Monthly Archive for March, 2009

110, including the 5 I added. (Movie meme)

Published on March 18, 2009 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: baaa, movies.

I took this from Janet Miles over on LiveJournal. Some of these memes fascinate me. This one especially, because it gives everyone a chance to amend the list to take their own tastes into account.

Guidelines:
1. Take this list and post it into your own LJ, and mark the films you’ve seen.

2. Add five more films to the end of the list.

3. Post the score of how many movies you’ve seen in the subject line.

4. Be kind; use an LJ-cut. (Can’t do this; not on LJ.)

The list, alphabetized. My additions are marked with [*].

[ ] 13 Ghosts
[*] 1776
[ ] 2 Fast 2 Furious
[ ] 27 Dresses
[ ] 50 First Dates
[ ] A Bronx Tale
[ ] A Cinderella Story
[x] A Clockwork Orange
[ ] A Nightmare on Elm Street
[ ] A Walk to Remember
[x] About a Boy
[ ] Adam’s Rib
[x] Adaptation
[ ] Alice (Svankmajer version)
[ ] Alien vs Predator
[x] All That Jazz
[x] Almost Famous
[ ] Along Came A Spider
[x] Amelie
[x] American History X
[x] American Pie
[x] American Pie 2
[x] American Wedding
[x] An Affair to Remember
[ ] Andre
[ ] Anger Management
[ ] Armegeddon
[ ] Arsenic & Old Lace
[ ] Artificial Intelligence
[ ] Back Door Sluts 9
[ ] Bad Boys 2
[ ] Bad Santa
[x] Bedazzled
[ ] Before Sunrise
[ ] Before Sunset
[*] Being John Malkovich
[ ] Best Bet
[ ] Big Trouble in Little China
[ ] Birth
[ ] Blade Runner
[x] Blazing Saddles
[ ] Blue Juice
[ ] Blue Velvet
[ ] Boogeyman
[ ] Boondock Saints
[ ] Braveheart
[x] Brazil
[ ] Bride of Chucky
[ ] Bridget Jones Diary
[ ] Bringing Up Baby
[ ] Broken Arrow
[ ] Buffy the Vampire Slayer
[x] But I’m A Cheerleader
[ ] Butterfly Effect
[ ] Calendar Girls
[ ] Caligula
[x] Catch Me If You Can
[x] Chasing Amy
[ ] Cherrybomb
[x] Chicago
[x] Child’s Play
[ ] Children of the Corn
[ ] Chocolat
[ ] Christine
[x] Citizen Kane
[ ] Closer
[x] Clue
[ ] Coffee And Cigarettes
[ ] Collateral
[ ] Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
[ ] Coraline
[ ] Country Girl
[ ] Coyote Ugly
[ ] Cruel Intentions
[ ] Cujo
[ ] DIG!
[ ] Dark Crystal
[ ] Darkness Falls
[ ] December Boys
[x] Deep Impact
[x] Dick
[ ] Dodgeball
[x] Donnie Darko
[ ] Dumb & Dumber
[ ] Dumb & Dumberer
[ ] Dungeons & Dragons
[x] ET
[ ] Eight Crazy Nights
[ ] Ella Enchanted
[x] Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
[ ] Event Horizon
[ ] Ever After
[ ] Exorcist III
[x] Fantastic Voyage
[x] Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
[x] Fight Club
[x] Final Destination
[ ] Final Destination 2
[x] Finding Nemo
[ ] Finding Neverland
[x] Forrest Gump
[ ] Frailty
[x] Freaky Friday
[ ] Friday Night Lights
[ ] Friendly Persuasion
[x] From Hell
[x] Galaxy Quest
[x] Garden State
[x] Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
[ ] Ghost Ship
[x] Gone With The Wind
[ ] Gothika
[x] Grease
[ ] Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
[ ] H20
[ ] Halloween (the original!)
[ ] Halloween 2
[ ] Halloween 3
[ ] Halloween 4
[ ] Halloween 5
[ ] Halloween: the Resurrection
[x] Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
[ ] Harold and Maude
[x] Harry Potter [1] and the Philosopher’s Stone
[x] Harry Potter [2] and the Chamber of Secrets
[x] Harry Potter [3] and the Prisoner of Azkaban
[x] Harry Potter [4] and the Goblet of Fire
[x] Harry Potter [5] and the Order of the Phoenix
[ ] Heavenly Creatures
[ ] Hellboy
[ ] Hero
[ ] Hitch
[x] Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
[ ] Holiday
[ ] House of Sand and Fog
[ ] How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
[ ] Howard the Duck
[ ] Huck Finn
[*] Hysterical
[x] I <3 Huckabees
[ ] I Am Sam
[ ] I, Robot
[ ] Identity
[ ] If Lucy Fell
[x] Independence Day
[ ] It Happened One Night
[ ] Jason X
[ ] Jeepers Creepers
[ ] Jeepers Creepers 2
[ ] Joy Ride
[ ] Just Married
[ ] K-Pax
[ ] Kill Bill 1
[ ] Kill Bill Vol. 2
[ ] Kingpin
[ ] Kiss Me Kate
[ ] Kung Fu Hustle
[ ] Labyrinth
[ ] Lady Jane
[ ] Last Holiday (2006 version)
[ ] Le Roi de Coeur (King of Hearts)
[ ] Lemony Snicket’s: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
[ ] Like Water For Chocolate
[x] Lilo & Stitch
[ ] Little Black Book
[x] Little Shop of Horrors
[ ] Little Women
[ ] Lone Star
[x] Lord of the Rings [1]: The Fellowship of the Ring
[x] Lord of the Rings [2]: The Two Towers
[x] Lord of the Rings [3]: The Return of the King
[ ] Love Actually
[ ] Maid in Manhattan
[x] Mallrats
[ ] Man on Fire
[ ] Mars Attacks
[ ] Me, Myself & Irene
[ ] Mean Girls
[ ] Meet Joe Black
[ ] Meet The Fockers
[ ] Meet The Parents
[ ] Mildred Pierce
[ ] Miracle
[ ] Moulin Rouge
[ ] Mr. North
[*] Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.
[ ] Much Ado About Nothing
[ ] My Boss’ Daughter
[ ] Napoleon Dynamite
[ ] National Treasure
[ ] Never Been Kissed
[ ] Now and Then
[ ] Oceans Eleven
[ ] Oceans Twelve
[ ] Oceans Thirteen
[ ] October Sky
[ ] Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?
[ ] Old School
[ ] Once Upon A Time In The West
[ ] Outrageous Fortune
[ ] P.S. I Love You
[ ] Parent Trap (Haley Mills)
[ ] Passport to Paris
[ ] Paulie
[ ] People under the stairs
[ ] Phenomena
[x] Pirates of the Caribbean
[x] Pirates of the Caribbean 2
[x] Pirates of the Caribbean 3
[ ] Powwow Highway
[ ] Practical Magic
[ ] Predator
[ ] Predator II
[ ] Pride and Prejudice
[x] Princess Diaries 1
[x] Princess Diaries 2
[ ] Raiders of the Lost Ark
[ ] Rainman
[ ] Ray
[x] Reign of Fire
[ ] Remember the Titans
[ ] Resident Evil 1
[ ] Resident Evil 2 (aka RE: Apocalypse)
[ ] Resident Evil 3
[ ] Ripley’s Game
[ ] Roman Holiday
[x] Romeo and Juliet
[ ] Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
[ ] Rumor Has It
[ ] SLC Punk
[ ] Sabrina
[x] Saved!
[ ] Saw
[ ] Scary Movie
[ ] Scary Movie 2
[ ] Scary Movie 3
[x] Scream
[x] Scream 2
[ ] Scream 3
[ ] Secret Window
[ ] Secretary
[ ] Sense and Sensability
[ ] Seven
[x] Shaun of the Dead
[ ] Shawshank Redemption
[ ] She’s All That
[x] Shrek
[x] Shrek 2
[ ] Shrek 3
[ ] Shutter
[ ] Sideways
[ ] Signs
[x] Silence Of The Lambs
[ ] Silent Hill
[ ] Sin City
[x] Sixteen Candles
[ ] Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow
[ ] Slumdog Millionaire
[ ] Smiling Through
[ ] Sorority Boys
[x] Spiderman
[x] Spiderman 2
[ ] Spiderman 3
[x] St. Elmos Fire
[x] Star Wars episode I – The Phantom Menace
[x] Star Wars episode II – The Attack of the Clones
[ ] Star Wars episode III – Revenge of the Sith
[x] Star Wars episode IV – A New Hope
[x] Star Wars episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
[x] Star Wars episode VI – Return of the Jedi
[ ] Stardust
[x] Starman
[ ] Starsky & Hutch
[ ] State Fair
[ ] Stealing Beauty
[ ] Steamboat Bill Jr
[ ] Step Up
[ ] Suddenly 30
[ ] Sweet Home Alabama
[ ] Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
[ ] Swimfan
[x] Swimming with Sharks
[ ] Taxi Driver
[x] Team America: World Police
[x] Ten Things I Hate About You
[ ] Texas Chainsaw Massacre (The Original)
[ ] The African Queen
[ ] The Apartment
[ ] The Aviator
[ ] The Big Lebowski
[x] The Breakfast Club
[ ] The Burbs
[ ] The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
[ ] The Cat’s Meow
[ ] The Count of Monte Cristo
[ ] The Cowboy Way
[ ] The Dambusters
[x] The Day After Tomorrow
[ ] The Exorcist
[ ] The Fast & The Furious
[ ] The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift
[ ] The Fifth Element
[ ] The Goonies
[ ] The Grinch
[ ] The Hot Chick
[ ] The Illusionist
[x] The Incredibles
[ ] The Last of Sheila
[x] The Life of Brian
[x] The Lion King
[ ] The Lizzie McGuire Movie
[x] The Nightmare Before Christmas
[x] The Notebook
[ ] The Odessa Steps
[ ] The Order
[ ] The Other Sister
[ ] The Others
[ ] The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat
as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton
Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade
[x] The Phantom of the Paradise
[ ] The Philadelphia Story
[x] The Princess Bride
[ ] The Ring
[ ] The Ring 2
[x] The Rocky Horror Picture Show
[ ] The Ruling Class
[ ] The Rutles
[ ] The Secret Garden
[x] The Shadow
[x] The Sixth Sense
[ ] The Slipper and The Rose
[x] The Sound of Music
[ ] The Sweetest Thing
[ ] The Terminal
[ ] The Upside of Anger
[ ] The Village
[x] The Watchmen
[ ] The Wedding Crashers
[x] The Wedding Singer
[ ] The Whole Nine Yards
[x] The Wizard of Oz
[x] This is Spinal Tap
[ ] Three Musketeers
[ ] Timeline
[ ] Tin Cup
[x] Titanic
[x] Total Recall
[ ] Trainspotting
[ ] Troop Beverly Hills
[x] Troy
[ ] Twilight
[ ] Unbreakable
[ ] Universal Soldier
[ ] Videodrome
[ ] Waking Ned Devine
[ ] Wanted
[ ] What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
[x] When Harry Met Sally
[ ] White Chicks
[ ] White Noise
[ ] White Oleander
[ ] Wild Girls
[ ] Wimbledon
[ ] Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
[ ] Without a Clue
[x] X-Men
[x] X-Men 2
[ ] X-Men 3
[*] Yellowbeard
[ ] You Can Count on Me
[x] Young Frankenstein

Fail

Published on March 17, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Spotted at the local Barnes and Noble:

New address for the latest round of calls

Published on March 17, 2009 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: Heather From Card Services, scams.

A new “Heather From Card Services” call, with a slightly different shtick, came in this morning supposedly from “100-223-4569″

Well, guess what? Social engineering pays off.

The latest bunch of “Card Services” calls are coming from:

Easy Financial Solutions
228 Park Avenue South Suite 22280
New York NY 10003

Call Center phone number: (813)418-5800

Office Phone Number: (888)262-3331

Website: http://www.ezfinancial.info/

Thank you to the gullible operator who gave me this information.

(Oh, and in case you want to follow the full fight against this scam call center, click on the “Heather From Card Services” tag; I’ve tagged all the related entries that way.)

Ow.

Published on March 16, 2009 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Most people don’t realize this, but depression is painful.

I’m not talking about emotionally or spiritually painful, but literally painful. Depression throws your body out of whack and causes physical pain. Sometimes it manifests as headaches, sometimes chronic upset stomach, sometimes “phantom” pains in the limbs that appear to have no physical cause.

When you add this pain on top of the aforementioned emotional and spiritual pain, you understand why depressed people sometimes snap out at you. We’re like wounded animals trapped in a corner; all we know is we need to fight back or we’re going to die. Because, yes, depression is terminal.

It doesn’t always kill you quickly, either. Sometimes it’s like a spiritual cancer that slowly eats away at your being a tiny piece at a time. It can take years, even decades. Depression can take 20, 30, 40, even 60 years to kill you, causing intense pain the entire time both inside and out. It’s incurable and inoperable, too; while some claim to have treated it, that’s putting a band aid on a plague buboe. The underlying cause is there, even if you can’t see the external symptom for a little bit.

The most annoying part? Like cancer or other diseases you can try to explain and describe what you’re feeling, but unless someone else suffers from the same disease they don’t really understand. Words convey concepts, not feelings. You cannot make someone truly feel what you feel, only describe it in abstract terms. Just as someone who has never had cancer will ever really know how it feels when your own body’s cells start eating you from the inside, someone who doesn’t suffer from depression can ever truly know how it feels, and we have no way of making them feel it, too.

The best we can do is to hide the pain. Put on the brave face. Smile. Some of us even adopt comic personae and try to make other people laugh to try and ease our own suffering. “But, doctor! I am Pagliacci!” We can keep it up for years, but eventually we can’t hide it any more. Sooner or later the man who walks on a sore leg despite the pain is going to fall on his ass, and sooner or later the pain of depression will destroy its victim.

Like I said, while depression is always fatal it isn’t always quick. Some fatal conditions can leave their victims brain dead, still technically alive but unable to function. Depression can leave you soul dead, still alive and walking around, but devoid of all joy in the world.

Depression is painful, and all I can say right now is “ow.”

Novel update: Day 23 of 23. End of the road

Published on March 15, 2009 in Uncategorized. 5 Comments Tags: fail, February '09 Novel, writing.

Well, I got an E-Mail bright and early this morning from Jodie Rhodes, my now former agent.

She doesn’t want the book. I can tell by her rejection note that she didn’t even read past the first chapter. She didn’t like the first two characters she ran into, so she turned it down. Never mind that I wrote the damn thing at her urging.

I should have been clued in early on by the fact that Jodie obviously didn’t understand my first novel and mismarketed it (in my opinion). “No one is going to publish a YA novel about a school shooting.” I know that. It is not a YA novel, and never was intended to be. It was a case of her trying to stuff the square peg of my book into a round hole that she had in her lineup. I wasted weeks trying to re-plot and rewrite the book based on her notes to make it more salable as YA and it still won’t sell. Again, that was time and effort I should have spent elsewhere.

To be blunt, I never should have gotten this far. Three years of rejections should have clued me in long ago, and the whole experience since she signed me was an accident that should have never happened.

She mismarketed my first book, she refused to even look at the query for my second book, and now the one she made me write gets dismissed before page 6.

The editor, to whose needs (as well as Jodie’s) I tailored the book to? She can’t read anything unless it’s sent by an agent and my (former) agent won’t touch it. Started the query-go-round again this morning but the rejections are already coming in. No one wants a previously unpublished writer any more, if they ever did.

So I pretty much wasted a month of my life writing yet another book no one is ever going to read. I put myself through agony for nothing. I guess it’s fitting; just one more thing I can chalk myself up as failing at.

I’m gonna go get some sleep.

Send “Why They Suck” to the G20.

Published on March 14, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

one.org reports that they’re looking for bloggers to send to the G20 conference of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in London.

Instead of the usual little fluff pieces on how these high and mighty are supposedly rebuilding the international economy they stuffed down the shitter, why not get people who are going to send back real reports? Like “Neocon Social Darwinist Fuckwit Ben Bernanke: Why He Sucks?”

Go here to nominate “Why They Suck” at http://www.whytheysuck.com to go cover this conference. It will be a nice change to have a horribly cynical bastard send back reports, unlike the little frou-frou fluff pieces that we can expect from the typical blogging community.

Go ahead, nominate us. Let’s see if they take us up on the offer.

Novel update: Day 20 of 23

Published on March 12, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

48,127 words out of 51,300

I just finished a few minutes ago. Two marathon writing sessions (4,800 words yesterday and 5,700 today) brought me to this point. I reached the end of Chapter 18, and the end of my story.

The last two chapters were lighter than average, though, with 17 just over 2,000 and 18 barely 1,000, which is why I’m still below my target length.

Tonight, after I get back from a meeting I have to attend, I’m going to start going through some earlier chapters and look for places I can expand the book a little bit, go into more detail, improve some scenes, that sort of thing, to get me up above the 50,000 mark.

With any luck, if the post office’s speed is what it was the last few times I sent things out west, the first 50 pages landed on my agent’s desk about an hour ago. With luck I’ll hear from her tonight and find out whether she wants the rest of the book or not. Please cross your fingers.

Novel update: Day 18 of 23

Published on March 10, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: February '09 Novel, writing.

35,626 of 51,300 words (69% complete)

A little behind schedule, partly due to Monday night television (Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Heroes), partly due to exhaustion, and partly due to committing one of the cardinal sins of speed-writing: going back and revising. After finishing chapter 12 on Sunday, I went back and revisited it yesterday, moving some dialogue around and adding another 1,100 words to it. Then I jumped back to make changes to chapter 7, giving some bits of dialogue to a character I decided to do more with later on and adding a few new sentences. The result is fewer words typed yesterday, but better words and a better product.

My deadline may be shifting, anyhow. I have a sneaking suspicion that my agent (who declares that fantasy “isn’t for her”) might decide not to rep this novel. To be safe, I packaged up the first five chapters with a query-style cover letter and shipped them off to her, urging her to set her preconceptions aside. I promised her delivery on the 15th, as I told her a month ago, but if she passes on it, I’m going to slow down my pace and take my time more on it, then take it on the query-go-round in a month after I can polish it.

Of course, being my own harshest critic, I look back over some of what I’ve written so far and just want to declare it all shit and burn it. Must resist that temptation at all costs. Leave it to others to tell me how shitty my writing is.

I have to thank Kris and the ByteBrothers for their revisions and suggestions, and Bryan for his proofreading. New pacing is 2,600 words a day straight through to Sunday. Can do.

Melissa Jackman still sucks, but other people in her town really rock.

Published on March 9, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

“Why They Suck” reposted a YouTube video by a kid who, along with a bunch of dedicated high school students, when batshit insane Mormon Militant Melissa Jackman decided that her church’s decency standards were the only ones that mattered, and forced the kids’ school to cancel a production of Picasso At The Lupin Agile.

I fucking hate censors. Thus, I hate worthless wastes of skin like Melissa Jackman.

Fortunately, however, the play is going to go on, and they need help. Go to A Free Hand for more information about the “controversy,” the reaction, and where things are going.

Kids: Good on you for fighting on. Don’t let stupid people do your thinking for you.