fine whine

I just finished reading Gary (K?) Wolf's 1981 book Who censored Roger Rabbit?, which, I have to admit was quite good, if not almost completely different from the film we all loved (1988's Who framed Roger Rabbit?), which recently was re-released on dvd. It's a competent detective novel with one foot firmly rooted in the first-person tradition, and the other foot waaaay outside the lines in a cartoon limbo.

So anyway, I'm trying to track down a URL for the guy, and discover two surprising facts. First, there is (or was) a WFRR sequel in pretty serious development... and now it's in development hell, likely to never even see the light of day as a straight-to-video. Admittedly the gee-whiz aspect of cartoons and people together on the screen has lost a lot of its punch in these days of Jar-Jar Binks and his CGI ilk, but the ideas in the film and book were original enough to have given me second thought renting a sequel. The other fact concerns Disney's dealings with Mr. Wolf, as apparently in February it was decided that The Mouse could get away with screwing Gary out of his share of money from the film and its abundant merchandising. First they edited out the racier footage from the movie, and they tried to screw the guy out of his money? He created the characters and had the idea after all. Something doesn't quite smell right with the whole thing.

Oh, and if anybody wants to see the unedited version (complete with Baby Herman 'fingering' a very surprised dame), drop by some time and watch it on my laserdisc player. Old technology *does* have its uses, apparently.

So what is it that keeps me awake at night? Is it my grand schemes? There's always another page, or chapter, or book that I can read. I have a movie backlog probably around a hundred, spread over my laserdiscs, DVDs and tapes off of TV.

There's always the Great American Novel I should start writing. I could be writing code for this website. I have links that I need to blog for ketchup so that I can stay caught up. Emails that have been typed in my head over and over won't get sent 'til I input and submit them. There are people I ought to write to, messages I should have sent months or years ago.

I've got conversations that I could rehearse in my head even more exhaustively. I could call people up, wake them and converse. My resume and the help wanted pages almost cry out loud to me. As to my dirty dishes, though they cry out in a non-verbal fashion detected more by the nose than the ears.

I wrote a poem somewhat about this once...

It's easier on TV

It's easier on TV
the hero smiles
no worries about taxes
or mortgage payments
or missed appointments
or airplanes crashing
or broccoli in his teeth
or feet in his mouth
or starving children

or dying relatives
or rush hour traffic
or noisy appliances
or paperwork due yesterday
or bumps in the night
or bumps in the road
or flat tires
or dirty laundry
or hour wages

or paper cuts
or alarms slept through
or obligations forgotten
or performance declines
or oil changes
or oil prices changing
or stubbed toes
or burnt toast
or stuffy nose

or worries in his head
when he goes to bed
the TV hero sleeps
soundly; I am no hero

(You can find this and more of my cheesy poetry here).

So, is it too much stuff on my mind? Or is it just too stuffy and I have to pee?

So let's hit the ground running. Let me tell you about myself: I work for a big clothes company, but without using my expensive degree; I drive a midsize sedan and really dislike SUVs and everything they represent; I'm married and I wash all the dishes but none of the clothes; I have a Dreamcast but want a PS2, and I watch a whole lot of movies and read even more books.

Speaking of SUVs, today one lumbered out in front of me at a good half the speed limit, drove half a block and then sloooowly turned left through a red light that had just changed from yellow. I use the word 'lumbered' as the vehicle in question was the massive Toyota Sequoia, which is very aptly named. As for its tortoise pace, I am baffled as it amply proclaims a V8 engine on the rear (and I'm sure elsewhere as well), which is easily twice my car's motor.

What's the point of all the extra text on cars, anyway? The driver/buyer presumably knows what features the vehicle has, and the rest of us shouldn't care. How many tons of plastic and metal plating are wasted every year just so everybody knows that Mr. Jones has not just any Camry, but a Camry LE, I wonder.

Putting ketchup together (and keeping it up-to-date, so far) was as just fun as I'd thought... and different. My self-imposed rules dictated a distant and impersonal but just slightly colloquial style, meaning I didn't want to use too many "Me"s and "My"s and no "You"s at all.

While this writing style works for a catalog of bookmarks, it tends to limit the contents of the blog. I've had my 'hot thots' page for a long time, but that evolved (and plateau-ed) into a list of pseudo profundities and 'Confucius-say'-caliber comments. Again, not quite the forum for a diary-ish entry.

So, since I've already got a smokin' copy of Movable Type installed, I thought I'd just throw up a new blog for observations and rants. And to be clever, I named it "fine whine", obviously a pun—of sorts. Of course the couple is usually wine and cheese, but to be creative I'm going with 'ketchup' and 'fine whine'.

All of this rambling surely makes no sense to you. And did I mention I hardly ever use ketchup? And even more rarely drink wine?

But I've got a lot of bookmarks to go through to catch up, and even more whining that I can do.