Behold: The King Of Slack

A few entries ago, I talked about how I was remarkably busy cranking out one article after another and once it was all said and done, I would finally able to do these things here:

1) I still owe the girlfriend a web comic, a three pager.

2) I still need to put the final touches on the Jen rewrite.

3) I have to start on my “Young Tolkien In Love” short story which, it has now been revealed to me by the muse, will invovle dwarves who have taken refuge in the USSR and are spouting Marxist doctrine at every opportunity.

4) Finish watching borrowed DVDs, the pile is manageably small now.

5) Finish reading Big Bill’s Pattern Recognition as I think I need a reinjection of style into my prose. Though to be honest, I don’t there’s very much room for that kind of artful description in my next novel, since that’s going to center itself largely around the idea that Vampires and Elves exist and have been at war with each other for quite some time.

Of these, only the last two have any appreciable dent in them, which I feel bad about.

However, I am going to try and NOT play Fatal Frame (Going for the ultra-difficult “Fatal Mode” in attempt to view the X-Box only special ending! SCARY!) tonight, and at least get that 3-pager done since I got an e-mail from my new employers with a bunch of assignments to be carried out that consist of:

Interviews with staff of a new MMORPG.

Interviews with staff of a new free Java MMORPG called Runescape.

10 pages worth of short reviews.

4 Geek tournaments for RTS games and fightin’ games.

My regular column “The Geek Vault”

The letters page.

A review of the Mac i-pod (Neil-O’s favorite gimmick! Automatically cool just because of that!)

And some column called “Inbox” which I’ve never heard of, but may be yet another of many new features and columns that are being added to the mag as people come up with them.

Oh well… busy is good…

In Other News

Repeated squirting of Uno has resulted in her not going into Zero’s room to ransack his food. When we’re around, anyway. I’m pretty sure she’s raiding his food dish when we go to bed, but we can’t do anything about that since he’s too cowardly to defend his own space.

Also, I think Uno is getting bolder with pushing him around. While there is still no fighting taking place, and probably won’t be, Uno is beginning to realize that all she has to do is make the slightest move towards Zero and that sends him scurrying into the next room. The cautious detente is still in place, but I think that Uno is starting to enjoy her new found power which involves minimal effort on her part. Bitch. Leave my cat alone.

Neil-O… What’s It Gonna’ Take?

I am now secretly formulating my new strategy to write an e-mail to Neil-O that will compel him to answer. In-depth analysis of his blog replies indicates that he tends to reply to weird questions (But not too weird), interesting bits of information that he didn’t know, or questions about himself that or his related works that not many people would know about. He DOES NOT respond to worshipful e-mails or e-mails asking him which city he wants nuked in his name. I have now decided that I will abandon that approach and try going with the other ones in my super-secret attempt to get him to reply, which I am broadcasting here for public consumption, and will doubtless be read by the Girlfriend anyway, even though I’m hoping she won’t read this and stumble upon my ultra-secret plans. I’d make a great movie villain.

Duty and planning call, must return to scheming. Remember kids, this is a SECRET.

A Public Service Announcement

I have been asked by the Girlfriend (under threat of guiltstricken cowering on my part if I should fail to comply) to use my considerable and vast network of contacts (ie, all 6 of you out there reading this) to SAVE FANTAGRAPHICS. a company which for decades has been responsible for a large number of very good independent/alternative style cartoons and comics (Some of which are naughty). They’ve mostly been okay for a while but as a result of some misplaced faith, their distributor went out of business and officially filed for bankruptcy, leaving Fantagraphics with about $70,000 due to them that they’ll never see. Anyone who’s ever read anything outside DC or Marvel will be at least passingly familiar with these guys…

Must… Not.. Kill…

And I just found out that the Girlfriend has succeeded where I have failed. Repeatedly. She got an answer to her question from Neil-O himself on his blog! Because we live together and because I plan on spending a lot of time with her in the years to come, killing her outright in a blind rage of insane jealousy would definitely be a Not Good Thing.

However, I must still suppress an urge to throttle something, ANYTHING, including Zero and Uno if they get too close, at the burning humiliation of having had my repeated (And, on thinking about it, possibly scary) Statements O’ Worship & Sacrifice hitherto ignored by the Death n’ Dream-y one whereas she gets it on the first try.

I’m going to tell myself that it’s ’cause she’s a girl.

Yes, I’m snarky about this…

On Musical Muses

Before I begin, for the curious, here are links to Big Bill’s and Neil-O’s websites/blogs respectively. They’re real easy:

Home of Big Bill

Secret Home of Neil-O!

That last post about Tori Amos just kind set me off. For those of you who don’t maniacally follow such things (That would be anyone with a Real Life) there’s this story (The details of which I am about to garble) about how Tori Amos–she of the freakishly lyrical and unearthly music–and Neil Gaiman–he of hauntingly original narrative–met and became friends.

Apparently Neil was already beginning to gain some attention for the work he was doing on The Sandman. Tori was just putting her first album–Little Earthquakes–together. One day, while Tori was in LA, she had a friend come over to crash, and said friend brought along The Doll’s House, the second storyline in The Sandman narrative arcs. Tori read it, was utterly entranced by it, and it was just one of the little things that wound through her head as she went on to create her album, ending with her making a reference to the Dream King, and hanging out with Neil. This very same friend took a tape with a copy of the album on him to a convention where he actually met Gaiman. He placed Tori’s number on the tape and Neil took it home to give it a listen. The next thing you know, he’s giving Tori a call, they’re becoming fast friends, and one of the weirder, more talented writers on the planet is chillin’ in da hood with one of the weirder, more talented musicians.

Every time I think of that story, all I can come up with is, “Is that cool or what?”

So this is me putting out a global-wide announcement:

I too want a hip, talented musician friend just on the cusp of fame!

Think of it! We’ll be able to conduct one of those knowing, in-joke laden interviews where people think it’s so cool we’re buddies!

We can name drop!

We can cover for each other’s procrastination in the name of artistic integrity that those bastards in marketing Will Never Understand!

WE CAN PLAY TEKKEN OR DOA EXTREME BEACH VOLLEYBALL TOGETHER!

Just don’t expect me to play bass guitar for your band. I’m Filipino, but I ain’t that Filipino…