"They mostly come at night...mostly"

As of early this morning, Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives is being featured on iFilm's front page. If you haven't checked it out yet, what are you waiting for??

Things are pretty slow around here. The weather's ridiculous, we have between one and two feet of snow on the ground and some pretty hefty icicles hanging around. I'm ready for summer. Cabin fever's a pain.

I've been writing a little bit lately, but nothing too intensive, just playing with some ideas.

Mostly, I've been doing my best to whittle down my Netflix queue a bit. I've watched quite a few movies lately, but almost none have left an impression. That's not to say they're bad, I've enjoyed watching them, but so many lack that "wow" factor and I end up forgetting what I watched within a few days. Though last night was good. I watched Aliens.

I'm sure I've seen the whole movie over the years, but in bits and pieces spread out over God knows how long. This was my first time watching it all at once. I saw the wow factor. The movie's just awesome. Period.
It ended up leaving me mad at current movies. With all the advanced technology out there, these aliens from 20 years ago look better than most of the creature effects we see today. And not only do they look amazing, but they're actually scary. Sure, CGI creatures can look great, but more often than not, it's blatantly obvious that they're CGI and that's a problem. It's so much more effective when the monster's actually tangible. Tell me the alien queen wasn't terrifying.
Movies need a resurgence of animatronic creatures.

My nerdiness is showing, I better quit while I'm ahead.

I'm Feeling It

It's been snowing like crazy here for the past week. Maybe longer. It had been a virtually snowless and very mild winter up until recently. I guess the Snow Miser was saving it up to just bombard us, the frost-bitten little creep.



As a result of the nasty weather, I've remained cooped up in the house and not too thrilled about it. I'm itching to get out and do something, but alas, there's not much to do around here. I'm going stir-crazy. As soon as the snow lets up, I need to go see Pan's Labyrinth. I've been waiting for ages to check it out and it's finally showing at the local theater, likely thanks to all of its Oscar nominations.

One fortunate byproduct of my cabin fever is that I've been feeling really creative these last few days. I've been writing (first time in a while) and I've done some computer art, or as I call them, cyber paintings. I'll post one or two of them as soon as I decide whether or not they're finished. On top of that, it looks as though I'm helping Larry and the guys out with a few seconds of animation for an upcoming short film. More on that as it progresses.

It feels nice to be productive.

Expect more cool news later today. Possibly tomorrow. Definitely sometime this week.

Good Day, Sunshine

Imagine, if you will, spending months on end sitting in a small place all by yourself. Your only human contact being with family and any friends willing to brave harsh elements and unfavorable conditions to come and visit. The internet and TV are your main windows to the outside world. It's not terrible at first, but after a few months, you begin to crack. You go stir crazy. This, my friends, is a little something I like to call a Cleveland winter.

Yesterday I, and the rest of northeastern Ohio, got just what was needed: an early taste of summer. A 70 degree day on March 30th, absolutely glorious.

I wheeled myself out into the sun and just let it soak in. I swear, I'm like Superman in that respect, I'm a solar battery. Let the sun shine down on me and it charges me up in a most unbelievable way. I'm almost instantly ready to go and you can't stop me until the wee hours in the morning. Unless it's a 90 degree sunny day, forget that.

So, after a minute, I decided to ride around the yard and test out my new chair to see how it handles driving in the grass. It's a bit bumpy, but nothing I can't handle. I darted up and down the street a bit, then my trusty sidekick and driver (or as I like to call her, Mom) was ready and we headed for the comic book shop.

Curse my weakness for the work of Alex Ross. I spent money I really shouldn't have spent on action figures based on painter Alex Ross' renditions of Superman, Bizarro, and The Flash. A bit expensive, but damn, they're cool looking.

Our next target was...Target. As we wandered past the DVD section, I heard the cries of a toddler who was either really really hungry or having a religious argument with his dear mommy. His screams were so passionate I couldn't quite make out the words, but I'm fairly sure he was yelling either "I want bacon!" or "I'm a Pagan!" Whichever it was, good luck to ya, kid. Now I'm hungry. Pagan bacon...mmm...
Anyway, I found a Wonder Woman figure I've been looking for for months. Score. Yeah, I have nerdish tendencies, shut up.

After a quick and uneventful sweep of Wal Mart, we dined at my personal favorite, Anthony's Family Restaurant. Great food, good prices, and cute waitresses. What's not to love?

About as full as we could get without actually exploding, we made our way home for American Idol, the only reality TV show I'll watch. Well, okay, I'm a sucker for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a show that actually does good things. Plus it's slightly amusing to predict at which point Mom's going to cry. For the record, it's usually about 1.5 seconds after "Bus driver, move that bus!" Back to Idol. As usual, they eliminated the wrong one in my opinion. Doesn't matter though, I think Bo's going all the way.

What a day, what a day. I top it off by sitting here in the wee hours of the morning typing all about it. I need more days like this. Sadly, they're already predicting more snow this weekend. It won't be long til summer's here, but it sure would be nice if it'd hurry up a bit.

-Jacob