little black duck

Summer

Originally uploaded by MontiLee.

We’ll keep it. Just for a few weeks. Don’t know how crazy I am about it yet.

Setting: the ATM near my home. A man has tried to gain access into the bank which won’t open for another twenty minutes.  He walks towards me, jerking a thumb behind.

Man: You waiting for the bank to open.
Me: No.  I’m in line for the ATM.

I  never say “ATM machine”, much like I don’t say “PIN number” or “Chai tea”.

As he walks towards me, he’s peering up at my head.  He’s a great deal shorter than me, by probably a full head.  “What do you do?” he asks.

“What do I do?” It’s a odd question because I’m dressed for work - smartly cut dark red shirt, gray slacks, Mary Jane heels.  It’s like a polite version of “where do you dance.”

“Yeah, what do you do?” he repeats.

“I’m in export controls.”  It’s such a great, vague job title.  It does two things: it says that I’m in a position that is TERRIBLY IMPORTANT, and it also states that it’s far too complicated to bother going into.  It invites the questioner to just accept it, and that alone is the key to happiness.

“You’ve got kitty ears.”

“Oh those.  I’ve been wearing them for seven years.  And they’re fox . “  The ATM becomes free and I do my business.

I think it’s because my hair is going to be reddish/blond for a while that people are starting to notice the ears more.  They do tend to stand out.

In other news, Boozy McDrinkerton is moving out.

Anyone on goodreads?

I’m lonely and I need friends.

Well, I don’t need them but I’d like some.

Username: MontiLee

Up until about a year ago I ran a blog called The Diner [at] Penda’s Realm.  It was a snarky little romp that explored the stupidity that men and women do (”Hey, look what I can still do!”)

I let the domain name of Penda’s Realm last winter expire and I think I’ll let that stand.  It was a different site for a different time.  However, the blog still gets searched on a regular basis, so I’ve moved it here.  I warn you, some of the posts are pre-WordPress, going all the way  back to my Moveable Type days and (dare I admit it) Blogger, so the links may not work and the probably don’t have theme’s and backgrounds.  I may fix that, but as it took me several days to locate and then access all 10MB of bloggy goodness, I may wait for a day when my activity choices boil down to fixing blog posts from 2000 or chewing off my  kneecaps. Also some of the buttons don’t work and I don’t think I know where they are …

Archives are up. Enjoy your trip down Memory Lane.

Mind the dragons.

I’ll keep you posted.

When I have time and can get my thoughts together, I’ll tell you the story of a woman who lives next door to me.

I call her Boozy McDrinkerton.  D calls her Drinkie McBoozed.

She probably has a little Scotch in her. 

And a little beer.

And a little Vodka.

She can stay drunk for days at a time, can entertain scores of men over what seems like mere weeks, and much to her surprise can’t hold down a job. She’s two years younger than me, looks fifteen years older, and believes we should get along because we’re both Sags.

We don’t. I don’t like manipulative drunks.  I don’t like anyone who hangs around because she needs smokes or booze or someone to hold her hair while she complains about her life being in the toilet. 

It’s a long, sad tale and I want to get the details just right. You often hear of people who aren’t long for this world and you may wonder why someone else didn’t step in sooner. It’s because some people can’t be saved.  Forget the faniciful spec fic tales of time travelers swooping in to be kind-hearted to the town drunk only to discover later at the end of the tale that they’ve fostered William Shakespeare.  It doesn’t work that way.

Please keep in mind that if you are in need of saving, I am not the person to come to.  My circle of friends is fairly tight as it is and I don’t collect strays.  As friendly and smiley as I can be, deep down inside, I really do not care, especially when you prove time and time again that the life you’re living is being wasted because the exciting stuff isn’t happeneing fast enough.

But anyway … later.

And then I’ll tell you about my weekend at Wizard World Chicago in the company of my writing partner, RJ.  We could have gotten into more trouble,  but we were pressed for time.

This job thing is keeping me from being all talkey on the interbutt.

• 11:59 I can’t drink coffee while reading www.xkcd.com. It burns my sinuses. #
• 00:46 Watching Fear Itself on NBC. Can’t tell if it’s a poorly written episode, a poorly acted episode or a bad combination of both. #
• 02:49 Fear Itself: Dumbest. Episode. Ever. Who writes this crap and who paid for it because someone got ripped off. And then we all lost an hour. #

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I’m going to go into depth with this episode of Fear Itself.  It was beyond aeful, and it’s no wonder people regard the horror genre with such disdain.   It was an awful, awful piece of drek and I want to talk about why it sucked so bad.

It irritates me how bad it was and that it got aired at all.  If this is the kind of crap that NBC plans on airing, I will take pleasure in ripping it apart every week.

As I read various reviews, many of them script reviews and then the movie reviews that follow, I am giggling at the amount of people that compare M. Night’s movies to an abusive relationship, saying:

Seeing a Shyamalan has become this horrifically abusive relationship where I desperately cling to the belief that if I keep loving him, he’ll stop hitting me.

Edited to add: People: saying a movie “isn’t *that* bad” is not a saving grace and does not make me want to run over my own grandmother to go out and see it.

Not a good week for icons.  I just watched Jurassic Park over the weekend too, and still marvelled at the sfx.

Stan Winston dies of cancer at 62

By DERRIK J. LANG

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special-effects maestro responsible for bringing the dinosaurs of “Jurrasic Park” and other iconic movie creatures to life, has died. He was 62.

Winston died at his home in Malibu surrounded by family on Sunday evening after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio.

Working with such directors as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Tim Burton in a career spanning over four decades, Winston created some of the most memorable visual effects in cinematic history. He helped bring the dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park,” the extraterrestrials from “Aliens, the robots from “Terminator” and even “Edward Scissorhands” to the big screen.

“The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “Stan’s work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family.”

Winston won visual effects Oscars for 1986’s “Aliens,” 1992’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and 1993’s “Jurassic Park.” He also won a makeup Oscar for 1992’s “Batman Returns.”

Thanks to Tales of a Screenwriting Hack V.2 for the heads up.

Interesting discussion in Cherie Priest’s LJ about the new MNS movie, “The Happening“. 

You know how you sometimes avoid movies because you hate a certain actor regardless of how many people tell you it’s a good movie.  I’m like that with directors.  Directors, unlike many actors, have a particular style that is either a draw or a repellant.  With his last few outings, M. Night Shyamalan has flaunted his repellent. 

You can see it in the tagline to the movie:  “We’ve Sensed It. We’ve Seen The Signs. Now… It’s Happening.”  The marketing department needs to get bent. 

Don’t consider myself a MNS-hater, but I do find that the man uses a lot of the same plot devices to tell his stories.  I give him credit for the creative and fantastical qualities of his films, but his later movies follow the same structure and use the same plot devices.  Movie making is all not about gimmicks and sleight of hand. 

I do not doubt that the man has a fantastic eye when it comes to movie making, but “the message” he likes to slip into his movies (much like the self-aggrandizing in “Lady In The Water”) is more than a little off-putting.  Think for a moment about “Signs” – If you haven’t seen it by now, forget you, because this is a spoiler - There are aliens taking over a planet that has a 70% surface composition of an element that is fatal to them.  Really? 

And yet, I still paid to see “The Village,’ which makes me the real stupid one.  And again, I walked away from a man who was clearly out to abuse me in ways only he found life-affirming.  I haven’t been back. 

He considers himself the draw and on that merit alone the movie should be loved.  I prefer story, good acting, and an ending that makes sense.  Lot of other directors work outside studio norms and still manage to not produce duds.  It’s this teen-aged style rebellion that most directors grow out of two films in that gets under my skin. 

It’s the same reason I hate Tarantino and to a greater extent Kubrick.  You get a little too full and yourself and think you’re the cleverest person in the room, and suddenly, people don’t “get” you.  It isn’t we don’t “get” you. We simply don’t “like” you.  Big difference.

He reminds me a little of Tarsem (Singh) of The Cell fame. Listen to the Director’s commentary and you discover a man who is appalled that people don’t understand what glorious creature he’s trying to give birth do.  Genius At Work – Be In Awe Or Step Aside.  (listen, you can almost hear the angelic choir) It’s no accident it took many years between films, and it had nothing to do with the gestation period.  He basically couldn’t find anyone to work with him.  His next film, “The Fall” looks an awful lot like “The Cell”, and chances are I’ll find a way to see it without actually having to pay for it. I don’t mind a trainwreck so long as my pocketbook remains unscathed.

So no, there will be no “Happening” for me.  I will not pay to sit through 91 of a ethics lecture only to discover that the Cliff’s Notes were far more entertaining and took up far less of my life.

And just like that, no more Sock Obama. There’s a rather pat, empty apology, but little else. Are they upset that no one liked their idea? Upset that they didn’t think it totally through? Dunno. I’d like to see an interview, because no one could be that clueless.

Immerse thyself in a little American History the next time you decide that a monkey is a good idea to represent a Black Man, Utah.

Kinda surprised he didn’t come accessorized in a little watermelon patch or his traveling minstrel show cart.