There have been some pretty seismic shifts in my life of late. Right now I’m trying to restructure things.
More to come.
All posts by Cullen M. M. Waters
Little Rule
I’m not a fan of Horror Comedies, mainly because most of them come from a place of contempt and distain for the genre. Club Dread, I think, is a fine example of the subgenre, as is Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Bloodbath at the House of Death, however, is not. Outside the giggle of hearing Vincent Price curse, there’s nothing about it I found funny. In fact I left it more than a little irritated. Not Scary Movie irritated–oh God why did I watch that film–but irritated.
Bear in mind it’s been decades since I watched it. Closest I’ve come to a revisit is watching the scene the above image is from. Price’s speech there is amusing.
That said, this flick does have a special place in my heart. I watched it in my early days of film watching and, as stated, didn’t care for it at all. I thus came up with one of Cullen’s Bad Movie Rules: If you’re watching a film for a particular actor and that actor’s character dies, it’s okay to stop watching the flick.
The next movie I rented after Bloodbath at the House of Death?
Howling 2.
I spent the last half of that flick going, “Christopher Lee’s character is dead now, right? They’re going to find his corpse any minute now. Any minute. Now. Right?”
Of course, had I stopped watching I’d have never seen the music video at the end of the flick, and that would have been a loss.
Maybe.
Keep This Up and I’ll Be Dodging Falling Farm Houses
So Brother Todd and I are out in a Tornado Warning because of course we are. At QT filling his car with diesel. I’m inside grabbing drinks and what not.
By the time I’m ready to leave, the rain is coming down in rivers. That’s right, not sheets.
RIVERS.
I’m standing in the doorway, looking at this, and I can’t help remembering a SACRED VOW I made when I was around twelve years old. A Vow never to run through the rain.
We’re not going into the details on WHY I made that vow.
Let’s just say I was trying to redeem myself from being a snot nosed kid.
Anyway from that time till this I’ve never run through the rain.
And I wasn’t going to. I was going to walk calmly, coolly, collectedly back to the car like it was a clear blue day.
Only I stepped out and got slammed by a river. I think it was the Mississippi. Soaked almost immediately to the bone.
And I sez to myself, to myself sez I, “Screw this,” and ran to Todd’s car. Laughing at myself all the way.
Still laughing as I entered to car, I remind Todd about the Vow. He chuckled, as he was about to give me crap about it.
Thus I beat Todd to the punch. Nice change of pace.
You know what else would be a nice change of pace? Not being out in a Tornado Warning. This makes twice this year. Wise choices are not being made.
Gerry Conway Passed Away
Some deaths are a wee bit too important to me to let pass by. Gerry Conway’s is one of them.
From creating characters like the Punisher and Jason Todd (the second Robin in Batman) to writing stories such as The Night Gwen Stacy Died (which I hate), Conway has had an undeniable influence on the comics scene. He has also had an effect in a more mobile medium, like being one of the writers on the classic Sword and Sorcery flick Fire & Ice. Much of what I read and enjoyed about Spider-man he had a hand in.
That is not why I have to mention his passing.
The true reason is that he created Power Girl. And for some reason she’s my favorite Super Heroine.
Just… just not for the reasons you think. Really.
Anyways. Sad tidings. Conway, like Lee, Ditko, and Kirby, will live on through his works.
They’re all from 2002, making them Real ancient…
I found old writing of mine on a CD and, not thinking about it, I opened the file and found all of them were Word 97 documents.
I haven’t used Word in FOREVER.
Made me a little nostalgic.
Now I’m looking into how to reclaim these documents without installing Word…
More on Kickstarter
Out of curiosity, I went out to find just how many Kickstarters I’ve backed.
Turns out seven. Here they are in order, with how they turned out for me:
- Surprise! Four Secret Novels by Brandon Sanderson: I spent forty bucks on four E-Books and got them! Complete Success!
- Armed Fantasia & Penny Blood: I spent ¥11,000.00/$80ish. These are video games done by two different companies. I was to get both digitally. There have been problems. Armed Fantasia seems to be getting towards the finish line. Penny Blood… not so much. The former is what I was really pulling for, so not too disappointed. Hope the Penny Blood guys can turn things around, but not expecting them to at this point.
- Choose Cthulhu – Solitaire Gamebooks by Steve Jackson Games: I spent $48 on some good sized books. All are PDFs based on actual works of H. P. Lovecraft. Got them all. Haven’t read them all, but got them. Well done stuff. Complete Success!
- Acquisitions Incorporated: The Series 2: A video series of people playing a RPG. Typical Cullen purchase. $26 spent. Might have the promised free novella. They seem to be having problems, too. These are the breaks.
- Advanced Fighting Fantasy – Adventure Creation System: I spent £22.00/$29ish on rules to play Advanced Fighting Fantasy, a game I have, solo. I can’t make hide nor hare of anything while reading it. Must be getting old. Still, Complete Success!
- Runa – turn-based fantasy game inspired by JRPG classics: Now these guys… these guys seem to have their act together. €45/$53ish and the game should come out this year. Constant updates. Very nice. Very professional.
- Peasant: These are the guys that failed me. €35/$40ish down the drain. Some murmuring about it being a honest to goodness scam. Yikers! Failed, Failed, Failed.
So 3/7 out and out success, 2.5/7 still in the running (counting Penny Blood out, sorry guys), and 1.5/7 a disappointment. That doesn’t strike me as too bad.
A Kickstarter (Not Mine) Has Died
Back when I had money, I back several projects on Kickstarter. Today one of them gave up the ghost.
I find this sad. However, I gave them the money so they could try to succeed. They were a small group of people wanting to make something interesting, and I wanted to help. Which I did.
I do not regret giving them this chance.
I have another Kickstarter that’s been struggling (they seem near the finish line). A third that really seems to be going places. Two others that came through exactly as intended.
I never spent a lot on these guys. I do wish I had the money I gave them now that times are a little rougher. Still, it’s been interesting.
Site in Flux
I started a redesign of the site. Not reboot. Redesign.
Ultimately I intend to remove all the AI Feature Images and replace them with images of my own design. They were fun, but I’m feeling this place needs a bit less computer and a bit more me.
Not that anyone’s reading.
21
One more year under the belt, and again, very little to show for it. Blogging ain’t the art it used to be, and with AI it’s only getting worse.
But this should be a place for me to practice said art.
So let’s change things up.
Every day (ish) I intend to look up a Writing Prompt. It could be from WordPress’s offerings. It could be me asking Grok or such like for an idea. It could be from one of the Writing Prompt Books I have. Any where, anything. I’ll take it and write let’s say 8,000 words.
Who knows. Maybe I’ll even get better at writing.
It’ll definitely make this more of a writing journal.
Sal Buscema Passed Away
I used to do obits on this site until it got too depressing for me. But some passings are too important not to note.
Sal Buscema is one such fella. He worked on the Incredible Hulk comic back when I was a kid. Thus his depiction of the Hulk is the one I always think of.
Well, when I don’t think of Lou Ferrigno that is.
He worked on a ton of comics I collected, including Spider-man and a cat named Rom Spaceknight. All of his people looked terminally ticked off. It was great.
Sad day.
