First, I find out that Captain Lou Albano passed away. Then I read about this strange cloud hovering over Moscow.
Are the two connected? Absolutely. How couldn't they be? What do they mean? Well, I'll tell you: an alien invasion is imminent. Either that or it's just a meaningless coincidence. But one can never be too prepared, right?
For those of us who don't remember or never knew of the Captain, he was a fixture in the WWF in the 80s and also appeared in the Super Mario Brothers Super Show, a strange hybrid of live action and cartoon. The best part of SMBSS was, once a week (usually Fridays), they would air an episode not about the Mario Bros, but about the continuing adventures of Link, our hero from The Legend of Zelda. On The Legend of Zelda TV show, Link divided his time by going toe-to-toe with the evil wizard Ganon and his minions and trying to score with the Princess, who just wouldn't give it up, no matter how great the heroic deeds he performed.
For more on Zelda, check out my previous post, The Greatest Video Game Ever Made.
Anyway, back to this invasion...
4 weeks ago
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33 comments:
Poor Link. If the Leever-vanquishing, ocarina-playing Link can't get any action, what hope is there for us regular guys?
She was such a prude and a tease even Captain Lou Albano wouldnt have gotten any from the princess.
Nate,
Seriously. Link may have been the first Renaissance man, and it just wasn't enough for Miss Hoity-Toity.
Let's not forget he rescued her a-- in...how many games is it now?
I'm not bitter or anything though.
v-word: andogre. Does that mean "man-ogre"?
Phil,
On the other hand, the Captain Lou Albano, a.k.a. Mario, did score from Princess Toadstool. Maybe our favorite plumber had a way with uptown girls.
Princess prudeness aside I am prepared for any alien invasion because I am fully stocked with plenty of head and shoulders the key to thwart any alien invasion.?.?.... if you know what I mean...
Phil,
Nice reference to one of the most underrated comedies of all time.
I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!! I believe I own it on both VHS and DVD and that's embarrassing. Oh well, now it is out there and there's no taking it back... other than the backspace button, but that's not how I roll.
Babs,
I believe there's an action figure somewhere in the house too...jk
I heard a silver shaped UFO was flying over Colorado yesterday. Maybe thats connected.
Maybe Governor Lewis should call the GOV in Colorodo to let them know how to thwart any pending attack.
Brian,
I can forgive you your cider escapades if you and your friend Nate give me a detailed complete idiot's guide to homebrewing - doses, equipment, tricks and all.
I'd like to try for the first time and I don't want to ruin it.
Ciao
v-word: furring
Adrian,
what's the deal with UFOs, Colorado, and you?
Phil,
Did you see the fake commercial they did, where the three guys are all promoting Selsun Blue?
Marco -
Here's the equipment I use to brew:
-a four-gallon pot
-two six-gallon, sealable buckets for fermenting
-fermentation lock for the fermenting buckets
-bottles with pop-off caps (twist-offs won't do)
Then obviously you'll need the ingredients. There's a homebrew store near where I live, so I can go there and buy pre-made packages, containing the ingredients and recipes to follow.
As for tricks, I've only brewed twice so far, so I'm by no means an expert. Nate's brewed more than me, so maybe he can weigh in.
Marco,
There are any number of websites or books that outline the process pretty clearly. Like baking, if you can follow a recipe, you can get pretty close to what it's supposed to be.
Beyond that, there are just three main things I'd recommend:
1) Use the best water you can. If it tastes really fresh and good as water, it'll make good beer. Run it through a carbon filter if you have to to make it as free of outside flavors as possible.
2) Sanitize EVERYTHING. Your stirring spoon, your racking equipment, your fermenting bucket. Bacteria can make a beer go pretty wonky - not dangerous, but just unpleasant to drink, and beer that's unpleasant to drink just defeats the whole purpose.
3) Be patient. Brewing takes a few weeks at the least, sometimes months. Satiate yourself with a commercial brew while you give your beer the proper time to ferment and age, depending on what type you're brewing.
Other than that, welcome to the club and good luck!
Thanks. I'll probably start in November when I have a bit more free time and in the meantime I'll prepare myself carefully.
Ciao
We shall all say we knew Marco before he became the Italian equivalent of Guinness.
Not exactly on any topic here, Brian, I was 'attending' an online writing conference last week, and one of the publishers represented was Lyrical Press. I won't exactly say I chatted with Renee Rocco, but we did have a couple of exchanges. I will just share the information here, for all your writerly fans, that she would really like to read some steampunk.
Sometimes the blogosphere is a small world, which actually really surprises me.
Seana,
Small world indeed. That's a funny coincidence.
I had to look up steampunk, because I really had no idea what it was. So, assuming others out there may have the same question, here's a wiki link.
That's an informative wikipedia article. I did already know what steampunk was, at least in a general way, but judging by the response in the chat, most people there did not know either.
What I'm really saying here, though, Brian, is that you should get cracking on one. You've got the in, you've got the clue, what else could you need?
Seana,
True, true. I guess the only thing missing here is a desire to write in that genre...
But hey, if there was a chance I could make enough money doing it to get out of this rat race, then maybe I should reconsider.
What else did you discuss in the online workshop?
Well, steampunk seems like a pretty wide genre actually, so I wouldn't entirely rule it out.
It's called The Muse On Line Writers Conference. It is led by this kind of superwoman named Lea Schizas, and she was actually the driving force in getting that anthology together that I shared with you awhile ago, Brian. I think I'm going to put up some info about this conference on one of my blogs for next year, as people can actually register for it now and take advantage of some of things that will be coming up in the meantime. It's totally free--though it's nice to donate, and though it's nice to be able to take some time off and 'attend' as I did this year, much of most meaningful stuff is set up as forums with threads, so you could do it in the off hours if you wanted.
I'd say it's got something for pretty much everyone. I was going to say it's more genre stuff than not, but actually there are lots of things represented, and there are a lot of technique workshops that would fit any genre.
The people who lead the workshops tend to be incredibly dedicated, which is a bit surprising, since it's all free--though of course donations are welcome. I expect the presenters actually get a bit of exposure for their own ventures is why they are willing to do it.
Each year it expands a bit more, and a thrilling thing for many was that they had a bunch of live pitch sessions for people to present their work. I don't know if I would have had the guts to do this, but my computer was in the shop for much of the up front prep time, so the issue didn't really arise.
Well, I could go on and on, but as to your actual question, this year I stumbled purely by chance into a workshop led by a woman named Chantelle Osman, whose workshop was called Knocking on Heavens Door and was all about getting your screenplay ready for Hollywood. I had screenplay that I had finished on some level, but had pretty much abandoned, so I decided to just use that. She got me and a handful of other people through the process of researching who and where to send it to, working out your tagline, logline, query letter and synopsis, and I was just so impressed with her encouragement and the way she would then come back with a few gentle suggestions on how to tweak it further. It was really kind of inspiring to me how well she broke the whole thing down into small steps each lesson, so that you didn't get totally overwhelmed.
The great thing for me was that I actually had to go back and look at the screenplay in order to write the synopsis, and I realized that it wasn't half bad. It needs a lot of work, but it deserves a bit more of a chance than just being left in some old file on my hard drive and forgotten.
Of course, I know you're going to have your hands pretty full come this time next year, Brian, but it never hurts to have these things in the back of your mind...
October is Steampunk month . You can see it by the "dot" and the airship near the logo.
Seana,
Sounds like it was very productive, especially on the screenplay front. I myself would like to know more about that. I just assume right now that the screenplay submission process parallels the manuscript submission process, but that's probably not true at all.
So what's this screenplay about? Care to share?
Marco,
Steampunk is a very interesting genre, as it seems to be a mishmash of several other genres.
No, it does parallel the manuscript submission process, but it's got its own forms and methods. I think for me just focussing on how to say what the script was about was valuable, and it does seem to turn out better if you have a good coach.
It's a chick flick basically. Here's the (provisional) log line, since I took the trouble to come up with it. Thanks for asking.
The handsome groundskeeper of a lush Santa Barbara villa must choose between keeping his own painful secret and drawing closer to the vivacious young woman whose family has just taken up residence.
It's categorized as 'romantic drama', but since I wrote it, it's funnier than that.
The handsome groundskeeper of a lush Santa Barbara villa must choose between keeping his own painful secret and drawing closer to the vivacious young woman whose family has just taken up residence.
I hope that painful secret refers to murders from his shady past that come back to haunt him in a downward spiral of violence.
Brian
My UFO experiences are a matter of public record.
However they were as good as this fine English police officer's just this week.
Marco, unfortunately,no--the influence of the company I keep here has not rubbed off to that extent. I don't really think you'd like it, unless we gave you deciding vote on who to cast as the male lead.
I think those crop circles are rather beautiful. I wonder why people never learn to keep their unauthenticatable experiences to to themselves though. Police force is probably pushing early retirement on the poor guy.
Seana
I feel sorry for the poor guy. I'm sure he saw something (just not aliens).
I used to think all UFO reporters were hoaxsters or liars or attention getters, but when the missus and I saw our big triangle that all changed.
I don't actually believe you. Unfortunately, UFO sightings have suffered a major setback with that UFO like balloon that took off across the landscape last week, supposedly with a child inside, which has turned out to be a major hoax, and using children as the hook no less.
I am not going to believe in aliens until one comes up to the register and says "I'd like to buy this book." And actually, that would not be enough. Nothing would be enough. Even if it were actually true.
Seana
Funnily enough the missus and I were talking about that incident in the backyard tonight. I'm about 99 percent convinced we saw a secret government aircraft that night in Denver. She thinks that that's too easy an explanation, but I dont know why an extra terrestrial craft would feel obliged to follow FAA regulations and carry running lights.
I think the guy saw something. And I'm sure you and your wife did. I don't actually think most UFO stories are by hoaxters. It just seems like something that if it happened to me, I would tend to keep to myself, or maybe mention to a few close friends, as it's not really something likely to be understood, except perhaps by some very fringey people. Who I definitely would not want to pal around with. Also, like you, I would tend to think it was explainable by some more ordinary situation.
Adrian,
Those UFOs are smart ones. They put those FAA compliant running lights on their ship to fool you.
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