Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 286

Dead Snow

I'd heard a lot of great things about this movie, so when a group of us gathered to watch it last night, my hopes were high.

Alas, the film did not live up to them.

The box certainly made it look promising: A Norwegian Nazi zombie movie with plenty of action and gore. The movie began in classic fashion: lone woman in the woods being chased and losing to the shadows we assumed would later prove to be zombies. One problem surfaced right away, however: the shadows were fast, wicked fast.

I h...

The final cover for Jump Gate Twist

Publisher Toni kindly gave me permission to show its image here. I think it looks awesome. See for yourself. Click on it for a bigger view.



Nifty, eh?

This sucker is going to be one big omnitrade paperback: almost two inches thick with 723 pages. I'm looking forward to holding one.

Naturally, I hope lots of readers are, too.

Another concert

Tonight was the last concert of the year for Scott's orchestra, so of course I was there. He was sufficiently tired of all the songs that he wasn't excited by the show. I, on the other hand, know almost nothing about classical music and so was looking forward to it. Plus, the last song was one I do know, a non-classical piece: "I've Got Rhythm." It was as fun as I'd expected it to be.

What struck me most, however, was Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. I wouldn't recognize it if it were...

The Losers

This past Friday night, we kicked off the summer of violent-team movies by checking out The Losers. Of the quartet of such films on offer this year (The Expendables, The A Team, and Takers being the others), this one appeared from the trailers to be the weakest, but ever since the first time I saw The Dirty Dozen as a kid, I've been a sucker for such movies.

Overall, I enjoyed it enough that its obvious stupidities didn't bother me most of the time. (Did they have to make the bad guy wear one...

Frightened Rabbit

Sunday night, I went with Sarah and a friend of hers to see Frightened Rabbit play at a local club. I didn't know a lot about their music, but the songs I'd heard were all good, and Sarah recommended the group. I now recommend them, too. The show was very good, with great energy and the band being amazingly nice to those drunken members of the audience who felt they had to contribute to the entertainment.

These guys are Scottish, however, so even though the mix was pretty good for a club, I...

Damn

A very long time ago, I knew a young woman--younger than I am, but not as much as a decade younger--who was a fireball of emotion and action. Never stopping, always full of energy and huge plans, ready to break down or laugh wildly at a moment's notice, she was smart and strange in good ways. She set out to travel the world, and she did. She could never quite find happiness for long, though, and over the years she became more troubled than I knew. She dropped by and visited with some of u...

Classical music and kid concerts

I have no musical training. I can't read music. I didn't grow up playing an instrument, and though I own a guitar and tried for a brief time to learn to play it, I never really could. I know next to nothing about classical music; I've always listened to and deeply loved rock. I don't have any vocabulary or training that lets me know the meaning of the instruments coming into a piece at certain points, how to tell when the orchestra is doing particularly well, and so on. I am ignorant of ...

What would you think?

Ticia sent me the URL to this great article about dogs parachuting into Afghanistan. When I responded with the first thing that came to my mind, she said only I would think of it. I don't agree. I figure everyone would think the way I did, but perhaps not. Let's put her theory to the test.

What I wondered was whether you could feed the dogs a lot of food, give them tons of water to drink, and then train them to poop and pee on the enemy as they glided to earth.

The idea is an obvious one....

The Motorized Hot Dog Throne of Doom

Enough folks have bugged me about this reference that I'm finally going to relent and explain it.

One night at World Fantasy Con in San Jose, four of us--Griffin, Ticia, Jennie, and I--were holding down a corner of the lovely and huge lobby bar area. We were all very, very tired, and at least one of us was drinking, though not excessively. I believe I had just finished doing the Liars Panel and so was buzzed from performing.

In other words, the area was ripe with potential for silliness.

W...

Why wait?

Jennie sent me this picture with a note that this could be me in 30 years.

My thinking is simple: Why wait? Get me that hat, and I'm heading to Wal*Mart right now!

Even better, imagine me in this hat on the motorized hot dog throne of doom. Wow, I'm getting shivers.