| I love you. |
[11 Oct 2008|01:40pm] |
I just walked into my class room. I'm in a different building today. A girl I've never seen before said "Welcome! I love you! I love you SO much!"
I'm not used to walking into rooms and getting proclaimations of love from strangers. In fact, I'm not really used to walking into rooms and getting these announcements even from people who DO love me. So I just smiled, thanked her and sat down, a little curious.
Turns out she's studying English, and she wanted to practice with me. THAT was why she loved me. So we talked a little - English immersion for her. We talked about the weather, her classes and my pink shirt. She's now gone, and class is starting in 15 minutes.
A quiet morning - on my own, I went to the breakfast buffet (eggs & fruit for me) and then to look at the iPods. Nearly bought one, but decided to do a little more research on it prior to committing. I've had several MP3 players before - notably the Creative Zen which I loved and the iPod Shuffle. Now is time to get my big iPod. Probably the Touch.
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| THEY'RE HERE!!!! THEY'RE HERE!!!! |
[11 Oct 2008|01:25pm] |
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mood |
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 ecstatic |
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My tv and home theatre system are here!
Now I'm just waiting on Paul and Matt to come over and help me set it all up :D
YAY!!!!!!!
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| received goods 10oct08 |
[11 Oct 2008|12:32am] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6550 A ton of stuff arrived from Greg Palast’s office. Palast inscribed the copy of ARMED MADHOUSE with: "Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke." The guy who introduced me to Palast’s work, many years ago, described him as "the real Spider Jerusalem."
The indefatigable Palast is still on the warpath: if you’re interested in voting in America, check this out.
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| received goods 10oct08 |
[11 Oct 2008|01:32am] |
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A ton of stuff arrived from Greg Palast’s office. Palast inscribed the copy of ARMED MADHOUSE with: "Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke." The guy who introduced me to Palast’s work, many years ago, described him as "the real Spider Jerusalem."
The indefatigable Palast is still on the warpath: if you’re interested in voting in America, check this out.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| Fifteen |
[10 Oct 2008|08:53pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6549 Never having really followed the Gawker family of blogs, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know this, and was taken aback when I read it on Waking Vixen just now:
Gawker publishes posts every fifteen minutes during weekday work hours.
A rolling bullshit-ticker for people stuck at desks in America all day, I guess, drawing in from all of the Gawker blogs. Every fifteen minutes. Goddamn. I don’t know why, but that’s made me kind of sit down and think. Obviously, it’s not new, they’ve been doing it for years and I just never noticed because the most attention I pay is really no more than having the occasional callous snicker at Valleywag.
Can you imagine what this site would look like if it updated every fifteen minutes?
And I guess that that’s the genius of the Gawker system. Sit on the main Gawker site all day and you’ve got a rolling bullshit channel. Just leave it up there and hit refresh every now and then. As Waking Vixen points out, it may not particularly repay intensive and involved writing — but in a Burst Culture condition, anything longer than 500 words, an mp3 or a bit of YouTube on a blog is probably overdoing it anyway.
Every fifteen minutes. That site’s your friend for the working day, isn’t it? Always sitting there on a tab. If it could push, it’d be updating itself right in front of you.
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| Fifteen |
[10 Oct 2008|09:53pm] |
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Never having really followed the Gawker family of blogs, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know this, and was taken aback when I read it on Waking Vixen just now:
Gawker publishes posts every fifteen minutes during weekday work hours.
A rolling bullshit-ticker for people stuck at desks in America all day, I guess, drawing in from all of the Gawker blogs. Every fifteen minutes. Goddamn. I don’t know why, but that’s made me kind of sit down and think. Obviously, it’s not new, they’ve been doing it for years and I just never noticed because the most attention I pay is really no more than having the occasional callous snicker at Valleywag.
Can you imagine what this site would look like if it updated every fifteen minutes?
And I guess that that’s the genius of the Gawker system. Sit on the main Gawker site all day and you’ve got a rolling bullshit channel. Just leave it up there and hit refresh every now and then. As Waking Vixen points out, it may not particularly repay intensive and involved writing — but in a Burst Culture condition, anything longer than 500 words, an mp3 or a bit of YouTube on a blog is probably overdoing it anyway.
Every fifteen minutes. That site’s your friend for the working day, isn’t it? Always sitting there on a tab. If it could push, it’d be updating itself right in front of you.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| ASTONISHING X-MEN #27: Lettered Pages |
[10 Oct 2008|06:46pm] |
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Six lettered pages offered as preview at popcultureshock:
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| On Whitechapel Today (10oct08) |
[10 Oct 2008|06:24pm] |
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* There’s a FREAKANGELS thread for each new episode up every week. This is today’s.
* There’s also a thread up for Garth Ennis & Jacen Burrows’ CROSSED.
* And people complaining about US network TV remaking UK TV shows (I haven’t seen the ELEVENTH HOUR or LIFE ON MARS remakes yet, so you won’t find me in that thread).
* The Self Portrait Imagethread for the month is up, featuring… muttering in German.
And all kinds of other terrible things, because I haven’t had time to look at the place much this week. God knows what’s growing in there.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| and now, your daily dose of zombies |
[10 Oct 2008|08:46am] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/416803757/and-now-your-da.html Think Geek has way, way, way too much fun with the Dismember Me Plush Zombies:
When I see stuff like this, I am inspired to make silly short films like this of my own. Then I look at all the other stuff I have to do, and I'm a little sad that I can't. Then I remember how lucky I am that I get to do all the things I get to do, and I feel like a dick for feeling sad. Then I watch the video again, and want to make a silly short film of my own. Then, I resolve to break the cycle, realize that it's probably time for a Guinness, and all is right with the world.
(Seriously, though, isn't it awesome to live at a moment in history when any creative person with a small budget can make something awesome and freely share it with the world? That wasn't possible as recently as ten years ago.)
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| FREAKANGELS 0030 |
[10 Oct 2008|12:27pm] |
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It’s not what you’re expecting.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| City bound |
[10 Oct 2008|04:22pm] |
Another hot day... We have been to Disneyland again and had a relatively slow day.
Today I left my mum and sister and headed into the city for work. They will stay there until tomorrow and then we will meet up to go to the markets and a few other things locally in Kowloon.
It is Halloween themed at Disneyland and apart from decorations, merchandise and new characters (eg Jack and Sally) they have new attractions... Like a haunted house and a demon jungle. I was seriously scared in the demon jungle. It was night time and quite spooky even though the haunted house wasn't.
The Lion King show we went to today was brilliant. And now into work mode...
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| To the tune of "Limbo Rock" |
[10 Oct 2008|02:17pm] |
Ever broker boy and girl
All around the broker world
As the market starts to flop
They all do the window drop.
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| in which wil has a weird (and awesome) day |
[09 Oct 2008|06:48pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/416237566/in-which-wil-ha.html "wilw: I think I may die from too much fun today. I'm working on Naruto this morning, then Family Guy this afternoon."
This morning, I finished my arc on Naruto. I can't say anything specific (I actually shouldn't have said I was working on it at all until it aired. Oops.) but my shows will start airing in about a month, and I can tell some behind the scenes stuff then.
After I finished recording, I had about 2 hours before I was scheduled to work on Family Guy, so on the way I stopped at this pizza place I've always wanted to eat at in Burbank called Dino's. Oh my god. I had this pizza called the caponata: roasted eggplant, green olives, garlic, onions, tomatoes, capers and fresh basil. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.
While I was there, I read an actual newspaper, which was a rather exciting and retro experience. I used to read the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News every day, and the New York Times on Sundays, and today was the first time I've held a newspaper in my hands that wasn't The Onion in over a year.
After lunch, I drove down to Hollywood for Family Guy. On my way down Highland, I saw at least a dozen different street corner prophets, hollering at traffic about one thing or another. In the median at Highland and Melrose, I saw legendary Hollywood crazy person Melrose Larry Green. He had a political sign, but he was waving it around so much, I couldn't read it. Dang.
I record Family Guy (and Cavalcade) in an office building down on Wilshire near LACMA. It's a really cool place, where the Evil Monkey tells people to recycle, a Family Guy pinball machine is available on free play, and a ping pong table takes up much of the waiting area near the recording booths. There were two people playing when I got there, and after I read my sides (holy shit is it a funny scene) I looked up to see Seth Green playing.
I sort of knew Seth when we were much younger, because he was one of those guys I'd run into at auditions all the time. He was a little nerdy, and always really nice and unassuming, with a great sense of humor. I remember once, back in 1998 or 1999, I said to him, "You know, Seth, you're a little nerdy, and you're also nice and unassuming, with a great sense of humor. You should do a TV show where you satirize movies and popular culture with animated action figures."*
I wasn't sure if he'd remember me since it had been so long, but it turns out that he did, and after talking to him for a few minutes I was really happy to see that he's the same exceedingly nice and easygoing guy I sort knew all those years ago. Before I left, we played some ping pong, and discussed the awesomeness of being on Team I Have An Awesome Beard. He recently moved to team I Don't Have A Beard Because It Was Too Itchy, but the bond between bearded and formerly-bearded brothers was still strong. And awesome.**
When I recorded my lines, Seth MacFarlane directed me. My scene was with Peter Griffin, and I am as proud of myself as I've ever been that I didn't lose my shit when Seth read me into my first line in Peter's voice. I also told him that I'm still laughing about Surfin' Bird, and nearly convinced him that members of The Trashmen were all deadbeat dads to the same former groupie, so the increased sales on iTunes was finally feeding her numerous bastard children. (This was way, way funnier than it seems now. Making outrageous shit up like that and committing to it completely is one of my favorite ways to amuse myself.)
On my way home, I hoped to complete my strange trip into Hollywood with an Angelyne sighting, but I got to see a hobo getting all Office Space on his shopping cart instead, while a bunch of other hoboes watched . . . and guarded theirs.
There was no traffic on the freeway, and I got home in 27 minutes.
I think it's safe to say I had a very weird day.
*This never actually happened.
**Awesome.
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| Sam Russo |
[09 Oct 2008|04:35pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6543 Sam, who I talked about the other day, has given me permission to release one of his songs into the wild. So I’ve chosen “The Dirty 13,” because I think it best exemplifies his ability to cram a novella into three minutes. Just him and a guitar — an angrier, wittier Billy Bragg is one way to approximate his style, though that’s far from exact, and he’s a lot more original than that.
You can find out all about Sam, including his British tour dates (which have to be seen to be believed), at his MySpace page. The following mp3 will be up for seven days only. Please give it a listen.
Sam Russo - \"The Dirty 13\"
Download audio file (Sam%20Russo%20-%20The%20Dirty%2013.mp3)
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| @network 9oct08 |
[09 Oct 2008|03:43pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6542 * Congrats to Caitlin Kittredge on selling YA fantasy trilogy THE IRON CODEX to Delacorte. Listen to this, and tell me that you don’t want kids reading it:
…a series set in a Lovecraftian industrial city in an alternate 1950s that centers on a mechanically gifted young girl approaching her 16th birthday, the age at which everyone in her family goes insane, leaving it up to her to unravel the mystery of their madness - and save the world…
* Matt Jones for Schulze & Webb on the "fanbrication" of near-instant, produced-on-demand products. Warning: switch brain to "On" for this one.
* Melissa Gira on How To Break Up Online. (Or: Don’t Fuck Obsessive Bloggers.)
* Thank you Moon Wiring Club for sending me your wonderful new long-player SHOES OFF AND CHAIRS AWAY. About which I will doubtless have more to say later.
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| @network 9oct08 |
[09 Oct 2008|04:43pm] |
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* Congrats to Caitlin Kittredge on selling YA fantasy trilogy THE IRON CODEX to Delacorte. Listen to this, and tell me that you don’t want kids reading it:
…a series set in a Lovecraftian industrial city in an alternate 1950s that centers on a mechanically gifted young girl approaching her 16th birthday, the age at which everyone in her family goes insane, leaving it up to her to unravel the mystery of their madness - and save the world…
* Matt Jones for Schulze & Webb on the "fanbrication" of near-instant, produced-on-demand products. Warning: switch brain to "On" for this one.
* Melissa Gira on How To Break Up Online. (Or: Don’t Fuck Obsessive Bloggers.)
* Thank you Moon Wiring Club for sending me your wonderful new long-player SHOES OFF AND CHAIRS AWAY. About which I will doubtless have more to say later.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| Paul Di Filippo & Jim Woodring’s COSMOCOPIA |
[09 Oct 2008|03:11pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6541 This would go into a @network post, but it’s so bloody huge I’m going to run it on its own. Paul is simply brilliant, and COSMOCOPIA sounds like a lot of fun:
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| Paul Di Filippo & Jim Woodring’s COSMOCOPIA |
[09 Oct 2008|04:11pm] |
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This would go into a @network post, but it’s so bloody huge I’m going to run it on its own. Paul is simply brilliant, and COSMOCOPIA sounds like a lot of fun:
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-10-08 |
[08 Oct 2008|11:59pm] |
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(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| Hot Hong Kong |
[09 Oct 2008|05:12pm] |
Wow it is just sooo hot here. Mum said she thought we were exaggerating last time, but now realises we weren't. Luckily this means they're being a little slower than usual at a Disney park, as I can't handle their energy for Disney!
The flight here, or rather boarding the flight, was dramatic, but more on that later. We finally arrived anyway, along with my bag, but not my Mum's or sister's. And after checking into The Disneyland Hotel (which is really beautiful) we had dinner. I had a really spicy curry... Glad I had asked for it to be mild! Their bags turned up at 2am or something...
This morning we had an incedible breakfast... Loads of Asian and Western foods. I opted primarily for the Asian brekky... Noodles, curry, and vegies. After checking out the hotel a little more, including the garden maze, we went on to the actual theme park. Been on several rides, watched a show or two, been into a shop or twelve and are going to watch the fireworks later today before heading back to the hotel.
I am heading to the city tomorrow for work, leaving them for more Disney stuff.
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| Disneyland for Gamers |
[08 Oct 2008|06:05pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/415211638/disneyland-for.html OMG:
True Realm - A HUGE two-day “gamer theme park” that is packed with TWO DUNGEONS and TD mini-events!
It is a shared gamer-geek dream that someday there would be a “theme park” just for medieval fantasy gamers - and it is finally here! Due to the overwhelming response from volunteers and players regarding the “True Dungeon: Director’s Cut” event, we have greatly expanded the scope of the event to create a medieval fantasy cityscape loaded with cool gaming events. Not only will the “theme park” be DOUBLE the size of the Gen Con Indy True Dungeon event, but there will be TWO unique True Dungeon modules offered as well as many cool TD mini-events. You can spend two full days completely immersed in “True Realm” while living out your “True Gamer” dreams!
True Realm will be housed inside a 40,000 sq. ft. cavernous warehouse, and it will be divided up into the Dungeons and the City. The Dungeons will take up about 28,000 sq. ft. and it will be the area where all the True Dungeon events are held. The City will be a 12,000 sq. ft. detailed medieval fantasy cityscape complete with cool, high-quality facades and lighting.
I did True Dungeon once at GenCon SoCal. I absolutely loved it right up until I died in the spider room. Now, I realize that telling "how I died in True Dungeon" is like telling a bad beat story in poker, so I'll go ahead and give you all 1d6 GP if you read this story and ever play in one of my campaigns.
We were in the spider room. Most of us avoided getting webbed, including me, the cleric, and the fighter. I was a Bard, so I started singing a song to inspire the fighter. The fighter started wailing on the spider, who decided that the best defense was to only attack me. The cleric was so busy laughing at my song, he never healed me (thanks, Cal) and I died pretty quickly after taking two massive blows on successive turns.
Here's the thing: afterward, the woman running the room made a very big deal about how she "didn't take it easy on Wil Wheaton." Gosh, thanks for that. Her, um, "logic" was that the spider saw that I was powering the fighter, decided that I was a more serious threat than the fighter - who was beating on it with a sword - and acted accordingly.
Okay, let's just take a moment and consider this. Dungeon Masters, I'm talking to you now: What's the Monstrous Spider's average intelligence?
Taking a look at the 3.0 Monster Manual (which is what we were using at the time) a Monstrous Spider has an intelligence of wait for it ... zero. Now, I'm just a simple country chicken lawyer, but isn't it kinda hard to know that the guy wailing on you with a sword would be a slightly smaller threat if you took out the Bard who was inspiring him with song when your fucking intelligence is zero? I've only been running games for 20 years, though, so maybe I'm using some arcane interpretation of the rules that wasn't operative at the time.
It was an incredibly frustrating way to die, because it seemed unfair and arbitrary. I wouldn't mind dying some kind of heroic death, or falling into the Pit of Infinite Falling You Dumb Ass because I did something stupid, but getting thumped because the DM for that room didn't want to "take it easy on Wil Wheaton" seemed really lame to me.
For what it's worth, I've talked to other people who played that year, and lots of them have similar complaints about the way that particular room was run. Everything else, though, was spectacular, and I'd highly recommend the experience, which is wonderfully memorable whether you survive or not.
Anyway, enough about me. Where and when is this magnificent True Realm happening?
True Realm will be open on Friday, April 3rd and Saturday, April 4th 2009 from 9:30am until 11:00pm. The two True Dungeon adventures (as well as the two TD mini-events) will have start times from 10:00am until 10:00pm. The event will take place in a very easy-to-find warehouse in southern Illinois just six miles west of Interstate 57 at Exit 58.
There are a ton of events, including mini-events called True Raid and True Grind that are exactly what they sound like. What can you do when you're not crawling through one of the dungeons? Get your emm effing geek on, that's what:
Between the times you spend playing all of the ticketed events, you can have fun enjoying many free activities like the aforementioned Bard’s Contest and the Costume Contest. Or, you can visit the Inn or the Tavern for some refreshment while picking up an open game or trading some tokens. Also, you can sit down to strategize with your team for an upcoming event, or you can just sit back and talk about old gaming exploits while enjoying a turkey drumstick - barbarian style.
Okay, I'll have to bring my own Tofurkey drumstick, but I think I can handle that, because this sounds like the greatest thing for gamers since they put dice in a bag.
(Thanks to reader DM for the link!)
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| Q: What book are you currently reading? Is it good so far? |
[08 Oct 2008|02:48pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/415064954/q-what-book-are.html I don't do memes, because once I start, I doubt I'd be able to stop. That wouldn't end well for anyone, especially my cat who is bacon-averse.
This morning, though, while I was Propelling, I stopped at SF Signal and saw Quick Meme: What are You Reading?
Q: What book are you currently reading? Is it good so far?
Oh! Good question. I'm so glad you asked. I love to read, and I love to talk about books, so I'm going to go ahead and hop onto this one. Don't worry, I won't be tagging anyone, because that's just silly.
Until last year, I'd limit myself and only read one book at a time, but as the pile of things I wanted to read grew ever larger, I decided that it made more sense to go ahead and read a few books in parallel, sort of like watching different channels on different nights. So far, this has worked out pretty well for me, and allowed me to read more books than I normally would without making me feel like I'm sacrificing anything in each individual book.
Does anyone else do this? Is this the normal way people read books, and I'm just figuring it out now? I wonder about these things. Enlighten me.
So, to the meme! Right now, I'm reading The Living Dead anthology, edited by John Joseph Adams. I just love it, but it's huge. Also, as John at SF Signal observed, because it's an anthology, it takes longer to read than a book of equal length, because you have to adjust to a new author's style and find the groove of each new story. I never thought about that very much, but it explains why I don't read anthologies with the same enthusiasm that I read novels.
I've read a few stories in The Living Dead, and I especially liked Kelly Link's Some Zombie Contingency Plans, Dan Simmons' This Year's Class Picture, David Barr Kirtley's The Skull-Faced Boy, and Dale Bailey's Death and Suffrage.
I've wanted to write a zombie story for years. The last one I wrote was the 7th grade tale of turgid terror "The Land of the Zombies" and I'm anxious to revisit the genre. The Living Dead has inspired me, and I have an idea that I'm outlining right now.
Is it good so far? Oh, you betcha, my friends. It's fantastic.
I'm also re-reading, for the first time in over fifteen years, Ender's Game. Nolan has a Sci-Fi class at school, and when he told me that he'd picked Ender's Game from the reading list, I thought it would be fun to grab my copy out of storage and read it with him.
Nolan isn't a voracious reader like Ryan is, but when he finds a book that he likes, he pretty much drops everything else in the world until the book is finished. After two days, he had read over 100 pages of Ender, while I was still in the third chapter. He's agreed to give me a day to catch up, though.
Is it good so far? Yes. Ender's Game is as fast-paced and accessible as I remember it, and I'm picking up on all sorts of stuff I missed when I was a kid. I loved this book when I was a teenager - I think I first read it when I was 14 or 15 - but I never got into any of the sequels. I find Orson Scott Card's recent raging homophobia and associated ignorant ranting pretty reprehensible, and I have no interest in giving him any of my money or spending any time reading his current work, but I didn't know about any of that when I was a kid, and none of that changes how great Ender's Game is.
Soon I Will Be Invincible. (I'm updating because I forgot to add this one. I'm kind of stupid today.) I still love this. I'm taking my time, though, because I don't want it to end.
I keep finding myself picking up and skimming through The Pirate's Guide to Freeport, the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, The World of Darkness, and a bunch of old GURPS books: Cyberpunk, Horror, Autoduel and Space. I really want to teach Nolan Car Wars, but I don't think he has the patience. Goddamn video games.
Are they good so far? Um. Duh.
I'm taking this one step beyond (with the rockingest, rocksteady beat of MADNESS!!) and adding the books I can't want to start:
Zoe's Tale. This one is at the top of the pile, because I love the Old Man's War universe, and Scalzi is my friend. I think it's another one I can read with Nolan, too.
Pattern Recognition. I was trying to decide if it was going to be this or Spook Country, and everyone I know who has read them both says Pattern Recognition is the way to go.
The Terror. I've had this one on the nightstand for months, and I've gotten about 2 chapters into it. It's nearing that point of no return where I know I won't be able to put it down. I can't risk losing even more productivity than I already have, though, so it'll have to keep waiting.
Carter Beats the Devil. My friend Yuri says that I shouldn't even open this book unless I can clear my life of everything else until I finish it, because it's that good.
The Graveyard Book. I bought this the day it came out, and it's going to be my reward when I finish . . . something. I haven't decided what it is, yet.
House of Leaves. A friend of mine knows the author, and gave me a copy a million years ago. I was intimidated by its size, but I understand that it's worth it.
Spin. Recommended by a friend, as well. I made it about 100 pages into the book and got distracted by a red balloon. I was intrigued enough to finish it, though. Maybe I'll get to move it up to the Stuff I'm Reading list.
I've been acting more than usual lately. (I know, I know, it's weird for me, too.) It uses the same creative energy and inspiration sources in my brain as writing, so I just haven't had anything left at the end of the day to work on the stories I have in various stages of creation. This is frustrating and a little demoralizing to me, but Stephen King says that writers have to read, though, so I'm going to go ahead and give myself permission to . . . uh . . . draw some inspiration . . . from some other writers.
Okay, let's throw it open in comments: What book are you currently reading? Is it good so far?
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| FOUR LIONS: A New Chris Morris Project |
[08 Oct 2008|03:53pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6539 I just received this in email, emanating from the office of Chris Morris. The bottom of the email asks for it to be sent on to ten more people. I thought I’d do this instead:
Many people have asked us exactly what the Four Lions project is.Clearly we can’t launch the film before its been shot, but I’ve pulled together a few paragraphs from the paperwork that’s been flying around.It’s shameless hype but its accurate – unlike almost everything you will have read in the press. No one who has read the script could disagree with a word here.
In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other’s feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says "what was the question again?" On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.
Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.
Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.
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| So, Yeah, Gonna Be A Little Light On The Posting Today |
[08 Oct 2008|03:45pm] |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6538 “Bloglines: We track your favorite news, blogs, weather, and classifieds so that you don’t have to. And then we time out whenever you want to log in. And if we’ve scraped together enough processing power to actually allow you in to your reader, we’ll spin for twenty minutes whenever you select a blog to read. And then we’ll just erase those entries before you get to read them. Or maybe, to keep things interesting for you, we’ll spit 404s all over the place and then fall down. Because, you know, we’re tracking ’em. We didn’t say shit about letting you see them. Bloglines: you got what you paid for, son.”
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| FOUR LIONS: A New Chris Morris Project |
[08 Oct 2008|04:53pm] |
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I just received this in email, emanating from the office of Chris Morris. The bottom of the email asks for it to be sent on to ten more people. I thought I’d do this instead:
Many people have asked us exactly what the Four Lions project is.Clearly we can’t launch the film before its been shot, but I’ve pulled together a few paragraphs from the paperwork that’s been flying around.It’s shameless hype but its accurate – unlike almost everything you will have read in the press. No one who has read the script could disagree with a word here.
In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other’s feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says "what was the question again?" On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.
Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.
Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.
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(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| So, Yeah, Gonna Be A Little Light On The Posting Today |
[08 Oct 2008|04:45pm] |
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“Bloglines: We track your favorite news, blogs, weather, and classifieds so that you don’t have to. And then we time out whenever you want to log in. And if we’ve scraped together enough processing power to actually allow you in to your reader, we’ll spin for twenty minutes whenever you select a blog to read. And then we’ll just erase those entries before you get to read them. Or maybe, to keep things interesting for you, we’ll spit 404s all over the place and then fall down. Because, you know, we’re tracking ’em. We didn’t say shit about letting you see them. Bloglines: you got what you paid for, son.”
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| Off I go! |
[08 Oct 2008|10:39am] |
Am flying to Hong Kong today. Have plenty to blog about an no time - Sydney for work last week, the coast with friends over the weekend and now my trip to Hong Kong. Hopefully soon I will get some time to blog and record what I've been up to. A very stressful week, actually, but more on that later!
Consequently, I am looking forward to relaxing with my Mum and one of my sisters - though I don't know how much relaxing we'll get. They're both Disney addicts and we're going to Disneyland HK twice. They have limitless energy for Disney. Last time I was there with my sister, I kept practically passing out under trees (the heat was a big factor there) while she kept saying "so, where to next?!"
I also seem to have done something to one of my eyes. It's all blood shot. As someone who gets queasy every time she sees blood, I'm freaking out each time I look in the mirror. I'm also a little panicked about flying - not only with this, but did you hear about the Qantas flight where severe turbulance broke people's BONES? Freaky. I don't normally panic flying, but when you're on the plane reading the paper about this incident, it isn't pleasant (plus our flight was very bumpy). And then I was in the waiting room for the domestic to international transfer bus and what was on the TV? The Qantas incident! Everyone laughed. Or groaned.
Anyway, my Mum and sister should be arriving soon, so better fly. Hehe.
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| Strewn with time's dead flowers |
[07 Oct 2008|03:56pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/414153489/strewn-with-tim.html Remember how radical it was when you got your first dirt bike in the 80s? Mine had a red frame, hand brakes, and yellow pads that told the world it was a Red Line BMX. I wish I could say that I was sad to retire the banana seat bike I'd loved since Christmas in 1978, but I was 9, and felt like I'd outgrown it and its various . . . accoutrements.
I don't know if dirt bikes were as common in the 70s and 80s as they were when Ryan and Nolan were kids, but I was really excited when I finally got mine. I washed it, kept it in the garage, and left the kick stand on it, even though the big kids in my neighborhood had all taken their kick stands off, in order to reduce the weight and make them more suitable for racing. Of course, none of us was strong or powerful enough to know that the elimination of a few ounces of kickstand wouldn't make any appreciable difference, but these decisions were made at an age where we were certain that new shoes made us run faster.
I rode that bike everywhere, and I feel a little sad right now because I can't remember what happened to it.
When Nolan was 6, we got him a bike for his birthday. I think we picked it up at Toys R Us or Target, where it was one of many little kid-sized dirt bikes on display. I don't recall seeing any banana seat numbers with streamers coming off the handlebars or giant flags reaching up to the sky from the back of the seat, but it stood out from the pack, stylishly-adorned with cool blue pads on its "chromette" frame, emblazoned with the word "Chaos," surrounded by some lightning bolts.
When it was revealed to him, Nolan celebrated in that joyous way that's only possible when you're 6. Some of my fellow parents out there may have experienced a similar moment, when it's hard to tell whether parent or child is happier.
He ran over to us, thanked us, gave us hugs, and said to Anne, "But what's chows?" It rhymed with house.
"Chows?" She said.
"Chows." He pointed to a pad on his bike. "My bike says 'chows.'"
"Oh, that's Chaos," Anne said, with a grin.
"Oh. That's weird." He said. Then: "Chaos!" He hopped on his new bike and sped down the street as fast as his chunky little legs would carry him.
That was about 11 years ago. Ever since then, our family has said chows when we mean chaos, and we've said it a lot lately, as in "we are seriously living in a chows house," while the construction we've wanted to do for longer than we've been saying chows is completed.
This weekend, Anne and I cleaned out our garage, so we can transfer some of the chows from the house - some furniture and several boxes of my books, mostly - out there. (Like most Angelenos, our garage isn't a car hold, it's a storage facility. When I meet people in my neighborhood who park their cars in their garage, I am instantly suspicious of them.)
We've done this about once a year since we moved here ten years ago this week, and every year I get rid of more and more stuff that just isn't as important to me as it once was. It's a freeing and affirming feeling to look at some old T-shirt or random thing that defined me when I was 22, and know that . . . well, I just don't need it around anymore. I've moved on, embraced the present, grown and changed.
This time around, I culled lots of CDs and DVDs, and I took two big boxes of video tapes to Goodwill because we don't even own a VCR anymore. While I piled them into the car, I told Anne, "We're probably the last generation to do this. Our kids don't have the physical media for music and movies the same way we did. That's weird."
She didn't need to point out that normal people don't accumulate books, movies, and music like I do; evidence of that teetered around us in various stacks.
While I sorted some old techno CDs (Serious Beats Volume 3, anyone? Sasha and John Digweed at Renaissance?) she zeroed in on a box that my mom had given me a few years ago.
"What's in here?" She said.
"Oh, that's . . . um . . . nothing." I said.
Husbands: the very best way to convince your wives that they need to stop what they're doing and immediately open the box and explore its contents is to answer, "Oh, that's . . . um . . . nothing." When they ask you what is inside.
A moment later, she was surrounded by a bunch of old I'm a Teenage Heartthrob posters and clippings from teen magazines, where my awkward teenage dorkiness is on full display for anyone who had a subscription to Big Bopper. Including this:
I don't know about the rest of you, but I was really awkward in the 80s. 80s fashion is nothing to be proud of, but at least most of you who also survived it can keep that between you and your family. My awkward teenage . . . everything . . . was shared with everyone. Loudly. Incessantly. Most of you have plausible deniability with your kids, but I am forced to acknowledge that, yes, I wore as many Swatches as I could fit onto both of my wrists. And my ankle. And, yes, I owned and proudly wore several Bill Cosby sweaters. And yes, I frequently wore white leather shoes with no socks, because some salesgirl told me that looked "hot" with my baggy acid-washed Z Cavaricci jeans. And no, I can't deny that I thought Gotcha and Genera Hypercolor T-shirts and Oakley Blades were totally awesome, especially when worn together with bright green neoprene Body Glove shorts.
I really wanted to throw that box of stuff away, for a lot of reasons that I can't seem to articulate in a way that doesn't make me feel like a complete douche, but Anne talked me out of it.
Maybe I'll scan some of it and share it, as a public service intervention for the damn kids today who romanticize 80s fashion.
It was chows back then, guys. Pure and simple: it was chows.
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| Links for 2008-10-07 |
[07 Oct 2008|09:00pm] |
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(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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| @network 7oct08 |
[07 Oct 2008|06:05pm] |
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* Ego Assassin plan some kind of Salon Of Perversion in Toronto. Check out their Facebook page or contact them for more details:
* Paul Pope’s appearing in LA on the 9th:
* I was going to write something about the Paul Little/"Max Hardcore" porn conviction, but Susannah Breslin, naturally, does it far better than I could.
* I’m definitely going to write something about the massively multiplayer futurecasting game SUPERSTRUCT at some point soon — suffice to say for now that seven-brained scenario director Jamais Cascio brought in both me and Bruce Sterling as judges.
* Brian Wood’s t-shirt image for the Laughing Ogre comics stores — he’ll be signing at the Columbus OH location this Saturday:
* Anna Lucylle has been beating up my old acquaintance Venom (she works in comics) for the sake of Art, it seems. That shot on the left is inspirational:
* Emma Rios is now drawing comics for Boom! Studios:
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