I had a really nice time with the Call of Cthulhu game today

My character who was injured in a vampire attack last time was healed by a witch, one of the NPCs (non-player characters) is going nutsy cuckoo due to an ability to travel and manipulate other people's dreams, and one of Brenda's characters has crash landed in a plane in the rain forest with several other people and a mystery is afoot as to how they got there. Next week should be very interesting. We hadn't played for a couple of weeks, so it was nice to do so. And even though I'm not on the plane adventure, I don't mind watching what happens (I have a character who is visiting an injured family member, so when I play that out, Brenda's in the audience, but mostly we're both in the scene, so to speak, together. I am the more passive player, however, and that's something I haven't really worked on in the 23 years I've been playing this game, and I really need to do so.)

It's been a pleasant weekend. A was away at a conference and YKWIA and I spent a lot of time together, watching episodes of 'Hart of Dixie' and talking about all sorts of things, including comics. We both used to work for the same comic book store, but I had no idea just how encyclopaedic his knowledge was of the Marvel Universe. No wonder he's always complaining about how the movies mess with the canon. For someone who has read comics all his life but is not a comic geek at all, he knows lots of details, and remembers many of the covers of his youth. I now know a lot more about mutants, Inhumans, Eternals, and Celestials than I used to, as well as Kree, Skrulls, and other alien races. :) But it was fun to learn about. I came to comics late. I read a couple when I was in my teens (Star Wars and The Amazing Spider-Man), but I didn't really read or collect much until I was working for the store and was in charge of ordering, so I saw the full catalogue. I started with The X-Files (I was a really big fan of the show at the time) and then discovered Sandman, which is still my favourite title, although it's not really a 'superhero' comic. I'm glad Neil Gaiman has been working on the prequel. I've got the first two issues, but I'm missing the third--I haven't had a chance to pick it up with how tight things have been of late. Comics have gotten more expensive than when I was working at the store in the 90s. It's over $5 for those comics, and I had been getting both variant covers. Granted, the Sandman prequel isn't monthly, so it's not really a terrible expense, but there's been other bills to pay and things like food and gas to get, so no, I can't really afford to collect much in the way of comics these days.

Okay, I have to get up early tomorrow and run an important errand before work. Good night.

I walked into a comic store for the first time in about 15 years

all because of Neil Gaiman and his new Sandman prequel. It came with two covers. I prefer the one on the left, actually. But yes, I sprang for both. The next one is due out in December.

Sandman is what got me collecting comic books as an adult--it was totally different from the comics I'd read as a kid (primarily Star Wars and Spider-Man. With its literary and historical allusions, interesting plots, and the intriguing Endless, I was hooked. I was very sad when it ended, although I kept up with The Dreaming for quite some time afterwards. I'm glad to see a new story, the story before the story, back. Hopefully it was worth the wait.

I went into the store (Collectibles, Etc.) and the smell hit me, the scent of comic books, and I felt instant nostalgia. I worked at a comic store for a year (The Comic Interlude, back under the former owner) in 1996, doing the ordering, databases, reserve files, and generally helping keep it running. There were times YKWIA and I were there till 4:30 in the morning working on backstock and re-arranging things. It was actually great experience in that I did a lot of things that I later did in the library--work with vendors, catalogue, order items for customers, etc. It actually helped me get my present job. :) I'm looking forward to reading the comic book.

This was a nice piece

Neil Gaiman did back five years ago for Halloween in the New York Times...

Ghosts in the Machines

I particularly found this striking...

There’s a blog I don’t think anyone else reads. I ran across it searching for something else, and something about it, the tone of voice perhaps, so flat and bleak and hopeless, caught my attention. I bookmarked it.

If the girl who kept it knew that anyone was reading it, anybody cared, perhaps she would not have taken her own life. She even wrote about what she was going to do, the pills, the Nembutal and Seconal and the rest, that she had stolen a few at a time over the months from her stepfather’s bathroom, the plastic bag, the loneliness, and wrote about it in a flat, pragmatic way, explaining that while she knew that suicide attempts were cries for help, this really wasn’t, she just didn’t want to live any longer.

She counted down to the big day, and I kept reading, uncertain what to do, if anything. There was not enough identifying information on the Web page even to tell me which continent she lived on. No e-mail address. No way to leave comments. The last message said simply, “Tonight.”

I wondered whom I should tell, if anyone, and then I shrugged, and, best as I could, I swallowed the feeling that I had let the world down.

And then she started to post again. She says she’s cold and she’s lonely.

I think she knows I’m still reading ....

One thing about putting up a diary online, in public--you really never know who is reading, or sometimes if anyone is. I recently had my boss' boss chide me to take my insulin because I'd posted here that I'd forgotten to do so. Sometimes you do get a clue that you're not just writing words in a vacuum. Even though I'm certainly not naïve about what's public on the Internet, it still surprises me a bit when someone does mention reading. There's something, though, about writing, about reaching out into the void and putting out something personal, bridging between yourself and the unknowns out there, that is appealing to writers. Does the reader know what I'm thinking? Does he care? Does anyone care? It sometimes surprises me that people follow or read this blog. I mean, I do try to put up content that is interesting, but sometimes it comes down to just my own story, and I'm sometimes surprised anyone would read that. Of course, I find reading blogs--even of people I don't know--fascinating because you do get a glimpse into another person's (generally) ordinary life.

I remember years ago I happened, completely accidentally, on a blog by someone in another country, on another continent, even in a different hemisphere. He'd been blogging for some time, but I happened across it just as his wife and he had found out that their unborn child was anencephalic, meaning that the brain was not and would not develop past a rudimentary state. Even if it were born alive, it would die within days, no doubt. They were going to go to another country to have an abortion performed, as it was not available where they lived. His pain was raw, as he struggled with a horrible loss, as a very private pain was shared with others, some of whom reached back over the divide with what comfort they could provide.

Just a little musing on blogging, I guess, and how powerful it can be, so personal yet impersonal, that sort of thing.

I cannot conceive trying to bake this....

A Little Endless cake. Via @neilhimself (Neil Gaiman on Twitter).

Ah. I love Sandman. And Death. And Delerium. And....

Hee Hee

Neil Gaiman Laughs Off Minnesota Politician’s ‘Weasel’ Slam

When reports started popping up in the news and on Twitter that a Minnesota politician had called Neil Gaiman a “pencil-necked little weasel,” all the best-selling author could do was laugh.

“I woke up this morning and people sent me links to the story and someone quoted it on Twitter and I thought, ‘That’s mad, a real politician can’t have actually said that,’ and then I went to the article and read it,” Gaiman told Wired.com, still snickering at the thought. “I expected him to carry on [in] the article saying that I was a stupid stupidface and that he would be meeting with his friends behind the lockers.”

What the politician failed to realise is that Neil Gaiman is immensely popular on Twitter, with over 1.5 million followers (including me). So many were heading to the link that was tweeted (the politician had posted Neil Gaiman's blog on his website AND apparently claimed copyright on it), that the post crashed for most of the day. I wasn't part of that mass action, but I have to admit, I am amused by it. I don't think it was an intentional move like a denial of service attack, but rather it suffered from not being able to handle its sudden 'popularity'.

Heh, heh, heh

Neil Gaiman and a bunch of other folks have been coming up with Lovecraftian ice cream flavours on Twitter. Which is funny, because ice cream is particularly popular in Arkham in our game of Call of Cthulhu, and we're convinced it 1) has mind changing properties and 2) it is derived from the milk of Shub-Niggurath. :)

My favourite so far is 'At the mountains of mintyness' by @davidmulqueen.

Hmmm....

This was an interesting video. The music is by Olga Nunes; the lyrics are by Neil Gaiman. (Yes, that one.)


I found it when I looked up Neil Gaiman's YouTube channel, where I also found this prelude to the release of the movie Coraline, based on his book:

Kind of creepy isn't he, I mean it? :)

Okay, I'm geeking out

Twitter + Neil Gaiman + 1000 contributions = a BBC Audiobook!

From Twitter an Audio Story with Neil Gaiman

How Does it Work?
Read the opening line of the story tweeted by Neil (or catch up with it in progress by visiting #bbcawdio) and then follow us at http://www.twitter.com/BBCAA to post the next sentence of the story (tweets must be 140 characters or less) like this:
@BBCAA Your Tweet Here #bbcawdio
(Please use both the @BBCAA and the #bbcawdio tags to be sure we see your contribution!)

By the way, if you go to Neil Gaiman's website, he has a Cthulhu hand puppet on his head in the photo. :) The fun starts at noon (EDT) on Tuesday, October 13th. :)

I'm interested in seeing these films

Being a fan of Neil Gaiman's since Sandman, I was happy to see a novella of his has been adapted into a stop-motion feature directed by Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It looks like the pain-staking artistry has paid off. Here's a trailer for Coraline:



I have a gift card to Cinemark studios, but they aren't showing it in 3D, whereas Hamburg is. So it may be a couple of weeks before I can afford to go. On the other hand, another movie is coming out this weekend that YKWIA is interested in going to, and I can use my gift card there if we go. It's called Push and features a group of young people with psychic powers being hunted by a government agency (sort of like 'Heroes', hmmm?) Here is its trailer:

Just came in

Reading: 'At the Mountains of Madness' by HP Lovecraft (for more about this novella, see the Wikipedia article)

from picking up a friend from work and running by the store in the middle of the night. I got some Luna bars for breakfast over the next few days (much better than Pop-Tarts) and some food I can take with me for lunch and dinner.

On the one hand, my pants are all loose and I fear they may fall down sometime at the gas station since I keep my wallet on me when I'm there, and that weighs my pocket down. On the other, I had lost 25 lbs but I've gained a little of it back over the last few days, so I need to start making better choices.

I went to physical therapy today between jobs. Last time the therapist did a really deep massage to my elbow to break up the fibres that grow crosswise at the tendon which can cause pain and limit mobility/strength. Despite being a great big wuss-baby when it comes to acute pain (I do pretty well with the chronic kind), I didn't come out of my seat wailing at how much it hurt, but I had to put ice on it later and it's been swollen ever since and really tender. I told them this today and the aide massaged it but it wasn't quite so deep, although apparently the tendon is very tight around my elbow proper (the pain itself is centred about 1-2 inches below the joint). This time they did the massage first, then iced my elbow during the e-stim treatment, and that really helped (although I really liked the heat last time--it was very soothing). Also, last time they gave me a band to wear on my arm that somehow cuts the pain. It really has helped.

Tonight was truck night at the station and we were fortunate to be back to three people rather than two, since there's a new employee that just started this week. We got all the order put up before I left at 9, so that was much better. The last two or three weeks, my co-worker and I have been swamped by customers whilst trying to put everything up. We'd been pretty short-handed.

Tomorrow I'm off from the store. At the hospital, I need to take some children's books to clinic and put them on the cart we have for our early literacy programme, where books are given to children 6 months-5 years old who come in. I also need to clean out my closet and put the remaining books there--I have a small wall of boxes still to be unpacked piled at the end of my cubicle. I also need to download/print off some reports and finalise our journal renewals through our subscription agent. Then there's a need assessment to design, work out some budget details, and schedule a library committee meeting, but that may be for early next week.

Saturday I'm working a little later than usual; I don't have to go in until 11 am, but I get off at 7 pm. Then a friend and I will make a large grocery run, so not as much fun as last week, where I actually got off early enough to go to a matinee of the new Mummy movie. Let me tell you, Evie is really just the deal-breaker on this one; it's just not the same without Rachel Weisz, and the chemistry didn't quite work. But I enjoyed the movie overall and will probably get it on DVD/go to future ones. The girl who played the son's love interest was very good, and the action scenes were well done, althought I thought the special effects were not as good as in the past. Also, no mummies were harmed in the movie because there, well, weren't really any mummies--terracotta warriors, yes, and skeletal remains under the Great Wall, but no actual mummies. Still, it had its moments. And never take a yak on a small plane, or at least if you have to, don't sit next to it. Thanks to M from the game, who gave me a gift card to the Regal theatre for the winter holiday. I like the Regal, although their popcorn is not that good.

Sunday should be fun. We're getting nearer to the climax of Beyond the Mountains of Madness. My character was nearly eaten by a couple of shoggoths last week, all because the most-annoying leader of the expedition, Captain James Starkweather, the Great White Hunter and general all around incompetent prick, had to shoot a giant albino penguin down in the bowels of the city of the Elder Things. Ignoring my pleas to leave (I could hear the distant 'Teke-li-li!'), he started to truss up the penguin, no doubt so he could have it stuffed and mounted. When the shoggoth showed up, he fortunately went temporarily mad and ran out of, rather than deeper into the caverns. Despite being much faster, I couldn't very well leave him behind no matter how much I wanted to (okay, I could, but there are those vows to protect humans from Cthulhoids), and in process, got trapped between two of the creatures, but my companions showed up in time and we exploded one with concentrated use of essence to power the Elder Sign through our swords. Yay for me--my character didn't die because of that idiot. Now the question is where Starkweather has run off to, since we are on oxygen, and whether the shoggoths will start coming up to the surface and attack the camp. This so isn't good--but it is fun. We're at a point in the game that the Lovecraft story on which this was based, 'At the Mountains of Madness', is encouraged by the writers to be read, so I'm doing that now.

Oh, by the way, I finished The Somnambulist. I enjoyed the style quite a bit, it was a good mystery, although the ending was not quite satisfying and more than just a little fantastical and well, bad. Oh, and all the descriptions and reviews that I've read keep calling it a Victorian setting, when it's Edwardian--the Queen was dead, long live the King and all that. Ah, history is not the friend of some.

Well, it's 5 am--I should head back to bed; I had an hour's sleep earlier, but I need more. Thanks for letting me ramble. Good night.

PS One last thing...I know this post is pretty long, and this is going to make it longer, but I thought this was an interesting short film set to Loreena McKennitt's 'The Mask and the Mirror' made by Mirrormask. Judging from the tags, the person is influenced by Neil Gaiman, particularly The Sandman, and certainly the visuals show that is the case.

My precious...(sorry, wrong series)

I have a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, courtesy of the Tates Creek Kroger, which was selling them tonight at 40% off. I have not opened it yet, but even though I have to get up in five hours I may have to read the first chapter at least. There is something wonderful about completing a series of books in your collection. I am very excited about reading it, but I want to savour it rather than run right through it, especially as it is the last.

I also went to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix tonight. I enjoyed it immensely. I thought it flowed better than the others, for one, rather than getting bogged down like some of the other films did. They handled Sirius' death a little different from the book, which I found interesting. The Weasley twins' farewell to Hogwarts was different than I imagined, but still fun. And despite not being quite toad-like enough, Imelda Staunton was excellent as Dolores Umbridge--perky, insane, and evil all at once. And speaking of madness, Helena Bonham Carter was perfect for Bellatrix Lestrange. Evanna Lynch was perfect as Luna Lovegood, too. Whoever did the casting did an excellent job.

The other day I mentioned a trailer for The Golden Compass. I'd also been shown one for Stardust, which looks interesting--and certainly it looks like Michelle Pfeiffer steals the show. It was on the trailer reel tonight, too. Here it is:



It's based off a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, so hopefully it will be quite good.

There's also my favourite fantasy series of all coming to the big screen--no, believe it or not, it's not the Harry Potter books, but rather Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series. Here's the trailer that I suppose is supposed to appeal more to modern kids (the original sequence was set in the 70s):



A second one has more emphasis on the fantasy aspects, I suppose.

Obviously there has been some mucking about with the story. Will is supposed to be English, for one thing. This Will Stanton is not. I'll reserve judgement, but I rather unsure of how I'll react to the changes they've made. Still, it's worth a look.

Today was nice, full of Harry Potter and tofu goodness. Strange thing of the day: appaerntly someone has sent me a not-so-subtle hint by signing me up for a subscription to Glamor magazine. I thought I had someone else's mail at first, but lo, it had my name on it. Despite the fact that I rarely put product in my hair I have a secret fondness for makeup tips and the like (I subscribed to Seventeen as a teenager, for example), so I'm okay with it. But I wish I knew who gave me the subscription. Weird.

Well, I have four-and-a-half hours now to sleep, and a chapter of Harry Potter to peek at. Good night.