Sol Crafter's Blog, page 27

Bunch of crapples in my coffee… or something like it. Excerpt of "Ersatz" included. Pls enjoy.

Silly stuff: Is there some way I can be known as "Harper Kingsley, God MC" without knowing how to do anything? *~* Listening to "Conquest" by the White Stripes. I realize that it's practically prehistoric, but it's still on my playlist. Kind of hard to believe that someday it might be seen as "Classical music" by teens everywhere. *~* So true. You eat ONE White Castle Burger and you're like "Ugh!" but THIRTY of them? That's insane, man. "Harold & Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay" is on TV right now. Very nice I love NPH, don't you? *~* If anyone is interested in being given free copies of my stuff, let me know. I'm thinking about picking some pre-readers in return for BJs (just kidding!) [Not really.]

Real life: Nothing much here. Everything good happens in my head. I save all the bad stuff for real life.

Ersatz

by Sol Crafter

genre: mm contemporary romance

audience: ADULT

Summary: Two roommates are asked an incredibly awkward question — "So, what's it like being in an ersatz homosexual relationship?" — which starts a whole bunch of trouble.

ERSATZ

by Sol Crafter

"So, what's it like being in an ersatz homosexual relationship?"

"What?" His head whipped around so he could stare at Julie in surprise.

"Seriously, you guys have been living together for years, right? Neither one of you has ever questioned why that is?" Julie laughed derisively. "When was the last time either one of you had a girlfriend?"

John glanced at Charlie sitting next to him. The other man's body was tense and the perpetual smile had been wiped away.

"You're not very funny," John said, standing up. "I think maybe it's time for you to leave."

He didn't care that the way he hustled her out of the apartment was rude. Her question had been even ruder.

"Can you believe her?" He shook his head and made a quick detour to grab a soda out of the refrigerator. "You want one of these?" He waited a long moment until he realized that he wasn't going to get a response.

He looked over the top of the refrigerator door and saw Charlie still sitting frozen on the couch. "Hey, are you okay?"

Charlie gave a slow blink, then turned his head to look at John. "What did she mean by 'ersatz homosexual relationship?'"

John gave an uncomfortable shrug. "Why don't you look it up on Wikipedia or something? I personally wouldn't worry about it too much. She was just trying to be a gigantic bitch, that's all."

He brought Charlie a soda too, carefully setting it on the coffee table before sitting back down in his usual spot. Only now it felt a little awkward to realize just how close he always sat to Charlie. Their legs were practically touching.

"So…" He hated how awkward he felt. Damn that stupid bitch anyway. "Do you want to watch TV?"

Charlie leaned forward just enough to pick up his soda. "That's fine," he said, his long fingers popping the top on the can. He immediately took a couple of gulping swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

John had the crazy thought to wonder what Charlie would do if he bit his Adam's apple. Not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to be able to feel the firm shape under his teeth and maybe leave a little reminder mark.

"Yeah, TV, cool," he said dumbly, forcing his eyes away from Charlie. He raked a hand through his hair and hurriedly picked up the remote control. "Let's watch TV."

They sat there in silence, the TV the only sound until their doorbell rang. It was Michael and he got pretty pissed off when he realized John had kicked Julie out.

"Listen, dude, your girlfriend is no longer allowed in our apartment," John said for what felt like the tenth time. He was getting pretty irate.

"She's totally banned!" Charlie called from the couch. He'd finally relaxed enough to slouch back on the cushions and prop his feet on the semi-dirty coffee table.

"What the hell, man?" Michael pushed his way past John to stand in front of the couch. "What do you mean she's banned?"

"It's just the way it is," Charlie said. "You're still cool, but she's gotta go. Our 'Welcome' mat is withdrawn to that chick." The way he said "chick," it was obvious that he'd barely refrained from calling her a bitch.

"Dudes, seriously, what the hell did she do?" Michael was honestly confused. He'd known them for a long time and they'd always had an open door policy, welcoming anyone that was cool.

John opened the drawer on the side of the table and pulled out a small bag of weed. "She's banned, that's all. Don't try to talk us around." He looked at Charlie. "Do you have your bowl? I don't want to have to go get mine out of my room."

Charlie reached into the side pocket of his jeans and pulled out a swirly green and gold Chameleon Glass pipe. He wordlessly passed it over and John had to ignore the way their fingers brushed in passing. There was definitely no spark of electricity in their touch.

"I am going to load this bitch and we are not going to talk about your girlfriend anymore," John said, settling on the couch. "If you want some of this, you're not going to talk about her either and we're all just going to have a peaceful time. Maybe play some Halo or something. What do you say, man?"

Michael glanced at the door, looking indecisive. "I don't know. She's kind of upset and she's waiting for me to come back and…"

"Whatever," John said, expertly packing the pipe. He pulled a lighter out from under the cushion where he'd stashed it earlier. He flicked the Bic and took a couple of quick puffs before passing the bowl to Charlie.

"Ah, fuck man." Michael threw himself onto the ugly brown recliner they'd saved from a trip to the dump. "She can just deal for awhile."

After they'd each had at least four hits on the pipe, Charlie dug out the Xbox controllers and they played some Halo. And for a couple of hours everything was all right, until John's stupid brain insisted on hearing that voice ask, "What's it like being in an ersatz homosexual relationship?" just when he was handing Charlie the bowl.

He'd always had a thing where smoking pot lowered his inhibitions, so he shouldn't have been so surprised at popping a boner right then. It's just that his brain insisted on associating his hard on with Charlie and that was really bad.

Because Charlie was his best friend and his roommate and they'd known each other for forever. And neither one of them was gay.

Except that John's cock was perking up with definite interest and there was nothing he could do about it, not sitting there with his controller in one hand and his other hand sagging limply in the air. His eyes were locked on Charlie's face bathed by the quick flicker of light from the lighter as he drew in a deep puff on the pipe, his cheeks sucking in a little, his lips still slightly pursed when he pulled the pipe away from his lips.

Charlie blew out a long trail of smoke toward the ceiling, then coughed and pointed. "Look at that," he laughed, shaking his hand at it.

"Okay," John said slowly when he was sure Charlie wasn't going to say any more. "That's pretty apropos of nothing."

"I know, right?" Charlie laughed. He handed the pipe and lighter to Michael, then lifted his controller with his left hand. "I'm gonna whip both your bitch asses now. You're gonna be respawning in hell tonight, brothers."

"Whoa, that was a pretty weak Hulk voice," Michael said. He gave a quick racking cough before doing an eerily good impression of Hulk Hogan, "It's Hulk mania. Step into a Slim Jim!"

That was so amazingly hilarious that John found himself laughing uproariously. It didn't even matter that he had half an erection just because Charlie was in the room. It probably wasn't the first time it had happened, he just hadn't noticed it before, not until Julie's little question.

He figured that everything would go back to normal soon and he'd forget about the whole "ersatz homosexual relationship" thing.

Except his brain refused to let it go, and every time he turned around he was popping a boner. He'd started to wear looser pants and had taken to always having something on hand to hold in front of his lap. It was actually getting pretty awkward.

He really didn't want Charlie to know what was going on, and not just because he didn't know what was happening himself. He'd never been into dudes, so why was his eye drawn so helplessly to Charlie? Why was he starting to get erections just from hearing Charlie's name?

"This is so stupid," he muttered, kicking his heels.

He was lying on his back on the bed, his legs stretched up the wall. He could see where he'd had his feet before from the smudges against the paint, but he didn't even care. He was going through an existential crisis at twenty-nine.

John fumbled with his pipe and lighter, picking them up off his bare chest and lighting the pink Bic–it was the last from a pack of four.

A few puffs later, he was experiencing a definite head change and he was starting to think that maybe things were going to turn out okay. Sure, he'd had some unexpected physical responses, but he could deal with that.

Just as long as Charlie didn't suddenly decide that their friendship wasn't worth having. Because if Charlie disappeared off somewhere, he honestly didn't know what he was supposed to do. Charlie was his best friend.

John sighed heavily and stared at the smoke curling up toward the ceiling. His mind felt as though either the world had slowed down, or he was thinking super fast. At the same time, he didn't think that very much could bother him at the moment.

Weed seemed to make his problems more bearable. Unfortunately, the side effects included the munchies, laziness, paranoia, and talking too much.

So when there was a quick tap at his door before Charlie pushed it open, John was just high enough not to completely freak out.

"What up?" he asked, letting his head flop sideways toward Charlie, taking in his stupid striped polo shirt and well-defined upper body. His eyes traced over muscular upper arms and he couldn't help the idle thought that it would probably be very nice to run his tongue over every flex and bend and that it would be hot to maybe nibble a little at the inner seam of Charlie's elbow, just to see what it was like.

Charlie was silent for a long moment, then he blinked and was back to normal. "I'm thinking about ordering some pizza. You got any cravings?"

John thought for a second. "Can you get me ham and tomato?"

Charlie made a face, his nose crinkling just a little. "Gross." He mock shuddered.

Seeing him standing there, John had to acknowledge the fact that Charlie really was good looking. Not in the conventional sense, not with the knot on his nose from when it had been broken and the slight bagginess of his eyes, but he was interesting to look at. He had long, artistic fingers and a nice looking body he always tried to care for. He always wore a kind of porpoise smile that always seemed to make girls think of kissing. His dark brown hair flopped into his blue eyes and from the bridge of his nose up he could have been Tom Wellington.

What made Charlie the most attractive to John was his personality though, his exuberant sense of humor that always seemed to find the best in every situation. Even when it seemed as though the whole world was crashing down, Charlie had a way about him that got people to believe that maybe, with a bit of work, things would be all right. He always just felt so safe.

John thought that if the zombie apocalypse ever happened, he wouldn't mind having Charlie with him.

"Well, I'll make our order," Charlie said, turning and leaving the room, the door clicking softly shut behind him.

John closed his eyes for a long moment and just breathed.

Everything felt so strange and surreal and he honestly didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew he had to do something. Charlie was probably the most important person in his life and there was no way he was going to let himself lose that.

John drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly before opening his eyes.

Everything was going to be okay. He had half an erection, but everything was going to be okay. Because the only thing going on was that he loved Charlie and probably always had.

It wasn't like the whole "I love Charlie" thing was new though. Sure, he'd thought it was just a really strong friendship, but really the only thing that was going to change between them was John possibly approaching Charlie for sex. And sure, there was a chance that that could go disastrously, but there was no way he could sit around with rejection hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

Because now that he was questioning things, there was just no way he was ever going to be able to forget the fact that he loved Charlie in a non-friend way. So if at some point in the future he had to watch Charlie with someone else, it would be a terrible wound, especially if he changed their friendship paradigm.

Even if it was in his own mind, it would still fucking hurt.

John sighed heavily and set the pipe and lighter down on the unused side of his bed, then he rolled up onto his feet. He had to find a shirt and go out into the living room where he would have to pretend that everything was all right.

/ EXCERPT

Filed under: Real Life, Self-Publishing, Sneak Peeks, Writing Tagged: contemporary, Ersatz, excerpt, mm romance, RL, Sol Crafter

MOVIE: The Man From Nowhere [Korean movie] action

The Man From Nowhere

Korean action movie

Director: Jeong-beom Lee

Writer: Jeong-beom Lee

Starring: Bin Won, Thanayong Wongtrakul, and Sae-ron Kim

Summary borrowed from IMDB: A quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past takes on a drug- and organ trafficking ring in hope of saving the child who is his only friend.

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Okay, so this is one of those great action movies that basically has everything. Movies that give me a similar vibe: The Professional, The Crow (more the TV show than the movie, actually)

The story begins with a pawnshop owner that is kind of nice to a young girl, and in return she keeps coming around. Her mother is a junkie and a thief, and the girl is poor and there's always people teasing her and thinking she's trash, so she gets into fights or causes trouble and things. Her feelings for the pawn shop owner have her saying that he's her father when she gets into trouble in the hopes that he will save her. He does not, just walking off.

There's a whole tragic backstory about his past, and while he's dealing with that, the junkie mom gets into trouble when she helps steal from the wrong people. The pawnshop guy shows up in his fancy clothes in time to find out that the girl and her mother have been taken by dangerous criminals — men neck deep in guns, drugs, prostitution, and murder.

And that's when things blow up into action as the pawnshop guy races to save the girl, or if he can't do that, at the very least avenger her.

He has a secret past and is one dangerous mofo. This is a straight up action thriller, with a gritty taste and feel. There's prostitution, sex, language, violence (VIOLENCE!), organ farming, slavery, child labor, everything. All the bad things in the world are in this movie, and then there's a guy that just wants to find a little girl, and to that end he probably changes a ton of lives forever.

And in the end, he does not shirk away from what he's done and accepts whatever punishment is his due. Because this wasn't a story about him, not really. This is a story about the man he used to be, the man he wants to be, and the girl he simply has to save.

Rating: 5

Watch it on Netflix or Hulu.

Filed under: Movie Reviews, Reviews Tagged: Korean, movie reviews, reviews

MOVIE REVIEW: Returner [Japanese] sci-fi, action

Returner

Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki

Written by: Takashi Yamazaki, Kenya Hirata

Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Anne Suzuki, and Goro Kishitani

Summary from IMDB: A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.

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Okay, so this movie is basically ET, The Matrix, Transformers, and Terminator all rolled up into one. And it was pretty awesome, if I must say.

The lead guy is pretty hot. The girl is kind of cute in a very normal girl kind of way. The story is somewhat nonsensical and you have to wonder why the heck they would do some of the things they do. The dialogue is sometimes incredibly stupid and you're left wondering what kind of people they really are. It was pretty juvenile sci-fi fan service in some of its scenes. But it was also a truly awesome movie.

It will never be my favorite movie, I would never go that far, but it was very good and I was left with that soaring heart feeling you only get from movies that have in some way effected the way your brain thinks of something, even if you don't know what the effect could mean. This movie had some personal significance to me, though all I really know is that it made me happy to watch it.

The lead guy is seeking vengeance on this crazy guy over the death of his childhood friend, and he doesn't seem to care if he dies to do it. So he becomes a paid assassin. His bad guy is the bad guy, which gives the good guy a double reason to go after the jerk and rip out his pound of flesh.

The girl is a time traveler from the future that has come to stop the beginning of a war with a bunch of vastly technologically superior aliens. She actually makes me think of Riley from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." It's as if Riley has come back in time to save the day — definitely not anyone's best choice, but all she can do is her best. Except Milly is actually pretty dedicated and personally very tough. She's just inexperienced.

This movie is rife with paradoxes, but that's okay. Because it's a movie. It's not real. And maybe they have a Suspension of Belief time machine, and what do we even know anyway? I mean, we believed the world was flat and the moon was made out of cheese right up until it was proven otherwise.

So if you can watch this movie, do. Enjoy it for what it is: good, old fashioned pulp sci-fi. Nice.

Rating: 4

Filed under: Movie Reviews, Reviews Tagged: action, Japanese, movie reviews, review, science fiction

I hope that everyone that has bought one of my books has enjoyed it.

Right now I'm just trying to get my life together. So many personal problems have severely depleted my funds, which means we're living at my dad's house right now. There's plenty of room, but when I left home I never planned having to return with my tail between my legs.

I know as long as I work hard and try my best I'll climb back up again, I just have to have patience. I have to be stalwart and brave and not let myself be assailed by doubts.

I just really want to be able to spend my life doing something I love — write — and to not have any regrets for things undone.

I have always loved to write. I think that my whole life has been driven by the dream of spending my life reading and writing books. To able to somehow make a living doing that… it would be like a sudden burst of light and sound.

Fame isn't something I am seeking or wanting. All I want is to dream up stories and tell them to other people; I don't need to get rich doing it, I just need to earn enough money to take care of my bills and to live on. I want to be able to go to the grocery store and buy something I want to eat and not have to pause and think "If I buy this, will I be able to buy that?" I want to be able to buy both and not have to stress so much.

So I don't care if I'm ever rich or not. I just want to be able to live, and I want people to read my stories and enjoy them as much as I did when I thought them up.

I would really enjoy hearing back from people that have read my stuff, even if they're just my book, movie and TV reviews.

Thank you for visiting.

Filed under: Appreciations, Journal, Real Life Tagged: RL

BOOK REVIEW: White Dragon [manga, action-adventure]

White Dragon

Author: Wada Shinji

Artist: Kinutani Yu

Summary borrowed from OurManga: Pursued by the mob, a young child seeks the protection of White Dragon, an assassin with the ability to morph into male or female, and kills by using… water…

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The sad thing is that I never got to finish this, but I did read some of the books, enough to know that it was good. If the makers of "White Dragon" would like me to review the rest, please send me English translated copies and I would be happy to oblige  \(^_^)/

The artwork in White Dragon is all clean lines and straight story, there's very little messing around, which gives it a serious air. The main character is an assassin that kills with a mysterious method and has never failed in a mission. The girl is the daughter of someone he once knew, come to seek his help. But all she really brings him is trouble, yet he keeps on bending backward to help her out and faces a rivalry of his own.

The MC doesn't seem too interested in relationships with anyone, and there is some cross-dressing involved that kind of points to something deeper going on in his head. And he really seems to go out of his way to help the girl, and there does seem to be a kind of "maternal" vibe going on between them that is cute, but also kind of creepy.

Straight up assassin fare, with him going into various undercover situations to get his mark.

The White Dragon is an unstoppable killer, able to get around any kinds of security someone thinks to come up with, and always leaves his target DEAD.

Very awesome. Appeals mightily to the 12 year old boy in me.

Rating: 3 1/2 – 4

Filed under: Book Reviews, Reviews Tagged: book review, manga, reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Alone In My King's Harem, by Lily Hoshino [Japanese manga, shounen-ai, m/m]

Alone In My King's Harem

Author: Lily Hoshino

Released by: Digital Manga

Summary borrowed from Wikipedia: Alone in My King's Harem (ハレムでひとり Haremu de Hitori) is a 2004 manga by Hoshino Lily. One of the first titles released by Digital Manga Publishing. Alone in My King's Harem is composed of six stories, with only the last two stories containing the same characters. The stories are largely romantic in nature with some erotic tones. The stories focus predominantly around the "ultra-femme" uke character, with the seme character taking more of a supporting role.

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This book here has had a profound effect on my life. The artwork is oddly endearing and almost hauntingly cute, if such a thing can happen. It's as though someone took the art styles of 80′s anime — the Q-tip hair, general androgynousness, and the open expressions — but ran them through a filter of sexiness, cuteness, and just basic moe! kawaii!

Lots of male/male romance, not too much graphic depictions, more sweet than anything. Everything is kind of dreamy and her stories are set in fantasy worlds that are very familiar, yet are also very different. It honestly feels as though you're stepping into a brand new culture, and that very much appeals to me.

The titular story, "Alone In My King's Harem," is about an adorable male concubine that catches his king's eye. So to please his little love, the king decides to take over his corner of the world so that he can lavish all of his love and everything else on the concubine. Unfortunately, at some point his dreams surpass reality and he forgets about the concubine, ends up with dozens of others, and just basically becomes a titanic jerk. Reality reasserts itself, he loses a big battle, and all of his concubines flee before everything is lost. All except for the adorable concubine that has been waiting patiently and sadly for the king to come back to him for all that time. Everyone leaves the king, except for his little concubine, and he remembers his love for the concubine and things go back to the way they were supposed to be. The kingdom stays small, the concubine stays loyal, and the king is actually happier than he was when he had everything.

The entire book is filled with beautiful artwork, quietly glorious stories, and the most wonderful feeling of beauty I have ever come across. And if Lily Hoshino ever sees this, I remember your YuYu Hakusho stuff and I was a fan of yours since way back then. Your art is amazing and I'm not ashamed to say that I love everything you've published. So thank you very much for being so entirely wonderful.

rating: 5

Filed under: Book Reviews, Reviews Tagged: book review, manga, reviews, shounen-ai

TV SHOW: Coffee House [Korean]

Coffee House

Directed by: Pyo Min-Soo

Starring: Kang Ji Hwan as Lee Jin Soo, Park Si Yeon as Seo Eun Young, Ham Eun Jung as Kang Seung Yeon, and Jung Woong In as Han Ji Won

Synopsis taken from DramaWiki:   Lee Jin Soo made it big after writing several thriller novels and establishing himself as a talented novelist. He works for Seo Eun Young, the owner of the biggest publishing company in Korea, and has a long-time friendship with her. Jin Soo has lots of fans, especially female ones, and he seems to be the perfect match for any woman… but what no one knows is that he is actually a bit weird and sarcastic, has lots of strange habits, and holds a dark secret. The one who has to cope with him and his habits is his secretary, Kang Seung Yeon, who begged him for this job to become a pro instead of the below-average girl that she really is. On top of that, there is also the return of Han Ji Won, Eun Young's ex-fiance, whom she despises. Ji Won tries to win Eun Young back, but she has her eyes set on Jin Soo.

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I absolutely and uninhibitedly hated this drama. I should have just walked away from this train wreck the minute I saw the main character's messed up hair, the dirty way she dressed, and the rude way she slurped up noodles while customers were waiting. The whole toilet scene did not make it any better.

She definitely did not come off as cute to me, especially her pop-eyed looks and complete and utter brainlessness. She was supposed to give the feel of being young, naive, and just coming into adulthood. Instead, she was brash, disgusting, and I was left with this sense of profound dislike. The mushroom haircut she sports through most of the show does not help anything, though she does clean up pretty nice in the second part. Still, she's a tool. She's chasing after a guy that's way too old for her, gets a kick out of treating her like crap, and basically uses her as his personal toilet.

The male lead was a dick, but he at least had a bit of depth. Even if he used that depth to be even more of an illogical dick. Plus, he had no problem with emotionally abusing a rather stupid teenaged girl, and actually seemed to really get off on it.

Give this one a pass. Super stupid, and there's a good chance you'll end up frothing with rage.

rating: 1

Watched it on Hulu.

Filed under: Korean, Reviews, Television, TV Reviews Tagged: hated it, kdrama, reviews, TV show

TV SHOW: Absolutely Fabulous [British comedy]

Absolutely Fabulous

Starring: Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, and Julia Sawalha

Summary: Follows the wild life of wealthy Edina, her best friend Patsy, and Edina's straight-laced daughter Saffron. If you wanna know more about the show, here's Wikipedia: AbFab, IMDB: AbFab.

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I love this so much and I always have and probably always will.

So much decadence and sarcasm and dark humor, but it never quite goes over that invisible line of "too much."  The laughs come quick and everything is so completely over the top that even the most offensive of behaviors become something to laugh about.

When I first watched this show, it was airing on Comedy Central and I always thought of it as kind of a dirty pleasure. To be able to watch something like this in front of my dad and not be completely embarrassed was like this giant step forward to me as a burgeoning adult. So AbFab basically holds a huge chunk of my TV-loving heart.

I love the relationship between Edina and Patsy. They have this thing where Patsy has all this boldness and amorality, but not a whole lot of success in her life, mostly because she blows whatever money she makes. Edina is body conscious and secretly pretty scared of having people not like her, yet she's managed to gain a lot of money and success in her life. They have their adversaries and they have these awful situations they fall into/force themselves into, but they always have each other. They occasionally lie to each other and cheat each other, but in the end they're all that each other has.

I mean, sure, there's Saffy, and that's a pretty powerful relationship right there too. But in the end there will come a point where she just wakes up and realizes that her life would be better if she moved out of her mother's house and got her own place. It's not like her mom would really try to stop her–there were several times where Eddy offered to pay for awesome oppoturnities, but Saffy turned her down. No, I think because of the neglect and abuse she suffered in the past, she clings to Eddy as an adult because she's still starved for all that she's missed. So really, she's clinging to Eddy, but she's not really an equal in their relationship, and Saffy clings to her role as child by always acceding to her mother's wishes in the end.

No, the strongest love in this show is the love between Eddy and Patsy. Because even though Eddy has been married a bunch of times and Patsy is always having one-night stands, other than the sex, they're in a pretty monogamous relationship.

Edina and Patsy are sharing the most ersatz homosexual relationship ever seen on TV, way more than Raj and Howard on Big Bang Theory. Because in the end, there's really no one they let get in the way of their friendship.

Rating: 5

Filed under: Journal, Reviews, Television Tagged: AbFab, Ersatz, reviews, TV show

Vitriol: isecurity.exe #virus #malware

Okay, so I was just tooling around the Internet, not realy clicking on anything, when this crazy isecurity.exe thing popped up.

Kaspersky flashed red a couple of times, then shut itself down, as did Peerblock. That's when that isecurity tried to tell me that I had all kinds of viruses, malware, my files were being deleted, etc, etc.

It is a trick. This thing is just some spammer tool's idea of an advertisement to buy their crappy ass product. Unfortunately, it installs itself in your appdata and won't let you access any .exe files or your task manager (it tells you that there's blasterworm.)

I freaked out for like 5 seconds–just frozen horror–then immediately switched off my WiFi. I restored my computer to an earlier point, and now it's gone.

Whoever made this thing should be taken out, castrated, made to drink their own blood, then shot in the head. (Yeah, I know that's pretty fiery talk, but my heart is still fluttering from the drop in adrenaline.)

My best advice: Keep your restore points fresh. Don't buy anything from some weird program popping up. And if you're one of the jerks making this stuff, stay the hell away from me because I'm VERY vindictive.

Filed under: Real Life Tagged: computer virus, isecurity.exe, murder!

MOVIE REVIEW: Pandorum [sci-fi, horror]

Title: Pandorum

Genre: sci-fi, horror

Rating: R

Director: Christian Alvart

Writers: Travis Milloy (screenplay)

Stars: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet

Summary: A pair of crew members aboard a spaceship wake up with no knowledge of their mission or their identities.

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If you like gritty sci-fi horror, then this movie is for you. A pretty slick trip into a future of horror, though the story is a little too good for simple popcorn fare. A great science fiction movie.

Amnesiac Bower (Ben Foster) wakes up in his stasis tube aboard the Elysium. Hypersleep can cause memory loss and a dangerous hallucination-laden mental state called Pandorum, amidst which other ships have had their commanders jettison the whole crew.

Upon waking, Bower is joined by Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) and they quickly discover that something is very wrong. The flight crews are supposed to be rotated over the course of their 123 year journey to Tanis. The rotation has been broken and no one has been maintaining the ship. They have no idea how long they've been asleep, and to top it all off they're trapped in their crew berth, unable to access the bridge or its crew.

Desperate to gain control of the ship and discover what's going on, Bower crawls through the innards of the ship in hopes of figuring out what's going on. And that's where everything really starts.

Featuring a hot chick with attitude, a Vietnamese agriculture worker that doesn't seem to speak English, a crazy guy that just wants to survive, and a bunch of strange creatures that like to EAT people. Bower wonders how the creatures got on board the ship. He wonders if his family is somewhere in the family of crew berths below or if they're already dead. And to top it all off, the pulsating power outages can only mean that the ship's reactor core is breaking down.

I really don't want to ruin this movie for you, so I'll just say this: watch it.

My rating: 4 stars.

I heard tell this was supposed to be the first in a trilogy of movies. I am super excited if they do it for reals.

For some reason, people brought the ratings of this movie down, but it was really very good. And if the second one focuses on Titan… that would be the best thing ever. To actually see the start of a colony; it would be like a movie version of a CJ Cherryh book.

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