All is well in Hobbiton.....

....Actually all is FRACKIN' FAN-FRELLIN'-TASTIC in Hobbiton!!!!

New Line Cinema nearly dropped the ball completely when it tried to ban Peter Jackson from any involvement to the prequels to the Lord of the Rings films due to some legal disputes he had with them trying to bilk him out of his contractual fair share of the LOTR profits. But, apparently they've pulled their heads out of the sphincters, resolved the matter and have hired him on the Hobbit projects. Not as a director, but as producer. Still a very good move because there is no other person I can think of who has a deep felt love with the source material who's going to know how to get it all done.

When they made the announcement on who's going to direct this past week, I nearly involuntarily moistened my geek self! None other than GUILLERMO DEL TORO will be helming the picture under Jackson's producer roll. It's like a The Brave And The Bold comic where Batman and Superman team up to thwart evil!!! Two of the greatest genre minds of all time banding together to bring one of the greatest fantasy stories to the big screen! It's more than enough to make my nipples hard.

Though Peter Jackson's directorial work on the LOTR films is a tale of legend and myth, Del Torro has directed more than a few films that are permanent staples in my DVD collection and rental history. Hellboy, Blade II, Mimic, Cronos as well as the upcoming Hellboy II: The Golden Army and the in preproduction hell adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's In The Mountains of Madness all have, or will have, that spark of mad imagination that only Del Toro can pull off.

These won't hit theaters until 2011 and 2012 which will give us some more great movie anticipation time after IJATKOTCS comes out next month.


So, at least, that was some good news that got my mind off of other things going on in my life. There were some family health issues that had me quite concerned this past week. One story ends on a good note as all tests turned out with decent results. Now we wait another six months and check it all out again.

Then there's very sudden situation where a another close family member had to go in for emergency bypass surgery. After a preliminary bypass operation it was found that it would have to be quadruple bypass surgery. Another unfortunate notation in this story is that since this family member doesn't live close by in the northern Midwest and there were/are some major communication gaps in what is going on with his health situation. From what little I can gather the surgery took place on Tuesday and they were put into ICU for an unexpectedly long time. The end of Wednesday they were awake and lucid and doing much better. Then Thursday morning they weren't doing as well. By Thursday afternoon they were doing much better again and within the next couple of days they will be out of ICU and into a normal hospital room.

Communication-wise it's a very frustrating situation at best. News is coming very slow and my family was never given "special codes" that give us access to the core medical information we need.

Again, please have good thoughts for my relative and shove some good vibes down south in their general direction.


While waiting around for calls about my relative to reach my cell phone, I finished off Kevin Smith's "My Boring Ass Life" while enjoying a cigar or two, sitting outside since the weather was very nice earlier this week. Now we're back to cold, rainy and windy. As long as it's not cumulating snow, I'm good.

The book is a must read for die hard Kevin Smith fans!!!! If you're not that well acquainted with his film work... get a friggin' life and rent Clerks, Clerks II, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma or Jersey Girl. You should also pick up the DVD's of his Q&A panels, An Evening with Kevin Smith and Evening Harder. They are some great stories he tells on them. Which brings me back to the book. There are some stories here that Kevin Smith fans will more than appreciate. He goes through his sidekick's (Jason Mewes) heart wrenching experiences with drug abuse, his winning the big ass award at the Cannes Film Festival, and how he went from directing his own films to co-staring in other people's film (like Catch and Release which I've rented for this weekend).

The only quibble I have with the book is that it can be mucho mucho repeditivo. Keeping in mind that the book is plucked straight from the director's on-line journal, so much of the book is as follows.....

Day 1
"The dogs woke me up at nine AM-I took them out-I took a s**t and showered-took the daughter to school-the wife and I went out for breakfast-then she went shopping and I went to the DVD store and picked up a ton of movies-went to the production office for a while-picked up daughter from school-picked up take out for dinner-ate dinner with family-worked on my computer with movie playing in the background-fell asleep to TIVOed Simpsons."

Day2
"The dogs woke me up at nine AM-I took them out-I took a s**t and showered-took the daughter to school-the wife and I went out for breakfast-then she went shopping and I went to the DVD store and picked up a ton of movies-went to the production office for a while-picked up daughter from school-picked up take out for dinner-ate dinner with family-worked on my computer with movie playing in the background-fell asleep to TIVOed Simpsons."

You get the picture. There is a lot of that to sift through before you get to some good meaty and juicy stories. And Ohhh how succulent that juicy meat is. It's meat dripping right off the bone. (crap... now I'm hungry).

So there's a lot to get through before the good stuff hits, but it's also a wonderful read for those of us with ADD as the book is sectioned off into small diary entries rather than big lumbering chapters. And of course it's always a blast to read Kevin giving the written smack down to snooty critics who give his projects and fans a hard time!

If you're into the Askewiverse, this is a damn good read!


This is gunna be a long one, I can feel it.


I finished off Rainbow Six: Vegas. It was a nice little title that was really challenging but well worth it when you got to sneak up and take out a terrorist with a well aimed head shot. Not something I'll pick up. It was a little on the short side. But, it certainly kept me entertained for a while. Good rental if you get the chance.

Now my Xbox 360 is all readying itself up for this Tuesday's little release that will be picked up sometime this week........

GTA:IV!!!!!!!

I cannot wait to return to Liberty City and wreak mass destruction upon it. Let's hope that the game world is every bit as large and interactive as it's predecessor San Andreas!!!!


Here are some quicky movie reviews as I'm far behind....

30 Days of Night - This thing kicks ass!!! It's a very interesting angle on the vampire story based on a graphic novel. Since vampires only come out at night they've found the perfect hunting grounds in a small town in Alaska where it's night for one month straight. The local sheriff and town members must fight back. Lots of good grisly gore and a original vampire story line. I'm hoping to buy this one soon!

Beowulf (CG animated film) - One of my favorite writers, Neil Gaimen, along with Roger Avery churn out an excellent adaptation of the ancient English poem. Taking place in fantastical medieval Denmark, a hero of fortune comes upon a kingdom cursed by a monster known as Grendel. After his defeat of Grendel the hero, Beowulf slowly learns the long, life learned lesson of honesty and what a true hero is. I'm so happy that Hollywood finally gave us adults a computer generated animated movie to enjoy. I'm quite sick of those cutesy Pixar films directed solely at the kiddies and their parents' bank accounts. There's some excellent action, adventure scenes as well as some of the best CG animation I've ever seen. Shrek my skinny, hairy ass! Pick up a REAL CG animated movie to appease the genre geek in you. And, yep, I already picked this one up!


A couple last notes to mention....

What fool is responsible for this happening to Bond's car?

And........ drum roll please......................................... Zangz's Pod of Geekdom may be making a triumphant return in the not too distant future after a year long hiatus. There's some technical ideas that may be put into fruition that will make it far more easy and compact to record my Pod of Geekdom without having my tech, Double A Man, to have to come out and set up a small studio wherever we wanted to record.

Stay tuned!

I'm off to get me some grub, until next time, Stay Verticle!

Zangz.

Shake, Rattle Roll....

So, I was in this deep R.E.M. sleep Friday morning, dreaming about sitting on a couch in an apartment (not mine) doing some dog sitting for friends (dreams are weird). Suddenly, the couch starts to move side to side for no reason. Just then I start to wake from my slumber in my bed to the half asleep realization that the side to side shaking movement was not limited to my dream and was not subsiding at all. My bed was seemingly making this movement on its own (WTF?!?!)

Still in partial sleep mode my mind wondered if I was on a "Witch's Ride" (you're in a dream state yet fully aware that you're in a dream state and can't wake yourself out of it). Once I woke up a little more I realized that my bed was indeed shaking side to side!! Did some large animal get into my apartment and burrow itself under my bed and was now humping the travel duffel bag I keep underneath there? Was my apartment haunted by a ghost? Was my apartment haunted by the ghost of an animal humping my duffel bag under my bed???? Or was it a lot of the stress I've been under lately finally starting to take root in my psyche and this was the first signs of a pure, unadulterated, full mental breakdown?

As I slowly came to being fully awake the shaking of the bed came to an end. The whole incident only took about 25 seconds at most. I turned on a light and sat up in bed. After much contemplation I decided to ignore the urge of getting up and looking under my bed (perhaps to find some wild raccoon who'd leap at my face and chew it to ribbons or some undead thing that would try and eat my brain) and to just go back to sleep for the next 50 minutes before I had to get up for work. It had already been a restless night for me prior to the possessed bed incident and I knew I needed to catch a few winks to be able to face the coming day. So back to sleep I go without further incident.

After getting up latter in the morning I turn on the TV and find that there was a 4.5 earthquake in southern Illinois that's effects reached waaaaay up north. This pretty much solved the mystery. I breathed a major sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to have my bedroom blessed by a priest waving holy water over my bed or have the ASPCA come over to wrangle some varmint from under my bed or that I was yet to reach full mental nut job status.

So that was interesting.


I apologize for not having a more frequent posting schedule in this month. Things are pretty crazy right now! Both my professional and social life are pretty crammed filled with a ton of stuff. Plus, there are a few personal issues that are tooling around in my little noggin' at the moment. So I have a full plate of stuff going on lately and I'm reeeeeeaaaaallllly hoping that by the time summer kicks in and we get some really nice weather that issues will have worked themselves out and things aren't as frantic. That way I can enjoy some good herfs of of some fine cigars!!!

I've already dipped into my summer supply and have enjoyed a few. In fact I tried one that I hadn't smoked before that I really enjoyed. Try yourself a Gurkha Shaggy. It's exposed end (the one you light, dumb a$$) is slightly shredded to make for a far more easy and distributive lighting experience. It's very flavorful and wonderfully smooth.


I know I'm behind in all sorts of geeky media reviews so here are a quick couple of video games I recently tried out....

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas - In a somewhat squad based FPS, you and your fellow elite anti-terrorist outfit members try and wipe out a terrorist threat that has plunked themselves down in Las Vegas and have taken over a few of the massive casino hotels. I have to tell you that I'm not at all a big fan of squad based games, but RBSV makes controlling your squad pretty easy. It's also very challenging, once in a blue moon, borderline frustrating. But it makes taking out the bad guys with a head shot all the more gratifying. Graphics wise, it's no Call of Duty 4, but the look and feel of the casinos makes you feel like you're in Vegas. I'm not done with the whole game yet, but I'm closing in. So far I enjoy what I'm playing. Not quite enough to go and buy a copy of my own (I'm borrowing Roberto's), but a good time-passer video game!

Turok - I was a HUGE fan of the Nintendo64 versions of the FPS series that had you being an American Indian with lethal bow in hand ridding the world of aliens and dinosaurs! The games mixed the attributes of FPS, arcade and platformer games. Visually they took you to crazy, visually stunning words. I loved them. When I heard that they were going to revamp the game for the Xbox 360, I had high hopes. But, after renting it, all hopes fell flat. Sure the graphics were excellent, but there's only so much of jungle level followed by jungle level followed by jungle level a gamer can take. It also took a lot of cheap shots at your character making the combat experiences very frustrating, not challenging. How many dinos can one character take on at once? Not the best gaming experience of my life, but if you like frustrating FPS games, go for it!


I'm still reading like 50 books at once right now. And being a slow reader doesn't help the mater. On top of my current reading list I still have yet to get to "Alice Cooper: Golf Monster" and an anthology series of Robert E. Howard's (Conan The Barbarian) of "The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane" that my gamemaster, Mad Mario, lent me last night in preperation of his running an RPG based on the character that will start up next summer. It will take me that long to just finish the stuff I'm on now.

Anyway, my weekend is booked again. I gotta get out of here and do some snack shopping for a CoC game I've got today. Plus there's also episodes of Torchwood I rented this weekend as well as some more Rainbow Six: Vegas so I can return it to Roberto soon. I may even try and sneak in a cigar, weather permitting. So I have to motor now.

Zangz is outta here.