On the write track...

This may be the only time during NaNoWriMo that this happens. Yesterday, on the first day of the event, I was actually ahead of my goal. To reach 50,000 words by the end of the month, I need to write 1,666 words a day.

I haven't worked on the story today; naturally since I'm off to a good start, I've gotten a cold.

But hey, 1,867 words; it's a start.

Halloween: The Aftermath

We took Brody trick-or-treating, and while there weren't as many people manning their doors when we went out as there were when I was a kid, he still nabbed a pretty decent haul. Check it out:


Yes, if you look closely, you'll see that young Brody managed to nab a full-size candy bar as part of his treasure.

Had there been actual other trick-or-treaters out there, we'd have done our part and told them about the cool house giving them away.

Oh, and he got Play-Doh, too. How cool was that? Let's ask Brody:


There you go.

Hey, it's Halloween already

Making funny horror movies isn't always an easy proposition.

In my days of renting nothing but horror flicks from the video stores, I fondly remember Rolfe Kanefsky's "There's Nothing Out There," which contained a lot of riffs on horror cliches that predated "Scream" by a good couple of years.

I thought it went a bit overboard near the end when a character uses a boom mike that he pulls from out of frame, but other than that, good times.

And back in the day (as the kids used to say back in the day), there was "Student Bodies," a full-blown horror spoof. Given how old I was when I saw it on video (or cable, I can't remember), just the scene where a dog farts for no reason was more than enough to keep me laughing.

On Nov. 7, Anchor Bay will offer up "Freak Out" from director Christian James. It's already won some awards, and it sounds like it will be fun:

Turning the great horror movie clichés on their severed ears, Freak Out opens like all great slasher films -- with a flashback of an incidental character. Young Cliff is being dropped off at school by his alcoholic mother, only to be tormented by his teacher and peers. Thirteen years later, Cliff escapes from a mental institution to find that the school that he vowed revenge on is no longer standing. Disappointed and with nowhere to go, Cliff wanders onto the doorstep of horror film addicts Merv and his best friend Onkey. With visions of slashers and maniacs and box-office grosses (oh my!) dancing in their heads, wannabe schlock kings Merv and Onkey fit Cliff with a potato sack on his head and cover his face with a hockey mask, transforming him into the ultimate homicidal filmaniac. Things soon take a turn for the worst after the killer “finds his groove,” dispatching shoppers and employees alike in a supermarket. With their Frankenstein officially out of control – killing everyone in sight -- Marv and Onkey start to have second thoughts. Can they stop their own creation or are they – and the town -- doomed?

The 2-disc set will also feature a host of extras and commentaries, so it looks like you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Tricks, treats, and deranged ninjas

I was talking to my brother the other day about Halloweens past, and I have to admit, I'm a little envious of my son because he gets to go trick-or-treating.

I'm going with him, of course, but now I'm a parent. I also get most of his loot, since he still doesn't like candy.

But there was something fun about going out with a bunch of your friends to go pillage entire neighborhoods. My friends and I were good kids -- let's face it, we weren't cool enough to be invited to the parties where there was underage drinking and egging trips. Every now and then we'd get a little carried away. Sugar rush and all, I guess.

One year we were heading to the next house on the block. This one appeared to have a corpse decorating the driveway, which I thought was a nice touch. We wondered if it was a full dummy or just a fake head and newspaper.

So one of my friends, who was dressed as a ninja -- let's call him "Fred" -- casually walked up to said corpse and gave it a light kick with his boot.

Fred was a pretty mild-mannered guy, so we were a bit surprised that he would do that. We were more surprised when the corpse got up and moaned, holding his hand up to his head.

"Owwwww," he said.

We assumed that Fred, a conscientious sort, would immediately apologize. Instead, he ignored that he kicked a kid in the head and just asked for some candy.

Still rubbing where he was kicked, the kid replied, "You don't need any candy, you fat bastard..."

I should mention that Fred was not, in fact, fat. His ninja attire was a little ill-fitting. But that comment must have made him mad, because he swiped my friend's cane (he was the Joker) and started waving it around like a lightsaber.

"Never underestimate the power of the force...," he said.

We tried to steer our Jedi ninja to the next house before the kid went to get his parents or something.

"Come on, Fred," I said, actually calling him Fred instead of his real name. "Let's go."

Another time, our group had heard about a bunch of high school kids who were going around beating the crap out of kids and stealing their candy. We didn't give it much thought until we were crossing a vacant lot.

We saw another group coming from the opposite direction. At that point, my flashlight (a Star Trek: The Next Generation phaser) died. As we got closer to the shadowy figures, we slowed down. So did they.

Finally we got close enough to see that the shadowy strangers were other guys from our class who thought that we were the candy snatchers.

Over my many (too many, to be honest) years of trick-or-treating, I found that there are certain types of candy-giver-outers. This may have changed these days, but I'd bet it's pretty much the same.

Optimist

You almost always encountered one house that, instead of dealing with freeloading kids ringing the doorbell every couple of minutes, decided to leave a large bowl of candy out on a folding chair with a note that said "Please take one." This always struck me as optimistic or lazy or both.

It wasn't uncommon to see these bowls empty except for any butterscotch disks and other dog-end candies. In a staggering display of semantics at work, some kids (not me, honest) would take the "one" in "Please take one" to mean one bowl of candy. We They were just following instructions.

Rockefeller

That house that's giving away regulation-sized Snickers and/or dollar bills. Easy to spot because they also offer unicorn rides and live at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes they are mistaken for the house farthest out of the neighborhood, causing trick-or-treaters to miss out on valuable candy-gathering time.

So I hear.

Weirdos

We always heard stories about them, and sometimes we'd swing by the hospital to get our candy X-rayed to make sure there were no needles in our candy, but among my friends, we never encountered any tainted candy, unless you count those random decades-old peanut-butter taffies.

Wishful thinkers

Some houses (often occupied by dentists or crunchy-granola types) would offer you a shiny apple (only in the early days, really) or boxes of raisins. These were impossible to trade for anything good and ended up either in the garbage, not wanting to get a razor-blade apple, or in the pantry where someone might end up taking them. You'd think dentists would see Halloween as an opportunity to drum up some more business and give out rock candy and Pixy Stix, but no. Sometimes, they'd even give out toothbrushes.

That qualified as a trick, I think.

Regulators

Some people -- and it's totally up to them, as they are giving out candy for free to kids they don't know -- have rules. Some folks won't give candy to people they think are too old to be trick-or-treating, which is a total bummer to bored teenagers who don't get invited to Halloween parties and have nothing else better to do. If said students are on the short side, all future costumes would involve full masks and strategic silence.

Others would tempt you with a cornucopia of candy and then tell you to only take one. Then you have to choose between the Bottle Caps or the Wacky Wafers. A dilemma, I assure you.

Angels in disguise

This didn't happen all that regularly to me, but one year my friends and I, on the tail end of our looting, went to one of the last houses on our list. It was pretty late, but the porchlight was on, which made it fair game. We waited for someone to answer and were about to leave when the lady opened the door, balancing a giant bowl of candy on her hip.

She'd just gotten back from dinner late and hadn't gotten a chance to give out the candy she'd bought. Since it was so late, she said -- this is true -- the three of us could divvy up the candy among the three of us. We thanked her profusely and split up the candy.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Unless you get to see a ninja kick a kid in the head. Good times.

Bridge School Benefit Concert: A Little Later The Next Day

I'm still not completely awake, but I'm close enough.

You know that scene in "Airplane!" when Rex Kramer and the other guy are driving to the airport and he hits a bicyclist who shouts at him as they drive on?

That's sort of what it was like riding on the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the amphitheatre, except we didn't hit him. The shuttle was packed full, standing room only, so when we got to the next shuttle stop, we kept going.

And boy, did he not like it. We all heard him call the driver an a-hole as we drove past. Someone said they heard a rock hit, but I missed that.

The funny part is that a) He was disproportionately pissed about not getting on the shuttle; and b) he got there before we did because we had to wait in a line of cars.

You could see the little daggers with dotted lines coming from his eyes as he walked toward the gate and saw the shuttle. We weren't sure if he was going to throw something or what.

We got to the gate, and after getting our bag and tickets checked, we were in.

Our seats were about in the middle; not back on the lawn, but not up front, either. I could see pretty well, but Jen had a little problem, given that most everyone in the venue older than 10 was taller than her.

One thing I should have brought -- a hat. Ten years ago, it wouldn't have mattered much, but you know, all that breakdancing and headspinning has taken its toll up there. Early on, Jen made a trip out to the vendors to see what was out there, and she picked up a hat and T-shirt for me.

It was a little warmer than I expected, but it got cooler as the show went on.

And the show was pretty sweet.

The lineup included Neil Young, Gillian Welch, Devendra Banhart, Death Cab for Cutie, Trent Reznor, Foo Fighters, Brian Wilson, Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band.

I'm sure I've mentioned I'm a huge Brian Wilson fan, and honestly, I never thought I'd have to chance to see him perform. But there he was up on the stage. He's not the most rambunctious stage presence, but he did smile several times. Brian and his band had one of the longest sets in the whole show.

They started with the vocal instrumental, "Our Prayer." It's always been a beautiful piece, but it has a special connection for me now. It was the first song we played at our son Harrison's funeral. I wasn't sure how I'd take it, but I got through it okay. Another high point was hearing one of my absolute favorite songs, "God Only Knows." Just that alone made the night awesome for me. Getting to spend it with my beautiful wife made it even that much better.

And the french fries we got -- awesome.

We almost missed Pearl Jam because of those fries. For some reason we thought Dave Matthews was up after Brian Wilson, so we weren't rushing to get back to our seats. Nothing against Dave; I just haven't had the time to get into his catalog. We were moseying back to where we were sitting, the lights dropped and there was Eddie Vedder up on stage.

After a short sprint, we got to our seats, where, unfortunately for my pint-sized partner, everyone was standing.

They did four songs, one of which was Jen's favorite, "Black." There was an empty seat at the end of the row, so I told her to sit there for the duration while the seat's occupant was out.

The show was longer than we'd expected, and given that we not only had to pick up our son from my parents' house but also had to work the next day, we had to leave before the end of the show. I would've liked to have stayed, but it would've been just too late. Maybe next year.

One of the things that was really neat was the positive vibe you got from the performers. I'm pretty much a stick in the mud, but I really enjoyed being there and being a part of the event, which was for a good cause.

Bridge School Benefit Concert: The Next Day

Hi, y'all...

As an early anniversary present to ourselves (a day early), Jen and I went to the Bridge School Benefit Concert yesterday.

In a word, awesome.

We were out late and I was up early, so I'm still trying to sort everything out in my head.

I'll be back to write more about it when words of more than one or two syllables come back into my brain.

I got to see Brian Wilson. W00t!

70s children, rejoice!

I heard about it a few days ago, but now there's more information out over on TVShowsonDVD.com.

Next month, Navarre Corporation's BCI is releasing a 4-disc box set of one of my favorite game shows, Match Game.

The set has 30 episodes, and according to the release, they are uncut, which I think is pretty cool. I doubt I've seen them without cuts since they originally aired -- and that means some of them I've never seen in their original form, as the show predates me by just a bit. There are also extra features, including an interview with Match Game regular Brett Somers.

I loved this show as a kid because -- among other reasons -- it just looked like they were having a bunch of fun. Watching the show now, I get even more jokes than I did when I was a worldly 7-year-old. Some of them, I'm surprised actually made it to air. It was like a grown-up version of Mad Libs, and the word "boobs" cropped up on the show almost as often it was by my friends and me.

You also never knew what was going to happen. If one of the props didn't work, all kinds of craziness would erupt. On one episode, host Gene Rayburn made a slip of the tongue when he tried to compliment a contestant on her pretty dimples.

It always struck me odd when either Brett Somers or Charles Nelson Reilly was missing from the panel. It just looked incomplete -- like Mount Rushmore without Washington.

The set is just under 35 clams, so those of you who have to buy a birthday present for your favorite pop-culture junkie within the next month are in luck.

That tastes super...

Getting kids to eat better is nothing new. It's just the trends well-meaning adults end up foisting upon the kids that change.

And if you were a kid in the 70s or early 80s (especially here in California), you probably encountered more than your fair share of carob, which all the grownups said tasted like chocolate but was better for you.

Suuuuuuure it did.

I mention this because I when I was unpacking some books, I came across my trusty DC Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook. The recipes inside were healthy alternatives to the usual kid fare, tarted up with cool pictures of the members of the Justice League of America.


Looking at it now, there are more than a few things that strike me as goofy.

For starters, there are an awful lot of recipes that call for wheat germ or (eek) carob. Still, though, I've made a few of the dishes -- mostly the Quick As a Flash Apple Crisp -- and they're not that bad.

But one will always be a sore spot for me.

The Mild Mannered Burger calls for you to slap your freshly cooked burger (which, yes, contains wheat germ) on a whole wheat bun. On the top bun, you put a couple of pickle slices and a bit of red pepper in the shape of a face with a few toothpicks like so:

And underneath this disguise, your super burger looks like this:


Unless you put the top bun on the burger and ruin the Superman insignia you spent forever and a day getting just right before you had a chance to show anyone.

Ah well.

This cookbook is a treasure because it offers at least one sentence never before uttered by anyone.


Okay, to be fair, it's from the recipe for Wonder Woman's Rocket Pops, which calls for both wheat germ and carob. Yum-O.


If you see this at a used book store, pick it up. Whether you try out Perry White's Great Caesar's Salad or Hawkman's Egg Birds, there's a bunch of fun stuff in there.

Feel free to substitute real chocolate in place of carob. I did.

Chi-chi-chi-chi-ha-ha-ha-ha...

Well, it's Friday the 13th, so to celebrate, I thought I'd dust off a gently used but completely related blog entry from a few months back.

Do you dare read my review of "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives"?

Muah-ha-ha-haaaaa.

The Write Stuff, 2006

It's almost time for National Novel Writing Month again. That means it's almost time for me to try to write something slightly longer than my average bad movie review.

The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. Last year, I got all the way up to a measly 6,428.

So if nothing else, I'd like to at least beat that total. The trick so far is coming up with something to write about. I don't want to try anything similar to what I did last year, because those stories tend to trip me up a little when it comes to things like progress.

I have a few ideas, but none are really spinning the old cheese wheel, if you know what I mean.

To some extent, I believe the old saw, "Write what you know." Now obviously, none of us have lived on another planet, but we can use our life experiences and imagination to extrapolate what it might be like.

The problem comes when you are slightly deficient in the life experience department, which happens if you are an exceptionally boring person who managed to avoid doing much of anything growing up.

I'm told.

More changes

In case you came to the blog this morning and it looked like something went kablooey, I was goofing around with template changes.

The old Siftin' graphic has returned, and we've got a nice color scheme suitable for autumn.

I'm sure you are all in a whirlwind of "I care" about it, but I figured I'd let you know.

As always, more pointless posts pending.

New (to me) Pez flavor

This just shows you how out of the loop I am.

At the grocery store yesterday, I passed the PEZ display and -- thanks to reflex -- scanned the racks for anything out of the ordinary. Having been caught by surprise by the resurrection of cherry Pez earlier this year, I want to try to stay on top of things.

I noticed a few rolls in some packs had an odd color. A closer look revealed that I was looking at raspberry Pez. Cool -- another new flavor.

It's pretty good -- the raspberry is strong (but not too much so) before you get hints of the sugary Pez base flavor.

So I thought I'd hit the Internet to see what was going on. It seems that raspberry is just as new as the cherry, and I had just managed to not encounter it all year long until now.

Go figure.

Can you tell I'm hungry?

Today, in lieu of actual content, it's Jeff's Cavalcade of Lamented Snacks.

Hostess Pudding Pies


I got a Safeway-brand vanilla pudding pie when I went shopping recently, just in case my beloved Hostess pies were hiding under an assumed name.

Nope.

Wacky Fruit Bubble Yum


If I had to put a name on which fruit was represented by Wacky Fruit, I'd have to say peach. Why call it Wacky Fruit? How many guys would go asking for peach gum?

Okay, besides me.

Pepsi-Free


Added this just so any youngsters reading this would understand that joke in "Back to the Future."

Cookie Crisp


I know they still have it, but they don't use Cookie Jarvis as the mascot anymore. It's a travesty.

Banana Frosted Flakes


Because we really need more banana cereals.

OJ's


I had this commercial when I taped the last season of the Superfriends -- until someone taped over it, even though I had labeled it clearly.

The cereal tasted like orange-flavored dog butt, anyhow.

What's the scenario?

I couldn't wait for it to be done. I only had a few minutes until it was time.

The steady chatter of my mom's sewing machine stopped, and she turned around in her chair to show me the project she'd been toiling over at my request.

"Here you go," she said, whirling it around.

Just in time. My Greatest American Hero cape was ready just as the familiar strains of the theme song came on our TV in the living room.

Yes, I was a nut for that show. Don't believe me? Check it out:


I loved the idea that a superhero could also be a klutz despite the powers. And I fully thought that Bill Maxwell was the coolest guy on TV. He was so cool, he'd even eat dog biscuits out of the box.

Ralph Hinkley was a high school teacher who, while out in the desert on a field trip, was given the suit by aliens to combat crime. Bill Maxwell was the tough FBI agent he met there.

Along with the occasional help from Ralph's girlfriend Pam Davidson, they took on all kinds of foes, from crooks trying to fix baseball games, to lonely spirits who just want to live again.

As a kid, I couldn't understand Ralph's reluctance to be a superhero. Just being able to fly (more or less) would've been worth it. Now I understand it a little more, though flying would still be pretty sweet.

I mention this because on the shelves today, you might spy The Greatest American Hero: The Complete Series box set.

Not only do you get all three seasons of the show, but it comes in a limited numbered tin with a full-size cape, an iron-on of the suit's emblem and (this is my favorite) an instruction manual replica with working lights. That is just plain cool, I say.

Even cooler for GAH fans, 200 of the sets -- at random -- will contain an autographed photo of William Katt, who played our hero Ralph Hinkley.

So if your favorite Greatest American Hero fan has, say, a birthday coming up in just over a month, this would be a make a cool gift.

Here's a clip to whet your appetite:

Nilsson news

I'm still looking forward to seeing "Who is Harry Nilsson... (And Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?" If it makes it out near me, I'm so there. You can also visit the film's MySpace page.

I also found out today about a project from Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger. It's called Nelson Sings Nilsson, and if you want to hear some tracks, check out the MySpace page here.

And don't forget -- later this month, The Walkmen are releasing a track-by-track cover of Nilsson's Pussy Cats album.

Cool beans.

Y'all listen to this

Go make your own tape here.

More bad movies on the way

I haven't forgotten about the old Bad Movies from A to Z list. I haven't had much time to watch movies lately, let alone to take notes. But I've got the next few lined up, and as soon as I get around to viewing them, I'll add the reviews.

Someone asked if "Plan Nine From Outer Space" was going to be on the list. After lots of thought and consideration, I decided not to add it to the lineup.

Why?

To start, while Plan Nine is not a great movie, I've seen much worse. Ed Wood might not have had much in the talent department, but God bless him, he loved movies -- even if he couldn't make a good one.

Also, everybody picks on Plan Nine when they talk about bad movies. I honestly don't know that I would have anything new to add.

Plus, I already have a P movie picked out, and I don't think I've ever seen a review of it. Of course, this being the Internet, I'm sure someone will find it and chastise me.

Super-fiends

File this under "I really shouldn't have laughed that hard..."

Do something, Fruit Pie the Magician!

Here we see my pal, Fruit Pie the Magician in action. Clearly, not his finest moment.

Voodoo Moon

There are certain actors whose work I almost always enjoy. Consequently, I'll often watch things based solely on the appearance of one of those actors.

So when I found out that Jeffrey Combs will be in the upcoming release from Anchor Bay, "Voodoo Moon," it got my attention. Heck, I caught an episode of "CSI" the other day with him in it. His first listed credit on IMDB is a small part in "Honky Tonk Freeway," a movie from 1981 that I remember solely because a little kid (Peter Billingsley of "A Christmas Story" fame) pees on the side of the road, which I found supremely funny at the time. I should add that I was about 6 or 7 at the time.

Anyhow, here's the synopsis from the press release:

Twenty years ago, a demonic massacre in a sleepy Southern town left two young siblings as the lone survivors. But for adult Cole (Eric Mabius) and his younger sister Heather (Charisma Carpenter), an obsession with their parents' satanic slaughter has lasted a lifetime. Now through Cole's psychic connection with a group that includes an outlaw biker (John Amos, "The West Wing," "Die Hard 2: Die Harder"), a traumatized cop (Jeffrey Combs, "Re-Animator") and a mysterious healer (Dee Wallace , "Cujo" and "The Howling"), vengeance is about to take a very unholy turn. Tonight they will all be brought together in a place where depraved secrets are exposed, legions of the damned are unleashed, and the final battle between Good and Evil will be fought beneath the Voodoo Moon…

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like." That's exactly how I feel about the movies I watch.