and I hope to stay better in touch with them, at least through the internet (Facebook).

Of course, Buffalo's Theater Season officially started last week so there's a billion things I want to see and have to figure out schedules and finances to do such things, by God!

Meanwhile, my idea for a blogger journal on comics. etc. that I talked about in June is still an idea I may get around to.
But, now I got to get my ass out the door and pick up our repaired Jeep.

Later.

Well... howdy!

Man... it's been awhile, hasn't it?
Sorry.

Well, trying my best to re-group here.
I seem to have a lot of ideas about various projects and how to follow through on them, but the jump from idea to action seems to be the problem! Heh heh! (he heh-ed nervously).

Right now, I'm just posting something to show I'm still alive and interested in maintaining this blog.
I haven't posted anything new on my various blogs and journals in at least sveeral months.
I also haven't done anything new creatively.
There's a single drawing I started some months ago that I've been working on fitfully, a "practice" portrait of Jheena the Jungle Fury, a masked wrestler comic book character I've been trying to develop. Part of these attempts at development is trying to standardize my ways of drawing her.
But, I can't seem to draw her definitively, yet.
Beyond the very first drawing I did of her that I simply whipped out at a work years ago (maybe seven years ago? Jeez...), since then, I've tried re-drawing her in various states of action or just a staid pose for reference purposes and I never seem pleased with my results 100%.
Grrrr.

But in the last year, I've come to know some local dudes, a writer (Tom Waters) and a cartoonist/aspiring comics mogul (Kyle Kaczmarczyk of Zombie Ink Comics). Both are fairly prolific and that's been kind of prodding me to get off the pot or shit, so to speak, drawing/writing-wise.
And MOST recently, like, this month, I 've discovered the newly self-published (mini)comics of Josh Tonn, another local cartoonist (who I haven't actually met) but he has a couple issues of his self-produced comics, Costumed Crimefighter Comics, available at Don's Atomic Comics which is where I picked them up... and which I found myself enjoying thoroughly!
It's a superhero parody and it's pretty freaking funny!

So, really, I have to get off my fat, whiney ass, if I want to make the transition from whiney-assed wannabe and mere patron of the local arts to actual comic book producing peer/colleague, etc.

I think I'm also going to start ANOTHER blog!
Actually, what I want to do is this: I seem to have a blog for various particular interests of mine: movies/movie-making, comics/art/comic book making, writing, etc.
But the journals/blogs that I have devoted to comics, etc., seem to be really accessible only to members of those same sites, namely Myspace or Deviant Art. But I'd like my posts to be more accessible, like if you google them, for instance, so I'm going to branch out to Blogger for my comics posts. I'm not going to delete or stop the other blogs I have going at the previous sites, I'll be just expanding the places where I do post my comic book musings-- which is something I sort of did already.
I started first with Myspace, then, when I joined DA, it seemed I was more comfortable blogging there because the whole site is more arts focused, but my plan was to still post at Myspace as well, because it existed... so, I thought I'd be just reaching other possible readers who weren't on DA as well. So, I just more or less duplicated the posts, you know?
But, I think going to Blogger will make it more search engine friendly, so to speak.
And, if I ever follow through on maintaining my own website and trying to develop a following of sorts for my own comics, etc., I think that's a necessary move.
Hence...

Alright.
I should go.
I have to continue cleaning my room so I can actually have a place TO draw.
Hey, maybe I should have a poll!

Who thinks I will ever actually produce my own comic book?
I have no idea how to do one of those damn poll things-- maybe if I figure it out, I'll amend this post later.
But for now, here's your choice of answers:

1. "Never-- you're all talk but nothing more than that. But, that's okay. You mean well, and you DO support other people who actually DO produce."

2. "Yes! I think you'll do it! And before the end of 2009!"

3. "I'll believe it when I see it, bub! But DEFINITELY not BEFORE 2010!"

4. "Not only do I think you'll produce a comic book, I think it will be by __________." (For those those psychics and, perhaps, bettors, out there)

So there.
Instant lamest poll ever!

Anyone who responds to this poll will receive a free copy of this comic book-to-be! If you said never and are right... uh... well, thanks for particpating!
If my first comic book does NOT have a Jheena the Jungle Fury story in it, then you will also receive the first comic book that does include her.
I mention that because Jheena seems like the most mainstream character I've come up with so far, so it seems cool to give out Jheena comics. But, it's quite possible that the first comic I "crank out" will be a weird one-shot story thing, either in the horror genre or the, uh, weirdness genre.
But if I DO finally publish something, then, crap! Chances are very good I'll actually make a Jungle Fury book!
So... there!

ANYONE who participates in the poll gets a free comic book (or two, as I said, depending on what I publish first) and this offer ends as soon as I publish this book. In other words, when I actually make this comic book, this offer ends.

Uh... so I'll get on that right now!

Dear Diary: If only I WERE a Mobster...

October 17, 2008 2:05 pm

... uh, financially speaking, mind you.

So, about a week or so ago, this guy at work--uh, we'll call him Gears Dude or GD for short-- told me that he invited me on Myspace to join his "mob" in the online game Mobsters.
I'm like, "Okay..." but I was a little thrown because I really don't do any computer games or online games at all.
But, I could at least join up and support him by expanding his mob.

Well, since then... I've been playing the damn thing fairly regularly.
I don't know if it's just a Myspace thing/application or if there's other variations of Mobsters online, but it's been an interesting time waster.
And I guess it's a text game versus an actual, uh, what, role playing game? There's no character online, other than my name (which is il bovini fabbrica, and about the closest I could come (with my very limited, non-existent knowledge of Italian) to "cattleworks") so I'm not watching myself running around on-screen armed with a tommygun or AK-47 or whatever (actually, tommyguns aren't an "equipment" option, I guess that's too old school). The computer does most (well, all) of the work.
You pick a fight from a list of other mobsters online, pressing a button and then a couple seconds later, it tells you if you won or lost.
Which is fine by me.
Right now, I'm 26 - 46, wins/losses. Yeah. Luckily this is all virtual or else my "recruitment drive" would suck even more (and I'm being very sarcastic here-- I don't really enlist other people from Myspace friends list at all, even though the game is constantly suggesting/pushing that tactic. But, I only picked one or two people that i thought would even be halfway interested (and so far, no takers, so my mob has just GD and me, plus the "500" invisible, virtual mobsters that automatically come with your mob when you start).
But the thing I'm really getting into, and I don't know if this is a reflection of the current headlines regarding economic meltdown, etc., is that you can buy property and develop it, and you earn money.
Depending on the type of property you purchase, you get a certain amount of financial return, interest.
Currently, I seem to be making just under $2000 every 55 minutes-- yeah... if only.
And this goes on while you're offline as well.
So, it was really cool leaving the game yesterday with zero money (well, I keep all my money in the "bank" for safe keeping. Your money accrues outside of the bank. Uh, maybe when I go to the mattresses, I check underneath them first for any dough?).
Yeah, I'm a laff-riot.
Whatever.
So, yesterday my money was zero in the mystery virtual money area.
Today, I go online, and I'm to the good-- OVER $40,000.
Uh huh-- like, holy mamma mia, right?

Ooooh, I want that money!!!!

So, while I'm getting mildly massacred in various fights daily, I'm doing well financially.
And THAT'S all I really care about, baby!

*sigh*


However, in the real world:
Well, it looks like a significant event will be occurring in my life in the near future. Next week, as a matter of fact.
It looks like my dad is going to give me the money to buy an iMac, which I'll be setting up at his house.
Ostensibly, he'll be using it for very mundane purposes; specifically, to reformat all his various notebooks that are cataloging his hundreds of VHS tapes. Each of these tapes have several different programs he's taped off the TV and he has a listing of what they are and roughly how far in each tape each program is.
It's all in his handwriting and he wants to type it all out neatly.
This is something he's been talking about for a while.
He bought a computer several years ago, a PC, maybe over 10 years ago, but he never really followed through on it. And now, it doesn't seem to work, perhaps through years of disuse?
I dunno.

But, this may be the perfect stone that kills two birds.
He gets his computer to work on updating and converting his notebooks and I get my computer for art and movie applications. I'm probably getting the best out of this deal, totally exploiting my dad's finances, but it's with his blessing, so, I ain't friggin' complaining, by god!

So, barring any awful new turn of events, this should happen next week.
And then-- and THEN-- we'll see how long it takes for me to produce a short film.
Hopefully in time for the November meeting of the Buffalo Movie and Video Makers Club (BM-VM), which I believe is 11/9.

*deep, hopeful and excited breath*

Stay tuned!
And who knows, by next week, I may be able to afford a bulletproof Escalade! (I'm back to Mobsters! Come on! Try to keep up here!)

Okay, later.
I need to go to sleep before tonight's night shift.

PS: "DD" stands for Dear Diary, natch!

Dear Diary: Man, I'm just really out of it...

... or at least it seems that way judging by my blogging output.

All sorts of things are going on here.

The news in the last weeks of the economic meltdown nationally, and then internationally, has been in my head. Can't help but wonder what shoe is going to drop in my life because of all this crap.
Prior to the meltdown news, there were already rumblings at work that things weren't going well.
They aren't selling as many ads as they like, so that may affect us, like in terms of lay-offs.
Okay, actually, my boss said (more or less), that ads are down and the owners are going to be taking a much more hands on approach to things. The various managers of the departments are going to be giving a report of where they think they can save money and then they'll see what shakes out from those reports and recommendations.
Meanwhile, my boss intimated that if there was a layoff (or more), I wasn't going to be affected. For now (that's me saying THAT).

This info was passed on to me and a couple other employees because we were in my boss's office complaining about a particular situation and then he dropped this news on us. He said that if there were any layoffs (and specifically, I think he had one particular person in mind) it wouldn't affect us three.

But the bad news regarding the company's situation was news to me and sort of overshadowed the main reason why I went in to see him.
My reaction was this: prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

And then, a week or so later, the whole $700 billion crap hit the news and fans.

I had been idly thinking about getting another job already, like, for the last several months, primarily to escape my two overnight shifts a week. If I it weren't for those two days (well, nights, actually), I'd probably be more content to simply working there and trying to do my creative stuff on the side.
But, I didn't have any real options that I was considering in terms of other jobs.

Really, I'd like to do something with film and/or comics.
But, I'm not really prepared with either (in terms of a resume or portfolio), and even if I was, the job(s) I kept envisioning was purely an impractical fantasy, like self-publishing comics.

So, now what?

I don't know.

The good news is, I'm not laid off yet.

So, I think my current game plan is this: impractical fantasies be damned, I need to work on my resume/portfolio so I'm not starting from zero if the big layoff bomb drops on my head.
From an art standpoint it first means: get off my ass and draw a lot more. Like, at all.
So far, I'm still in the talk more and do (draw) less mode, when I should be in a draw more, talk less mode, obviously.

Regarding film(making): this year I've been elected to be the co-programming chair (along with Phil Utech) of this years's Buffalo Movie and Filmmakers Club (or BM-VM), which is in its 75th year. We meet once monthly, and Phil and I are in charge of coming up with the meeting's programming.
But along with these duties, I still occasionally help people out with their films, doing whatever they want me to.
But I haven't made my own film yet.
And I'm currently looking to finagle an iMac in order to enable myself to make some movies.
In order to do this, it looks like I'm content to exploit my retired 82 year-old father's finances. I won't go into the specifics, but that's basically the situation. Actually, more or less with his blessing. But still... I feel a little guilty spending his money.

However, if it means I actually start to make some damn movies, even short ones, instead of just whining about other people's films, then I really don't care.

Alright, this was just getting my toes back into the blogging water.
And, I think I'll be whining more often here, using this blog like a diary, ya lucky sucks. Whether that's good news or bad news for you "readers", I don't know (uh, althoguh I have a hunch).

Anyway, thanks for checking this out if there are any of you out there!
Later.

Weigh-in Monday, April 28

Another good weigh-in!

165.o lbs.!
That's another -1.5 lbs.

This week: 165.0
Last week: 166.5

I've started eating Oatmeal bread, which isn't bad. Since I'm not a fan of oatmeal, we're trying to figure out creative ways to beat the stuff into me. Hey, I like the cookies!

We also got some Quaker Oats Oat Squares, which is tasty, but has much more calories than the Doctor would like-- for her, mind you, because she finds the cereal itself tasty.

I'm also eating lots of pretzel rods to get me by on the road.
The sodium issue is starting to creep in, of course.

Weigh-in Monday, April 21

Oooh.
I'm bad.
I've actually been doing my weigh-ins, but I haven't posted.
So, uh, here's a bunch of catch-up posts. Sorry!

For April 21:

I lost 2 more pounds, improbably.

I'm at 166.5, down from 168.5.

Well, that's what happens when you make a point of watching what you eat and attempting to make some wiser choices rather than just saying, 'I don't give a damn" and eating vending machine food left and right and then, stopping at the nearby 7-11 after work and getting a 1 liter Diet Pepsi, a 'monster" cold cut sub and an eclair. And maybe one of their fried "tube food" dealies, too-- I forget what they're called. They're wrapped like tubes and have either chicken or beef or cheese or whatever in them.

So I cut the tasty-ish, greasy, tube dealies and delicious eclairs completely out of my diet. I still get a sandwich of some sort, especially after an all-nighter shift, but I've been getting either a tuna fish salad or turkey on "wheatberry" which is actually kind of interesting, texture-wise. They have some kind of nut in them, too, that's kind of fun to chew on when i get one between my teeth.

Plus, Cheerios.

Hoo hah! Or: A journey of a thousand miles begins with 1(.5) step(s), and that means YOU, fat ass!

Well, hopefully this will be an indicator of good things to come:
at today's weigh-in (in my bathroom) I was 168.5!
So, I lost 1.5 lbs. this week!
Yay, me!

Meanwhile, I actually ate two apples in one day yesterday. It's astonishing that I even ate one.
With Dr. Sugar Lips' able assistance, I dug up some dietary information off WebMD and learned that apples are pretty good in combating cholesterol as well.
We also went shopping yesterday and we bought ridiculous amounts of cereal. Although, the responsibility for oat, bran and miscellaneous fiber cravings are split between my wife and myself. I will say, I was originally content to just eat Cheerios for the rest of my life, but I guess I'm getting more "reckless" in my old age and trying new foods: I bought some Quaker Oats Oatmeal cereal.
I'm not at all thrilled about oatmeal, but perhaps in cereal form I'll embrace it more.
TRIVIA(L) NOTE: I don't like coffee, either. Although, I generally make it for my wife in the morning. But, I do like coffee ice cream.

I was depressed to learn that the difference between beef and chicken wasn't very much, at least, for my current needs. I've been eating primarily chicken for years, figuring it was healthier than beef. That, or turkey substitutes, but mostly I focus on chicken.
Well, this one article on dietary suggestions pretty much didn't draw any distinctions between cattle or poultry.
But it highly recommends tofu.

So, it looks like I'll be going more vegetarian as the days and weeks progress.

But, the biggest challenge for me is NOT eating certain items (like, snacking at work from the vending machine, as a for instance) AND increasing my vegetable and fruit intake.

Gah. Particularly to the latter. Although, during my overnight shifts, the former will muy gah, as well.

But, for now, I bask in my -1.5 lb glory!!

More to come.