Ahh yes I remember seeing this years and years ago, but I had no idea where and could never find it again. Much thanks to John Scazli’s comment Ellid for posting it.
And One for Jenny and the Wimp
Author Archives: Bob Evans
I love modern technology
So All the reservations have been made for my Vegas Trip! I have my room, my tickets, my car, and even a dinner reservation for friday night at a Brazilian Steakhouse in the Mirage Hotel and Casino.
While working with my rental reservation I explored the option available to me with the Hertz Never Lost navigation system. I expect just your basic GPS unit, but it’s really much cooler than that. I had planned out my trip on-line, all the key destination I want to hit, and saved all the data to my geek-stick. Now when I pick up my car, I’ll plug the stick into the GPS system and it will be pre-loaded for my trip.
I love to plan in advance and this just make me smile.
Partial book review: Orcs
So a few weeks ago I was at Mysterious Galaxy (yeah, I’m there a lot) and I came across this books, Orcs by Stan Nichols. I picked up the omnibus book of a three novel trilogy with the viewpoint entirely from a band of Orcs. The concept intrigued me and after reading the first page I decided to take a risk on an author I had never read and bought the collection.
Sadly, this book has not lived up to it’s promise. First off the Orcs aren’t very Orcish. The Orcs come across as tough fighter with a martial culture, but nothing that is outside of human norms, so there isn’t really an alien viewpoint.
Worse yet the events of the book have a very scripted feel to them. It is far from character driven. Rather an event will happen and that drive our protagonists into their new direction. They are reactionary character rather than character that take and initiate action.
The principle villain of the piece is so cardboard that she would be more properly described as recycled cardboard. She has no better characteristics and runs here military is such a piss-poor fashion that in reality she;d have mass desertions and few victories.
I may finished this book but then again I may not. I have a couple of other books in the wings and frankly, this one is just not holding my attention. Too much like an RPG game, this book needed more cooking before being published.
color me skeptical.
I’m seriously concerned about the long term financial health of our country. Still, I suspect that the movie this trailer is advertising is a bit one sided. (For one thing it looks like there hasn’t been a Republican president since Reagan. I seem to remember two with three terms between them.)
Short Story editing
So I got a fairly decent rejection slip a couple of weeks ago on a ghost story I had written, (Proof of Principle.) The editor suggested that I had some clumsy structure in my sentences and that by removing words here and there, and an occasional sentence entirely, I would improve the piece.
Getting this sort of feedback is really mind–blowing. It means I am getting fairly close to writing something good enough to sell to a pro-level market. The editor also suggest I try reading the work aloud to guide my edits.
Luckily for me I have just purchased a digital voice recorder. (A Sanyo Fp-600) I plan to use it to record the feedback dinner discussion for Cawdor and convention panels. (I can be a horrid note taker.) So in an attempt to edit this story I am reading it into the digital voice recorder. Any time I stumble over a phrase, I stop and go back to record that section. If I stumble twice, that gets rewritten. Also I am finding things that simply slipped past my eye, but not my ear. I am very excited about the prospects for my editing.
Mid-term predictions
So it’s about three weeks until the elections and it’s time to put my rep on the line. Here’s my rum down — barring any major events that upset the applecart (peachcarts are always ignored, le sigh.)
The Democrats have about 46 solid seats that can be considered safe or not up for re-election, the Republicans have 35, that leaves about 19 seats up for grabs of which the Republicans need 16 to gain a majority. 16 out of 19 that’s a mighty steep hill. But of that 16 they only need 11 pick-ups to gain control.
Sunday Night Movie:Rustlers’ Rhapsody
Many people know that I am not a big fan of the Western. If you look through my 240 plus DVD and Blu-ray collection the list of Westerns is as Elrond might put it, ‘thin.’ I have just a few in my library. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (subject of a previous Sunday Night Movie), High Noon, and Unforgiven. Given such a limited interest in Westerns it would be surprising to most to find Rustlers’ Rhapsody in my collection.
This film from 1985 is a wonderful send-up of the Western genre. While I am not a big fan of the genre I am enough of a movie buff to know it’s conventions, tropes, and cliches. Rustlers’ Rhapsody plays on these perfectly.
The film starts Tom Berenger as Rex O’Herlihan, The Singing Cowboy. Rex rides from town to town, fighting to bad guys, saving the good guys, and always, always winning. He’s an upright, straight-shooting, hand-shooting no killing kind of hero. Befriended by Peter, the town drunk of Oakridge, Rex sets about his karma of saving the poor — and foul-smelling — sheep herders from the evil cattle baron, played with more than just a swish by Andy Griffith. Rex proves more than a match for the villains as he knows all their tricks. You see, it’s the same cliched attack that happened in every western town to every hero that stands up for the good guys. This time is different though. The Bad guys have found an evilly ingenious way to foil the good guy, one that Rex — or any western good guy — has faced before.
This film did not find an audience in 1985 and was released just this one time on DVD, but if you are a fan of the silly zany comedies that came out of the 80s and love a good poke at cliches and overused tropes, give this a Netflix spin.
Last reservation made
Tonight I reserved my rental car for my vegas Trip.
This is going to be fun.
Weekend Update
So today I hung out with my pal Bear. It was a typical Sunday Afternoon for us. First we visited our local specialty bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy. I did not buy anything as my ‘to read’ stack is currently five books high. (I personally am not a fan of buying books when I have not finished reading the ones I purchased the trip before.) Then a quick stop at our local games store Game Empire — nicely located next to Mysterious Galaxy — where I picked up an expansion deck for Munchkin as a gift to my sweetie-wife.
We had a large lunch at Outback Steakhouse. hmm I love that Sundays I do not count calories. we discussed my re-invented zombies and I am pleased to say that now two friends — both fans of the zombie movie genre — have enjoyed the ideas I bounded around about re-inventing the zombie. I still am not sure that I have a plot that will fully form, but it could be that it will just take time. My Macbeth ideas bounced around my skull for nearly a decade before they became Cawdor late last year.
I am very sorry that Conjecture’s programming looked so weak this year. I love going to my local conventions, but I am there primarily for programming and it is on that basis that I judge if a con was a failure or a success for myself.
Correction
I am not going to Conjecture. I looked t the programming and nothing appealed to me. So much so that today instead of going to the convention I stayed home with my sweetie-wfe and assembled IKEA furniture.