i love the original nick...

-----Original Message-----
From: Wednesdayadams92@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 6:16 PM
To: stakk
Subject: I WANT A SHIRT!

i saw ur website and absolutly loved the t-shirt!!!! do have anymore that u r willing to give away? please e-mail me back as soon as u get this!!

thnx
~wednesday~

man, i've been killing the feature flicks so far this year... between yesterday and today i caught 3 films in the theater, including my first back to back viewing in years. years, i say! that was yesterday when i hooked up w/Kev & Sally for a viewing of Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids at the Renaissance in Highland Park. when we arrived i noticed that Bride & Prejudice had a showing only minutes after BiB was over so i suggested that we see that as well since we were there... and as i expected, my friends were game. sweet!

Zana Briski's Born Into Brothels was everything you've read about it (assuming you've read about it which you should) and 100% deserving of the Academy Award it won tonight for best documentary. well, i didn't see the other nominees but i'm still happy that BiB won b/c it is an extremely moving and poignant film. wasn't totally perfect (i thought some of the camera effects were pointless and just wasted screen time that could've been used more wisely) but otherwise it was a very good albeit tragic documentary.

in case you're not familiar with it, the movie documents children born to prostitutes in the Calcutta red light district. the filmmaker gave a group of children simple point & shoot cameras and began teaching them about photography. the kids would then hit the streets and their homes to capture their lives in static yet kinetic imagery. the children are wonderful but sadly trapped in these lives with little or no way out. the kids are cute, charming and quite touching w/each having their own unique personality and potential yet confined in this horrible place. definitely a worthy film to see... if nothing else it will sure as hell make you feel a lot better about your own life. Oscar or not, go see it.

Bride & Prejudice, which started about 10 minutes after we walked out of BiB, was the whole other side of the spectrum of living in India. omg, was it the polar opposite of the previous film, and possibly the best way to view this "westernized" Bollywood flick (directly after viewing the poverty and despair in Calcutta). i won't spend a lot of time on B&P other than to say that it too was totally entertaining but for completely different reasons, obviously. sure, Aishwarya Rai is a beautiful woman but her sister, Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar), was super hot. overall, it's a fun flick that also gets Naveen Andrews off the LOST island and back to speaking in his native British accent. not the best Bollywood film i've seen but still decent, humorous and a good viewing despite the wooden non-Indian actors.

after the movies, Sally had already prepared chicken curry which was the perfect way to top off the evening. it was especially nice to take in the day with them since they spent time in both areas of India where the movies were filmed. So besides picking up the tickets for movies despite my insistence on paying for at least one of the viewings, they also offered some insightful commentary from their experiences in India. as close to perfect of day as it gets.

this morning i popped up to catch Constantine over at Village 18, my regular mainstream movie haunt. Constantine wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews made it out to be and even as a slo-burn supernatural thriller adaptation of Ennis & Delano's Hellblazer comic; it kept pace rather well with nary a lull during its 2hr runtime. it won't go down as anything particularly memorable but i enjoyed it nonetheless.

3 movies down this weekend and the Oscars just wrapping up tonight, it's been quite the "movie" weekend without an official movie night. not bad. and hey, "Ryan" won best animated short. woohoo!

during my lunch break i went in for another 1.5hrs under the needle primarily to get the shading done. Tim still amazes me with the speed and intricacy of his work and yet he's so goddamn humble about it. anyways, here's a few snaps of today's session.

yep, my leg is back to that exquisite filleted feeling again. but at least it looks cool.

so today worked out nicely considering i called in sick right around the time i was due in the office. i wasn't sick so much as i was completely exhausted from not falling asleep until sometime during the 6 O'clock hour. i tried to sleep but it just wasn't doing...

before finally dozing off i had already determined there was a pretty good chance i was going to call in sick. i told myself that if i did i wouldn't waste the day entirely. fortunately i did not. after pulling myself awake and checking the absurd messages left from my office, i headed to Lincoln Park to take in an afternoon viewing of Sky Blue... and i'm so glad i was able to watch this on the big screen!

as the reviews declare Sky Blue is a gorgeous film. the CG and traditional cel animation meld together almost seamlessly (unlike Appleseed). Also despite the reviews panning the eco-futurist storyline it was actually pretty good and a helluva lot less convoluted Japanese anime. oh yeah, Sky Blue is a product of Korea if you didn't know. i'll definitely be snagging this DVD when it's released. it may even make a movie night appearance...

...outside of that i spent a leisurely day down on the northside 'nobbing around shopping and whatever. it was a delightful sick day indeed. i'm sure to enjoy more of these if things continue the way they are at the office. blah.

after rescheduling from last week i was finally able to get my sit down @Deluxe w/Tim for (the beginning of) my calf sleeve. Tim is an amazing artist besides being a great tattooer and i was confident he'd come up w/something pretty fucking cool based on the criteria i gave him (which was a tree with a Yamabushi Tengu hiding out). of course he did and so far the result has turned out better than i expected. click the images below to see the larger, detailed photos.
i head back in 3 weeks for another session to start the color application.

i don't often get requests for this specific t-shirt:

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Montano [mailto:choklit_cow@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 2:25 AM
Subject: Question about a LeShirt

Hey, I was wondering if there is anyway I could still purchase the "Motel 666 Welcomes Spooky Kids to Dayton" Reprint, Leshirt? I was unable to attend aswell and would'ev loved to have been there, so I honestly NEED this shirt, so please consider selling me one, but Thank You either way, please contact me back at this email adress, whether you can or not.

Thanks for your time

SINcerly, Mosh

see, i do get "normal" email too:

-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Bostic
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 2:43 PM
Subject: Beartooth mountains

Hi,
I saw some of your pictures from the Beartooth Mountains.
I am going to be in the Yellowstone area in late June 2005.
I was wondering if you would suggest a couple of day hikes in
the Beartooth Mountains.

Thank you,
Ray

the following gem showed up late last night in my work inbox. "id stab u?" clever.

-----Original Message-----
From: JaMeS marshall [mailto:id_stab_u @ yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 11:37 PM
Subject: t-trihs

dude fuck.......dude you still sell them manson shirts???fuck i want a couple goddamn tshirts.......email me back please regarding real nice shirts........

today another fan emails:

From: Alex Castillo
Subject: Loudness

Amigo mi nombre es Alex Castillo, soy de Guatemala, y tengo algunos albunes que eh comprado de este maravilloso grupo Loudness, unicamente tengo el Tunder y el devil soldier, pero quisiera tener todos los discos si es posible me gustaria saber si tu puedes darme copia de los mp3 que tengas de ellos preferiblemente si son los albunes completos aqui en guatemala es una mierda pq no hay muchos lugares a los cuales llegar y encontrar grupos de esta maravillosa calidad me gustaria saber como podriamos hacer para que me des copia aunque sea de unos cuantos albunes pq es un maravilloso grupo y me encantaria tenerlo en mi coleccion personal, pues soy rockero de corazon y colecciono musica no para venderla ni nada por el estilo sino para gozar de lo mejor de lo mejor, como loudness, gracias y espero poder allar en vos una respuesta a mis plegarias orale brother hasta pronto.

[loosely translated: Friend, my name is Alex Castle, I am of Guatemala, and I have some albums that I bought of this wonderful group Loudness. I only have "Thunder" and "Devil Soldier", but it wanted to have all discs if it is possible. I would like to know to me if you can give me copy of mp3 that you have preferably of them if they are albums complete. Here in Guatemala is shit. There are not many places to which to arrive and to find groups of this wonderful quality. I would like to know how to me like we should to do so that of copies to me although he is of a few albums. This is a wonderful group and enchanting to have it in my personal collection, then I am a rocker of the heart and I collect music does not stop to sell it nor nothing of the sort but to enjoy the best thing of the best thing, like Loudness. Thanks and I hope to be able to receive an answer to my spoken prayer to my brother very soon.]

i enjoy Apple riffing like the iProduct thing and this: The Apple Store Of The Future.

another fan emails me today:

From: antonio augusto cesar junior
Subject: Fantastic Musicians and Band

Good morning, Friends from Loudness Band, my name is
Antonio Augusto Cesar Junior, I live in Brazil, in the
middle of a jungle, the Amazon Forest, at State of
Pará, so if you take a look at the map, at north of
Brazil, Belém is the capital. So I´m sorry by bothering
you, but I love your sounds, the way you play your
musics, all the instruments very well played, that´s
because I love your musics very much, mainly
Progressive Rock, Pop Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal,
Punk, everything that means rock. Please, if you can do
me a favor, so this is important to me, you could send
to me a PROMO CD from your musics, the way you play
your songs is really fantastic, please, if you can do
this to me, so if you give me the permission to play
your songs in a FM Station here in my city, ok, if you
don´t give me the right to do it, believe me I won´t
play. I don´t lend my cd´s to anybody I keep them at
my bedroom, only to me hear them. I´m 41 years old, but
I love music,this is very important to me. I really
thank you if you can do this dream to become true, if
don´t, is a great pleasure to write an e-mail to a
great band. Thanks again and God blesses you in your
musician life. My address is Rua São Francisco 833.
Bairro Batista Campos, CEP 66023530. Belém Pará Brazil.

instead of choosing the obvious theater flick over the weekend, i went somewhat out of my way to attend a big screen viewing of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed, the loose remake of the '88 OVA. i can't really compare the two since it's been at least 5 years since i've seen the OVA and i remember dozing off while i was watching. anyways, this new and improved Appleseed, based on Shirow's (Ghost in the Shell/Intron Depot) manga, was indeed the visual treat the trailers would have you believe and definitely theater worthy...

and i won't bother stepping on the soap box about my disdain for CGI integration into traditional cell animation b/c i think this is the direction for most anime studios, in this case Digital Frontier, so there's no use bitching about it. besides Blue Submarine, i think the first time i recall CGI and cell merging in a feature presentation was in Metropolis. i didn't like it then and i don't care for it now. CGI has reached a point of realism that makes it appear as tho cartoon characters are running around interacting w/the real world a la Roger Rabbit. the latter example i can understand but for anime it's slightly jarring. ok, so i did toe the soap box. gomen nasai.

anyways, Appleseed The Movie was pretty cool albeit familiar - Shirow's future here poses machine-created man versus man, a twist on the man versus machine future - but i've come to accept that anime/manga future so it's no longer surprising to watch yet another iteration of it unfold on the big screen. Appleseed was a fun flick but nothing terribly deep or convoluted as Osamu Tezuka's work, which isn't a downside just an observation.

at the point when i thought Appleseed was headed down convolution road, it took an upturn towards mecha-ville, with high action laced between calmer spots of exposition. i was entertained thru-out and definitely recommend catching it on the big screen in your area (assuming it's playing in your area). it might not be quite as good on the small screen but probably decent enough - Appleseed is akin to one large PS2 cutscene (ANN gives it favorable ratings so far). the real downside for me was that it was presented w/the English dub! WTF?! it's in extremely limited release and they serve up the English dub?! very fucking annoying.

hot off the wire: "In limited release, Geneon Entertainment's Appleseed, an animé import featuring the kick-ass warrior heroine of a futuristic society, zapped in at 31 sites, averaged $2,539 for $78,718."

so yeah, i skipped Elektra even tho i did want to see it. i don't think my ticket would've mattered much since it tanked in a big way. i attribute that to the poor reviews and Garner's "illness" which left her off the pub-circuit leading up to the flick. i say "illness" b/c i wonder if she bailed on the promotion run after the initial reviews started trickling in? then again, Halle did go gangbusters pubbing Catwoman. i'll try to squeeze in Elektra next weekend along w/the Assault on Precinct 13 remake (that didn't need to be remade).

and since this is my first official post of 2005 there is some housekeeping in order... catching up, we like to say. year kicked off w/a better than usual new years spent @Ron's (Capt'n Satan) playing party games the whole fam while sipping the hard stuff. warm and cozy fun. then alotta bowl games w/kev of which only the Iowa and Michigan games were worth a hoot. then the semi-huge year-end news that my employer is being acquired by a rival company, one whom i hate, is followed in the first week of the new year with news of impending lay-offs. ah, wonderful. so that deal went down last week and we lost 3 - but none of mine.

thanks to a last minute save i was able to keep my dept intact and throw someone else in front of the bus. yeah. that sucks but like a mother wolf i gotta protect my cubs. fortunately the layoffs had hardly an impact and things are moving forward, hopefully in the right direction. doubtful but w/o hope we have nothing (yes, i am fervently watching the new Battlestar Galactica series). Happy New Year!

putting the "X" back in christ: the post-xmas wrap

for having the day off today it couldn't have be more unproductive. real smart on my part. of course not. for whatever reason i couldn't sleep last night despite being tired as all hell. normally this wouldn't have been any shocker 'cept that i did have the day off today so there was no "returning to work" anxiety. i was out of sorts all night last night and chalk it up to post-xmas blues.

that ain't to say that xmas was a high note because it wasn't. i just think the bum-rush leading up to the day builds up all the emotion and general anticipation then when it's finally over all the air is let out and i'm left kinda flat. that's how i describe yesterday: flat. i had expected a friend to visit and stay the night (for which i had originally requested today off) but that plan fizzled almost in the eleventh hour. i didn't really care but it sorta left me w/o a plan.

having fallen asleep somewhere between 6 and 7AM this morning i didn't pull myself up until almost 1PM when i split to catch the afternoon matinee of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; another excellent Wes Anderson flick so rich and satisfying that you never want it to end. i've been trying like hell to catch up on theater flicks lately since my entire November was blanked due to my car accident, vacation and move to the new apt. matter o'fact i've seen more theater movies in the last 2 weeks than i did in the previous 3 months combined.

5 flicks, for those counting at home including finally catching at late night viewing of The Incredibles, which was terrific as expected, and an xmas day showing of Flight of the Phoenix w/my dad (since The Aviator was soldout). that was watchable but nothing terribly special (we were really looking forward to seeing The Aviator both being Howard Hughes fans for different reasons). The Life Aquatic definitely made up for it tho but what was surprising was that a few people actually left the viewing about 20-25 minutes into it. my guess is that it wasn't the movie they thought it was going to be. certainly, if you're not wise to Wes Anderson and his brand of humor and movie making you probably won't get it. i could name a few of my family members that wouldn't get it. more than a few, actually.

speaking of, i expected to post a long diatribe about yet another dumpy and disappointing xmas at the homestead w/the fam but at this point, i no longer care. i went out of my way to arrange some nifty gifts to which i'm most happy about. i rec'd a lot of what i expected and didn't want. i plan to be more on my game this year and return the bulk of it thanks to collecting all the respective gift receipts. i would've preferred not to have gotten anything so i'm sorta treating it as tho i didn't get anything. easier to reconcile than just getting pissed off.

fortunately i picked up a few things i would've wanted for xmas that will keep me occupied for the time being. 'course i'm speaking of Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Killzone, both PS2 games that so far are proving to be entertaining. i'm also buying a new TV (gasp!) this week so the pattern continues (eg. surrounding myself in more material goods to make up for the lack of everything else in my life).

merry effing xmas, everyone!

after pleading w/my father via email to dissuade my mom from giving me more clothes for xmas that i will not wear, i rec'd this from him this morning:

> I am glad you are finally getting into Christmas. But, do prepared for
> some nice cloths that Mom picked for you. She goes all out for you
> because she feels that you are alone. I am sure you will enjoy what you
> receive.


(btw, i still have the neatly folded stack of sweaters and fleece pullovers from last year that i have yet to wear let alone look at. looks like another drop-off at goodwill)

it's hard to believe that the 2nd to last weekend of '04 has finally reached its end. and at times it seemed as tho i was squeezing every last drop from it. between the miserable, never-ending move from my old apt to my new digs i did manage to obtain a few moments of glee.

saturday evening found me w/kev for a viewing of Yimou Zhang's House of Flying Daggers, a flick almost as gorgeous as his Hero epic. i've had the DivX for months and the DVD only recently but i've held off home viewing in anticipation of the full-on theater experience. i'm glad i did... even tho i'd bill it as a martial arts chick-flick it was still excellent. too bad i didn't have a chick to enjoy it with. definitely one to catch in the theater first and i'm already looking forward to seeing it again (btw, Ziyi Zhang is just incredible with a major notch up in her acting abilities for sure).

today wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday... considering i was up until 2AM last night just cleaning the kitchen in my old place. talk about miserable. it was only around midnight when i discovered upon pulling out the crisper drawer in the fridge that some time ago soy sauce had spilled and pooled under the tray. this wouldn't have been so bad had this just happened. but since this must've occurred a long time ago, the soy sauce had crystallized and was practically *burnt* into the bottom of the fridge. real nice. after working on it for a while i honestly didn't think i'd be able to remove it but with much perseverance i managed to eliminate every last trace of that damned hardened soy sauce. it'll be a real long time before i ever have soy sauce again after smelling that stench for an hour.

anyways, today was much better w/the kitchen, bathroom, and the bedroom already completed. i moved out quite a bit of the remaining junk either to my new apt or the dumpster. now there's little left before i can finally be free of the place. i'll probably drink myself to sleep when it's officially over.

in a celebratory mood of sorts tonight, i split at 9PM sharp and headed to WorstBuy to pick up Call of Duty: Finest Hour for the PS2 - a game i've been wanting since i first saw the commercial. usually it's $50 as a hot new release but amazingly BB had it on sale for $30 (w/some other "hot" titles like THUG2) so i couldn't pass. even a used copy won't run at that price for several months. after a couple more quick stops to pick up some minor xmas gifts i made it into the 10PM viewing of Blade: Trinity w/10 minutes to spare! (god, i love late night shopping around the holidays - no traffic on the road or in the stores!)

unfortunately arriving 10min before showtime served no purpose other than getting the perfect seat. the fucktwats at the Randhurst AMC somehow had forgotten to queue up the flick so me and the small crowd of 16 or so sat there until a quarter past the hour until finally someone got up to tell them to start the fucking movie already. finally after the obligatory previews the movie got rolling at 10:31PM. thanks a lot, jerkholes!

i won't say too much about B:T other than i enjoyed it immensely and laughed out loud several times (during intended funny moments). i grinned at the wooden acting all around esp. at Kris Kristofferson who appeared to reading off a cuecard. after succumbing to the Schwarzenegger sad school of one-liners in the first 2 flicks of the "trilogy" the producers at least gave way to bona fide humor in this final installment w/the inclusion of Ryan Reynolds (of Van Wilder fame) and an all too brief appearance of Patton Oswalt (as well as a hilarious Pomeranian!).

besides the justified R-rating (for some reason i thought it was PG13 - glad i was wrong), i was also happy to see that Dominic Purcell ("John Doe" from the short-lived John Doe tv series) is getting work and here as the main baddie. and Parker Posey wasn't too bad as a mean vampire bitch either. sure, the flick plays out like a big screen comic book/mtv commercial/video game a la Resident Evil but isn't that what we expect from this franchise? i certainly did and only wish it were continuing w/Reynolds and Jessica Biel, who's so goddamn hot it's not funny. what's not to love about an ass-kicking hottie who also shows her emotional side?

they could start a new franchise, The Nightstalkers, and well... hey, i can dream, can't i?