(12:05:47 AM CDT)Harold and Kumar make a poop joke, the marketing of books, things not photoshopped.
I watched and enjoyed, to some degree, Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay, tonight. It was alright (you can read my review). I laughed quite a bit, generally enjoyed myself, but still feel that it is much less than the original. Really, if you cut the scenes with Neil Patrick Harris out, it would almost not be worth it. It's a movie with Dubya smoking pot in one scene, how could they have made that scene feel painful and uncomfortable?
I've been reading a handful of articles about why the book industry seems to be collapsing. I'm not sure what the truth of the matter is, but it seems almost inevitable. My guess has to do with real shoddy confusion about how to handle the whole industry by the people in charge of getting books out and making people interested in them. In other words, a failure of marketing, and a failure of planning. Too often, the book industry is trying to capitalize on quick successes. Most of them, like the Twilight series, are over before they really started. They got seven years out of Harry Potter (well, seven school years, I suppose it took, what, about a decade to get all the books out?). Most other series are moving along at a much more tepid pace. This is not a bad thing, book lovers are going to be diehard with it. They may check their favorite book out, but they will tend to get them through legitimate methods.
But where are the t-shirts, the TV adverts, the bulletin boards? Where are the magazine ads, the "coming soon" boards in bookstores, the radio spots? Sure, there are all of these things in small numbers. But the other forms of "media" (to use a general term) get bumper stickers and fan clubs and fance Myspace layouts and videogame tie ins. Books so rarely get these. In fact, assuming you don't do Wikipedia (or even Amazon.com) style research, if you went only by what you saw on TV or online in general browsing, you couldn't walk into a bookstore and know much about anything on the shelves. I worked in a bookstore for three years, I do constant research online and through industry magazines and the like, and I still only know about 3/4 of the books coming out. Every time I go into a bookstore, I find out about whole new authors and series that just weren't promoted. Books are one of the few arts that are mass produced that rely on word of mouth to get sold. And that is crazy.
According to Howard Sherman's blog, looks like James Patterson agrees with me (hold up,let me see if I can find the original source...ok, I assume this is it but it looks like it needs registration and a video player compatible with the site). The quotes on Sherman's blog, about the way the media will obsess and promote even the lowest budget movies while almost ignoring all except the rarest of books, seems true. Of course, to every point is a counter point. I came across this today on eric forbes' book addict's guide to good books. Essentially, if marketing forces control the books (and arts in general), what damage will be done for a quick sale? The article seems like it could use a little bit of tightening. Especially since we seem to be living in a worst of both worlds scenario, where books that are subject to strong marketing (move tie-ins, certain "A-list" authors) are dominating, however weakly, the market and most of the more stable books out there are being ignored.
Since talking about this both intrigues and depresses me, I figured I would throw this out there as a finish: Cracked.com's 15 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped. you need to see it for these three images:
Yesterday, Sarah and I participated in what I might call the Hell Hike. It wasn't that bad, honestly, compared to how bad it could have been. It was neither that good.
We started out about 4:30pm. The plan was to hike down North Plateau and take Sinks down through Logans ('s?). Pop over Panther Knob and then go through Stone Cuts, down again to Sinks and to Mountain Mist and finally come down South Plateau. A 3 hour or so hike. Most everything worked well, until we got to Panther Knob.
Sarah had already expressed worry about taking Panther Knob. It's a grown up trail, in the best of times, and spiders are frequent about this time of year. I told her it would be ok, but I was apparently lying. The trail was extremely grown up, disappearing in places, and the spiders were frequent. Most were of the small, green variety, nothing harmful, but Sarah doesn't do well with any. I got her to keep going through the trail, figuring it would have to get better before too much longer. It wasn't a huge amount of time later, but it did take us about fifteen minutes to slog through the rest of the spider infested portions.
Except, that's not all. While 90% of the trail was spider free from that point on, with rare "cross-the-trail" webs, Stone Cuts was awash in them. Granddaddy Longlegs caked the walls. I can't quite describe how many there were without going into what seems to be hyperbole, but in places, you could hear them rustling, and in others the walls looked like water was flowing up and down them from all the little buggers. Hundreds at least.
When we finally get through "the den", and stop overloading Sarah on her phobia, I figure things will start looking up. Shortly thereafter, my foot slips off a rock and twists my ankle nearly 180 which somehow did something bad to my shin and to my left knee. Then it starts raining. With these two things, we just sort of scoot up the side of the mountain, which is kind of painful for me, and we get out of there.
As I said, it wasn't the worst possible hike that I could have experienced, but it was pretty rough. Moreso for Sarah than myself.
Today, I'm just taking it easy on the damaged joints. I think they will be fine by tomorrow.
I've been playing around with GTA3 some more. Beat all the storyline missions, several of the non-storyline missions. I have all the "R3 missions" and all of the hidden packages and unique jumps. I'm missing over half the rampages (and they often annoy me, so it might stay that way) and the missions that El Burro gives (because I waited too long and the Mafia won't stop killing me). Fun game, and I enjoyed "the punchline" at the end.
In other media news, I have a copy of The HPL Historical Society's "Dunwhich Horror" radio play. From what I have heard, it is excellent. It also includes some neat props. I love ordering from those guys, it is always worth it.
Ok, now to lay down for a few.
Si Vales, Valeo
August 17, 2008. Sunday.
(05:49:33 PM CDT)Family (two of them) a show. Random links because I just forgot everything else I intended to post.
In brief, my brother's wife (I ususally mean something else when I say "sister in law") showed up along with her youngest son. That was fun to talk to them for a bit. Then went and got lunch.
In briefer, my sister-in-law (see?) starts school tomorrow. Good luck.
In not so brief, I missed Niko and Mari's blessing for Kristabelle for a couple of reasons, but I just wanted to say that she has my blessing, what blessings I have.
This last link I want to point out special. If you haven't read it yet, try out CNN.com's article about the "bitter side" to wind power, mostly focusing on a couple of families that have been "ruined" by the turbines. Not ruined financially (some of them were able to keep their land because of them) and not ruined job-wise (turns out the wind power has helped pump all sorts of money and jobs into the district). Ruined in the sense of a couple of grown ass men have whined about their land having turbines nearby. One guy has basically said, if you read between the lines, that his amateur hang-gliding is more important than his father. Another complains that his dad has no respect for the earth, by putting up such ugly things. The article discusses tears and stuff. Wow. I know that CNN often makes the opposing side look like idiots (that whole liberal bias thing they have) but really, the complaints here versus the benefits seem like a bunch of babies. It is literally like find millions in gold on your hand but complaining that they had to dig up the baseball field you loved as a kid. Read it and enjoy.
Si Vales, Valeo
(04:00:15 AM CDT)The Real World. Family a no show? The search for good tapers.
I just finished Natsuo Kirino'sThe Real World. I liked it. In my rating system (from Blech to Great, with Eh being central) I would say that it is Good. It gets a little tepid in places, and seems to be saying something that didn't quite make it through in others, but overall it works really well. Alicia, if you read this entry, you should check the book out. The main characters are all about your age and the backdrop for the whole thing involves life changes and coming to grips with knowing your parents as human and whatnot. The sumblurb I read made it sound like a murder mystery and the girls are scared for their life. It is nothing like that. It's actually about their fascination with the killer and their self-obsession and general apathy towards other in life.
My two favorite lines are almost throw-away, and maybe were meant to be throw-away, but somehow seemed to anchors of thought. The first is early on, when the one character realizes the smog warnings are probably announced by vans with loudspeakers. Almost no attention is brought to this line, but the idea that one of the "solutions" to the smog problem leads to more smog seemed to work as a theme, later, since the book is full of teenagers getting "help" and "warnings" from sources that add to the problems they face. A later line, asking if the killer would have spared his mother if she had had an affair also struck me as poignant. While he cites wanting to kill her because he hated her, the book strongly hints that she died because he simply didn't consider her real enough to be human.
I've been thinking about what the title means. While one character hints that the only real thing for the living, being the only irreparable thing, is death (in other words, the "real world" is the act of dying); I think it is also a somewhat sarcastic way of repeating what we always tell kids who are stress out about what comes next: "Welcome to the Real World". On top of this, all the characters sort of hide things about themselves, sometimes from themselves.
Besides reading, getting outside for a couple of hours, and doing some at-home errands, I ended up doing very little. I waited until about 7-8pm to see if my family did come up this weekend. Looks like, if they did, it was just my sister-in-law and another of my nephews. Which means they probably just visited my nephew who is up here and then went back. Oh well. I was kind of hoping to see some of them but that's the way it goes, I guess. Maybe next time.
Just one last thing, has anyone else had trouble finding taper candles as of late. I did find some at Target, that work nicely enough and aren't that expensive, but I used to buy them at Walgreens and a couple of other stores that don't seem to have them any more. I'm going to check out Dollar Tree and maybe another dollar store. It looks, though, like they have been replaced by the "safer" column style candles (partially safer because people just use hot plates to warm them now). Also, a lot of stores have dedicated their "taper" sections to these new smelly-sticks. Apparently some sort of "absorbs the crap out of oil" balsa wood thing that smells up a room real good. I don't like candles, though, for their smell. I like to read and relax by candlelight, so I'm kind of pissy about the shift.
Sarah is out of town for a couple of days and I am just baching it up. I suppose. Reading, playing games, getting a few programming projects out of the way. Eating brownies and drinking straight from the carton (but, due to excesses a few nights past, not drinking). That sort of thing. It's a wild party over here, folks.
I have a backlog of movies, a large number of them foreign horror movies, that I plan to slug through over the next week or so, with the majority over the next couple of days. Tonight, I got the first one out of the way: The Ring Virus. Now, I am a fan of the "Ring-iverse" and have read all of the original novels, most of the manga adaptations, seen most of the Japanese sequels (I need to watch Rasen, though I have heard many bad things). This (The Ring Virus) is a Korean adaptation. I have heard mixed reviews of it, with most saying that it's either "ok" or very "not ok". Frankly, it's a movie with average acting, below average coherence, and amazing photography. I don't know who their DP was, but excellent job catching colors and angles.
I was hindered (possibly part of the coherence problem) by a translation issue. Some of the scenes had fair to middlin translation. The subs would leave out some stuff (as in one scene, where I am sure, based on the repetition of a word, what he said was "Let dead things stay dead, let closed cases stay closed"; but what it was translated was "Don't mess with dead things or close cases."), but would get the general gist of what was going on. In other scenes, there would be no subs or the subs would be the bare minimum of words. Something like "We should go outside and get the cellphone and call home," might come out "Go outside. Get cellphone. Should call." Only context of the scenes would help to fill in the missing words. In fact, the big twist about the "monster" was obfuscated by the translation. Anyone who saw the version I saw would not know what the big "OHHHH" was. All they would know is that before the Big Bang, men and women were one being. I'm pretty sure that's not a Korean belief, so I'm guess the subber screwed up.
Ok, time for me to grab some cranberry juice, finish reading Watchmen, start a random Kirino novel, and get some sleep. Good night, folk!
It seems stereotypical that an evening dedicated to celebrating my nephew's birthday, in which the theme is "drink a large quantity of bad beer", would end with two-thirds of the final guests trading face slaps in what could best described as "quasi-friendly". It also seems stereotypical that the one guy get hit in the ear and the other in the neck. But, we are talking about an evening involving an average of about fifteen 12-oz beers per person with names like "High Gravity" and promising "Bold" (read, a pungent bouqet of aluminum and bile) flavor and costing an average of about two cans on the dollar. Man, the stuff that we men do. [No, I was neither of the slappers, though I do sport a goose from punching my nephew on the arm as he punched me on the arm, and there is a crack on the wall where he pushed me and then a router got put back together where I shoved him back, let's just say he is more Irish than most: the red hair, freckles, and short stature should be the tip off.]
As most evenings involving machissimo and beer, it was 98% fun. No regrets from me, but the fact that I had well over a gallon of something that can only be described, in retrospect, as vile means that my stomach is a bit on the strike side today. I'm not sick or hung over, just not sure if I like myself right now, that is all. For those wondering "Why, Doug? Why!?" the answer is kind of complicated. It mostly boils down to me never drinking beer from a can, never drinking crap beer, and never drinking enough beer (and almost only beer), to really push the possible hang-over, toxic-gut syndrome. In other words, I've never had a night where I drank like a senior in high school, and was curious. The reviews are in, and it's pretty much two thumbs down. There is no aspect of last night that would not have been enhanced by superior drinks in more sane levels.
Happy birthday, J-Dawg.
This weekend, Sarah is going out of town and some of my family are supposed to be coming in. They were supposed to come in last week, but never did. I'm not sure why they didn't last week, so I'm not sure how likely it will be this week. I hope I get to see them, and if not then I suppose I will sit around in the quiet and read, which really doesn't sound half bad to me. I have the new Natsuo Kirino and Joe Lansdale books in transit and I will probably be reading them if they get here. If not, then maybe some Brian Keene or Wodehouse would be in order.
With all those various trials and tribulations out of the way, I'll end this with a couple of interesting links. The first one is, I assume, time sensitive and is mostly due to the picture and it's caption. Since they will probably take that down when the editors find it, I have screenshotted it and you can see it below:
The second bit, here, I am sure is fake because it feels staged, but it makes me chuckle. And, what's more, I've not yet seen any definite evidence outside of the cartoon-like events (old woman alseep in streets, angry yuppie, exploding air-bags!) and the way that the accidental camera just sort of captures the most telling shots. It's been going around for a year or so, so you guys may have already seen it:
Hi, everybody. I've been planning on doing this for a bit, now, but keep forgetting to actually get around to it. I've decided to start reposting my stuff on LJ, at least as a back-up copy. There was a time when my server crashed (this was a few years ago) and I lost some important posts, which was why I posted regularly to LJ to begin with. I'm already on LJ everyday, reading and replying to friends. I also like the idea of having some sort of feed system set up. It occurs to me that I could probably program my own backend to generate a feed, and will attempt to do so over the next month or so, but for now I am cool with just posting stuff here. When I get that worked out, I'll let everyone know. I tend to avoid using the "prebuilt" server-side blog packages because they just aren't as much fun. I will keep everything on LJ as friends only, and things on my personal site as completely open, to avoid any search engine debacle.
As for the subject of my first post, it's a good one. Or a bad one, depending on your musical tastes. Maybe a neutral one, if you just don't care. Or a mauve one, if you have synesthesia. This November, I am going to see Dir en Grey in concert. For those not knowing what I'm talking about, then feel free to get your Wiki on. I imagine for at least some of you, the name just sent you fleeing the post. For others, you might feel a since of curiousness. I'm going to go ahead and post their latest video, "Dozing Green", which I enjoy about as much as I enjoy any of their music:
I like them alright. Not my favorite band, but I've been listening to them for a while and have a good half-dozen songs of theirs that I really enjoy and none that I hate. I mostly cue up the albums Vulgar or Marrow of a Bone and play it in the background. My sister-in-law started adoring them after I showed her one of their videos ("Agitated Screams of Maggots", one of those "really enjoy" songs). I'm going to the concert partially because I know this is a once in a life time event for her, quite possibly. As active as their tour schedule is, they may come back, or they may break up before they ever get a chance.
What makes me the most nervous is the "fans". Not that I am scared of them or anything. I'm old, but not that old ("GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU KIDS WITH THE SPIKED HAIR AND YOUR JAPANESE MUSIC!"). I'm just, well, annoyed by the most of them. Because I know exactly what's going to happen, the concert is going to be filled with 16 year olds with cell phones trying to record video of every second of the concert in desparate hopes to upload it to YouTube. They are going to be texting each other the whole time, only half paying attention to the concert. I've seen it the last couple of "teen friendly" concerts I have been at. They are more obsessed with a digital proof of the event than the event itself, as if they have no idea they are interfacing with the world directly and don't need some sort of streaming media to verify. This, and other things. I'll stop being curmudgeonly, now.
I was about 30 seconds away from making a post about the (joke?) strange newsarticle about Morgan Freeman narrating Zork when I decided to read some webcomics and saw this XKCD.
Si Vales, Valeo
(03:06:36 AM CDT)GTA3 Continues. Advancement? Tess Discussion, Part 1. Jonathan's Birthday.
Grand Theft Auto 3 is a dangerous game. Not on any moral level, but just the fact that there is so much to do, and getting around takes so (realistically?) long that you can spend 20 minutes just setting up a mission, only to fail it, and then repeat. An hour later, you have done some other little podunk task that will probably just end up with you getting betrayed by whomever you did it for. So much fun. I'm seriously enjoying myself with this game.
Addictions (though I only play GTA3 to waste time or when I have free time, for the most part) makes me think of something I spotted on BoingBoing a few days back: Freedom (note, link points to BB article, not original post). Is this advancement? Have we come so long and so far that we no longer use apps to get unto the Internet, but instead use apps to get off it? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Tomorrow promises to be all the busy and stuff. I'll eschew aforementioned violent videogames and read through some of Tess of D'ubervilles, as well as read some study guides about it. Then, tomorrow night I am going to be leading the first in a two part discussion about the book. My friend Becca and my wife Sarah will be there, at least (and I think only, them). If you think the sound of discussing books with me is tempting, drop me a line and I would gladly like a few more people to join our little group. I need to get some sort of page up about it or something.
After the thing with the book, I will be doing the thing with the cheap beer. It's something of a social experiment, possibly a dangerous one. I will have with me the two guys with the highest alcohol tolerances I know, excepting possibly my own. The three of us, plus one or two extras will drink in celebration of my nephew's birthday (he turns 23 as of a few hours ago, congrats!). We will each chip in $20 worth of bottom shelf alcohol: MD20/20, Natty Ice, Aristocrats. And we will drink major amounts (from 20-30 drinks each, possibly) over 6 or so hours. Then, we will talk about our feelings.
Sweet. Jesus.
Si Vales, Valeo
Current Reads: Watchmen and Tess of the D'ubervilles.
I read this article about an English teacher getting his students to do "The Shocker" this night/morning and my first thought was "um, that's not the Shocker". I mean, hand gestures that slightly resemble hand gestures could be jacked up versions of those hand gestures, but The Shocker has specific, anatomical meaning. If you spread the two fingers wide, then you are pretty much declaring your intended victim has the largest vagina known to man, or two vaginas, and neither of them seem to make much sense. My guess on this one? Jeremy (with a last name that could be Kaeik or Koeik) was attempting some other sign. Some have suggested ASU (the symbol is about as accurate for that one as it is for The Shocker). At any rate, he took the picture and someone found it. Whether "JK" mailed it to the guy who posted it, or the guy who posted it found it and yoinked it, the title belongs to the poster, not to the original taker of the image. Reading the comments on Japan Probe brings to mind some important points:
Always, ALWAYS, take the Internet with a grain of salt.
If a guy claims to know another guy, and lists no information besides something apparent in the photograph, consider it suspect. I can do a GIS and get someone's photo, and then make a funny caption for it and claim that "my friend sent it to me" if I want to try and make it more believable.
Just because a friend labels something with a funny title, doesn't mean that was its intention. Remember the "drunken pirate" teacher debacle that probably wasn't even an alcoholic beverage?
JK didn't pick the title. Say that to yourself a couple of times. This is important. This is the Internet.
JK didn't post this to Digg, so don't blame him for doing so. Say this to yourself a couple of times. This is important. This is the Internet.
Look at the comments on the site. If half the people have no clue what The Shocker was, and half of those who "know" don't comment that he is doing it wrong, then comments like "Of course he knew it was the Shocker" are meaningless. Besides, that's NOT THE SHOCKER.
Maybe the guy is a dumbass and thinks it is the Shocker. Which makes him both rude and dumb. And he has stupid friends, who post things to Digg.
Why do so many kids have their eyes closed?
I think the single most disappointing thing about that whole ordeal is how little we have matured as an Internet culture. I mean, either that is an adult man making a totally dumbass statement (which I doubt), or that is a guy making up a BS statement about another guy (which I suspect). There is no tangible anything, not even the hand gesture being made, that claims that this is actually an English teacher promoting obscene hand gestures. Yet, several are getting upset by it. I would like to see some concrete proof before some Jeremy gets his ass reemed.
The only request is that you let me know if you are using something from this page (mostly for my own curiosity). This license only applies to original works by W. Doug Bolden (i.e. me). All quoted and referenced works, be they movies or books or other websites or whatever, are subject to their original license or copyright and are the property of their owners. I have made a strong effort to properly attribute them, so please respect me and them by doing the same.
