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Category: Creative Work

Home Improve Fail

Published by NiteMayr on July 22, 2008

Home Improve Fail, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

Caught this on my way home this evening, I was stuck in a LOOONG line of traffic and caught this failed staircase at the side of the road.

I love the deck chair there on the porch, as if it once held a harridan screeching commands at a worker who just gave up in frustration.

You'll have to excuse my lack of posts

Published by NiteMayr on July 15, 2008

I’ve been short on ideas and energy these past couple of days.  I thought I had a winning idea for a short story this morning, but I’ve forgotten it between the shower and coming into the shack this morning.

Speaking of this morning, we tried to fix an impact printer today.  I was difficult, mostly due to the lack of instantaneous feedback and access to print queues.  Even though we performed the physical repair of the unit, I don’t think we actually fixed it.  Which doesn’t do much for my customer’s confidence in us nor own own sense of self-worth.

In terms of disclosure; here are some ideas that I didn’t write about over the past couple of days:

  • Since I defended Mike Myers, why don’t I defend Edie Murphy too?
  • Why I liked the US version of “Pulse”
  • Post-Armageddon Kids and the death of Reason (Short Story idea that just came back to me)
  • GM and Canada, why does corporate investment by a government not come with strings like “you have to keep these jobs in the country”?
  • My Parking Ticket.

So, yeah, ideas I have now.  The will to put finger to key on all of them?  I have to form the ideas around them first.

Oh, yeah (the revisions feature of 2.6 is Boss)

Last Day for Ice Cream

Published by NiteMayr on July 10, 2008

When you lick an ice cream cone, a really really god ice cream cone, you get that inital soft scoop of it on your tongue and you pull it into your mouth.  Curled there on top of your tonge, it melts and squishes around your mouth and teeth, you sometimes let it slide down your throat, half-melted.  Other times you give it the once over in your mouth, seeking chunks of stuff in it, just in case.  Then down it goes and you go for that next lick.  Never quite as good as the first one, but always great.  You catch the drips down the side and in the end you dispose of the cone last and then it’s all gone.  Melted away down your throat and sometimes on your shirt or shorts.  The last of the ice cream gone.

In the summer time, all the Ice Cream stands are open for business.  They have big signs that implore you to come try their amazing flabors.  Some sell Gelato or Sherbert, soft-serve or sundaes.  They all want your money for their wares.  Bored teenagers and flamboyant foreign men all vie for your dollars as the summer marches on.

In Scotland you can get a 99, which is a cone (usually soft-serve) with two chocolate bars stuck in it (Flakies) that give the eater a chance to choose betwen keeping the ice cream from melting and eating around the chocolate bars, or eating the chocolate first and running the risk having ice cream down your shirt.  The choice was yours.

In Ontario (and other places I assume) we had no ice cream trucks, ratehr the Dickie Dee cart, which was a bike-cart deal that a surly teenage boy or a jubilant girl would push around the streets, ringing a series of bells.  The reaction was the same as that to the Ice Cream truck, balls and toys would drop, aliens would go unfought, cobra commander’s final blow never landed and children would stream to the street with whatver cash they could get from their parents to buy some seriously overpriced frozen treats.

Then Summer would come to an end, and the Ice Cream stands would close, one by one.  The last holdout left with a big tub of pralenes and cream and heavenly hash to sell.  Hard.  Icy.  Bricklike.  It was the last of the summer Ice Cream and it was still better than anything else, because it was the last of Summer.

Tomorrow, School.

Review: Wanted (the movie) Vs Wanted (the comic)

Published by NiteMayr on July 10, 2008

Disclaimer: I am a fan of comics, a serious fan of comics and overall a fan of the WANTED comic.  My opinions are going to be skewed and should not be taken as the sanction or prohibition of a sane reviewer.

EDIT: Check out a graphic representation of why The Comic is Superior

Let me first state three impressions I got from this film overall, the director loves slow motion, Glass breaks into little squares when people run through it and script consistency was not job #1 when the final shooting script was used.

For example, we are treated to a superhuman display of speed and agility by someone who were are initially led to believe is one of only two people with said magical skills in the movie.  However, later in the film it is revealed that this person is not one of the two.  While it is demonstrated that “Sloan” has some skills, only James McAvoy’s character is supposed to be in possesion of said magical killing abilities.  Why then in the twist do we find out that the character of the dead man is not whom we are told he is, thereby negating the “only two people” line from earlier?  Perhaps I misheard it?

Angelina Jolie can look as if she wants to eat children if she holds her head a certain way, in the first scene with Angelina Jolie she makes a kind of concerned/concentration face that lets me fully believe that she is a hardened comic villain.  It’s too bad the story strays so far from the comic, as her character is totally wasted. (literally)

I am aware that Mark Millar was enthusiastic about the film; but this is one of those situations where the creator and the fans might have to disagree.  “Wanted” the film is a great ation film, but the loss of the “evil” parts of Wesley’s training and the total loss of the wanton violence and wonder of the Super Villains makes the movie less entertaining than the book.  I like the movie, but loved the book.

I didn’t think “Wanted” was horrible, and enjoyed the action, but won’t recommend it over the book.    If you are in the mood for a hard action movie with a great deal of visual flair, by all means, check it out.  If you are a fan of the book, don’t go into it expecting too much.