Jeff Strand's Blog, page 88

In The Mood

Right now I’m in the mood for a nice, long, hard…….nap!!! (LOL! What did you THINK I was going to say???)

No, seriously…what did you think I was going to say?

I mean, can’t I just post about wanting to take a nap without people making it into something filthy? I find it a bit offensive you thought, if only for a second, that I was going to use my blog to share inappropriate details. I would never do that. That’s not what this blog is about. Do you really think so little of me?

I have spent years posting nothing but classy things on this blog, but for what purpose? As soon as I use the frickin’ word “long” I’m getting accused of turning this place into a festival of smut. I mean, if you want to go read your Fifty Shades of Grey, that’s fine, have fun, more power to you, but if you can’t keep your brain from corrupting a perfectly innocent little blog post about how I’m kind of sleepy, we have problems.

I guess now I have to watch every word that I post so that you mud-minded pervos don’t get the wrong idea. I hope that each and every one of you feel the weight of shame upon your shoulders like forty-pound sandbags. Disgraceful. Simply disgraceful.

And what about the people who skim everything on the internet and possibly quit reading before I clarified the subject matter I was discussing? Now they think that I post this kind of stuff with no consideration for who might be in the audience. Great. This day just keeps getting worse and worse.

I’m going to end this post with a frowny face. Hopefully you’ll be considerate enough to read through to the end and not just instantly assume that I’m going to post a colon.

(UPDATE: I didn’t realize that WordPress was going to turn my frowny face into an actual frowny face. The colon reference doesn’t work as well in that context. Oh well.)

How DARE He???

I’m all in favor of free discourse on my website, but sometimes people leave comments that are so offensive that my eyeballs literally glow red with rage. (Or maybe they don’t. I can’t see my own eyeballs and I don’t rush to a mirror when it happens.) Yesterday I posted that I would be a) eating hot dogs, and b) drinking peach Snapple, a perfectly delightful thing to share that received the following comment from a beast named Muriel:

“While, as you know, I usually worship the ground you walk on, I can’t condone this. Hot Dogs are bad, seriously bad, and peach snapple is just unconscionable. How could you?

I’m flabbergasted by the notion that someone whose writing style I enjoy could have a taste in foods that differs significantly from my own, and I will have to think about how this influences my opinion of your literary talent.”

Okay, so Muriel doesn’t like hot dogs. Fair enough. Delicious as they might be, hot dogs aren’t exactly made from the best parts of the raccoon, and I can understand his hesitation to gobble them down. But to call peach Snapple “unconscionable” crosses the line.

To be fair, maybe Muriel doesn’t like peach flavor. Maybe he loves lemon or raspberry Snapple…but I don’t think so. I think he was dissing ALL of Snapple, a universally beloved beverage made from the best stuff on earth.

This is unacceptable.

I will not tolerate those who disrespect Snapple on my website. This is a drink that brings nothing but joy to the world. Smiling faces and happy tummies. I’m going to grant Muriel the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe a neighborhood kid hit him in the head with a bottle of Snapple when he was a wee lad, causing his irrational hatred of the fluid, but really, the only way I will ever truly forgive him is if he posts a picture of himself enjoying a cool refreshing Snapple.

Otherwise, we have nothing more to say to each other.

How DARE She???

I’m all in favor of free discourse on my website, but sometimes people leave comments that are so offensive that my eyeballs literally glow red with rage. (Or maybe they don’t. I can’t see my own eyeballs and I don’t rush to a mirror when it happens.) Yesterday I posted that I would be a) eating hot dogs, and b) drinking peach Snapple, a perfectly delightful thing to share that received the following comment from a beast named Muriel:

“While, as you know, I usually worship the ground you walk on, I can’t condone this. Hot Dogs are bad, seriously bad, and peach snapple is just unconscionable. How could you?

I’m flabbergasted by the notion that someone whose writing style I enjoy could have a taste in foods that differs significantly from my own, and I will have to think about how this influences my opinion of your literary talent.”

Okay, so Muriel doesn’t like hot dogs. Fair enough. Delicious as they might be, hot dogs aren’t exactly made from the best parts of the raccoon, and I can understand her hesitation to gobble them down. But to call peach Snapple “unconscionable” crosses the line. 

To be fair, maybe Muriel doesn’t like peach flavor. Maybe she loves lemon or raspberry Snapple…but I don’t think so. I think she was dissing ALL of Snapple, a universally beloved beverage made from the best stuff on earth. 

This is unacceptable.

I will not tolerate those who disrespect Snapple on my website. This is a drink that brings nothing but joy to the world. Smiling faces and happy tummies. I’m going to grant Muriel the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe a neighborhood kid hit her in the head with a bottle of Snapple when she was a wee lass, causing her irrational hatred of the fluid, but really, the only way I will ever truly forgive her is if she posts a picture of herself enjoying a cool refreshing Snapple. 

Otherwise, we have nothing more to say to each other.

Beware, Random Animal Parts!

I am going to eat an ALARMING number of hot dogs today, cooked over an open flame, and also drink an ALARMING amount of peach Snapple, properly refrigerated!!! Woo-hoo! Party! Party! Party!

(Okay, I’m just kidding. I’m going to eat a reasonable number of hot dogs. But they’re going to be goooooooooood.)

 

Warm Bodies

Last night I saw an advance screening of WARM BODIES, a zombie love story.

GUY BEHIND ME BEFORE MOVIE STARTED: This is a scary zombie movie, right?

GIRL WITH HIM: No, it’s a love story.

GUY: Are you KIDDING me?!? Why didn’t we go see ZERO DARK THIRTY?!?

It’s a fun little movie. Lots of small laughs throughout, and the zombie love story is actually kind of charming. You’d think that the zombie/human love story would be the hardest part to get right; oddly enough, the film does that well but botches almost everything else.

The zombie behavior (even within the context of a story where the zombies “get better”) is wildly inconsistent. They can’t make up their mind if these are slow zombies or fast zombies, how much they recall from their previous lives, if they detect humans by the way they smell, or how much physical strength they have. Since it’s based on a book (which I haven’t read) I would’ve thought they’d have worked this stuff out.

You can feel the studio executives hanging out on set saying “Remember, our audience is 14-year-old girls!” The guy who plays the main zombie does a great job, but–one surprising early moment aside–the filmmakers hedge their bets and make sure he’s never TOO much like a zombie. We don’t want the audience to think he’s less than hawt. His best zombie friend (the most obnoxious guy from HOT TUB TIME MACHINE) is one of the least zombie-esque zombies ever captured on film. Whispering your lines does not make you a zombie.

The central conflict isn’t that big of a conflict, the “skeletons” (zombies who have regressed to the point of no return) are completely non-threatening, and despite the wit and charm, the script feels like a first draft.

So…it’s a deeply flawed movie that I enjoyed. Because the movie is so blatantly catering to the TWILIGHT crowd (to the point of casting actors who look like Edward and Bella) I would guess that most horror fans will hate it, but it’s worth checking out at matinee prices.

Editing My Feelings

Round #1 of edits on my next Young Adult novel, I Have A Bad Feeling About This, are complete. I had to cut a fake blurb from JK Rowling and a really gross part about hot dogs. If I’m ever in England and I see JK just hanging out somewhere, and she’s not having dinner with her family or doing anything where it would be rude to come up and talk to her, I’ll read her the blurb and ask if she would have sued me. I think she will chuckle with her charming accent and say “Why, no, love, of course not; here, have a biscuit,” but I don’t know that for sure, so I accepted my editor’s decision to cut it with only moderate weeping. 

THE SHINING CODE

So I’m watching this documentary on YouTube called THE SHINING CODE, which presents theories about how Stanley Kubrick filled THE SHINING with hidden messages confessing that he faked the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Some of the theories presented here are rather clever. Some of them are pushing it. And some are like a desperate college professor trying to convince his students that a poem is filled with symbolism. (During a shot of the massacred twins, there are three lights in the background. Those lights represent the three astronauts who died in Apollo 1!!!)

None of it convinces me that Kubrick or anybody faked the moon landing…but my dad works for NASA, so I could be in on the whole thing…

(Also, Kubrick coded hidden messages into EYES WIDE SHUT, confessing that he was kind of a perv.)

Splatterpunk Issue #2

Do you long for the glory days of ‘zines? 

Well, too freaking bad, because those days are long gone and they’re never coming back! Live in the now! It’s 2013, you old codger!

That said…there are those who are honoring the spirit of the ‘zine by making ‘zines. One of these is a UK publication called Splatterpunk, which has just published its second issue, containing a brand-new story by me called “Fair Trade.” Get one! 

http://splatterpunkzine.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/splatterpunk-zine-2-out-now/

Happy 2013!

Welcome to 2013! I realize that by most calendars, 2013 has been going on for almost two weeks, but I started the New Year with visiting relatives in town (which is good) and then the flu (which is less good), so it’s only now that I’m finally updating my website with my Favorites of 2012 list!

Disclaimer: I am not omniscient, so if YOUR favorite entertainments of 2012 are not on this list, it’s just because I didn’t consume them. We have the exact same taste, which is why you enjoy my books so much.

Here we go…

FAVORITE MOVIE: Django Unchained. I spent most of 2012 wavering between The Cabin in the Woods and The Raid: Redemption, but the last movie I saw of the year turned out to be my favorite. Quentin Tarantino’s best movie so far. 

FAVORITE BOOK: Very few of the books I read in 2012 were actually published in 2012, so it’s a pretty narrow field, but I loved the hell out of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Though I loved One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper almost as much. 

FAVORITE CD: Do you know how many CDs I bought this year? Two. This is because I am now one of those old people who doesn’t like contemporary music. Which means that this is a two-way race between Stephen Lynch’s Lion and Dar Williams’ In The Time of Gods. Do I give it to the filthy, hilarious, offensive lyrics, or the poetic ones? I’m going with the filth: Stephen Lynch.

FAVORITE TV SHOW: Survivor had one of its all-time best seasons in 2012, but the season before that (they do two a year) was below average. Breaking Bad, meanwhile, gets better and better every year. So: Breaking Bad.

FAVORITE VIDEO GAME: I don’t have time to play video games, unless you count Words With Friends. I wish I did. I want to discover for myself why Portal 2 is so awesome. But I shall never know……………………

I promise that my Favorites of 2013 List will not take until January 12, 2014. 

Dead Clown Barbecue!

Yes, the collector’s editions of my new book, a 90,000-word short story collection called DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE, are now available for pre-order from the fine folks at Dark Regions Press. There will be a super-duper-ultra-deluxe hardcover limited edition, a deluxe hardcover edition, a trade paperback edition, and an e-book edition, so whether you’re a collector or a reader, your needs will be met.

(Note that there won’t be pre-orders for the e-book edition, and I don’t THINK there’ll be pre-orders for the trade paperback–although you can include a discounted copy with your hardcover order. Those editions aren’t going to sell out, unless you buy up every amount on digital storage space on the Internet.) 

Head on over to http://www.darkregions.com/books/dead-clown-barbecue-by-jeff-strand and get your copy of the hardcover editions before everybody else gobbles them up!