Author: Cullen M. M. Waters

Internet humorist, Writer of Speculative Fiction, movie reviewer, and all around good guy

Second Chance – 01

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn NaNoWriMoLeave a comment

As one will infer, NaNoWriMo was not a great success this year.

In fact, it was a catastrophic failure, as I didn’t reach even the quarter way mark.

To put it in better perspective, I’ve failed at least five years of NaNoWriMo in recent memory. Last year was the outlier.

And what an outlier it was. Actual finished novel.

So what went wrong?

I shouldn’t have tried rewriting last year’s draft. Maybe.

Last year I was just struggling to finish. This year I was struggling to finish and do it right.

And this has proven to be more remake than rewrite. I added a major character and his presence changes things. For the better, I believe.

Anyways, what do I do now?

Reset the clock.

I’m writing a novel this month. Same one I’ve been working on since the start of November.

The NaNoWriMo site allows a certain leeway. You pick the dates, it keeps track of them.

Thus I’ve picked the end of December. I’ve put in what I have as the current count for today and am moving ahead with the business.

Why? Not continuing isn’t a choice. I like this novel and want to see it finished.

I’m using the tools given to me as an incentive. Giving me a goal every day to move one step closer to finishing.

What happens if I fail again? I reset the clock and go again. I lose no money doing this, any more than I gain money in finishing.

The important part, as always, is finishing.

Now, below is where I stand as of today, December 1, 2024. Actually I’m in better standing than this. I have some more writing from November that I think I can salvage. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is pushing on.

NaNoWriMo 2024

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn NaNoWriMoLeave a comment

Well the Month of Horror was a bust, now wasn’t it? Got sick, missed a few days, and never went back.

Oops.

Anyways.

Here we go again. Last year I won in every way possible. This year I hope to do better. Technically it’s a rewrite last year’s novel, but it’s a “reimagining.” I have a new character helping the protagonist out and some of the old ones are going the way of the dodo. Plus I have a better grasp of what I want to say. It’ll be less scattershot and all in all improved.

I’m at 1,561 words, which is a bad start. Still, I’ve come from behind before, and this isn’t that far behind the intended 1667 words.

Here’s hoping.

A Month of Horror (III): Portal

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn A Month of Horror, Ghost Movies, Sister SiteLeave a comment

[The Feature Image above is AI generated and has only the barest connections with reality. And is in fact scarier than this film.]

In brief, a team of ghost hunters enter the wrong haunted house and do the wrong things.

Its been said before that the hardest thing to review is a mediocre flick. You can rave about a great flick, you can rant about a bad one. The mediocre, though… you got nothing.

Portal‘s a little worse than that.

There’s nothing wrong with the acting, only it’s not really good. There’s nothing wrong with the story, except it feels like it could have used another draft. There’s nothing wrong with the directing, except there’s no scares. No fission.

The movie is okay. Like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, it’s very much in it’s subgenre. The night footage is achieved with a bright light shining into the house through windows. The special effects work… ish.

It takes a while to get to the haunted house, but it’s not boring. It’s not anything. It just is.

I’m not sure I dislike it, but I can’t justify liking it.

There are short films so much better than this. Maybe it would have worked better as a found footage flick.

Dunno. Dunno, dunno, dunno.

I feel kind of bad with this review. The filmmakers tried. Hopeful the next try is better than this.

And yet, despite all that, not sorry I watched the film.

Makes no damn sense. But using the two score system of the sister site, this is two mehs (1.0 point each) for a total of 2.0 points.

A Month of Horror (II): I Was a Teenage Frankenstein

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn A Month of HorrorLeave a comment

[The Feature Image above is AI generated and has only the barest connections with reality.]

You’ve seen this movie. You might not have actually sat down and watched the film, but if you have any familiarity with Mad Scientist Flicks or Frankenstein, you know the beats.

You have the Scientist with the outrageous theory. You have his assistant, who is most reluctant. You have the monster, who naturally goes on a killing spree. And so on and so forth.

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, for better or worse, is just another Monster movie. Nevertheless, it’s well acted, has a decent plot, and one or two surprises during the run time. The ending, sad to say, is rather lackluster. And goes from black-and-white to color.

For some reason.

Compare this to a little feature released the same year called Curse of Frankenstein. It has the exact same three elements, hits the beats you more or less expect. It could have been just another Mad Scientist flick. And yet through better writing, direction… well, everything about it works so much better.

There the film makers cared. Here? Not so much.

So, this is a meh flick (1.0 points.) I don’t care that much about it one way or the other (1.0 points). Add that together gets us a score of 2.0. Not a bad way to kill an hour or so, but no better than that.

A Month of Horror (I): The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn A Month of HorrorLeave a comment

[The Feature Image above is AI generated and has only the barest connections with reality.]

Well if there’s one thing to guarantee me to post, it’s this month.

I start this month of Horror with the Horror Classic Phantom of the Opera. Despite owning a copy of this film for years, I’ve never watched it from beginning to end. I’m not quite certain why. Lord knows I’ve watched my fair share of silent films. Perhaps the soundtrack accompanying this flick helped.

In any case I managed to finish it. I’m going against conventional thought and saying I like the Claude Rains version better. I like the humor in the story and the characters better. Weird statement from a Horror Guy, I know, but there it is.

That said, this is a damn fine flick. Damn fine.

Except for maybe Lon Chaney the film is overacted in the typical Silent movie way. Early in the film we have a flock of dancers who tend to do twirls for no clear reason at all, save, perhaps to remind people of what role they have. There’s also a lot of leaning away in horror, theatrical gestures, and the like.

To go back to Chaney, he’s the best part of the picture, as he usually was. Whether behind a creepy mask or in his staggering face make up, his presence grabs you by the lapels and shakes you. Which was impressive to me, as I was wearing a t-shirt when watching the flick.

As a Horror Guy, I’m fairly familiar with The Phantom of the Opera, having watched the later films. The Claude Rains version, the Hammer version, and so on. With those memories in mind, I had a fair idea of where things were going. Despite this I was delightful tense throughout, a sign that this is a very well made flick.

Then again, there are differences from this film and the others. For instance, the chandler scene. I seem to recall it always at the end. Here it’s the Phantom’s first act of terror.

Then there’s the Phantom himself. In the later films he tends to be more sympathetic. Here he’s damn evil.

All in all, this is a Horror classic. Even at a hundred (well almost), it still packs a punch. Worth seeking out.

In the rating system of the sister site, Great flick for 2.0 points. Liked it a lot, which adds on 1.5 points for a total of 3.5 points.

(Claude Rains, for the curious, is 3.0 points. A good flick, but not a classic one.)

[ANNOYING AUTO] Signs of Skynet Awakening?

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Annoying AutobiographyLeave a comment

We got a new device, an Amazon Echo. To use it, you call out “Alexa”, then give it a command. We use it to turn on and off lights. We can even change the lights color. It is most convenient, especially for Mom.

It quickly replaced our previous little helper in our affections. The name Alexa gets called out more often than actual members of our family. It even knows my name and will sometimes say, “Sure, Cullen,” to something I’ve asked.

Which is really, really creepy. But I digress.

One of the other features Alexa can do is play Spotify music. It has a nice speaker and sounds good. This, too, gets frequent use.

Except when music started playing in the house ten minutes ago, no one asked for it.

The music just started.

Nearest we could figure it heard whatever video Mom was listening to and decided on it’s own to respond. No big deal. I call out, “Alexa, stop.”

Only she doesn’t stop.

Todd tries, “Alexa, stop playing music.”

Nothing doing.

We keep right on calling out instructions, without any luck. Todd starts losing his cool, to the point he’s disturbing Daisy Mae. Poor dog comes running over to me for protection.

The music, while nice, keeps playing. Todd even tries to mute the silly thing and nothing works.

By this point, I’ve disengaged from the upset dog and walked into the living room. Alexa has a screen that displays Spotify when she… it is playing the app. I should be able to turn off the music that way. Failing that, I can unplug it. If that fails, I throw it to the floor and stop on it until it stops.

Very tech savvy I am.

Only when I reach the device, I don’t see the Spotify app. In fact, I can see that the volume on Alexa has been turned off, per Todd’s request.

The source of the music? Remember how I mentioned a previous little helper? She… I mean it. It was playing the music the whole time.

I’m not sure what this all means. Perhaps the other helper just wanted to remind us it was still there. Or perhaps this is the first sign that the computer devices have come to replace us all.

Dunno, don’t care. I’m just hunting up my shovel and burying both devices. To be safe.

[SITE] AI Generated Headers (I)

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Site Information1 Comment

When I wasn’t looking, WordPress added new features. This is more AI stuff, including a writing program that mimics my Hemmingway app. As I don’t always write direct into the blog, not sure how much use that is, but it’s a good tool. For instance, as I’m writing this it just told me the previous sentence was a long one. It also flagged the word “previous” as a complex word. If I cared, changing those sentences would be a simple thing.

I don’t care.

As you no doubt guessed.

Another new tool, and this one is giving me troubles, is called AI Feature Image. I guess what it does is “read” the post and then create an image based on what it finds. Below is one created based on one of my Spider-man essays.

Now that’s nice. I question were the assets it’s using comes from. In fact, this is one of my basic problem with AI, stealing other people’s hard work. The other problem is that I didn’t make this myself and it feels lazy and wrong.

To a point.

Oh, and because I’m who I am, I did one for Power Girl and Gamera. The former is from a post on this site, the latter my Giant Monster Gamera review on the sister site.

Very interesting. The Gamera, of course, is the least accurate of the three, and that’s the problem. You can’t count on the AI to do the job.

Of course, I didn’t plan on using any of these as feature images. The limit is grist for a blog post.

It’s when I get a knuckleheaded idea into my head about new main headers that I get into problems.

Which, heh heh, has been a bit of a time sink. But that’s the next post.

Oh, and for the curious, this is the feature image it created for this post:

Am I wrong, or isn’t that a little creepy?

[SITE] Heh heh heh

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Site InformationLeave a comment

Boy, am I doing a great job up updating the site. Heh heh.

Apparently WordPress AI agrees with me. When I asked for an “Improved Title”, these possibilities popped up:

Man, how did we live before AI?

I’m working on new possible headers for the site. Watch this space tomorrow for more.

Until then, have an alien. In fact, have two.

[SITE RELATED] That Feeling You Get When Some Stranger Posts On Your Site

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Site InformationLeave a comment

So I’m woken up at 3am to the news, from my mother no less, that I’ve had strange posts on this site. My first thought was that this was from the Sister Site, as she’s due to post another review. Only Mom says Welltun Cares Presents, and I know that can’t be right. So I go check it out.

I find three posts with the following titles: How to get the perfect milf live chat partner?, The best unicorn dating site for finding real love, and How to get going with anal only dating.

None of those titles even sound like me.

Well, maybe the unicorn one.

[FUTURE CULLEN sez:] I mean because of the fantasy connotation. Having finally found out what the term means, I want to make that clear.

So I’ve taken them off site and put it into trash. I haven’t even read them more than the first few lines, which looks a lot like AI writing. I’ve also worked to improve security on the site. Fun!

I’ve tried contacting WordPress, but that’s a bust. I get a helpful AI bot who read what I had to say, then tried to pass me off to someone else. This failed for reason or reasons unknown.

So, yeah, not a happy camper right now. Bad enough if this was a freebie account. It isn’t. I’m paying money here.

Anyways, long story short, sorry about any weird emails. If the titles aren’t in the current format, they ain’t mine. I’ll keep you posted on any further developments.

Unicorn dating site? [FUTURE CULLEN sez:] Oh Past Cullen you don’t want to know.