Anecdotes/Announcement (In n Out)

I feel like resting this time. I felt really drained from the last three columns I wrote. Especially “New Power…”. That took a lot out of me. For now, I’m just going to write this In n Out and whatever I come up with, I’ll put it down.

Speaking of “New Power…”, I got some good feedback from it. They are my friends but its still good feedback. But to be honest, I felt like I wasn’t ready to write something like that. Looking back, there were a lot of things I didn’t get to say. I don’t know what they are and that’s the problem. It felt lacking. Is this a feeling all people who write something get? That it lacks that extra punch that will captivate the reader?

Another rant. I thought I’d take it easy today. I wasn’t even going to talk about getting pissed off last night. Ok, I’ll tell it anyway.

I was watching the “Newlyweds” last night. Don’t laugh. You have a guilty pleasure show that you watch. This is mine. For the night, at least. When I was in HS it was “TGIS”. Anyway, back to the story. So I was watching and during the commercials, they were hyping the season premiere of Ashlee’s show. I checked the guide and it said it was about her SNL show. Yes that one. If they ever need a way to grab viewers and raise ratings, that was it. I was hooked. I even watched 2 old Newlyweds and the new episode just so I can hear Ashlee’s pathetic excuse for what happened. The day after the incident, it was her voice that’s why she had to lip sync. She should just perform on “A.S.A.P.” or the Philippines for that matter. It’s taboo to sing live there. After a couple of days, it was her drummer’s fault. Frankly, the reason I wanted to watch is because something hilarious might happen like “It was Jessica’s fault! She can’t stand that I’m more popular than her!” or “It was Nick’s fault! Because Jessica doesn’t know how to rig the tape machine!” And she’d storm Jessica’s house and whack her head with a tuna can. That would garner “instant download-on-the-net-and-save-to-disk status” on my PC. Sad to say, none of these happened and what’s worse, they teased the performance for next week! What a bunch of bullshit! I stayed up for this?? I had to sit for 2 hours of the Simpson sister’s garbage and they left it hanging? They stopped the show hours before she was set to perform “live”. I went to bed pissed off. It’s like getting the line “not tonight” from your significant other.

Okay, I’m worked up. Let’s move on to something else.

I’ve got a couple of books in line to read. I’m reading one now and two in line. I’ve read some pages of the other two to get a feel for them. Pretty eclectic bunch. If your interested, you can search on Amazon or get them at your local bookstore (it's still legal to buy books at the bookstore!)

Sun Tzu Was a Sissy by Stanley Bing: My boss gave me this one. It’s about applying concepts of the Art of War to business. At least some of them. Most of the time he’s going against everything Sun Tzu says. At first me and my officemates didn’t know what to make of it. It tells you basically, to be selfish and think for yourself, attack “enemies”, in this case your officemates, and other insane stuff. Did I mention that my boss gave this to us? Ok old boss. Anyway, I’ve never read a book that was tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic from the opening word to the page I’m currently on. Sometimes it’s funny. But most of the time you just don’t know what to make of it. He better be sarcastic. It’s not for everyone. And I like dark humor. I just don’t know if you can get away with writing an entire book in a sarcastic tone. I read it mostly when I’m in the toilet. That’s why it’s taking me awhile to finish.

The Sandman: Book of Dreams: A gift from Pia (Thanks!) when I was back home. Various writers from different genres take a stab at The Sandman mythos and run with it. I read the first chapter while I was on the plane. Good story. I just hadn’t been in contact with a lot of the characters in Neil Gaiman’s epic in awhile so I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Obviously now, if I ever get to finish Tzu, I did my re-research and became acquainted with the characters again. I can’t recommend this if you haven’t read The Sandman yet. At least 20 issues. This was the inspiration for my blog sites theme and I can’t recommend The Sandman enough. Speaking of epics, I have an announcement at the end of this post. I’m pulling an Ashlee Simpson show. So keep reading.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser: I was inspired to get this from watching “Super Size Me” and my cousins in New York gave me rave reviews of this book. I think it’s been out awhile. It’s about the practices of fast foods and garbage food companies. I’d already stopped eating fast food or potato chips for a good 2 months now before getting this but I ‘m still interested in reading it. If you’re still eating fast food, especially the fries, please stop right away. At least borrow the “Super Size Me” DVD and watch the extras, particularly the experiment. Please.

CD’s I’m really into now are my old 90’s Pinoy bands that I took home from my trip. The first 3 Eraserheads albums. P.O.T. The second Rivermaya album when Bamboo was still singing lead. Wolfgang’s “Semenelin”. Awesome album. I’m trying to find a way to bring back their first album. For some reason I left it. I also brought back the Nirvana and Alice in Chains unplugged albums. And my bootleg Pearl Jam live concert that I bought in CD Warehouse (CLASSIC!) for 900 pesos. For those of you who remember CD Warehouse, I thought I’d remind you of how ridiculously expensive their CD’s were. But I still ate them up. I just didn’t eat in school for 2 weeks. What I want to know is how to get in the VH1 show “I love the 90’s”. There’s nothing about the 90’s I don’t love. Ok, maybe the fashion. God that was awful.

Announcement time. In a couple of weeks, maybe longer depending on a couple of things, I will debut a new running feature to my blog site. A little back story first.

Way back in college, me and my friend Louie (Ex friend. Long story and nothing I’ll be covering here.) were the only two college kids still buying comics. One night, we came up with this idea for a comic we wanted to do. I used to have an old laptop and I actually wrote 3 stories, which would have been our first three issues. The first one I think I showed to him. I think. The second and third I wrote after our falling out. I actually spent a lot of time molding and thinking about the character and he came up with rough ideas for the appearance. We had grand plans for the story. I thought it was the most ambitious story I’d ever heard at the time. A notch below Sandman. Sadly, my old laptops battery gave way and I lost my charger so I can’t get my old files.

So, I thought I’d bring it back here in this space. It needs a lot of work. And I need to take out a lot of the corny stuff. Oh right. The plot.

Throughout our history, significant events have helped shape the way the world is now. Both bad and good. Historical findings, wars, assassinations, discoveries. Throughout it all, a figure worked in the back to observe and sometimes influence the outcome of these events for a purpose only he can explain.

That’s all I remember right now. It’s sounds lame but I’m missing a lot of important stuff we had. The point is this concept allows me to write stories set in virtually any time in Earth’s history. And that’s why I’m excited to do this here. This is a serious challenge for me as a writer. Especially when we get to the historical stuff. I can’t wait! What we had in mind format wise was to pattern it sort of like Grant Morrison’s excellent comic The Invisibles. Basically, one-shot stories explore individual stories that aren’t necessarily part of the main story, but tie into the overall theme. And longer stories will be broken off into story arcs. They can be as long as the story dictates. And they are bigger stories with a direct effect on the main theme. So basically the one shots are a little more personal, showing the effect our main figure has on individual people. The first three stories I wrote were like this. In the first one he didn’t even show up until the end. I liked that one. Then the longer stories are a little more, for lack of a better word, global.

Big huh? I can’t wait too. So big that I think I’ll keep this, if I last that long, to a once a month deal. Like a comic book. This is so ambitious that I’m part excited; part nervous because if I bomb on this, I would have wasted a significant part of my life on it. Wish me luck. Oh, BTW there’s no title yet because I forgot the original one.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a cigarette and I need to dig through old notes I made.