Back to the drawing board.

Posted in Rants on May 30, 2009 by ZapThunder

Usually that phrase means someone is scrapping what they have. That they are throwing in the towel in what they are doing. Not in this case. I am literally going ‘back to the drawing board’ I am making my return to drawing. I have been slacking lately. That is not saying I have not been crazy busy, that is just saying I have not been doing the thing that makes me most happy*: creating. I have been brainstorming, but not creating.

Next week, I will get my drafting table back when we move into our new house, and I plan on using it. I have three ideas right now. One for each medium that I love. Okay, technically one is going to be for two mediums. One is a comic strip/on-line comic that I am going to pitch to Zuda. I pitched a comic to them last year and it was rejected, and I am glad, because this one is not only better, but cathartic, and I will do it even if they don’t pick it up. It is sarcastic satire, it needs to be said, and for my sanity, I need to say it.

Another is a limited series that I am going to pitch to either IDW, Dark Horse, Vertigo, Devil’s Due, or another publisher of that caliber. I want a publisher that can sell it, cause it would make a hell of a movie. Goal is to have a first issue done by Mid Ohio Con.

The third, and oh boy, this is my baby. This is the thing that has been in my head for years. My epic. My Magnum Opus. The TV show. This is the thing I can’t get out of my head. A 5 season animated TV show. This is step three in my world domination plot. This will happen.

I say all of things in a non egotisticalway. It is just how it is. I will do whatever it takes, short of compromising myself. I will not give up, it just isn’t in my nature. And, just to be clear, I am not saying this in a whiney-ass Twilight, Emo type of way. I do not think ‘my words are gospel’ I am saying this because I will make it happen.

p.s. anyone who thinks one of those Volcano Burritos from Taco Bell is hot is a fucking pussy.

Currents:

*Not counting my wife.

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Good TV should not die.

Posted in Passing Shot with tags , , , on April 10, 2009 by ZapThunder

With According to Jim still on TV, there is no reason why good TV should die. It should end, however. Lost has proved that. The show flailed a little in it’s second or third season, but good lord, once it determined when it would end it has been dynamite. There are, however plenty of shows that have died before their time.

With word that Fox is going to air a reality show where the subject is downsizing someone on national tv, and Octomom getting a show as well, how the hell can quality shows like Chuck and Life be on the chopping block. I would rather pick up my dog’s still steaming shit, with my bare hands, just after he squats it out than watch either of those reality shows.

Shows that need not die:

If these shows die, and you watch either of those shows, I will find you and punch you in the neck.

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What the frak is wrong with being an elitist?

Posted in Rants with tags , , on April 8, 2009 by ZapThunder

I am sick of  those stupid McDonald’s commercials where annoying hipster-douchbags discard their poser ways because now McDonald’s has slightly glorified coffee milkshakes. When it comes to normal coffee, McDonalds’ coffee is pretty decent, and I like it better than Pike’s Peak from Starbucks, but coffee is not the issue here, glorifying ignorance is. In one commercial a woman is so excited she can discard her insanely pretentious hobbys and read ‘gossip magazines’ again. Really? Do we need to push the excitement of leaving books behind for gossip mags? Who is Paris blowing this month? Who gives a fuck. What are the chances that half the vacant shells who read those mags can find Paris on a map?

Exactly when did being an elitist become a bad thing? When did wanting the best, or wanting to be the best become a bad thing? I don’t vote for the guy I would most want to have a beer with, I vote for the guy that I think is the smartest person in the room. Speaking of beer I don’t  order a Natty Light at the bar, I order a Guinness. Does that make me an elitist because I like an imported beer?  Does loving Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa make me an elitist if The Magnificent Seven is the same movie, but with cowboys and in english? The Magnificent Seven, is also a great movie by the way. I am not saying you have to have steak at every meal, but what is wrong with occasionally wanting the best? Or maybe that is the problem.

As more and more kid’s sports’ leagues start not counting winners and losers so that feelings are not hurt are we dooming an entire generation to a wall of participation ribbons and a lifetime of entitlement? There is no ‘best’ any more, there is only ‘good enough’. I am sorry your kid sucks at basketball, maybe he should find something he is good at and enjoys. Lets let the landscape level itself out instead of pushing the peaks down. We now punishing the best and the brightest amongst us out of jealousy. Are people that short sighted that they now look down upon those that actually tried for a first place ribbon and made themselves better?

Having a knowledge about science and actually traveling outside your hometown can only be a good thing, but often is viewed as being elite. Growing up in Indiana, I knew a guy that, at age 26 was leaving the state for the first time ever, for his honeymoon. You can drive across Indiana in less than four hours, and we worked 90 minutes from Chicago. He never drove the 45 minutes west it would take to reach Illinois. The thing is, people like him call people elitist. It is people who never stretch themselves and stay within the comfort zone they live in because they fear venturing out.

Wanting the best and reaching for knowledge does not make you an elitist, it makes you a better person. There are people that are pretentious douchebags, but they are not elitist, they are just douchebags.

Currents:

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Horror Hound Convention

Posted in Random and Scattered with tags , , on April 6, 2009 by ZapThunder

I meant to do this last week, but my excuse is that I was busy. The truth is I was lazy. (Too much meaningful Hockey and NCAA games to watch!)

For my friend’s bachelor party last weekend we went to the Horror Hound convention in Indianapolis. Now, I am not a huge horror fan. I like it, but the current popularity cycle of ‘Torture Porn’ is not my bag. I like Vampires, Werewolves and Lovecraftiantype movies, but it sounded like fun, so I was excited. The weekend was in fact, a lot of fun, mostly due to the great group of guys that we had with us, and the fact that a horror con is rife with content to enjoy as well as mock. An added dose of irony was the Church of God’s Women’s Conference that shared the convention are with us.

We had a lot of Corey Haim jokes ready to go, The Two Corey’sgives you a lot of material to work with, but in person the guy could not be cooler. He was very genuine with his fans and walked through the crowd just like a normal convention attendee smiling at everyone who met his gaze. The man also plays a mean jimbay in an impromto lobby concert Saturday Night.

I sat in on three movies at the con and will leave my reviews (with spoilers and depression ratings) below.

Shuttle - 45 minutes of a very good suspense survival horrortype movie. Unfortunately it was a lot longer than that. If you have a chance to shoot the man who is: tormenting you, has killed one of your party and cut off all the fingers of another person, you pull the trigger. Don’t worry about getting convicted for murder if he dies, you blow off both kneecaps THEN strap him in to the seat. By rescue opportunity #5 we stopped caring and kind of wanted these people dead. There were so many Red Herrings in this movie that it was obvious they were in there only to kill time and make a 45 minute movie long enough for a feature. Ending Depression Meter 4 out of 5 women shipped in crates.

Quench- Before this movie the director spoke to the crowd and thanked everyone for supporting “True Independent Filmaking” and mentioned the directors that were his biggest influences and named several of giants of the genre. *Note to Directors* If you made a low budget and/or shitty movie do not make people think of awesome directors and movies prior to your movie. This movie is bad in all the ways that an old MST3K horror movie is bad: Awkward silences, stilted dialogue and characters who get together simply because they are the only two other people in the movie and have a chemistry level that is below 0 on the Kelvin scale. The lead actor makes kittens dieinside of his sweatpants, and then crys before almost slitting his throat with scissors, all of which is inspired by seeing his friends get freaky on a canvas in their basement. This was the funniest scene in the movie until he gets treated like Pesci in Raging Bulland the camera pulls back to see a black towel laid out perfectly underneath him on top of the cream carpet in an otherwise immaculate room. Yes, they were more worried about getting corn syrup on the carpet than getting a realistic shot. Also, if you join a cult of blood drinkers, there better be some kind of power involved, or else why join a cult? Just drink blood at home if you are still going to be a part time bagger at a grocery store in your 20s. Ending Depression Meter 1 out of 5 anvils dropping on your head for the twist ending.

Blood River- Best movie I saw there. I really only have one complaint and that is the ending was too vague. I understand that the director wanted to leave it vague, because sometimes we never know, and that makes it worse at times, but let the audience know. There were a few hints, but they did not add up to us knowing exactly what happened to cause the young couple being psychologically tortured by the Stranger. I appreciate not being spoon fed a resolution, but I also like having a bit more to discuss about what the resolution could have been. Seeing this movie made me hope that the guy that directed Quench stuck around to see how to edit a dialogue scene, because that was 90% of this movie, and it never bored me through any of the conversations.

Currents:

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How I stopped rooting for the Red Wings and became a Blue Jackets fan.

Posted in Random and Scattered with tags , on March 26, 2009 by ZapThunder

Oh yes, I am going there.

After years of following the Red Wings, I have left them. We broke up. Or, to be fair, I dumped them. There are a few reasons, one in particular is that they pissed off my wife.

She bought be tickets to their game against the Blackhawks last April, it was opening weekend for the Tigers as well, so we could see them both! Well, we saw the Tigers and saw The D-Train’s debut, for whatever that was worth and got up the next day to see the Wings! Well, we did not grab a paper that morning, and apparently the game time was moved up earlier in the week and we missed it. NBC decided to show the game and wanted to ‘fit it in’ befor golf. I have never seen Holly so man. Granted, I should have checked, but seriously, with one game of hockey on TV a week, and this one not being on the schedule the week previous, I thought it was safe. I was wrong, and I have never seen Holly so mad. She rooted against them through the whole playoffs and it was clear she would never forgive them. I still rooted for them, but quietly.

Then, in July of last year we left Indiana for Columbus, Ohio. It most likely says something about either Hockey, or how crazy this town is for OSU anything that it never registered that the Blue Jackets were here until I looked into things to do in the city after I accepted the job. My first thought was that I was excited that I could see the Red Wings when they played here. Holly just looked at me sideways. She was mostly excited I was leaving my job behind, since she saw how unhappy and uncertain I had become there and didn’t want to press the issue.

The season started and I thought, “Hm, maybe I should try and get tickets for opening night.” Holly had to work, and it would give me something to do, I mean, they were playing Nashville, and I could root for the Jackets in that game. I didn’t go, but I did listen to the game on the radio and it sounded like a lot of fun, and hey, they won! The thing was, it was not a known thing. They were not favored. People in Ohio are going to hate this, but the Red Wings are like Ohio State football. You know they are going to most likely win the division and go to the playoffs with a great chance to win it all, there is only the chance that they will choke. And with both those teams that chance is pretty good. You root that you do not choke, not that you win.

I got free tickets to a preseason game against the BlackHawks through work, the fact that it was the same team that we was supposed to see in Detroit amused my wife. She took this as a sign that I should root for the Jackets. We had a great time, and the Jackets DESTROYED Chicago. 7-1, and 5 fights. Holly likes the fights. On my birthday I got a PS3 and the game I picked out with it was the NHL2K9 game with Rick Nash on the cover. I felt compelled to play as the Blue Jackets. I have always played my seasons on hockey games as the Red Wings, and usually blasted my way through the competition too easily, and while it was fun, it usually got boring by February of the season I was playing.

Then a local grocery station along with Pepsi had a promotion that you could get 4 free tickets if you buy 4 twelve-packs of Pepsi. I ended up buying 16. We did not need soda for a long time, and I was excited that we could go see four more games on the cheap! Building a house has tied up a majority of our cash, so cheap entertainment was a no-brainer!

I have now been to six CBJ games (and I am going this Sunday) and they are 6-0 when I go, including two wins over the Red Wings. Two wins they were not supposed to have, and two wins that I could not stop cheering for the Blue Jackets. Above where I compared the Red Wings to the OSU football, I would compare the CBJ to Purdue Football. A team that is always in it, and always dangerous to pull off the upset, but never viewed as a power-house nationaly. And I love me some Purdue Football!

So, the story ends up with me getting a 10 pack of season tickets for Holly and I next year, and two Blue Jackets shirts and one hat, to my zero Red Wings.

Now, the only question is if/when I put my Red Wings bobble heads on ebay.

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Octomom: Living “The American FAIL”

Posted in Random and Scattered with tags , on March 13, 2009 by ZapThunder

Our new President is preaching for self-sacrifice and self-accountability due to the fact that, yes, WE got ourselves into this mess that the economy is in. We had a hell of a lot of help, and more bad advice than Alex Rodriguez’s PR Agent can dish out, but what got us into this mess was old fashioned greed. This is nothing new, and it isn’t going to stop. Hell, when I went for my new construction loan in August I was approved (on my own credit) for ‘up to 300k’. Seriously? I am nervous enough for the modest (okay, slightly above modest) amount we took it for. For years, we, as Americans took those 300k loans living on edges so frayed you would think they belonged on a ‘vintage’ hat at Abercrombie. So, now, with everything that has happened over the last couple years, all the warnings and signs there is no greater example of what I am calling “The American FAIL” than Octomom.

Collecting animals is an early sign of mental illness. It is hoarding. She is not well. I am not going to bash her, because I honestly think she is sick. The problem is with the system that has let her continue this practice of hoarding children with no oversight, and with no accountability. There is no shortage of children. They are a boring little miracle that happens every second of every day. My eventual children will be the exception though, so in the future when I brag about them, you can kindly fuck off, because they will be better than yours. It’s pretty much a given.

A colleague made the comment that there should be the same oversight and care taken in allowing someone to have in-vitro as there is for her when she adopted her two daughters. I know several people that have adopted and I know all the time and effort they had to spend in order to adopt. (Also, note that should we ever adopt children they will also be better than yours.) For in-vitro she simply had to write a check, or charge it. I honestly hope she paid for it with a welfare check. That would be awesome on an EPIC FAIL level.
So now, after making bad decision after bad decision she is now being GIVEN care for the eight babies. I have no problem with them getting help, but the first step should be getting them away from her. Then, give free help to eight families that need the help because they lost their jobs. She is also getting to live for free in a house owned by her father. It is not in her name, so she is still considered jobless with no assets and 14 dependants.

In this environment of bailouts, this is one that actually has a face, that is why America is so mad. It is someone specific we can point to, not just ‘empty suits’. She joins Bernie Madoff as the faces of the extremes of greed in this economy. The fool, and the con-man. Both took all they could and hoarded what they loved most, babies and money. And both have damaged all the lives they touch.

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Watchmen

Posted in Uncategorized on March 9, 2009 by ZapThunder

I know the story of Watchmen. I know it very well. The reputation the book had of being ‘unfilmable’ was well earned. I say ‘was’ because Snyder blew me away. The biggest take-away I had was that it was the first movie I saw that was paced like a comic book. Sure, Sin City was an amazingly recreation of the story (with all it’s strengths and weaknesses) but it was paced like a movie. It used all the shots from the book, but they would speed up or slow down. Watchmen took it’s time.

I get the concerns with the slow motion fighting, but for me, it worked, because in comics you might get three panels of a single fight move, how else can you tell that story, except to slow it down and let you catch every blow just as they would happen for an individual trained to the utmost in their fighting.

There was no squid. For me, the squid was a huge mind-fuck in the comic. It was out of nowhere. The new ending (not to ruin it) felt organic, and if you did not know, it felt like the original ending. It kept it more contained and removed the subplot of the writer of The Black Freighter, which I do look forward to seeing on dvd. Snyder busted his balls on this and it shows. Alan Moore might not care to ever watch it, but to Alan I say what I have had to say to many fanboys over the years. At the end of the day: “It’s just a comic book”. Just like I will also say “It’s just a movie”.

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“Three Olive Martini Guy”

Posted in Rants, Uncategorized with tags , , , , on March 6, 2009 by ZapThunder

I was at the bar at Gordon Bierch having gotten my beer killing time with some friends before heading to the Columbus Blue Jackets game and some guy pushed up to the bar after me to order a drink. He motioned the bartender over and ordered a “Vodka Martini with THREE olives!”.

  • The emphasis was his.

The bartender asked what kind of Vodka he wanted. The man said he did not care, and inquired what the house vodka was, and said it was fine, but, make sure it has three olives!

  • He.Did.Not.Care.About.The.Vodka.

Seriously? It is a VODKA Martini, the vodka is first for a reason. An Olive is a garnish. Would you ever order a steak with extra parsley and not stress the cut of the meat, or the amount it was cooked? Sometimes people focus on the one thing that doesn’t matter and completely miss the big picture. People will fixate on a car they want to buy because it has a cool feature and not look at gas mileage, or talk to a mechanic before buying it.

  • Side note: Find yourself a great mechanic and run your future car purchases by him. We have one now (too late for my wife’s car) but I will run ANY future car purchase by him and pay him for his time. I would never have known that the Ford Focus’s transmission dies between 60k and 80k in every car he has worked on. Ours died at 38. The Warranty ran out at 36. So, buy the 100k warranty on a Ford Focus.

Not to go on too long, but next time you are faced with a choice take a second to make sure you are focusing on what really matters, and not an olive.

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Because you demanded it: The Origin of Zap Thunder

Posted in Random and Scattered on March 3, 2009 by ZapThunder

There have been questions about the name Zap Thunder, so I might as well tell the story.

It was a nickname given to me several years ago, while on a 4th of July weekend. A group of us were sitting in a boat in the driveway and drinking. (It is a dry county, so we could not drink in the boat on the water.) One of us (Jason) was talking about how when he was on college, there was an arcade there and some really crazy guy who made everyone call him by a very odd name. (Who actually hung out in arcades around 1999, I have no idea, but anyways.)

Back to the story: Jason says “I could never pull off a name like that.” he then looks over at me and rather wildly throws his beer-holding-hand towards me saying, “You! (wild arm swing and point)You could get away with calling yourself something crazy, like Zap (wild arm swing and point) Thunder! (wild arm swing and point)”. As he pulled back the third wild arm swing he no longer had his balance and fell backwards out of the boat onto the blacktop driveway. As soon as Jason turned out to be okay, the “Great job, Zap Thunder!”s started. “Who are you going to push out of the boat next, Zap?” And so, a moniker was created.

Random thought:

  • If everyone who seems to mock the extra $13 in their paychecks (two lunches of lettuce wraps at Pei Wei a week for me!) as being insignificant were to have to lose $13 a week in return for Universal Health-care they would throw a shit-fit.

Random Declaration:

  • I know comedy writers are having a hard time coming up with good Obama jokes, but “Change we can believe in.” as a punchline is dead. Seriously, it doesn’t work. It is like every comedian that did a variation of  the “You might be a redneck.” punchline Jeff Foxworthy perfected. It is cheap, easy and not really funny.  I love satire, so lets go out and make some good ones!

Currents:

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Award Winners

Posted in Professional Announcements on March 2, 2009 by ZapThunder

Looks like I won 3 Silver Addys from my previous employer. I wish I could have been there to see that. Of course, they were all credited to Team LaBov and no names on them since it gets akward when all the people that win their awards are gone by the next years awards.

I contributed a bit to website for the Judges Choice award, but I am not sure it is to the point I can put it on the resume. Originally there was to be a bit more of a web presence and if they had gone through I could have. Big ups to Drew and Chris for their creative on this one, it was extremly fun and goes in the list of best things LaBov has ever done, imo.

My winners:

  • Breakout: I pitched this idea as a game in a series we did for Volkswagen CPL ( I was involved until June 2008, although I helped plan July’s) and saw this baby through till the finish. I worked with Drew on it, who did design and added in the beach ball idea, which was awesome.
  • ShowRoom Shape-up: I came in on this the idea was created by Melissa, I think. Drew did the creative again and kicked ass. I loved working with Drew on projects, we were always able to collaborate some great stuff.
  • A4 Training Module. I can’t link to this, but it was courseware. Pete did creative on this one and Andrew helped with this being his first module.

Currents:

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