Barkerburgh

A while back Anneli sent me a link to a short story contest the challenge of which was to write a vampire short story with all the cliches in 2500 words.

I tried. I went over the word count and when I tried to edit it down, was not at all satisfied with the results.

Here’s the original.

So here’s what I’ve done with the contributions.

I made two lists on my W2K machine. One is the contributions sorted by contributor (that’s you, except if it isn’t, and you know who you are) and the second is just the contributions themselves sorted alphanumerically (not just alphabetically because one of them involved a 600 pound hamster…)

Some of the ideas reminded of a dream I’d had several years ago, involving doppelgangers from a parallel universe and an alien invasion of the solar system some time in the future, so that was the framework I started to hang everything on.

Now, if you go to the comments and look at the contributions, you might think I can’t integrate them all, as ideas, as springboards, as contextually appropriate dialogue, or anything. But I have.

You’ll see.

Last weekend on MuchMusic they showed the Jack Black virtuoso vehicle “‘The School of Rock” couple of times.

I first remember noticing Jack Black in the “X-Files” episode where Giovanni Ribisi played a character who could call lightning strikes. Jack Black was his best friend, so he got fried. I’ve seen him in other things like ‘Shallow Hal’ in which he was quite good and “Mars Attacks” where I hardly noticed him.

I usually don’t like watching theatrical movies on TV, especially on TBS or Spike, because the commercial breaks literally (figuratively speaking, of course) break up the rhythm of the movie. Most such stations also heavily edit the movie, and, of course, silently bleep the profanity (or even just the off-colour language), or overdub it with innocuous phrasing. Leslie told me about seeing ‘Sideways’ and hearing Thomas Hayden Church’s character refer to someone, through innocuo-dubbing, as an ‘ashcroft’.

There have been exceptions where the editing or commercials didn’t harm it too much; “Legally Blonde”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “Knight’s Tale”, but (okay, sit down, this one is bad) when TBS showed ‘The Matrix”, they cut the scene with the all children potentials in the Oracle’s apartment, so that when Neo and Trinity are zooming up the elevator shaft on the way to rescue Morpheus, and Neo says ‘There is no spoon’, it just doesn’t make any goddam sense.

But I digress. Hoo boy.

Back to “The School of Rock”; it was hilarious. So much so that, despite the commercials (short breaks, oddly for a demographically driven station like MuchMusic - maybe it’s the attention span thing…), I watched it the second time they showed it that day. The awesome Joan Cusack is nearly perfect as the principal of the prep school where Jack Black’s character Dewey underhandedly gets a supply teacher job meant for his friend and roommate.

You may recall that the movie is about a bunch of uniformed (totally apropos in more ways than one) students who Dewey turns into a metal rock band. Well, the kids are great, the plot is delightfully daffy and the denoument is not what you’d expect, although it’s also nearly perfect.

Roger Ebert’s surprising review…

Okay, everyone. So far suggestions for my NaNoWriMo entry have been very good. Thank you all very kindly. The ideas have been very useful.

But some of you haven’t submitted yet. I remind you, participation is mandatory. Failure to participate may result in the inclusion of characters in the novel with less than flattering personalities. Maybe I’m serious. Do you really want to find out?

I would like to point out the deadline isn’t until Friday, and I’ve arbitrarily set midnight as the cut-off point. But it’s a twenty four hour world and midnight itself is an arbitrary human concept.

Oh, I forgot! Y’all Can Enter More Than Once!

My high school yearbook picture from Grade Nine, Georgetown District High School, Georgetown, Ontario, 1971-72. Holy shit.

And yes, that’s the same Sharon Barclay who, a few years earlier, won the Grade 6 spelling bee because I forgot the period in Sault Ste. Marie and she didn’t.

LOL!

Time’s a wastin’ people.

Remember, participation is not optional.

Well, it is. But I won’t like it.

I’m going to enter NaNoWriMo, the (Inter)National Novel Writing Month - it is actually global, the original organizers were just a tad Americocentrically chauvinist in their choice of name.

7> Wish me luck.

The other night I saw a movie I’d wanted to see when it came out but missed: The Dish, a charming (in the best sense) comedy about how the Australian government’s 64 meter dish at Parkes, New South Wales, about 280 kilometers inland of Sydney, relayed Apollo 11’s first TV signals from the moon to the entire world.

The film’s comedy was light and gentle, the characters rich and endearing, the story compelling, and, while not as ‘exciting’ as Apollo 13, just as interesting.

No CG, little in the way of SFX, and Sam Neill’s old-age make-up looked a little dodgey, but never mind.

Fine little film.

Not that I have any complaints in that department.

I marvel at how versatile php makes a simple static webpage. Along with MySQL it’s just - well - cyberotic.

In preparation for my Jeopardy project (and a still amorphous poll project) I am testing out various php doodads with forms and databases, using a faked up contact management setup with only one table.

I keep discovering neat functions in both PHP and MySQL that I will probably never use, but want to try anyway, cuz who knows when I’ll ever get a chance.

Oo, baby. What’s this do? Will that work? This was good last time; will it do now? Swirl or a tweak? Don’t be afraid! Something new? Something new. What if I do it this way? Yeah, baby.

I still got it!

Well, the new season of Dr. Who premiered on CBC last night. I’ve been waiting for it since forever and was pleasantly confused, since I had the sound muted most of the time.

It’s like a zillion years in the future, but humans are still around. The Doctor and Billie are on New Earth, which is really a moon of an apparent gassy giant. Since there’s a New New York, it must be a cross-over episode with Futurama, but there’s no Planet Express. There’s cyclopses, but we never see them. I think I did see the Planet Express ship off in the distance during a long shot.

Anyway, there’s these sort-of lizard-witches who run a youth hostel. Sister Bertrille is in charge.

There’s a fat guy turning to textured cement, a giant head in an aquarium who’ll grant your wish if you rub his tummy, the Imperial Senate from Phantom Menace but filled with sick people like the Matrix, buncha stuff.

There’s also the Snobby Snotty Flat Lady from the second or third episode last year, whichever it was, and her tattooed, cicatrixed pet humanoid, Smitherz.

I won’t spoil the rest of it for you. If you missed it, you’ll just have to wait for the DVD.

(Next week is Dame Ian McKellen as Queen Victoria looking for Prince Albert in the can, or something…)

All very exciting. Very cool.