Dylan Charles's Blog, page 2

Ranked

Hello,

One of the things I noticed while I was researching Moonraker‘s standings with Bond fans is that there a million best of lists for James Bond movies and they’re all garbage.

All of them.

There is no consistency where what movies lay where on the rankings. Oh sure, you’ll see From Russia With Love, Casino Royale and The Spy Who Loved Me hovering near the top consistently, but it’s a wild shot in the dark to see what movies are actually the best and which are actually the worst.

There ar...

Made to Order

Hello,

I don’t cook that often.

My obsessiveness leads me to constantly rework the same thing over and over and over again until I’m finally happy with the finished product and then I will continue to make that thing and nothing else to the end of my days.

I have a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that is exactly where I want it. The spread is perfect. The chewiness is where it needs to be.

They. Are. Perfect.

Same with the gin martini. I have all the ingredients. I have the ratios. I have i...

Raked Over the Coals: In Defense of Moonraker

Hello,

[image error]I want to talk about Moonraker. Not the book. The movie. The criminally underrated movie.

On most lists ranking Bond movies, lists by the way that are all shockingly wrong, Moonraker is usually toward the bottom, sometimes below such objectively awful entries like Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again.

I just watched Moonraker for the first time, have, in fact, been avoiding it due to the reputation it has an I’m livid that I waited this long to watch it.

Full disclosure: Roge...

Soundtrack

Hello,

Music and I have an iffy relationship at best. I’ve never been the kind of person who sits and just…listens to music. The idea of doing that doesn’t even really make sense to me, although I’m aware that my attention span requires a very specific set of circumstances to keep me in my seat.

Most of the time, music for me is background. It’s just there if I need a certain amount of distraction to keep me focused on my writing or cleaning or whatever. If I’m writing a western story, I like...

Walking Around

Hello,

I do a lot of walking, mostly by choice.

It’s become my go-to when I have something I want to mull over, when I don’t want to think, when I just want to space out time.

Because walking doesn’t eat up miles. It takes time. What would take minutes by car now takes an hour.

Time seems to stretch out for me and there’s a space now between where I was and where I’m going.

Sometimes that space is vital, necessary, needed and walking is how I get it.

Also, writing this entry by Swyping is kil...

disconnected

Hello,

I lost the internet today.

I’m not exactly devastated by the loss, but it’s cramped my style, at least as far as blogging goes.

So, I’m going to apologize in advance for what’s going to be a tedious entry.

But, God as my witness, I hate writing on my phone. Texting, blogging, snapping: whatever it is, it puts my back up.

I’m not gong to pretend there’s anything deep or meaningful about this.

“It’s the confinement. My words don’t have the space to breathe. ”

Lord knows I’m never pompous...

Across the Pond

Hello,

I’ll be leaving the country soon and it will be the first time that I’ve done so since I’ve gotten here.

I’m excited about it, but I don’t think I’ve really processed it yet.

And to be clear, we’re going to London, so this is not as out there as we could possibly go. I think I’ll be able to pick up the language pretty quickly. I don’t think I’ll be able to repress my strong and constant desire to mimic accents, which is a problem here, at home. And if you don’t understand why that’s a...

By the Light of A Collapsing Star

Hello,

I want to talk about this article and everything that this article entails.

I’m not going to summarize it.

It’s required reading for this blog entry.

I genuinely and truly believe that humanity is advancing toward the light. We are progressing, as a whole, toward being better.

I am not looking for perfection or utopia or some platonic ideal of humanity, but I believe we will race ahead into the light.

But I do have my moments where I just look at what we’re doing and I wonder if we rea...

An Update

Hello,

It’s been seventeen days since I start to write continuously, both in this blog and off the blog and I don’t know how this is impacting me at this point.

On the one hand, I’ve written more in this short two weeks than I did in the last six months prior to starting this experiment.

And I feel that it has been generally of better quality.

Well, I don’t know about the blog.

The blog has been the hardest part of this, constantly trying to come up with something even new to talk about witho...

Neon Night Terrors

Hello,

I love 80’s horror.

Love it.

It is my favorite era of my favorite genre of movie.

I love the excess of 80’s horror. It’s big an it’s gory and it splatters and explodes across the screen.

It’s an enormous, backwoods madman in a hockey mask swinging a machete.

It’s a demon invading nightmares with knives for fingers.

It’s an antarctic expedition with dogs that erupt into tentacles.

It’s John Carpenter.

This is the time when horror lost its 1970’s addiction to grim and gritty and despair...