We’re getting our bathroom redone, and I just called my Mom to see how things were going, to which she replied: “Anne Heche”. You see, Anne Heche is a codeword we use when we can’t talk about something at that particular moment. (I assume the contractor who is working on the bathroom was standing right there. He does great work, but has been getting on my Mom’s nerves lately.) Why Anne Heche, you ask? Well my Mom has a hard time pronouncing the caramel ice cream flavor dulce de leche, so she just says Anne Heche instead. I don’t know, just go along with it. So Anne Heche has always been a bit of a family joke, and when we needed to come up with a “I can’t talk about that right now” codeword, we decided on Anne Heche. Like I said, my family is weird. Kinda like Anne Heche.
Sorry posts have been light this week. All my energy has been focused on getting the final Super Viagra strip ready for Friday. I’m currently at 108 panels, and I should be on schedule if I get to work a few solid hours on it tonight and tomorrow. I need to get it done because as you know, I’m taking the month of August off to work on my novel. (I struggled with the last two words of that sentence because calling it “my novel” sounds so pretentious. But it was either that, or “that assortment of words that are strung together in a slightly coherent fashion that I’ve been working on for the past two years that has been stuck at page 12 for a year” and I went with “my novel” for brevity’s sake. But now telling you all that completely canceled out all brevity I created. Oh geez, I’m fucked.)
Anyway, let’s make this post a discussion about good writing habits in order to get me prepared for August. My writing group said I should read No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, which I had all intention of doing, but I just never got around to it. One of the tips they said it gave was to wear something that you only wore when writing. At first I was thinking a hat, but I never wear hats and I still adhere to the old wives tale that wearing hats leads to baldness, so I nixed that idea. Now I’m thinking of wearing a wrist band, but haven’t settled on something yet. Any suggestions?
My biggest writing habit is to listen to classical music when I write. And by “classical music” I mean movie soundtracks like Children of Dune and Lord of the Rings, but writing classical music makes me sound so much more sophisticated. I’m thinking you guys should email me some music to listen to while I write. Anything to get my creative juices flowing. That would be much appreciated.
Anywho, how do you writers out there like to write? What tips can you give that will make those 50,000 words just flow right out those manly fingertips of mine? Other than “quite writing and about writing and just write already!” of course.
And if none of the above interests you, go read this post over at E-Mails from an Asshole. It’s a site written by a guy who replies to random Craigslist ads to see what kind of responses he can stir up from people. And the Horse Farm entry is by far my favorite.
I’ve never seen an episode of Mad Men, but everyone’s doing it so why not me? The resemblance isn’t perfect, but I get to wear an argyle tie (it may actually be plaid, but shhh) so I’m not complaining!
CLICK HERE to go make your own!
1. I’ve received some really awesome guest posts for my month off next month, but I don’t have nearly the number of posts needed to have a post for everyday. So if you’re on the fence about writing one, or think I won’t like or need one from you, you’re wrong! E-mail me a guest post to add to the list!
2. We had our very first block party this weekend and I had a lot more fun than I was anticipating. It’s amazing what good food, music, and piña coladas can do. Now that I think of it, how was I not expecting to have fun?
3. I tweeted about it, but I figured I’d mention it on here. Hush was the scariest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever! I watched it during the week I had the house to myself and that was a very bad idea! I started off with the lights out, but it didn’t take long for me to turn them back on. The Gentlemen were so frightening! But it was also a really funny episode too, with the slideshow being particularly brilliant. Spike made the opening credits finally, which is great because I love him. And Anya is turning out to be a really funny addition to the cast also. Tara has also been introduced and I finally feel a little less spoiled knowing what I know about Willow.
4. Speaking of spoilers, don’t even get me started on Torchwood because I still haven’t seen it and I’ve been spoiled. Ugh. Don’t spoil it any further in the comments though! I’ll be watching it soon enough (thanks to Donya!) and we can talk about it all you want. Damn you Entertainment Weekly and random Tweeters! And damn you Cablevision for not having BBC America so I could avoid the whole spoiler situation from the get go!
5. Me and Michelle saw G-Force this weekend, and it was loads of fun. The commercials don’t do it nearly the justice it deserves. The plot was a million times more coherent than Transformers, and dare I say, the action was better too. And the spy stuff was more James Bondian than the latest James Bond. And OMG talking guinea pigs!
6. I also watched the Director’s Cut of Watchmen over the weekend. It was brilliant. Lots of stuff added here and there. There was a really awkward addition to Rorschach’s investigating the Comedian’s murder scene in the beginning, but other than that, the additions all enhanced an already great movie. The best being the murder of Hollis Mason, which was so incredibly well done.
7. So far the final Super Viagra installment is 75 panels long, and I haven’t even gotten through the flashbacks yet. There’s still a climactic fight scene to do! So this one will be quite a doozy! I’m aiming to have it ready for Friday, for my last day before August begins.
Brian from Spangle Magazine — who you may remember from the Star Trek debate I kicked his ass in — was in town so we were able to meet up for the first time and grab a drink (or two).
I had an awesome time, and Brian is just as funny and wonderful as you want him to be. We totally dished on all the famous bloggers we love to hate (this is the part where I’m supposed to say “and hate to love” but we are way too cool for that shit) and had a great time! Thanks Brian!
Seeing Jeff’s post about his two year blogging anniversary reminded me that my anniversary was around this time, and it turns out it was July 21st. I missed it. Oh well. But I find comfort in knowing that I posted what people referred to as their favorite Super Viagra and Vagina Girl installment on my 4 year blogging anniversary. 1,382 posts in 1460 days. Not a bad record if I do say so myself! To think, what started off as a meager dream and a really bad pun, turned into an international blog of fame and fortune with literally tens of readers. Thank you guys for sticking along for the ride!
My new favorite thing to do is go to xkcd.com, and click on the random button. So much goodness to be had there. Here are some of my recent favorites:
They’re really fun, sweet, dorky, or all three at once. I can click the random button for hours. Not while I’m at work though. That would be bad.
Okay I’ll admit it. I really liked the first Transformers movie. Was it stupid? Yes, but it was fun, and the special effects were awesome and it was about giant robots beating the crap out of each other. So when the second one came around and started getting terrible reviews I was all like: “I’m not expecting Shakespeare! As long as there are robots beating the crap out of each other I’ll be happy!” Oh, how wrong I was! Because yes, there was plenty robot on robot action, but this was one of the worst big-budget movies I’ve seen in a long time.
Let me start off by saying that I wanted to punch every single human actor in the face repeatedly. Especially the “comic relief” roommate. There was a point in the movie, where they were in a car chase and the camera just focused on this roommate to get his scared reaction and it was supposed to be funny, but the shot lasted about 30 seconds and it was pure agony. It was as if John Turturro was like: “Okay, I’ll be in the sequel, but only if you add a character more annoying than me.” So they did it. And then John Turturro was worried that he wouldn’t be annoying enough, so he showed his ass. Punch! And then there was the sexy girl played by Isabel Lucas (also very punch-worthy) flirting with Shia LaBeouf, which led up to the most embarrassingly awful scene in his dorm room. Who else was awful? Oh so many punches to go around! I’d punch Shia and Megan too, but my fists are starting to hurt, and I’m pretty sure Megan Fox can kick my ass.
Let’s not forget about the robots. They took all the cool robots from the first movie (including Optimus Prime) and were like: “Okay, you guys are cool, but you aren’t an offensive ethnic stereotype, so you’re gonna have to step out of the spotlight.” So they introduced two “black” Transformers, a little “italian” Joe Pesci Transformer, and even a “german” mad scientist Transformer for good measure. Why do Transformers need to have ethnic stereotype personalities anyway? Aren’t they robots? Oh well. So we hardly saw Optimus, Bumblebee (who was inexplicably voiceless again, because it was just so clever the first time), Ironhide, or Ratchet. Jetfire was a new one, and actually pretty interesting, but he wasn’t offensive enough so they didn’t have much of him. And before you’re all like: “Craig! You’re too sensitive!” Let me just say that I wouldn’t think twice about these ethnic stereotypes if they were actually funny. But they were all just retreads of Jar Jar Binks.
But how was the action? Indecipherable. The only scene that I can look back and say was cool was the battle in the forest with Optimus Prime, which was in fact way awesome. Otherwise there was too much going on in the other battles to be enjoyable. And don’t even get me started on the 5 second final fight scene between two characters. It was literally 5 seconds long. Awful.
So what do I think happened? I think Steven Spielberg bought the rights to Transformers and wanted to make sure it was handled properly, so he kept a close eye on the production of the first movie. And when the first one was a success, he was like: “Alright! Everything seems to be in good shape. Go get em Michael Bay!” So he didn’t keep as close of an eye on the production and everything just got out of hand. I have no proof of this, but you can just tell the first one was much more Spielberg-ian. It was about a young boy and his first car. It even had (a slight) emotional weight to it in regards to Sam’s relationship with Bumblebee. This new one had nothing. It’s like the Matrix sequels. The studio kept an eye on these budding filmmakers the first time around, but when the first one was a success, they let them have total control over the projects and look what happened. Some people just need to be reined in. Michael Bay is one of these people. But what do I know? The movie is making bucket loads of money. Oh well.
