More Superhero Shaming

One of my regular hits while surfing is called... sigh. It's called the Movie Poop Shoot, which offends my sensablities something fierce. Which is odd, considering the far more vile things I read and watch that slip right past those said sensabilities, but there you have it.

I don't know if the site... he sighs again. If the site lives up to its name. However, it does have one feature that is damn fine. That's Comics 101. If you want to learn more about comics in general, there are few places better to head out to.

This week, Comic 101's writer, Scott Tipton talks about superhero vehicles, both good and bad. And among the bad, of course, is the Spider-mobile.

Created in Amazing Spider-man #130, the Spider-mobile is, for a lack of a better description, damn stupid. One of the big images connected with the character is Spider-man swinging around the buildings of New York City. How the hell could anyone even try to replace that, even for a moment, even in jest, with the image od Spidey driving around in a dunebuggy? One that shoots webs from its lights?

Man is that bad.

Also listed as mistakes in Super Hero Fiction are the Supermoblie (which at least has a passable reason for existing), Moonknight's Moon Copter (meh), and the dreaded ARROWCAR. I had only heard of this last one. On seeing it...

Well...

It makes the Spider-mobile look good.

I mean a yellow car for a hero who's entire motif was green.

Boggles the mind.

New Orleans

Not much for me to say here, except my prays and hopes are out there for every citizen of the city.

And that, as, far as I'm concerned, the '00's suck. Nothing's gone right since they started.

Bloody Vikings (II) - A Spambot in Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension

I had heard of spambots. Can’t tell you where I heard it. It just has a sort of familiar ring.

However, I don’t think I had seen one at work until they hit Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension. Yes, they’re irritating, and yes, they’re a boil on the tail of the internet. But, y’know, they’re kind of funny, too.

For those not in the know (as if I am, he says, rolling his eyes), the spambot works something like this. First, it goes to a message board and registers a profile complete with name. The one that hit Jabootu (from here called Onknee for no clear reason) chose wonderful ones like “bag23” and “bird35”. With this complete, it begins posting on the board. Sometimes it will reply to existing threads. Sometimes it will even create its own thread.

The response can be as long as a sentence, a paragraph, or a novel. Somewhere there in is the hook, the link the reader is supposed to click on to In Onknee’s case, it was usually with a single comment like “Where can I get some of that? [:-X]”. This is followed by it’s signature, which is a link to the product it’s pushing (which, needless to say, I’m not putting here.)

Now I know better. I know that a spambot is nothing more than a malicious computer program created by hateful computer programmers. Sort of like a virus or the Atari 2600 game, E.T.

And yet when I think of Onknee, I can’t get the image of an actual robot out of my head. One that’s hunched over it’s keyboard with an evil gleam in its lens/eyes. I can here it humming to itself as it finishes a post. It clicks on “Post New Reply”, leans back, and says, with infinite satisfaction, “Take that, meatbags!”

Stupid old reality.

Being just a program with no thought behind it makes the spambot susceptible to charming gaffs. The most common seems to be not posting on topic, which as a rule annoying yet passably human. Onknee had gaffs that made it look like it had lost it’s little mind. A few of it’s signatures looked like little more than three lines. Some of it’s posts were incoherent messes, like

“%22There+is+only+one+pretty+child+in+the+world

+and+every+mother+has+it.%22++%0D%0A”

and

“+WOW+how+exciting%21%5B%3A%28%5D%0D%0A”

At one point, Onknee was pushing a whole bit of wisdom. It created threads titled “Learn+Something”, “Another Chinese Saying”, “Old+Ancinet+Quotes” (nothing says wisdom like redundancy), and the grammatically frightening “Things You Didnt Knew Before.” Each would be accompanied with some truism or another. It’s point of origin or age I can’t verify.

All of this might have been mildly acceptable in the main forum. Onknee, in its wisdom, put it up in the “Posted Review” portion of the board, where Jabootu’s readers could dissect whichever movie they chose. While “The pine stays green in winter...Wisdom in hardship” might be really deep and all, it simply isn’t a review. One wonders if there isn’t a better way to peddle your product.

The best part for me was when I discovered Onknee was replying to his own threads. One thread, bearing the heading “Another Chinese Saying”, reads "The tongue like a sharp knife...Kills without drawing blood." Which is interesting in and of itself. It did not need a post reinforcing this (“interesting [:)]”) Especially not three minutes after the fact. Using the same user name even.

Way to blow the game, Onknee.

Like I said, I found all of this fairly amusing. I still do. Not ha-ha funny - spam doesn’t have that much wit - but funny nonetheless.

Which probably means I deserved ever bit of spam I would get…

---

Couple of notes here.

The image of Onknee in the text above is of the robot Johnny 5, from the movies Short Circuit 1 and 2. I hate Johnny 5, but he does have fans that frequent the site bearing his name, Johnny-Five.com. I lifted the picture from there.

Next time, I’ll discuss my three mock posters and what I learned from the experience. From there I will return once more to the topic of spam. Specifically the spam that plagued me.

Notification - Essay Pushed Back.

I worked out in the yard today and blew my entire scheduale. Everything'll be pushed back a day. Sorry about that.

Notification - Nofan

For the record, I've offically started Nofan up... a day late. All that's there right now is an Author's Introduction. The next update, on Friday, is the Cast Page, which will be small indeed at this point. The first REAL page will happen next Friday.

Fun!

More important stuff will apear later. Both here and there. Count on it.

Mock Poster # 3: The Smiling Spritel

Just as a point of information: I purchased a book on drawing animals and yes, I got the legs of the frog wrong. But that doesn't bother me. For being a drawing without references, it's still pretty good.

Here is the third and final mock poster for my theoretical novel, Fear Adventure.

First, let's get the negatives out of the way. Her butterfly wings are a disappointment (which reminds me - I wanted the Spritel to have antennae.) The leaf should be better than it is. No collar bones I see (but that's a "who cares?"; Spritels might not have collar bones, after all.) And, no doubt, I've blown her arm muscles in some way.

In some ways, I'm happier with how she turned out than the other two. I think I did okay with the shading, and her hair, to me, looks like it has shape and mass. It is also a fuller figure than I usually do (first poster not withstanding.)

It's a learning process, after all, and any advance gives me a bit of hope that I'm not just wasting my time. I may never be a great illustrator, but I'll not be that bad, either.

Next post (assuming I don't learn some other horrible secret about a comic character) will be part two of my Spam thoughts. Then, I think I'll cover what I've learned from all of this.

image created by Cullen M. M. Waters

Alas, Poor Aquaman

Pity Aquaman. Here is a character that's been around almost as long as both Superman and Batman, even appeared near the time Wonder Woman did, has tremendous name recognition, and yet is the joke of the comic world. True, his powers aren't the most useful. True he is, for all intensive purposes a Namor rip-off. But there are worse heroes out there. At least he didn't shoot arrows with boxing glove tips, like Green Arrow...

I never cared that much for Aquaman either way. I found all the "Talk to Fish" jokes as droll as the next comic fan. And yet there was a bit of sympathy there as well. Any man who can go out in orange and green tights deserves some respect, I think. There's some creativity shown there. At least he didn't put on a Robin mask and steal some Robin Hood duds like SOME heroes I might mention.

But then it happened. During one of my usual roams through the vast Internet Highway, I browsed my way through a series of on Comic Urban Legends. And, in this article, found the capper, the thing that made me, if not an Aquaman fan, then someone who feels compassion for the Atlantian doofus.

Aquaman didn't appear on any comic cover until nineteen years after he was created.

Nineteen. Years.

He always appeared as second fiddle to some other character, such as Superboy. They got the glory while Aquaman toiled away as back up. Hell, even some Nottingham reject got cover shots, one that even had him underwater. An element he was not native to. (And with a sidekick smiling despite in the clutches of an octopus. Almost as if he was high... Nah, that would never happen.)

Even Aquaman's first appearance was only in the presence of other heroes, fighting beside the JLA in issue #28 of the Brave and the Bold. Getting knocked aside by a giant space starfish.

No, I am sorry. I can do it no more. I can't see Aquaman as a four colored joke any longer. After today, he will suffer no more at my hands. Or any other part, for that matter.

In fact, I offer up this toast. Here's to Aquaman, that magnificent fool! May he never grow wings on his heels! Or dye his hair black!

'Cause these days, it's getting harder and harder to tell him apart from Namor.

I mean, they made him hot-headed. Aquaman. The nice guy.

What were they thinking?

---

For the record, I have nothing against Green Arrow. Well, nothing much...

And I also know his sidekick, Speedy's eventual fate.

And, for my first real post on a comic, it's a stitch that I picked a DC character. I was such a Marvel Zombie back in the day. I've owned, at best, ten DC comics.

And none of them Aquaman...

Bloody Vikings (I) - Spam Thoughts

Well, this is fun. I was going to do one post on spam. The essay, though, has other ideas. Rambling old thing. I would have posted it long, except I accidentally deleted the first draft (stupid cut and past keys) and the second is coming in longer than the first.

Such is life.

I think it's going to be a series of at least three, with this the first. I will mix it up with a continuation of the mock posters (there’s only one left, after all) and thoughts on the posters, as well as whatever fills my oh so handsome head.

And now, without further meandering…

---

A Strange Thought

When finishing my last attempt at this essay, I had a strange notion. While I’m not entirely sure of the order of events, I think it goes like this: first I read these two essays on spam on Crap and Garbage in Violent Opposition. Then I noticed the sudden influx in spam over at Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension. And, as I will mention later, found some of it amusing. Finally my poor little blog received a veritable deluge of spam. And found that irritating and amusing in turns.

Thinking about this chain of events, I remembered a quote from Repo Man, which goes as follows:

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

I’m not sure it has any connection to any of these events. If it does, though, it means I brought spam on my head due to thinking about it. Which is silly, really. Really, silly.

However, just in case, I’m thinking about inspiration for the novel awfully hard...

Also, winning lottery numbers... before the drawing...

And a beautiful woman who likes Godzilla, Doctor Who, Spider-man, and mildly overweight 32 year old man who have all the social skills of a man born without social skills.

Well?

Come on, Cosmic Unconsciousness!

I don’t have all day.

---

Spam Thoughts

I find that there’s nothing about the CaGiVO essays that I disagreed with. Spam takes, it never gives. Sort of like telemarketing. In fact, very much like telemarketing these days, as I’ve been put on hold more than once for a “important call”.

I used to use a Excite e-mail account until it got so cluttered with spam. Some of it in German. And I don’t even speak German.

These days I use another account entirely, only checking with Excite to report the spam. Not once have I bought anything in regards to spam, nor do I expect to ever do so. Still, I have a feeling my ever so strong reaction to the stuff is having no effect whatsoever. I wouldn’t be surprised if whole operations aren’t paid for with one or two buyers.

Which makes me envious for some reason.

Notification - Word Verification (II)

And we have melt down. "Word Verification" is now going up. Sorry about the hassle it causes, but the whole spam thing angers me to no end.

It also kind of amuses me, too. Next post, I think I'll go into it.

See you then.

Mock Poster #2: The Dashing Hero

Here is the second poster, and, to be honest, while I don't think it's as good as the first, I sort of like it better.

First, here are my problems. I'm fairly sure I botched the anatomy of the frog somehow. I'm not talking about the eyes so much (that I like). The legs feel wrong. Same with the hands/forefeet. I also sort of wish I could have made her look less cartoony, but that's a small thing.

Also, with the blade, I'm certain it should be tipping just ever so slightly with the weight of the frog. The hilt, at the very least, should be a bit off the ground.

Dunno. Maybe they're both located in the swamp and the weapon's in the mud.

Beyond that... I like the perspective on the handguard; it has a bit of three dimensions to it, something I sometimes screw up. The frog herself, cartoony though she might be, is quite charming, especially with the sad tilt of the head.

All in all, I'm pleased with the whole thing. I hope to do better in future, but y' know what? This is still a step forward.

image created by Cullen M. M. Waters

Notification - Word Verification

We are about three pieces of spam away from entering the jolly world of word verification. I've been deleting this crap most of the day. I get hit three more times and that's that.

I don't really believe the spammers give a damn. I'm just warning my regular readers.

Edit - two down, one to go

Mock Poster #1 - If You Must Fear Something...

I've been working on mock posters for the novel and thought why not post them here for everyone to mock see? One a day seems okay to me.

This is the first one I completed, drawn by hand and touched up on the computer. I like the hand, one of my best.

Originally, the robed arm was longer... Unfortunately it made it look like the reacher was extremely short with long limbs. Not good. A little trim fixed that.

Also, the hair on the "Hero's" head stems from another drawing all together. I liked it better than what I originally had. As I was stealing from myself, I thought I wouldn't complain. I was wrong. I still am not speaking with me. Lousy thief...

I'm not sure that this is a scene from the novel, though. The outline in my head isn't including a green skinned figure in the mist. Might want to save him for another day...

Tomorrow, more greenness!

image created by Cullen M. M. Waters

Week's End

I had one more post to go for a full eight day week (don't ask), but as is readily apparent it didn't get done. I could always push it to nine days... but that seemed ridamndiculous, and Ego Boost Week 2005 has already stumbled close enough to that, thanks.

So I'll save the essay for another time. You'll never know when it'll come up, or what it'll be about. BWAHAHAHAHA!

But for now, things'll be going back to normal. Not like that's much of a change....

Ego Boost - Blog

And then of course there is this Blog. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's filled with little essays and thought I will no doubt cringe at when I go through it later in life, but I'm still a little proud of this sucker. It's the only journal of any sort that I've stuck with for any length of time. I could quit tomorrow and still be happy with what I've done.

Not that I plan on quitting any time soon. I mean, where else can I drop a reference to Edgar Allen Poe while talking about My Little Ponies?

Nowhere, damn it. Thirty some odd year old men shouldn't even be talking about the things. Damn peculiar, iffin you ask me. Ought to be a law against it.

And so it goes.

(One last note: when picking the topic for today, I didn't realize the significance of the date. Today is "Welltun Cares Presents" five month anniversary.

(I AM BRILLIANT! UNINTENTIONALLY!)

Ego Boost - Serendipity

What a silly thing to discover, this week of all weeks!

Goofing off (as perusal!) I punched in Ego Boost and Welltun Cares at Yahoo and discovered that, under the Yahoo listings, my Blogger Titles come out like this: "Welltun Cares Presents: Ego Boost - Whatever the Rest of the Title is."

It works for all of my titles. For example my review of The Dark Crystal appears as Welltun Cares Presents: The Dark Crystal - A Review.

When I picked the name "Welltun Cares Presents", I hadn't a clue that would happen. But it almost looks like I intended it to turn out that way, doesn't it?

I am an Unintended Genius!

(Not as big a boost as the Alaska trip, but still...)

Ego Boost - Alaska

I must have been fifteen when I went to Alaska. My cousin Curt offered me a job on his fishing boat. That sort of fell through after three days and I came back home to Illinois.

Doesn't sound like much of a thing to be proud of, does it?

Consider this: I was not then, nor am I now, an outgoing person. These days I can enter a store, go up to the cash register and buy something, all on my own. I can hold conversations with people I don't know without feeling like something under a microscope. (Most days.) I can reasonably function.

Fifteen, I wasn't that well off. And yet I made at least two flight connections getting to Curt's place on Kodiak Island, and then took another flight out to meet his boat. On the way back, I not only had to make the same connections, I missed my flight back to Chicago and had to be rerouted through Seattle, giving me an extra stop.

But that's not all. There was a bit of a miscue on my final arrival back at Kodiak, and I had no one there to meet me at the airport. Which meant I had to make my way back to Curt's house through miles of countryside. Which I did by accepting a ride from utter strangers.

I think about people who were better prepared than I was, who had the experience I lacked and communication skills I still to a degree do not have, who vanished from the face of the earth going out for a cup of coffee, and I realize just how lucky I was. I could have been one of them so very, very easily. Dead and forgotten some place. Makes me realize just how fortunate I was and am.

Unless, of course, the last seventeen years have just been my imaginings as I lay dying.

Which, now that I think of it, would explain a lot...

Ego Boost - Completion

Here's another really sad Ego Boost, but, you know, I never promised satisfactory essays this week...

I take a great deal of pleasure in completion. For instance, I have seen every Godzilla movie every made, bar "Final Wars". I have seen every episode of Doctor Who that exists, or, at least, every one that's a part of a complete story. I have beaten every Dragon Quests game that's come to the States.

I like the fact that, if you hit the Review index, you'll see a complete set of capsule reviews for Godzilla. I wish I had more reviews on site, but I'm glad I have what I have finished.

Every story I have ended, I am happy with for no other reason than I've finished. Now, some of the endings I tacked on the stories blow goats, but that doesn't matter. They're finished.

Sometimes endings come with sadness. It can't be helped. But sometimes there's satisfaction that things turned out as well as could be expected. And that's good, too.

Ego Boost - Class Reading

My fabulous scholastic life can only be spoken of in vague hints this week, as as it does nothing to Boost my Ego. However, there are two events, or, rather, two type of events, that happened to me that I would like to mention.

As the title suggests, the first one is "Class Readings". By which I do not mean ME reading my writing to OTHERS. For the love of God, no. Nuh uh. I hate public speaking the way cats hate water, the way vampires hate the sun, and the way politicians hate the unvarnished truth. Point me to a podium and you're pointing me to a torture sentence worth of Torquemada. I'll do all of my speaking in private, alone, thanks.

Um.

Yeah.

No, what I'm talking about is having a teacher decide that a story I've written was good enough to read in front of class. I've mentioned this happening once before; it is is, after all, the reason I started on the road to being a writer.

However, there was a second time where I had a story read to the class. It was two pages in length and on "Frankenstien." One of my Senior year homework assignments. When we got it, I chuckled to myself and whipped up a cross between Shelley and Lovecraft. Fun, fun story; I wish I still had a copy.

Unfortunately, my teacher decided to read the best of the bunch to the class. Unfortunately, mine was among the best. Unfortunately, I was not sick that day...

My God, was that was embarrassingng. I thought I was going to die.

Afterwards, the entire class told me how good it was. Which keeps me going every now and then.

One of my few A's in that class, too.

'Course, it was one of the few times I actually did my home work...

But I'm not going there today...

Ego Boost - A Tree Climbing No-No

In my long lost and fabled youth, I was quite the tree climber. If the limbs were low enough, I'd be scrambling my way upwards. More times than I could count I would be stand or sitting high above the ground, swaying with the branches in the breeze.

Drove my Mother nuts.

These days, the ground is high enough, thanks. On this, I'm not in the shape I used to be. It's a shame, but I don't really miss the experience.

One of the last times I was in a tree was when I was nineteen. I wasn't very high up; just standing there on one of the lower limbs.

My brother Eric (of Blue Brutal) was there with me, though he was on the ground. We were talking about something. It might have been a movie, or a videogame, or general reminiscence of things gone past. I now misremember the moment.

In the main, it's unimportant.

What is important is that, at one point in the conversation, Eric jumps up and hangs off of the branch I was standing on. Which, I suppose, I might have done myself, if our positions were reversed. Just something to do.

I don't remember much of the fall, either. One moment I'm in the tree, the next I was on the ground with the branch beneath me. Our combined weight snapped it right off.

We got lucky and neither of us were really hurt. Which, when I look back on things, is the final line of oh so many stories about my youth. "Fortunately we weren't scarred or damaged in any way." By rights we should have had several broken bones, and that's not even taking this incident into account.

The big Ego Boost here is that, in all of my years of tree climbing, I never did anything as dumb as what Eric did.

So I've got that going for me.

Ego Boost - Da Vinci Eat Yer Heart Out

I was over at my Aunt's house a few months back when I noticed a Goofy magnet on her fridge. It was just the character's face on a stamp, nothing special. On seeing it, though, I felt certain I could duplicate it. So I figured, "Why not?"

About that same time I had been drawing rabbits. I caught sight of one on night and had been able to break it up into basic shapes in my head. Later I was able not only to draw a decent rabbit, but also put said rabbit in a few different poses.

I did something similar with Goofy. An oval here, a circle there. The worst part of the whole drawing was the hat he wore, and that wasn't that bad.

By the time I was finished, I had a sketch that I thought could be reasonably confused with something done by a Disney Artist. Which pleased me to no end; usually there is a distinct difference between my attempts and the real deal. (You can judge for yourself by going here.)

I was putting the final touched on my little sketch (shading in the darker parts of Goofy's head) when my little cousin Katie happened past. She saw what I had done and wanted a Goofy for her sketchbook. As such requests were few and far between for me, I agree. However I was a wee bit nervous. One good sketch was fortunate. Trying for two of the same character was, to my way of thinking, pure hurbis.

Obviously this wouldn't be much of an Ego Boost if I didn't hit another home run. I thought the head a bit too thin and there were other bits I didn't care for. That damn hat again. But I decided that was the Cullen Troll talking more than honest criticism. It was a picture I could see again without embarrassment.

Off and on since then, Katie has been asking me for various pictures, which, again, I can't really refuse. This last Sunday she had me drawing My Little Ponies. I did three of them. At one point for each and everyone of them I thought they'd turn out terrible. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. In fact, I thought one of them actually looked a little better than the source.

Better still, while I had some free time yesterday I doodled a fairly passable Pony. You couldn't tell if it was Minty, Pinkie Pie, or Metzengerstein. It just looks like a damn cute horse in the My Little Pony style.

However, the topper to all of this was the time Katie wanted me to draw one of my own characters for her. Now that's cool.

Ego Boost Week 2005!

Rule of thumb around these parts is self-depreciation. I'll down play my skills quicker than anything else. I might think I have talent, but never will I suggest that I'm better than buttered toast and Mom's homemade Apple Pie.

But not this week.

This week we're talking things that make me feel gooooood about myself. Personal triumphs no matter how sad someone else might see them. Things that reinforce the notion that

YES!

I AM THE NEXT GREAT THING!!

I AM A DEMI GOD WAITING FOR NOTICE!!!

YEEEEEHA!!!!

Unless, y'know, too many people object.

Then we could do something else.

Just thought it be fun.

sheesh.

Site Update - More Fun With HTML

This is just a marker, saying that today I once more dived into the Abyss that is HTML. Training? Skill? Actual understanding how the coding works? I laugh at all that.

Hahahahahaha.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

I'm going to discuss the novel Peter Pan a bit, and there will be spoilers abound. Issuing spoilers for a story well over a hundred years old may seem silly, but I hadn't read it in all that time, so someone else may also be able to say the same.

Anyhoo, I've been thinking about Peter Pan of late, more in connection with the wretched Hook than anything else. Oh, did I hate that movie. The idea of Hook kidnapping modern kids is great (better, perhaps, if Peter Banning hadn't been Peter Pan after all) but the movie itself... Not so. The father-who-learns-better hasn't just been beaten to death. It's been killed, brought back as a Romero Zombie and left out in the sun too long. Brack!

Anyhoo, I was doing my usual "Can't think of how this sentence should go, oh, what's up with the webcomics!" type deal one day when I encountered this strip in the comic Nukees. Specifically the line, Tinkerbell died.

And I went, "What? No she didn't. Did she?"

I went to Wikipedia and sure enough, the little fairy gets gleeped. Short life span, we're told. All that clapping was for nothing.

More reading lead to my finally getting around to buying the novel, and you know what? I can't read the damn thing. Oh, I'll read a bit here, a bit there, that's fine. But I can't sit down and plow my way through it the way I did Dracula and most of Moby Dick. Part of the problem is that I'm not the "old tyme reader" I used to be; the verbose circling the old writers used to do kills my interest dead. But mainly the J. M. Barries's style does nothing for me.

That and the Disney version seems particularly close (if a little tame).

But what I have read of the novel has left me with a definite impression: Peter Pan is one evil little bastard. Not just for forgetting poor, evil little Tinkerbell. Have a gander:

When he saw [Mrs. Darling] was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.

and

The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out [Italic mine]; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.

He forbids the Lost Boy to think of their mothers, steals them away from their homes. I find that "thins them out" part particularly interesting. How does he thin them out? Does he return them to their homes as he does the Darlings and the current Lost Boys? Why do I doubt?

For a children's book, all of the children seem to be particularly cruel. This seems to be Barrie's intent rather than a fault. In fact, the whole book quite heartless, especially at the end:

As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.

Dark, dark book. Such potential for darkness that, as far as I know hasn't been tapped. (I haven't seen the most current version, but the IMdB entry gives me doubts)

It also makes me hate Hook a little more. What a waste.

Influencers

I have a Yahoo Music Launchcast account. I listen to it right up until they kill my free service, and then I go back to listening to the music in and around my house until I have the freeness again. I'm not proud of that, but that's neither here nor there.

I was fumbling around that site (is it me, or do I spend too much time fumbling about the internet?) and I discovered that, some how, I was a part of their Influencer list. Someone, a "luvtink81", listed my station as an influence.

Meaning, I think, that my taste of music influences the type of music his/her station plays

Which is deeply fascinating to me. (Obviously.) The thought that, without even knowing about it, without putting any effort in it, I'm affecting someone's life is a bit... I dunno... off putting?

I mean, I have thought about it. Every action has a reaction. Kindness begets kindness, cruelty begets cruelty, and so on. Just common sense, really.

But when it happens without any conscious effort... It really makes me think.

Say I enter a store. The way I conduct my business there, the way I interact with the employees and the customers, even the way I look at items on the shelf, all has an effect on everything that proceeds inside the story from that point on. It maybe profound, it may be next to nonexistent, but it does have an effect.

This might sound egocentric, and it is.

BEHOLD THE POWER THAT I POSSESS!

But the honest truth is that we all possess this power, this ability to influence the lives of those around us. For good or for ill. In joy or in sorrow. In cold indifference or overpowering rage. In earthshaking proportions or minute fractions. We matter. No matter where we put our feet down in life, we matter. We make a difference.

Which, I suppose, should be a comfort.

And it is, until I consider that kindness can also beget cruelty. That a joke or a smile could be taken wrong, could even make a day worse. It goes the other way, I know. One person's misery is another's laughter, I think it has been said.

It's just I'd rather my good deed produce good deeds, thank you. I'll never know if it does, any more than I'll know if putting that DVD face forward on the shelf will result in someone owning a copy of "Dracula V. Frankenstien" or if the ice cube that bounced out of my cup at my local Quik Trip will cause someone to slip and fall. But just the idea that I might be the focus of chaos, pain, misery, and I dare not think what else is a little much for me to take.

Which is why I'm glad I'm a virtual shut-in. I mean, that way I affect as few people as possible.

Only... Isn't not taking an action an action? That by denying others the dubious pleasure of my company, I might be affecting their potential happiness and well being…

Ah.

Er.

Yeah.

Oh, and to luvtink81: If by some cosmic coincidence you are reading this in addition to the honor of letting me influence your music station, let me take this time to say one thing:

I'm sorry.

Especially for rating Bjork so high.

The Unicorn Punisher - a Poe... Ah, Hell, I Can't Say It With a Straight Face

I warn those with poetic tastes that what follows is not, by any stretch of the imagination, good poetry. I put it up solely in the hopes that it will make the poetry I wrote before and will write in future look like quality work.

That, and because for some reason it tickles me.

---

Stillness
My heart beating faster
thump thump
thump thump
I spy the hunter crouched in the bushes
dangerous orange

I lower my horn and charge
He screams
Surprise!

The gun fires once
misses
Sound thud
soothing red.

The other animals creep from hiding places many
they dance upon his corpse
feast upon his eyes

I pay them no mind.
Job is done.
Now to find a virgin
on whose lap shall I rest my weary head.

Pure golden life 'gainst grimy green deth

The battle never ends

---

As promise, bad poetry. What cha think? Eyes bleed? Brain boil? Or am I wrong (surely not) and this is good? On the one hand it wasn't intended as such, but on the other... That would be interesting

Personally, I walk away from this poem with the image of a Unicorn in a Punisher outfit, which makes this poem worth whatever damage it's done to my head. I wish my drawing was up to hashing the image into a more physical form...

Site Update - A Whole Mess of Stuff

For the record, this was what I was working on today

• ITEM - Short Story: Two months ago I started a short story for the site. Today I have it just about finished. Maybe a day or two to finish, a week before posting. Maybe.
• ITEM - Poetry: For the past day or so, I've been e-mail my brother, the infamous Blue Brutal (aka Eric), a series of bad poems. If one of them turns out to be adequate, I'll show it here. And maybe even they're all crap, they show up. One of them, which I'm thinking of calling "Unicorn Punishment" or "Unicorn Punisher", tickles me to no end. Bad, but I like it.
• ITEM - Essays: Relating to the Brother Most Brutal, the two of us been talking about writing an quasi-history of console RPGs from the perspective of games we've played. It might sound like an odd choice for this particular site, but really, it isn't. RPGs tend to be the most story heavy (though these days all video games are heading that route.) I don't see them as being much different than books and movies, and, having played them in youth and still, they have helped develop who I am as a writer. It'll be interesting, trust me.
• ITEM - Novel (I): As a note to myself so that I might kick myself later, I'm going to try yet another angle for the novel. My fingers are crossed and hopes are high, but as that has never meant anything in past... Still, we shall see.
• ITEM - Novel (II): Those that have hit my profile (and why would anyone do that?) have noticed a new blog listed there, titled Nofan. It's currently supposed to be a comedic piece, hitting the various cliches revolving around Console RPGs (yeah, I'm obsessing.) It's an experiment and writing exercise, and as such I can give no promises as to it being good, ever finished, or even coherent. The goal, however is for all three to happen. I'm shooting to start it up on August 27, but that's not a firm date. I'll announce it here when I've started. Assuming, of course, anyone cares.

Well, that's all I've got. If a thought, and essay, or some such comes to me in the near future, I'll drop by again. In any case, I'll see you soon.

Spoiler Warnings - a Thought

I was surfing the web, killing a bit of time before having to head out into the world, when I stumbled across a comic strip/comic book/something-like-that type site called the Hurting. It's description, below the title, is "I Ain't Never Delivered No Spoiler-Warnings And I Ain't About To Start Now". Which is good to know.

But I got to thinking, isn't declaring that you don't give spoiler warnings a spoiler warning in and of itself, thus making the sentence inaccurate?

What's that?

I've got too much time on my hands and should be working on my novel?

All too true.

100 Posts Have Come and Gone

I was just checking the Dashboard... thingy... merebobber... type gizmo (counter) and it said that there are a hundred post on this site. This one makes hundred one.

Now in honesty I've removed a post or two here or there, so the stat is a bit off. And I used a few posts as my Indexes. But still, that's a milestone, isn't it? Especially when I haf expected to toss in the towel a long time ago.

Here's to the next hundred!

Knife in the Brain

Last night I started to get a headache.

I've had headaches before. They go away soon enough. Don't need to take asprin. Save the asprin for some serious pain. Don't wanna build up an immunity, you know. Tough it out. Be a man, not a wuss.

The only consession I made to the pain was that I tried sleeping it out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case it didn't, but that was okay. I've had bad headaches before. They go away. Etc. etc. etc.

Nearing six o'clock the next morning, it became readily apparent that this was more Cullen Tomfoolery. For the most part, the headache was nothing more than an irritation. But every now and then it would become SERIOUS PAIN. Like someone had taken a knife and crammed it into my head. Functioning in moments like that WAS NOT ALLOWED.

Something had to be done. I broke down and popped myself an Aleve. Then I settled down for more sleep. My sleep scheduale is irratic at best anyways.

I wake up with a brand new problem. Headache was gone. Now there was this Strange Emptiness. Like the knife should have been there, or had been there just a moment before. I had trouble focusing. More so than usual, he says, only half kidding.

Not fun.

Right now I'm functioning on a decent level. No pain, no emptiness. Just me.

I don't know if there's a greater moral to this story. Maybe pop more pills. Take medicine when you need it. Write more pointless Blog entries. Something.

Inspiration (IV)

or The Reader Becomes the Writer

Welcome back to further ramblings associated with Inspiration. Without further ado...

---

It happens in every writer's life. The moment when you put down a book and say, "Damn I would love to write something like that! Hey, why not try?"

Or, in an opposite direction, "I can do better than that. Hell, I will do better than that."

I think this is the most common for of inspiration. It is the drive that pushes a writer forward more than anything else. To see if they can duplicate, or, better still best, the power and majesty of what came before.

I can't tell you exactly the first book that inspired me in such a fashion. I know I was writing sub-par Choose Your Own Adventures and Fighting Fantasies. I made my own Godzilla Comic, my own horror comic, even an adaptation of the Last Dinosaur. I even wrote my own Doctor Who story. I've been doing this for a long time, longer, in fact, than ever realizing I wanted to be a writer.

Since starting this crazy journey, I've read plenty of things that made me long to be a writer. I once flipped through a paper vampire novel which convinced me that Anne Rice had done more harm than good, and the monster needed revitalizing again. (Of course, by that point I was and still am dead on the subject, but I really would like to try a vampire novel one day). I read several fantasy comedies that made me think about trying one myself. And so on.

My current Inspirations are, in general, Anime and three fantasy series: The Exploits of Ebenezum, Myth Adventures, and Discworld. Now I know I mentioned other inspirations in a much earlier post, but these don't contradict with those.

How, you might ask? Well, I'll go into that in the next installment as we wind things down and finally near the point of all of this.