Terms I Have Coined In 2008

Dudelady.

Sex Capitalist.

Pedophile Chic.

Hey Interwebs! It's My Un-Fake Birthday! And Maybe a Little Less Blasphemy...

So I am 24. Officially (As of roughly 9:35pm today).

I do feel a little more grown up, before you ask. I think that is solely a result of having received high quality pots and pans for my birthday and having been excited about it. No real growth there, or maybe it is more genuine growth than those "life changing moments" you hear about.

I'll leave it up to the philosophers.

Besides you come here for bad jokes and to listen to me call Princess Peach a bitch*.

All in all it has been a relaxing two days and I finished 2 and a half books, which is nothing to sneeze at. Nothing much else to say in a paragraph so here are some random thoughts presented in point form:

-It's just isn't Christmas without Scotch, beer, Bailey's, Rum, Wine, and Port. ~EDIT~ And also Mead...delicious delicious Mead... ~EDIT~

-I'm not an alcoholic. Shut Up!

-Snow continues to be awesome and also Vancouver Drivers continue to be hilarious in it.

-My English Grandpa on Irish women: "I thought Mum (my granny) was just Mum, but then I went to Ireland and they were all like that"

-Sleeping on an air mattress in the living takes a bit of the mystique out of the Christmas season.

-Rearranging the Nativity Scene so the Three Wise Men are stealing Baby Jesus and have replaced him with a lamb continues to be hilarious.

-Does getting a slight thrill out of reading The God Delusion in front of my Irish Granny make me a bad person?

And that is all,

Merry Christmas Everybody!

_________________________________________________________________

*Which she is.

Hey Internets! It's My Fake Birthday! Also Some Blasphemy!

photo courtesy of Alice K.

Also, for everyone who did not know, I have a beard now. Turns out it is hard to shave with a dislocated shoulder, so I just went with it. But on to the subject at hand:

My Fake Birthday.

It just so happens that I share a birthday with the Late Mr. Christ (or the day before his birthday, or the nowhere near his birthday because really it was spring blah blah blah) and so it is often the case that I don't get to celebrate the most historical birth in history (I'm talking about mine) with my friends.

People are always asking me if it sucks to have my birthday the day before Christmas. They often are asking this because they assume I get less presents. This is not the case. My swag intake has never suffered on account of my birth's proximity to the other major gift-giving holidays. No, it is often terrible for an entirely different reason.

I don't want to get all sappy here, but what sucks the most is that I often don't get to celebrate with my friends. Now, sometimes it has gotten to me and I have blamed my friends in my own quiet way but mostly I understand. I've never really gone out of my way to make a celebration happen, but then it has always been my way of thinking that planning and throwing a celebration of yourself is somehow boastful and wrong.

But this year it is my Champagne birthday. 24 at 24. Not everyone has a chance to celebrate such an event and I didn't really want to miss out. Thankfully, I did not have to take that step into the realm I didn't feel comfortable in entering as my friends have organized a Fake Birthday today. I'm five days shy of 24, but I'll enjoy the champagne all the same.

Basically what I'm saying is thanks Alice and Graeme for putting this together.

Regarding the Brothers Mario

As a child of the 80s there is one thing I love: Video Games. Not just the flashy 3D graphics to be found on the latest NextGen system, but the pixel-powered pleasures of the post-Atari days (check out that alliteration!). I'm talking Nintendo. I'm talking Nintendo Entertainment System. I'm talking NES. And most importantly I'm talking Mario Brothers¹.

Love and praise for everyone's most beloved Italian plumbers, there are a few things that just don't sit right with me when I take a trip down the green pipe to the land of talking mushrooms and flying turtles. Chief among these is Princess Peach. Now I know there are some Princess Peach apologists out there but I'm just going to come right out and say it, to hell with Political Correctness, Princess Peach is a bitch.

Now normally I'd say cue hate-mail, but in this case I don't think I am alone in this one. After years of finding out that "the princess is in another (fucking) castle,"² I think that my generation is quite frankly sick of her royal highness. I don't think i am the only one who feels like there should be an option to let the princess rescue her own goddamn self.

Not to mention that when you do finally end up rescuing her, after risking life and limb for the sake of love, what do you get? What is your reward? Cake. CAKE! Let me out this in perspective for you. You SINGLE HANDEDLY sack like 12 fucking castles and destroy an armada of Airships that fire living bullets at you and your reward is CAKE! You don't even get a kiss! That sailor who came home from World War II got a kiss and he didn't even know the girl, but you search out and rescue a girl who you are apparently in love with and all you get is some goddamn pastries. Furthermore, I don't even think I ever saw that cake.

The cake is a lie!

I rest my case.
______________________________________________________

¹ Seriously as if it wasn't hard enough for Luigi to escape his Mario's shadow but he had to have the guy's name follow him around as a last name. You fail Ma and Pa Mario.

² And who's side is Toad on really? Looks to me like he's acting as a decoy for Bowser. I think I just uncovered a major conspiracy in the mushroom kingdom here.

Of Cripples and Coffee Bets

or Day 13: The Bloggening

The left side of my body has made it almost 24 years without serious injury, though the pinky finger on my left hand might protest having been torn open by a falling basketball net at the tender age of 11. The right side, also known as the side I use most often, has not fared so luckily. Even most of the concussions I have received in my illustrious concussion career have been the result of a high speed impact of the right side of my skull and some ill remembered solid object. For my time-challenged Web 2.0 lifestyle readers here is a handy list of right-side injuries:

1. Effed-Up (that's the technical term) Knee.
2. Concussions 2 through 5 and 7
3. Broken Wrist (Never properly healed on account of a self-diagnoses that it was a sprain that would totally heal in 2 to 6 weeks)
4. Actually Sprained Wrist
and
5. Dislocated Shoulder on account of saving actresses and totally being a hero.

Thanks to number 5 I have been riding the Worker's Compensation Train for the better part of the 4th Quarter of 2008. The time off has allowed me a lot of time. Time is good. Time also tends to lose all meaning when you have no reference point to base it on. That is beside the point, however, and I don't want to spin wildly off the non-existent topic of this post. We'll both figure it out by the end I promise.*

But before you do, SIDE NOTE: Quintin Tarantino has terrible grammar.

Back on topic, I have had a lot of free time that needed to be filled up with stuff. Stuff. Obviously new friends have been a great source of stuff. And having a roommate on sick leave from his job for the entirety did hurt. But onto the Stuff...

I bought half an XBOX, the other half was a lovely Christmas gift, but it isn't important. The why is important and the why is Girls. Girls have played a large part in the Stuff (Caffeine hasn't but we'll get to that in a moment). Let me put this into a Scenario starring the cast of "House":

WILSON: I just think it is a bit creepy to bring a girl back here on the grounds of wanting to watch a movie and then saying, "Oops we don't have a DVD player, we'll have to watch it on my computer... in my room... on my bed..."

HOUSE: (Witty, Snide, Cutting Remark)

Of course, Time had already lost all meaning at this point and so nothing happened. The days past, I forgot to bring my wallet to a lunch, there were Star Wars quotes, and I sacrificed a copy of "Gattaca" (after almost buying a VHS of "The Third Wheel" starring Ben Affleck for 2 dollars) to my ageing VCR. More pressingly, WILSON was planning on bringing CUDDY over to watch a movie. We simply needed a DVD player so I bought an Xbox. Girls.

SIDE NOTE: Wilson and Cuddy never watched that DVD, but House did kick ass at Mass Effect.

Because I Promised

I told you we would get to the coffee issue, and rightly seeing as it is in the title, and here we are. I'm done with coffee. And Caffeine. And any sort of Pop (I know, "but what about your last name Hur Hur Hur." I secretly hate you...). It started as a simple agreement to better ourselves between A friend and I, we'll call him Jordan because, well, that's his name (and the House metaphor kind of fell apart way back when I had Wilson and Cuddy on a date and House trying to help). He would go without Porn and I would go without Coke.

Of course saying "it started out as dot dot dot" generally means it didn't end up that way. One man's agreement is another man's bet.

"What's it for? How do you win? What's the prize"
"Self-Improvement. You don't. Seriously it's not a bet."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"But..."
"I'm in"

And so my No-Coke agreement became a No-Pop bet became a No-Caffeine Competition. With everyone else swearing off porn. Johnny and the German were the first to fall. The rest of us sit uneasily on Day 13. It's almost over (the day not the bet) and I will be able to lay that lucky 14th strike on the board, but my hands still tremble with withdrawal as I do so, but I don't intend to lose. I'm nothing if not competitive and stubborn.

related SIDE-NOTE: I recently learnt that Chocolate contains caffeine... "thanks" Alice...
______________________________________________________________

*Okay so I was wrong, I still don't know the point of this post and you are probably more confused than I am. But hey, at last it was funny in parts right? right?

Fake Twitter

@Cody @AliceK, I seem to be gathering blogging friends so I should probably start blogging again.

A Note on Top Fives (with a bullet)

I've spent the better portion of my adult life affiliated in some way or another with the industry known so often as "The Industry". Film. Granted I've only really been an adult for four years but technicalities aren't really important here. What is important is a phenomenon that seems more prevalent amongst my peers than any other social circle I have belonged to¹:

The Top Five.
The Dreaded Top Five.
The "I can't pick just five" Top Five
The All-Time Desert Island Top FIVE.

It's an interesting social tool in a world where what you like is oftentimes more important than any other character trait you might possess. Exceptionally honest and possessed of high moral fibre? Too bad, you put White Chicks at number two. I mean, no friendships have ever been lost on account of a top five choice, we're not that cruel, but certainly some friendships that could have been were not based these numbered lists of opinions. Granted these sorts of things can be overcome, but it's a lot easier to make friends in this weird little world, and it is it's own world, if you like the same movies.

It might seem like an awful thing to do, but we do keep the judging largely to ourselves. If you aren't a filmmaker or good friends with a filmmaker (in which case their tastes are expected to have rubbed off) then we don't really care. Your opinion doesn't really matter to the majority of us. In fact to them² you trying to list a top five is almost cute, like a cat pooping in a toilet. It's a dickish and elitist mindset, but it is our nature. We're all critics at heart (we judge ourselves worst if that is any consolation).

Sorry. I apologize for having judged everyone with a DVD collection I've ever met.

Now get over it.

A side effect of all this judging is our inability to choose "just 5" of whatever it is. Usually this indecision is most common when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, The All-Time Desert Island Top Five Films, though it pops its shiny head into any and all top 5 discussions. I personally find it quite amusing that the people who spend the most time thinking about these lists are the people most afraid of being asked to make one. It is a hard thing to do knowing that you will be judged severely for a "wrong" choice. Usually the only way to wrangle a Top 5 out of a film-person is to drop the disclaimer "Only for now, subject to change, and come on dude we're only talking favourites not what you think is best!³" and even then...you'll probably have to give an answer too. Nobody jumps off a bridge unless their friends do it too.

The thought process behind The All-Time Desert Island Top 5 can be broken down like this:

1) This is easiest. Many of my peers might disagree. They might throw out a "How can I really pick just one movie?" This question is bullshit. Picking one favourite movie is the easiest thing in the world. Most people have already done it, subconsciously, and anyone who says they can't pick just one is a liar and probably trying to make themselves out to be someone who has seen too many good movies to choose from and not someone who owns the Karate Kid box set and owner of a Miagi Dojo headband.

2) Number two is a little harder than number one. If you have a number one that you are ashamed of (though you shouldn't be ashamed of your favourite movie) then number two is where you will be trying to make up for it with a more respectable choice. Otherwise this spot is reserved for the film that was almost your number one but then wasn't.

3) The second hardest of them all. This is where you really need to start thinking. Number Three is where you will be rounding out your tastes. Number Three is perhaps the most representative of your tastes on a whole. You need to pick something unlike One and Two so as to really show that you have broad and diverse tastes. You don't want to fuck this up because in a Top 5 really only the top 3 matter, the rest is flavour.

4) Four is easy. Four is the throwaway. You still need to pick something you like (bad choices can still count against), but there is no pressure since anything you forget can always go in number Five. Go with something quirky or a cult favourite to separate yourself from the pack. Go for the funny choice (sometimes a getting a laugh for a choice is better than picking a movie other people actually agree with).

5) The hardest of them all,. This might seem odd because, as I said, only the Top 3 really matter but this is the spot that takes the most thought and is generally the most subject to change. This is because Number Five is the last chance you've got to fill in the blanks. You need to make sure you didn't miss anything and all of a sudden movies that should be sitting higher start coming at you like a hail of gunfire. Godfather. No wait I forgot Easy Rider. Shit. Do I have too many 70s movies? Ghostbusters! FUCK. It's Hell⁴.

There are other rules. I won't go into detail. Knowing too much about the process would taint it for you. Let me just say, god help you if anything younger than a year old is sitting in your top 2. A top 5 Number One needs to be aged like a fine wine, lest you be accused of just liking something because it is fresh in your mind (even if it is the best film ever made).

Now it wouldn't be fair to leave you without giving you my top five, so with all the above information in mind here we go:

The All-Time Desert Island Top 5 Favourite Films

1) Star Wars. The Original. Not Empire.

2) High Fidelity. (It might be that I am pretty much Rob Gordon, but I love this film despite its technical faults. Dave however will say that I am disqualified for this choice)

3) The Big Lebowski (It may not seem like a rounding out Number Three choice to pick a second comedy but what I am really doing here is picking the Coen Brothers)

4) Jurassic Park (Fun Fact: I was almost a paleontologist)

5) The Warriors (I was going to put Easy Rider because I felt my list was too young and too blockbustery but in reality it is The Warriors, with a bullet. In fact it should probably sit higher on this list but that is the indecisive nature of Top 5s)

Now get to judging.

And please feel free to share: I welcome the opportunity to pass my own judgement on everyone else's favourite cinematic experiences

_____________________________________________

¹ Except maybe music.
² And in the interest of owning my faults, I too have thought this way. I'm a jackass.
³ Though really we judge them as the opposite way.
⁴ Last week while talking Top 5's over beers I put The Dark Knight trailer at number 5, safely getting the laugh and avoiding having to make any real decision.

Ode To The Internets: World Wide Web Edition

It has been 2 years and 4 days since the last Ode to the Internets (or World Wide Web as I am calling it now) and I feel awful for ignoring my tribute to sites I love. So check this out:

NOT COT DOT

NotCot is a cool little haven of good design and just generally cool shit. One more reason why I love the World Wide Web (yes I am really going all the way with this one).

From The Desk of S.Popp

An Intro

First things first, I don't want to go into length about my absence or wax poetic about how I will post more in the future. Chances are I won't, anyways. So that is the last of that, now on to the real deal. The reason you came. Le Grande... "French word for blog".

Reading! Writing! 'Rithmatic?

I've been writing, not here obviously, but I've been writing none the less. If you know me then you are probably aware I have several "in development" projects that always seem to be in one state or another of incompleteness. well now we can add two more to that list.

The second idea (chronologically, but presented first to be mysterious and confusing) is temporarily titled The Dagda is a simple tale about a man who discovers that the Northern European mythologies are all true. I expect that the story will follow the structure of the Hero's Tale as most myth stories tend to do, but I'm not quite that far along. For now I am content to dream up images of Faerie Folk laughing in the woods around a Chilliwack dairy farm and Thor as a grizzled old barkeep who keeps a hammer under the bar to deal with unruly sorts.


The first and most advanced of these ideas is City of Glass (after the Douglas Coupland book). Set in Vancouver, it is intended to be an exploration of what it means to be our generation (I think we are on Y though in reality we are probably somewhere between X and Y). It is a project that I am working on with my writing partner Ron Richard, who will also act as the Director of Photography once we get to shooting.

I am posting these ideas on the World Wide Web (F the Internet 2.0, I'm kicking it old school) in hopes that it will keep me motivated to finish both these projects. So if you are reading this feel free to drop me a line and ask how things are-a-comin'. I'd more than welcome the support and I might even send you a page or two to read.

Speaking of reading, my rampage on the literary world continues. Though my voracity has not yet matched my record of 7 books in January, I am still going strong. In fact I just finish this less than 14 hours ago:


And I was pleasantly surprised. Mr. Faulks did a fairly decent job of emulating Ian Flemming's style without falling into the depths of imitation or parody. And hot of the tail of the new Quantum of Solace trailer I was definitely in the mood for a good dose of everyone's favorite womanizing super-spy. If you a Bond fan I heartily suggest you sneak a peek at this one.

"'Rithmatic?" you ask. No I'm not suddenly going back to school for "the Maths" (as they say in Jolly Ol' England) but rather I just wanted a humourous title. Having failed in that desire I shall endeavour to provide you with a suitable arithmetic problem: 2x+7x4 = 3y.

Please solve for "x". The first person to get the correct answer will receive 200 Reader Points (or some other suitably thing of negligible value).

Community Fails To Notice As Local Blogger Forgets To Update

More News at 11.

So my "real post to follow" never happened and now I can't even remember what I was going to write about.

BUT

yes, but, I will not let the lack of knowledge of what I had planned to write about slow me down. NAY SIR, I say to you, NAY SIR.

Instead as inspired by my recent pavement induced wounds I would like to impart unto you some nuggets of knowledge that I have acquired over the many injuries I have sustained. Come with me, dear reader, and let us explore the realms of accident prone-ness.... If that makes sense... or something.... TO THE LIST!!!

1. When falling, try not to fall on the knee you injured snowboarding already because that will "seriously wreck your shit", as the kids say.
Unless you like limping. If you like limping everywhere then by all means ignore this first piece of advice and be comfortable with the fact that you are a crazy hunchback who lives in a bell tower/mad scientists lab.

2. If you think that your wrist might be broken, do not wait 2-6 weeks to see if it gets better because "it might just be a sprain."
The odds might be in favour of a sprain but inconveniencing yourself for a few X-rays is probably better than having a doctor tell you three months later that "There are too many bones in the wrist to break it again and then cast it, I guess you'll just have to learn to put up with the pain."

3. Teachers don't accept a somewhat slurred "I'm a little concussed" as an excuse to show up to class and not do work.
They will tend to go on and on about a place called a "hospital" and how you should "go there." They may also point out that your eyebrow is caked with dried blood.

4. "I'll just go faster" is not always an acceptable solution when on a skateboard.
Sometimes it just means that you will fly just that little bit farther when your board decides that the edge of the sidewalk is a good place to stop moving.

5. If everyone around you is insisting you have a concussion and all you can do is mumble "no, no, I'm fine" and stare blankly at the mop in your hands and wonder why you picked it up then you probably have a concussion.
Seriously. You should really go to a hospital.

My Knees Hurt!

My knees got into a fight with the sidewalk and lost. Stupid knees.

Real post to follow.

(Royal) We Recommend.

Learning How to Cook
This is one of those immediately rewarding sort of things. Possible downside: you might be bad at it. Overwhelming upside: You get to eat tastier and healthier food than you would normally and also everyone will immediately consider you to be more impressive.

No Country For Old Men
My movie of the year. Honesty made me rethink how I could tell stories and make movies. Make sure you pay attention because this film won't hold your hand all the way through the story, cemented my belief that the Coens are geniuses.

A Nice Wool Overcoat
I know Hans will back me up on this one. They are warm and the thick wool will generally keep out most of what the weather can throw at you. Not recommended that you test that theory in a force 5 hurricane, but for Vancouver rain these are just the trick.

The War On Terror
Not the real war on terror that is slowly eroding the civil rights of our neighbours to the South, but rather a hilarious board game which is sort of like Risk. I prefer to play for maximum hilarity value by backstabbing, openly funding terrorism, and general being a right bastard (just like a real country) but you might find it equally enjoyable to play another way. Whatever your style this game has the goods.

The Wii
Funny name? Yes. Most fun I've had with a video game in ages? Also Yes. The system that made video games a party pastime deserves the praise it has received. Plus it is cheaper than the other two big consoles out there.

The Hollywood Stock Exchange
Buying fake stock in upcoming films and movie stars with fake money has never been so fun.

Letting Me Sign You Up To The HSX
If only because I get 100,000 fake dollars for doing so.

Kenny Vs. Spenny
I'll let the tag line do the talking on this one: Since the beginning of time mankind has been forced to compete for survival. This spirit of competition has reached a pinnacle in the relationship of two best friends who battle against each other. Why? Glory for the winner; humiliation for the loser. This IS Kenny VERSUS Spenny. If that didn't precede each show you would probably have no idea they are best friends (best friends don't usually fake a letter from the ministry of health saying you have AIDS to win a who's funniest competition).

Electric Organs
Or as I like to refer to mine: The Electric Fun Machine. Best if obtained for free, but generally awesome regardless of price. I can't even play it with any modicum of skill and I still have a blast.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Dr. Impossible is a mad scientist, and he really is going to take over the world this time. This book is a look into his mind. The style is one of sincerity and deadpan in the face of Battle-Blimps, Death Rays, and Faerie Warriors fighting side by side with caped superheroes. Hilarious and smart, not just recommended but highly recommended.

Yorkshire Pudding
Healthy? Doubtful. Delicious? Incredibly

There Will Be Blood
Second Best Movie of the Year. P.T. Anderson makes a movie that is reminiscent of Kubrik and Daniel Day Lewis gives a scorchingly good performance (though I think that applies to pretty much any one of his roles).

Asking Daniel Day Lewis if His Son is Alright
No he is not.

Dexter
This may very well be the best show on television. Its premise is unbeatable: A Serial Killer works for the Cops and Kills other Serial Killers. Michael C. Hall is brilliant in the title role. The opening credits alone are enough to keep me watching.

A Led Zeppelin Reunion Tour
Seriously, if you are reading this Robert Plant I will pay inordinate amounts of money to attend a Led Zeppelin concert. Especially since the Reunion Show was apparently amazing.

Neil Gaiman
Brilliant writer. He is on a different level than the rest of us. His stories can be stylish and sharp or playful and heartbreakingly beautiful. For every person that has a lack of imagination it seems this ex-Brit is picking up the slack. American Gods, Neverwhere, and Stardust (the movie or the book) are good places to start.

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
If Neil Gaiman were formed from pure evil he would take the shape of fellow British writer Warren Ellis. Creator of some of the most delightfully twisted and depraved comic books known to man he has branched out to novels with Crooked Little Vein. It starts with Godzilla Bukkake and grows more Fucked Up (pardon my French) from there, anything else would be giving the story away.

Winning Stuff
Makes free stuff better by attaching a false sense of achievement and an element of surprise to it. Highly Recommended (recent winnings include: A t-shirt and a DVD of The Great Escape).

Planet Earth
Not the giant ball of rock and water but rather the achingly beautiful documentary about the place we all live. You will see things that have never been witnessed by mankind until the film crews captured them on camera (sometimes after waiting for month upon months just to get a shot).

Using the Rock Hand Point as a Greeting
Discovered at my hometown pub this Christmas, it has become my new favourite way of letting friends know that they totally rock! So extend those index and pinky fingers in their direction and let your friends know how you feel.

Deciding Against Recommending That People Wear Joker Make-Up in Public.
Because it feels like now it would just be in bad taste, you know?

Chuck
Not the Best Show On Television, but secretly my favourite. It balances geek (done right! no less) and Spy-Fi nearly perfectly. Plus it had Rachel Bilson for two episodes as a girl who makes the perfect sandwich (which I prefer to believe is a talent she holds in real life and that one day I will marry the sandwich making starlet of my dreams) and grown men dressed as a dancing Sand Worms.

Watching Movies That Flopped
Sometimes they can be plain bad, but more often than not you will find a hidden gem or a failure so magnificent in scope and terribleness that it can't help but be good. Plus filmmakers in the making will learn valuable lessons such as don't invest 175 million dollars in a movie about a surly, pee-drinking, man-fish (points to whoever guesses the film first).

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
In this compilation of essays by Esquire writer Chuck Klosterman the American Soul is revealed through musings on The Real World and the age old rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Bitingly Witty and strangely insightful, a must for anyone who is way to invested in pop culture (like me).

Keys to the VIP
Aimless mysogeny at its best. Self-proclaimed pick-up artists compete in the game of games (ie picking up women in clubs) all while being made fun of by a panel of 4 men representing different areas of the male psyche. It's also the only game show I have ever watched that refused to hand out a prize based solely on the fact that the technical winner was a giant douchebag.

Cory Worthington
To quote Kellen, "That guy is a major Douchtackle." This is probably true but the Aussie teen, who threw a party that was so awesome ("Best Party Evah, So Far") it destroyed a neighborhood and repelled police (and he's throwing another in a couple of weeks), is kind of hilarious in his Bitchy-Newscaster-Out-Witting appearance on Australian TV. Plus his sunglasses are famous.

Not Having A Bird Hit Your Plane Before Take-Off
Serious "Class: Aves" what the Hell? Waiting in Airports at Christmas sucks balls.

The Mist
Surprisingly effective horror movie which focuses on the characters and not the effects. It also has the single most depressing ending ever. Prove me wrong.

Actually Reading Harry Potter
Though I hate to admit it these books aren't half bad, in fact they are down right decent. Though Snape is much much much less likable when played by my imagination instead of Alan Rickman.

Ending on a Happy Note
Stuff is awesome!

Out and About in Kitsilano

3:28am

Two old ladies in a grey Prius pull up alongside me as I walk to the 7-11 for a late-night keep-me-awake coffee. Apparently not from the area they need directions. Also apparently unable to fight their gambling addiction they ask where they can find the Casino.

It is not a normal December night.

Ber-Kewwww Goes the Laser Cannon

I honestly believe that if interstellar space travel was invented I would quite my job to become a space-pirate.

Does this make me a bad person? And more importantly who wants to be on my crew?

A Tale of Intrigue and Betrayal

The first time I saw the comics editor for the Gauntlet, the University of Calgary newspaper, there were a few things about her that stuck in my memory. These images have stayed there longer than her name, naturally, as I have always found pictures easier to remember than words. She was Asian and she had a mess of dreadlocks that were clearly her pride and joy. From her appearance I quickly deduced she was an arts major, probably specializing in drawing, but what I didn't expect, couldn't expect, from this comics editor was that she was completely humourless. Had she been at the initial Gauntlet staff meeting, the events of this tale might have never happened, but she didn't and they didn't either.

Devin and I were bright eyed and somewhat naive freshmen. I had yet to learn that Geology was all about finding oil on a map and he had yet to learn just how much math was required to be a comp sci major. We also had the misguided belief, fresh off a "bang-up" job as events coordinators on our student council, that extra-curricular activities were the place for us. That is how we came to join up with the Gauntlet. I could draw and together we made a decent writing team so naturally comics seemed like the right fit, not to mention with a full course load the least time commitment.

We, in our youthful naivety, were also convinced that we would be the greatest thing the comics page had ever seen. Surely with our combined genius and superior art could blow the pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, poorly drawn comics that adorned the back page out of the water. Of course our first mistake was probably that we didn't realize that maybe there was a reason that all the comics were the same. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and my foresight is legally blind so we went in pencils blazing, or at least slightly warm.

Comic-ing is a tricky business, especially at the get-go. You have to introduce your main characters, and at a once a week interval you have to do it pretty fast. So basically we had three panels to make our characters memorable. We chose three panels over the then popular, anime-inspired 4-panel layout because well we wanted to show that we didn't need to play to everyone's love of anime to be a success. We wanted to show that we were the rebellious new kids in town and so in our first comic we did what we thought would be edgy, but what any college student worth their salt knows is pretty much the college comic standard for first comics. We made fun of the paper publishing us. Except we were nerds, and thus secretly yearned for acceptance, so we included a disclaimer that was pro-Gauntlet and cleverly self-effacing.
Needless to say we hated it. But the deadline was closing in so we submitted it anyways and promised ourselves we would make up for it with the greatest second comic ever created. But before we could do that we would learn that the good folks at the gauntlet felt it necessary to change the font on our comic to a tiny and nearly unreadable version of comic sans.

At this point in my life I was still a dedicated science student, jacked up on caffeine and quantum theory, and hadn't developed my stern sense of artist integrity that I have today. No sir, all I cared about was that I had made the papers and was now a published illustrator. I mattered and nobody could tell me different. Devin and I were on the top of the world. Any day now, we were convinced, the fan mail would come pouring in.

Of course, the fan mail would have to wait because we still had the Greatest Ever Second Comic to create. This time we wouldn't have to introduce ourselves. This time we could show the readers what we really were. This time we could really be rebels. It was time for us to be lewd and crude and well, really that was it. We made a penis joke, I drew some skellingtons, and in our unique, daring, and trailblazing style we made fun of math.

We didn't want to alienate all of our fans however with this new and enterprising direction so we included another disclaimer under the pretence that we didn't want any feminazis (which TV assured us made up a bulk of the female student body) to hate us for the penis joke.

The mail man must have been so overwhelmed by all the fan-mail we were receiving because he was unable to deliver any of it. We decided to take a week break so that he would have a bit of a break. It also gave us the free time to get burgled.

Needless to say we weren't in the happiest state of mind when the deadline for our next comic came around. Much like Andre, Heather, and the rest of the Real World cast we decided to stop being polite and start being real. We brought our real world drama into our comic and addressed the burglary.
The comic was hastily drawn (which we apologized for in our now trademark disclaimer) and suffered from the constantly unreadable text and squished format. Coming off of our recent burglaring we had developed a strong sense that the world was against us. So we started to blame to people in charge for our lack of perceived success.

We delivered our final 3-panel comic, a fan-mail spoof with little fanfare and began to scheme how to improve the readability of our comic. We asked for a little more space and to be allowed to keep our original font to facilite an easier read. No dice. "We can't change the format of the page," they'd say. "We can't give you special treatment," we were told.

So we tried to take matters into our own hands. We switched to 4-panels instead of 3 because two panels of a four panel comic were given the same space as an entire 3 panel comic. We created the best drawn comic yet, with stronger lines and proper backgrounds. Even the writing was the best we'd done in weeks. It cleverly and self-deprecatingly spoke of our struggle to get more space. It poked fun at ourselves and, more importently, the Gauntlet.

The comic never ran.

I can only assume that our dreadlocked and humourless comics editor did not take kindly to the mild-mannered accusations levelled by our four-panelled effort. At first we thought maybe the email just got lost in the depths of the information superhighway (they were still calling it that back then) so we sent it again to no avail. After many attempts to find out why the comic had ceased running we decided that we needed to fight fire with fire.

We brought the fans into it, or at least we created a few fake accounts in the Gauntlet Forum and posed as angry fans who missed their weekly dose of Devin and Stu. Unfortunately we quickly discovered that the only people who read the forums were fake and created by us. We were finally defeated and swore that never again would we fall prey to the perils of extra curricular groups.

PROLOGUE

I stuck with the comic gig though and created a moderately successful, self-published superhero comic called The Masked Avenger. The small following of loyal fans (not to mention the money I made) helped to quell the disappointment of our original failure.

We briefly made an attempt to resurrect the original comic online, but it was too late. Devin and I were switching school and switching majors. There was no time for comics any more. The Masked Avenger ended after issue 5 (though it found a minor rebirth through the pen of Ian Urbanski) and Nerdism: The Website uploaded its last comic on Monday June 6, 2003.

If you want to invesigate further you can find some Masked Avenger comics online at http://stueypopp.deviantart.com or the online version of Nerdism at http://nerdism.comicgenesis.com/

Being Sick...

...Is fucking terrible.

Crosstalk: Books I Own That Might Actually Be Porn Films

5. Island of the Sequined Love Nun


Stu: Check out the bottom of the book cover. That there is a picture of a kidney surgery. I like to consider myself in touch with the likes and dislikes of the average Joe and I don't know anyone who has ever said "I saw this video of invasive surgery and it totally made me hard"

Also there is a bat, in broad daylight, which excludes the possibility of it turning into a sexy vampire. That leaves only one option: creepy rat with wings that gets caught in your hair and has breath that smells of rotting insects.

Plus the woman on the cover is PG-13 clothed and I don't know of any porn that doesn't feature at least 7 vaginas on the cover. Clearly the imagery on the cover of this Russian print of Island of the Sequined Love Nun belongs to something only the mind of an author could concoct.

Alternate Universe Stu: Island of the Sequined Love Nun? Come on. Clearly we aren't talking about the "Jesus Loves Us All" brand of brotherly love here. The woman in the red scrap of fabric definitely doesn't love you "like a friend." No Sir. It's definitely a title that belongs to the world of adult entertainment.

I imagine it plays out something like this: On a poorly constructed beach set there is a woman with low self esteem who happens to be dressed vaguely as a nun encounters an island tribe member who just happens to have a New York accent and access to hair products. She resists his advances at first (she is a nun after all) but quickly gives in because hey we're on the clock here. Cut to a surgeon and his nurse, working in some island hospital (which looks curiously like a beach house with a "surgery table" in it. They have just finished helping a patient and decide to try a little invasive procedure of their own. Later the doctor discovers the nun being ravaged by the slick-haired tribesman and chases him off. The nun repays him in the only way she know how and the nurse probably helps for no apparent reason.

4. Porno

Stu: Porn studios tend to like to present their work as something more than just porno. They will go to great lengths to say that their product is the latest innovation in real-time adult erotic visual entertainment when all they really mean is "It's Porn." but part of the porn game is pretend what you do isn't smut so you don't cry yourself to sleep at night, thus calling your product "Porno" is only possible if it isn't actually porno or else the illusion is broken. Verdict: Book

Alternate Universe Stu: Apparently Slutty Slut-filled Sluts who like Sluts 17 just wasn't clear enough as to what is contained within. This porn (and could it be anything else, the title really does prevent confusion here) is finally appealing to the lowest common denominator. Judging from the cover it probably features blow-up dolls, to each their own I suppose.

3. Monstrous Regiment

Stu: British Red Coats? More ridiculous than sexy. The only place I ever see British soldiers pop up is in long, boring dramatic films based on BOOKS and that one Mel Gibson movie where I learn that all British people are the Devil and we should attack them with axes or they with rape our houses and burn our wives down or something....I wasn't really paying attention.

Alternate Universe Stu: I will grant you that Red Coats do not traditionally equate with sexy. However, judging from the very bare lady legs peeking out on the bottom half of this cover I would hazard to guess that the uniforms don't stay on for long. Also Monstrous Regiment is clearly a metaphor which I won't get into other than to say I don't think any of the soldiers in this story will have much trouble filling their white trousers.

2. Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Stu: The porn world doesn't exactly like to be overt with the drug use that goes on and so I doubt they would feature a pill-popping anything on the cover of one of their products. Plus I honestly don't believe anybody in that industry would be able to tell you what melancholy means let alone be able to spell it (except Asia Carrera because she is a member of MENSA, apparently). Book, the end.

Alternate Universe Stu: Lust Lizard = penis, Cove = vajayjay.

1. The Bone Museum

Stu: I get that the word bone would have 5th graders and Beavis and Butthead fans everywhere fall into an endless loop of nervous giggling but this book is clearly about Dinosaurs. Good Ol' Dinosaurs safe in their musty books and forever safe from the slime-ridden tentacles of the porn ind-oh god! oh god my eyes! my virgin eyes!*

*please don't click these links. Seriously I accidentally stumbled upon them looking for an image for the Bone Museum section of this post and I almost clawed my eyes out. What was not destroyed of my childhood by Michael Bay' Transformers has now been beaten into a bloody lifeless pulp. Jurassic Park will never be watchable again.

A Manifesto of Sorts:

As mentioned earlier I have been challenged by one Mr. C. Sharpe to produce something for this blog. It is not like our previous challenges in which a competition was laid down between the two of us, rather it is a challenge to create something.

I share much of the sentiments that Cody expressed in his latest post. I love writing and all too often has it become a chore. Writing reports and hand-outs that contain no creative soul whatsoever is not something that brings me joy. That said writing in this blog often does. Sometimes I just need to write something down for the sake of writing and often it is utter nonsense as you can see by making a brief jaunt through the archives here at A Positive and Uplifting Message. I love to write and this is why I have chosen as my intended profession to be a writer for film/television and sometimes I need to write something where quality does not matter. That is what from this day forward I intend this blog to be. I hope you, the reader, will find what I post amusing or at least a little interesting if even for its utter absurdity.

I also intend to continue to use this blog to toss bits of visual art your way as well.

That was a short paragraph huh? Also, I would like to bring to your attention the law I set down for myself at the creation of this blog: Though Shalt Not Write About Thyself. Well screw that. I've decided I need a journal and it too will be here. I will try to keep the Livejournal Angst™ out of the journal of course because nobody likes an Emo.

Finally, as I always try to do, I will endeavor to inject my writing here and in the real world with as much of my own personality as possible (or "Popp-isms" as a friend recently mused) and probably some footnotes because footnotes are fun.

So while many may argue that this post lacked substance I say to thee, "Nay!" Consider it a manifesto of sorts. One that hopefully I will manage to follow. Cody I am looking at you to keep me honest and writing should I fall behind (I think at least a post a week should be considered "honest" in this case).*

I think Tom Robbins summed it all up when he wrote, "This sentence is made of wood."

Bon Soir et Bon Chance,

Stu Popp

*Should you so wish Cody I will try and keep you writing as well.

Fancy News for Fancy People

Check out the fancy new layout. I hope it meets the challenge set forth by Mr. Cody Sharpe.

Not Worth A Real Title

There will be real posts forthcoming. Until then enjoy this technological offshoot of the lolCat phenomenom I hate so very much.