MJ85

Womp womp womp...

Good news: The Lions beat the Dolphins today. Bad news: They'll be spending the next two weeks traveling to quite possibly the two best teams in the league right now.

They seem like they'd be the kind of "upstanding citizens" who'd find any kind of reason to do that sort of thing, football or otherwise.

I'm still wondering how the Saints managed to blow that game against the Lions last week. Or for that matter, how the Lions managed to more-or-less repeat that kind of win against the Falcons today. Speaking of whom, not-so-Hotlanta managed to repeat the, erm...feat, that Tennessee did a few weeks ago: Going into halftime with a good lead only to not score a single point the rest of the game, and lose by a single point. Watching this Patriots game today is nothing short of hilarious. Then switch it to CBS for the Seahawks and Panthers and it's almost like...score? What score?

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

I'm incredibly stunned by this news. He struck me as a real fighter when it came to battling this, so to suddenly hear that he's passed...I can't believe it. R.I.P.

Hoping you had a happy birthday, Mister Mann...and then some.

Also, a funny story: Mann and I were just talking about this last week regarding one of the characters who will be seen in Priest and Pariahs. I might bring this up later once the story starts publishing, but right now that would be telling.

How often do the wine and the writing mix?

Prior to signing on as Mann's editor I hadn't really read much sci-fi either. With this story, he definitely laid the foundation for a story-verse that both fans and non-fans of sci-fi can enjoy. And I can definitely vouch that the third installment of the Santa Claus tales will continue the fun.

LOL. A quick YouTube search for the film itself reveals four links that match the length or a bit longer on just the first search page. Initial thought is that they...probably shouldn't still be there? But if there's that many all up, methinks it must not be a high priority to have them pulled.

True. I'm talking about "gay movies" coming a bit more often though, and/or coming from bigger studios. Incidentally - I've yet to see Brokeback, and I honestly don't care if I never do. I'd only begun to accept myself (that I was gay, that is) for a couple of weeks before its theater release and hadn't come out to anyone else yet. I probably could have still snuck in to see it then if I really wanted to...except that I'd also spoiled its story for myself, and really didn't want to go see a movie with a gay story that was going to end in tragedy.

I would think a more "traditional, Hollywood" film would be more prone to having to fit its plot into a certain time limit than an indie film would be. Oddly enough, this is a perfect example of a film that could otherwise be left as is (flaws notwithstanding) and still work as a mainstream Hollywood film when gay films are finally able to come out of Hollywood more often (though shouldn't this be happening already? ).

Much as I do like what was put into this movie and the potential it had...it strikes me as too short. At only 88 minutes, I can't help but feel like it really could have benefited from an extra half hour to flesh the plot out a little better. I also really didn't like how all of a sudden around the 60-minute mark (about the two-thirds point of the movie, really), Zach suddenly gets ambushed with first his sister's initial bad reaction to his and Shaun's budding relationship, then Gabe gets on his case because somehow he just knows what's going on and how dare Zach keep it from him? It's like either they had something even better going with the film initially, then suddenly realized their own time constraint, or parts of it that were going to be there got left on the cutting room floor. Either way, it makes the later part of the movie feel rushed. Still, for the original plot and for the really fantastic pairing , I'd give this no less than an 8 out of 10.

You will be missed around these parts. Should you decide to take that stab at writing once again, I'm still here if you need someone to bounce ideas off of. Or someone to just BS about it with - that works too. In any case...take care of yourself, Joe.

Happy birthday!

What they said. Happy birthday!

Meh. I think I would've liked it better if the other It had just come right to his proverbial doorstep. Maybe if Barrington had expected Griffin to be there at the end of 9, but the other It turned out to be there instead. The delaying tactic just strikes me as clunky.

Meanwhile...the actual Damian from this movie comes out as actually gay.

OK now I really have no idea what the hell's going on...or even if this still makes any sense at all.

So......for giving us something that appears to make absolutely no sense and is a complete WTF, I'm afraid I can't hold up a promise to not smack you. I do feel like there's a couple of possibilities for where this is going, though, and not a one of them stands out ahead of the others...