Wow -- it's been ages since I've posted on Wesoteric! I wish I could say that I've been busy moving up in the world and being super rich and successful and famous and all that, but that's not the case: I've just been kinda neglecting my sites.

I have, however, done a bit of traveling since last time! During July I went to California for the San Diego Comic-Con (there's some stuff about that on Scary-Crayon; there'll be even more when I get around to posting it!) and visited my pal Mickey Glitter in the OC afterwards. Among other things, we went to Disneyland and rode the Tower of Terror many times!

And then, last month, I spent a week in Aruba with my dad. It's a really beautiful island -- I would have liked to stay longer! I have plenty of pics from that to post, and even a video of me feeding flamingos (the white balance was off, so I need to find a video editor that will let me correct that). Those will come later, but here are a few pics in the meantime!

Oh, and that thing in the title about me being older? Well, that'd be the case anyway -- passage of time and all that jazz; I'm older now than I was when I started writing this post -- but today's my birthday. Look what I bought to celebrate:

It really does taste like cake (especially the chocolate one).

Gotta run -- hopefully I'll post again soon! Take care, y'all. 🙂

Okay, I bought them yesterday -- since it's after 3AM now -- but still. I don't often buy CDs (it's free to download music, and I don't mean illegally; Amazon's got lots of free tracks and there's Freegal for library members, among the many free songs artists and DJs offer up on their websites), but the library had a $1 per CD or 5/$4 sale going on and, after browsing the selection, I decided I was probably going to get three of them. So why not get two more for just another buck, right?? That's how they get ya.

CDs purchased:

1. Peter Gabriel - Shaking the Tree
2. The Cure - Wish
3. Annie Lennox - Songs of Mass Destruction
4. 10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo
5. This Mortal Coil - Blood

I also bought two books: The Haunted and the Haunters, a collection of ghost stories selected by Kathleen Lines, and Spider-Man: Midnight Justice... the latter of which was apparently not enjoyed at all by the author of the linked review. Oh well, it was a quarter and features VENOM. And might make for a fun SC review someday.

And I bought a DVD! Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People. I'd never heard of it before... but holy shit it looks awesome! And it's rocking a 6.4 on IMDb, which surprises the heck out of me for a film like this.

Aaaand that'll do it for this post! Now, because it's totally what I should be doing instead of sleeping, I'm going to head to the basement and photograph action figures. See ya next time. ;p

So it seems like I dreamed several things last night that I wanted to write about, but now -- as I'm finally getting around to it tonight -- I'm having trouble remembering most of them. Alas.

But I do remember dreaming about a commercial for a play tent/sleeping bag for little girls. Apparently it utilized some new 3D immersive hologram technology, such that girls inside the tent would actually see things as if they were swimming underwater. Since it was a licensed product based on the mer-sisters of a cartoon (I think another thing I wanted to write about was the cartoon itself, but I don't remember much about it), the visuals would also entail the little girls looking down at themselves and seeing themselves transformed: they would have the lower body of whichever of the sisters they chose. One was more along the lines of a traditional mermaid, though rather than having scales she had the smooth rear half of a dolphin; another had the tail and legs of a lobster; and the last had the lengthy body and numerous legs of a centipede. And I thought this thing was awesome and I wanted it. (more...)

If you're one of the three subscribers to Scary-Crayon's tumblr, you've seen this already -- but I thought I'd post these thoughts here as well since they're also kinda in line with a personal blog entry (in that they're thoughts about things that I like). A cartoonist I know asked about shows people enjoy and why, and encouraged people to explain their reasons in detailed fashion. In response, I wrote about "Doctor Who" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and why I like them so bloody much!

Why I like "Doctor Who":

The show's brilliant premise (it's about a dude who travels in a craft that can go anywhere in space and time) gives it basically unlimited potential and versatility. It's also fascinating how the show's various eras tend to reflect the times in which they were made, though sadly it's currently in the "derivative scifi action show" phase that I'm not especially enjoying. Still, I keep watching because I'm very invested in the universe, and because the premise means that standout episodes or a complete 180 in terms of the show's quality is entirely possible.

(And I didn't mention it in the SC tumblr, but also because Daleks are awesome and those companions are mostly right foxy and THE CLASSIC TV DOCTORS RULE. Except Six. He was pretty terrible.)

Why I like "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles":

Terminator 1 and T2 are films I enjoy very much (I didn't see I as a kid, but loved T2 -- and my old Kenner Arnold fig was one of my favorite childhood playthings), but T3 and Salvation (which admittedly came out while TSCC was already running, but still) were comparatively weak and didn't do much for me. So I love that TSCC essentially acknowledged where the story went wrong -- and that Sarah Connor was one of the most, if not THE most, compelling characters in the franchise -- and revisited the story before it started sucking. (I also love how they did it: they had the characters literally time-jump over the events of the third film.) It's a very good show, too, and ponders many of the tangential questions one might have asked and ideas one might have had while viewing the films or thinking about the premise in general. Among other things, terminators are shown to have (slightly) different personalities and missions beyond simple assassinations; the show suggests that characters can travel back from different future timelines; and even, owing to the terminators' role as thinking machines with the ability to solve problems and make decisions, the suggestion that some terminators might voluntarily choose to side with humanity, or at least to oppose Skynet. Even terminators who remain committed to Skynet are shown to oppose it at times, if doing so will increase their chances of completing their mission. It's very interesting.

And it doesn't hurt that Lena Headey is gorgeous.

So I raaaarely comment on stuff like this (and I'm totally late on this in terms of blogosphere Hollywood gossip), but after having the tab open for days I've finally finished reading Joe Eszterhas's nine-page letter to Mel Gibson.

IT IS INSANE. And also kinda full of shit. I mean, Mel probably did do a lot of that stuff -- while he denies the truth of "the great majority of the facts as well as the statements and actions attributed to [him]" in his response to Eszterhas, those actions would be in keeping with Mel's personality as demonstrated in the past. But it just seems like bullshit that Eszterhas wrote this as a private communication to Mel with no intention of having it read by outside sources. (more...)