Work was fast and furious today and to add to that because we were backlogged in out processing I stayed for two hours of overtime. While the money will be nice, my arthritic fingers were less than pleased with me.
No post on Sunday Night Movies because I only watched half the film before becoming so tired I had to sleep, but I will post when I finish the movie.
Today after seeing the movies UP! at my local gigaplex I walked over to the trolley stop to wait my trolley home. While waiting I decided to have a small milkshake and went into the creamery next-door to get it.
The young woman at the counter was about seventeen and competent in mixing the milkshake and ringing it up for me. While we waited for the machine to approve my spending she noticed and commented on the shirt I was wearing. (A tee-shirt with an American Astronaut on the moon with the legend underneath Finders Keepers.) I thanked her for her kind words and then she asked—
Do you really think we went to the moon?
She did not say this in jest or in a sarcastic tone. She truly thought it was possible that the moon landing was faked. gods save me.
I told her I knew we had gone to the moon because I had been there when Apollo 17 lifted off. One does not fire a forty story missile off as a hoax.
I left with my shake and shaken.
Today after spending a little time in the world Famous San Diego Zoo, I went and saw Up! that latest film from Pixar, producers of fine computer animated films.
Up! is about an elderly man along in the world who attempts to fulfill his deceased wife’s wish of having an adventure in South America by affixing thousands of balloons to his house and floating to his destination. A young scout is trapped when the house lifts and the odd-couple comedy is under way. (Nothing I said here isn’t clearly evident from the trailer.)
Pixar produces fantasies in computer animation form and this film is a solid example of the work they perform. If you accept a house flying by balloon — and you had better if you saw the trailer — then nothing else in the film to too fantastic. The film hits all the right notes on adventure, action, and heart.
There are moments where the audience is shamefully and proudly manipulated for an emotional response, but hey that’s why we go to the movies. To have an emotional response.
I saw the film in the Disney 3-D effect and the 3-D worked rather well. The film was shot in a manner that makes it entirely viewable in 2-D and that may be a consideration if you go. My eyes were strained by the 3-D effect, not to the point of headache but my eyes did ache.
In the end it was a movie worth making and a movie worth watching.
For those of us who have never been in combat or in a war it is unimaginable the terror, confusion, and hell that is combat. Today in 1944 nearly 200,000 allied troops participated in the invasion and liberation of Europe.
It is easy today to look back and assume that the downfall of the Nazi reich was an assured thing, but that was something impossible to know on that morning when brave men went ashore under heavy fire.
Today will be a day or cook-outs and family fun, I plan to spend a number of hours with friends playing videos games, but we should also set aside a bit of time to remember the sacrifice of the men who died for freedom. It was truly a heroic thing that set out to and did achieve.
I have finished putting all my old unsold stories and script into the Trunk pages here on my web site. It was quite a trip down memory lane. The oldest surviving story I have on hand is from 1987 and it was a spec script for Star Trek: The Next generation. While it has some warts Is till like the story and I think I did a fair job on it.
I do hope people enjoy the stories for what they are, examples of how a writer evolves over time.
It’s been a very busy week at my day job. Thankfully the weeks is ending and I can lookin forward to board and card games tonight and tomorrow a video game shoot-out.
I have the werewolf story now! It came to me just as I was trying to fall asleep.
(Of course that woke me up, but I can live with that.)
I have the story!
I’ve mentioned many times the werewolf story that is bedeviling me. Last night I went to bed with the story still pounding in my skull incomplete and useless.
After I fell asleep I dreamt. Nearly every dream in the night was about the werewolf story. Different takes, different points-of-view, different narrative structures in each dream. Sadly, none of them really worked either and all I ended up to show for it was a night of little sleep.
This is what it means to be a writer. Obsession over thing that you cannot control. Like sexuality it is something beyond your control.
Speaking of sexuality — go New Hampshire!
I’ve got like half of a horror story in my head and it is driving me crazy that I don’t have the other half.
The problem isn’t plotting because I haven’t progressed to plotting on this idea yet. I know I want to write a werewolf story. I want to use werewolf mythology older than Hollywood’s. That is I do not want to use the tropes that were created, wonderfully I might add, for the film The Wolf Man.
I know I want to use teenagers and high-school and I might even want to make it a period piece set in the 1970’s, but I am still missing the undefined element that makes me go, Bang! I’ve got a story.
All sorts of elements and scenes have formed in my head and rough character outlines, but not everything I need.
It’s so terribly frustrating to be this close and not have what I need. It’s like when you;re trying to remember a name or title and it just will not come out of your head.
arrrrgg
I’m too tired for much of a post tonight.
Work has been very busy and fairly stressful.
Also we are entering the period when I should be hearing back from Writers Of The Future on the submission Araceli