Tag: Movies

The One Cold to Rule Them All

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

Everyone in my house is sick. My daughter never stopped being sick and my son beat his fever, but its either evolved into something else or this is just the next manifestation of it.

I thought I’d kicked this cold by getting a couple good nights’ sleep, but turns out the sucker was just lying dormant. It’s paying me back full force, having gone from an irritated throat, to some coughing and all around head fuzziness. I’m seriously considering unfurling the yoga mat I keep in my office and curling up. I probably shouldn’t even be typing this right now. I should be home in bed.

Oh wait. Nope. Can’t.

I love my kids dearly, but they couldn’t care less if Daddy feels sick. Well, that’s not true. They’ll want to sit with me and have me read to them, but they won’t understand Daddy’s need to sleep. So rest right now is off the table.

If I don’t kick this thing for good over the weekend, Monday might be a full on sick day which isn’t necessarily bad thing because that means I get to watch Lord of the Rings. I’m pretty sure like one day after I bought the special editions on DVD, I made the deal with myself that when I’m sick I watch Lord of the Rings. I can take all the medicine in the world, but I don’t actually get any better unless I watch LOTR. In fact, that’s probably what’s happening now.

Don’t talk to me about psychosomatic whatsits. Or placebos or any of your new-agey hooey. It’s the magic of the movie bathing me in its healing rays. Yep. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Last time I was sick I watched Two Towers, so logically my next move is Return of the King.

Come to think of it, this is sounding better and better. Monday might be a sick day no matter what happens.

My Two Favorite Things

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

Like apparently the rest of the world, I got to see Jurassic World over the weekend. Highest weekend opening ever, what?!

I wanted to hate that movie so much. Not that I knew everyone else would like it and I needed to go against the grain, but because I love Jurassic Park so freaking much. Seriously, on my all time list, it’s #2. It’s the movie in which I literally compare every other movie ever made to. If they nailed it in ’93, why ever do movies suck now? Anyway, so here’s the shtick my wife is tired of hearing me talk about …

Jurassic Park is awesome because it’s about the wonder and the awesome (true definition) power of dinosaurs. We see that with Dr. Grant when he puts his ear on the sick triceratops just to listen to it breathe. The score by John Williams still brings me to tears every time. It’s complete and utter wish fulfillment of childhood fantasies but then it goes a step further … See, in the original movie, the dinosaurs are animals. That’s the whole point. They’re majestic and they’re awesome and they’re scary as hell, but they’re animals. So when they come in contact with man it’s all, Uh oh. We’re not equipped to deal with this. That’s what makes them scary. In the money grubbing sequels, these animals have been reduced to nothing more than monsters. That underlying respect for nature is gone and replaced with shock tactics and violence.

Now flash forward to present day and with a new one coming out, I was more than a little suspicious. But I have to say that I liked the movie. On the off chance that you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything but the film gets back to the debate of man’s dominion over nature versus man’s relationship with nature. Oh and Chris Pratt raptor pack motorcycle club.

Even though the film was pretty heavy handed at times – my head still hurts from the hammering – I do agree that there was an actual story there worth telling. While it’s not the original – nothing ever will be – I was still surprised and pleased at the results.

We had some friends come over that evening and I finally got to open up the Eldritch Horror game my wife got me for my birthday. Big mistake. We started around 10pm and by 1am we had to call it. After setting up, struggling with rules and completing half of the objectives, we were all too tired to continue. That said, the game is freaking awesome! It’s so complex and apparently takes around 3 hours when you know what you’re doing, so starting at 10pm was just plain silly.

Typically I can convince my wife to play these kind of games with me. Other people are usually involved so she gives into peer pressure. She feels badly that I don’t have a core group of nerdy friends anymore to play this stuff with. So like a trooper, she’ll suck it up and play once and a while. This time though, she told me I was on my own. I also always try and convince her that it’s really not that bad or honey, you’ll actually probably like it. Nuh-uh. There’s no way this game is for her. She’d have been miserable.

We’re giving it another go around Wednesday and we’ll start much earlier. I’m really excited to see if we can keep that ancient one from waking up.

Recipes for Success

On By Dan MelnickIn DIY, Food, PersonalLeave a comment

I had a pretty productive weekend. My wife and I ran a bunch of errands all day Saturday and then tackled the nursery. After cleaning it out and repainting what feels like forever ago, we’d only really turned the guest room into the baby junk room. But after Sunday, it’s 100% full on nursery time. I mean a baby could conceivably live there!

It went from this:

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To this:

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It only took all afternoon but it’s finished. It’s now a place where we can’t stop ourselves from peeking in the doorway as we walk by. Sunday evening, we spent an hour and a half just hanging out in there and soaking it all in. The dog joined us too which was probably good for her. She’s totally going to have first baby syndrome. I’ve tried explaining to her that just because we’re have two more babies doesn’t mean that I love her any less. In response, she usually rolls over and lifts her leg for a belly rub. I’m not sure she gets it.

There are still a few more things that need to go in there, but it’s basically done for the most part. Cross that item off the list and move down to the next hundred or more so to go.

We’re taking an all day baby class on Saturday at the hospital to brief us on what to expect during the birthing process. We could have gone for the three hours a week for three weeks version, but we didn’t have the time. Instead, it now feels like we’re cramming to have a baby. Hey, worked for all my tests, right?

As you can imagine, we’ve been thinking a lot about the future. How to be good people, how to be good parents, how to raise good kids, that kind of thing. Something always on the forefront of our minds is nutrition. I think it’s safe to say that my wife and I foodies. Well, maybe foodie-adjacent. We both love to cook and get really excited at a good farmer’s market, but if you come at me with crickets sauteed in peanut sauce on a brioche bun, my first impulse won’t be to immediately put it in my mouth. But I’d definitely think about it.

Anyway, we’re usually trying to eat better. Ever since we were serious about getting pregnant, we’ve switched to a lot of organic products. That’s not always affordable, so we do our best. But basically if we can get away with organic, we’re gonna do it. I bring all of this up, because we were already sort of against processed food but after watching Fed Up over the weekend, I’m convinced that processed food is the fucking devil. It lures you in with whispered words dripping with sugar (yes that’s a pun), but they’re all LIES!

If you haven’t seen the movie, I urge you to do so. I’ve never thought of myself as an activist, but this shit is seriously messed up. The stuff we put in our bodies in the name of food is absolutely atrocious. What’s worse though, and what makes me the sickest isn’t what the government is or is not doing, but just how powerful the almighty dollar really is. Time and again, the documentary shows when someone tried to step up and do the right thing, but ultimately the companies making us fatter and sicker are the ones who control the purse strings and strong arm these people into submission. It’s kind of horrible.

The film clearly has an agenda but I think it does a good job explaining its view point rather than just demonizing the food industry as a whole. It certainly doesn’t paint them in a favorable light, but there is actual fact, reason and scientific evidence backing up many of the filmmaker’s claims.

So now my wife and I talk about how we can make sure our kids are eating properly and how to show them vegetables are their friends. I mean if more people are going to die from food-related illnesses than from malnutrition for the first time in human history I’m pretty sure something isn’t running the way it’s supposed to. Food is what keeps us going. It shouldn’t be killing us.

That said, the writer in me is already filing this away for a killer story down the road. That wasn’t meant to be a pun, but what the hell, I’m gonna roll with it.

Assemble

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

It’s been a rather momentous couple of days …

First and foremost, this morning, my wife and I went to the doctor’s for the monthly ultrasound. Although, this is the last monthly as we’re heading into biweekly territory from now on. Everything is great. Both of the little dragons are coming along nicely. Adequate limbs and digits. Hearts and spines. It was funny. I was watching the flickering images of the ultrasound, looking for the ghostly visages of my future children’s faces and it occurred to me that if I spotted something else: wings, horns, a tail … I don’t even think I would have blinked. That’s the kind of head space I operate in. Bat wings on my kids? Sure. That makes sense.

I’ve made a couple of deadlines for myself … things to accomplish before the babies are born in August. These are in addition to the usual house stuff: Fix the nursery, retile the kitchen floor, clean up the mess so we don’t look like hoarders anymore … you know. I’ve decided that I’m going to finish my current novel and run a half marathon before the babies arrive. I’ve worked it out with myself. I don’t necessarily need a sponsored event. I just need a day where I go for a run and end up hitting 13.1 miles.

I’m an avid runner and I’ve done it before, but I’m not really in half marathon shape anymore. So with the weather finally nice again, I’ll be out there more often than not. Actually, on Saturday, I hit a milestone. Since I’ve been keeping tracking of my running miles over the last couple of years, I hit my 1,000th mile on Saturday! That’s like running from New York City to Daytona Beach, Florida! (Yes, I Googled that distance. I tried for Orlando because I thought it sounded more impressive, but that was like 1077 miles instead … soon.) It’s only taken a few years and I know I’ve missed some runs in there, but seeing the number laid out like that makes me feel pretty damn good about myself.

Lastly, I saw the Avengers: Age of Ultron over the weekend like the rest of the world. I don’t need to post a review here because, hey, who didn’t see it, right? But I wanted to say that I liked it. I liked it a lot. And I’m glad I did.

A few months ago, a good friend of mine, David, had a heart attack while running. He was 51 and as far as I knew, in pretty solid shape. He was actually actively reforging that shape into something better. He loved running and he loved Marvel. My god, did he love Marvel. I’ve been reading Spider-man and his buddies for almost 20 years now, but David rekindled my inner fanboy like noone else. He was just a passionate guy. Every little snippet, tease, image or rumor just made his day and he loved to talk about it. There were other things going on in his life and Marvel was exactly the wish fulfillment and escape he needed. He’d been counting down the days for the Age of Ultron release.

It may sound silly now, but after his accident, my first thought was that he’d never get to see how this grand experiment ended. He had so much emotionally invested in this franchise that this revelation actually hurt. Time has passed and the blow has softened, but watching the newest Avengers movie in the same weekend I hit my 1,000th mile got me thinking. If he’d been around, we probably would have grabbed a beer and engaged in a discussion along the lines of:

David: Dude … Awesome!

Me: And when he-

David: So awesome! God and when-

Me: Loved it!

Rinse and repeat.

I miss ya, buddy, but I’ve read comics long enough to know that no hero is every truly gone. Even though I couldn’t share the events of the weekend with him directly, I know he would have been both proud and excited. It really has been a great couple of days.

Until next time. Excelsior!

I Come Offering Bananas

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

It’s been no secret that I’ve had a lot of factors vying for my attention recently. My wife’s too. I actually just texted her “hello” as I realized I hadn’t heard from her in hours – we lightly keep in tough throughout the day – and she responded that she’s “Having a baby shower, actually.” At work. Well, that beats my day …

Actually, I’m pretty pleased with how life is going today. That’s because I’m finally getting back into a groove with my latest novel. Nothing is more annoying than a writer talking about how s/he can’t write. This isn’t that, it’s more validation that the Jane Goodall method is a thing. I’ve mentioned it in a previous post and it’s fast becoming how I view writing.

It’s weird because throughout the day, I’m typically thinking about the part I just wrote, what the scene needs in the immediate future and where the scene will eventually end up, among other things book related that come to mind. It’s not uncommon for a snippet of dialogue or a line of description to just pop into my head involving something much, much later. I jot those down and incorporate them into my outline. Anyway, I bring this up, because lately, this thinking-prewriting method just isn’t cutting it. I’m squeezing the mental fruit, but I’m not getting any juice. It’s not writer’s block, it’s more like I don’t really know what’s happening and then I sit down and I’m a discovery writer all of a sudden. The good news is that the more I’m doing it, the more the scene is starting to form in my head again so I can return to form. It’s a strange wall of sorts for me because I’m really not much of a discovery writer. I can admit that now. High School Dan, though, he was ONLY a discovery writer. He not only laughed at outlines, he openly lashed out against them. Now? I can’t get anything done without an outline. And this novel in particular has the strongest outline I’ve ever made. I have story structure beats built right into it this time so hopefully that’ll cut a little bit off of the editing process.

I’ve also switched up the music I’ve been listening too. Well, the music has evolved is probably a better descriptor. I don’t necessarily write to a specific “soundtrack,” but since a lot of my writing is done at work or in a public place, I need to listen to music to cut out the surrounding noise. I can’t concentrate otherwise. Because of that, I also can’t listen to anything that has vocals. That’s just as distracting as someone talking into my ear. Sometimes more so.

My first two novels were written to a movie soundtrack station on Pandora – stopping of course every time anything from Jurassic Park came on – and by my third book I had discovered music on YouTube and listened to just about anything that had the word “Epic” in the title. I think I’ve cleaned most of those channels out by now and I was writing sort of a party scene at night for this fourth book and needed some ambient beats to get me in the mood. I started listening to some kind of ambient/trance stuff and it just stuck. Who knows? Maybe this has become the “soundtrack” to this one, but now when I start writing it’s not that I can’t work without these psychedelic jams, it’s that I’m bored of the previous material and for whatever reason this is doing it for me. Hey, whatever works right?

I’m starting to see the critters coming out of the trees again and boy have I missed them. I’m pretty psyched to see what they show me next.

The Perfect Cherry Blossom

On By Dan MelnickIn Food, PersonalLeave a comment

Night number two on my own proved to be as soul-restorative as the first. I started off with some obligatory Hearthstone of course. I knocked out the third wing of Black Rock Mountain pretty easily (saving Heroic mode for something to do later) and finished up the second half of my sole daily quest. My mecha paladin deck self-explanatorily titled Gears of Justice is becoming one of my favorite decks to play. It was fun. The adventure definitely helped add some whimsy – I love reading the new boss’ hero powers for the first time (I stay away from spoilers), but after my arena marathon the other night, I was kind of Hearthstoned out.

Dinner was sushi from the grocery store.

That’s something I thought I’d never utter before, but our Kroger here is enormous. Gargantuan. So big, it could serve as disaster relief for the community in case of emergency. It recently underwent some impressive modifications which added a whole host of food options for dining, not just shopping. We also have a large Asian population in Bloomington. I don’t mean that to sound weird in any way. This is a college town with a direct line to China through our music program. Put it this way, not only is there sushi in the grocery store, there’s a sushi bar in the grocery store. It has a conveyer belt and everything!

Since the wife can’t eat sushi being pregnant and all, I picked up a couple of rolls and something called squid salad. I just had to try it and let me tell you, squid salad is delicious. That’s a second thing I thought I’d never say. I couldn’t find a matching recipe online, but it was strips of calamari, red peppers, ginger, seaweed and mushrooms in a spicy sauce.

Whether it was the sushi or a chicken and egg scenario, but I ended up drinking some scotch and watching The Last Samurai while I fiddled with some Magic cards. That’s another movie I really like. It’s a little – OK a lot – heavy on the romanticism side when it comes to foreign culture, but the scenery is gorgeous. Even half paying attention as I restructured my werewolf deck, I picked up on things I hadn’t noticed over my dozen viewings before. Maybe I did, but I don’t think I really got it, you know? I’m talking about Captain Algren’s desire to become samurai. In an epic steeped in romantic nostalgia like this, of course it sounds awesome to be samurai, but I guess I never truly understood (or had to reremember) just how much Algren hated himself for what he’d done to the Native Americans. He transposes his thoughts and feelings of one indigenous culture fighting modernity onto another in a similar situation.

The rest of you are probably like, “Duh!” But something about it really struck me this time. It’s probably because of my own writing, but I look for meaning and motivation behind actions more than ever before. Also, what happens to Billy Connolly’s character? It’s possible the guy bit it during the initial battle and I just missed it. I was wrangling my werewolf deck under control. It’s still not where I need it to be, but it’s heading in the right direction. The werewolf transformation mechanic is such a cool idea, but its really hard to pull off and be competitive in a timely fashion.

So collectible cards and movies … yep, sounds like my kind of night.

Maintenance for my site is slow going. I’ve been trying to flesh out little bits here and there to add more content.

Side note: I hate it when writers use “here and there.” I mean I get it. It’s a haphazard smattering of something, but you can just say that. I understand the intention, but it always comes off as lazy writing to me. Similarly, I hate “24/7”. Why can’t you just say, “all the time”? “24/7” is five syllables and “all the time” is three. Even though the first is an abbreviation, it’s literally longer to say than summarizing it, but I digress …

I’ve done a little work on the Comics section and uploaded the first 10 issues of my old webcomic NOD: The Animated Series. Once I took the old site down, those issues only lived on my home computer, but I wanted to put them somewhere where they could actually be seen! It’s too many to simply dump on the page so while I’m exploring options of a scrolling or viewing widget, hopefully you can whet your appetite on the first 10.

T-Rex Wants to Hunt

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

My wife is away on an overnight field trip which leaves me with the run of the house. Well, me and the dog. So with the cat away, the pressure for this mouse to find the right things to “play” is almost overwhelming. It’s not that I can’t usually indulge in my nerdisms, but when it’s just me, there’s this added pressure that I must. Every minute must be accounted for to gain the maximum amount of fun. That I need to really drill down and get as much as I can out of the experience. There were plenty of things I could have done, but last night boiled down to simply two. Hearthstone and Jurassic Park.

I’m a pretty big fan of Hearthstone. It’s on the simpler side mechanics-wise as far as collectible card games go, but there’s just something about it. It’s got claws in me. Big, razor sharp ones with barbs that won’t come out without gutting me. Maybe it’s because it scratches BOTH my Magic the Gathering and World of Warcraft itches simultaneous. Maybe it’s just a fun card game. Who knows?

Anyway, I had knocked out the last of my dailies that morning and needed something to that evening. You know, getting back to the whole indulging myself thing here. So I did a couple of arena runs. Let me make something clear here before we begin. I love the arena and I also hate it. I am not good at arena play.  For those of you who don’t play Hearthstone, it’s essentially a draft so it doesn’t matter how many cards you’ve collected. The game provides them for you. The drafting part is fun. I always feel like I make good choices, but then implementing this ramshackle deck usually shows me how wrong I am. The most wins I’d ever had in the arena was 4. To put this in perspective, you can get a total of 12 before the game lavishes you in riches for “winning” the arena and kicks you out.

In the spirit of indulgence, I bought in and went for a run. I had high hopes in the beginning. Grabbed rogue which is my class of choice and thought I made a pretty solid deck. Boy was I wrong. Finished the run with only 2 wins and 3 losses.

Dismayed, but not defeated I went back in. Grabbed hunter this time and built what I think is a pretty ridiculous deck. So much so, that I shattered my old win total of 4 and by 6-0 I was undefeated. 7 wins is the magic number in that this is when the game rewards you with more gold than it cost to buy in originally and you actually come out ahead. If I could win just one more time, they’d make a movie about my experience.

Nope. Nadda. Nah-ah.

The next three games was a crushing series of defeats. After that first loss, something broke inside of me and all of a sudden my sub conscious realized that it could lose. That’s all did from then on. I swear, though, that my deck played a completely different way in the loser’s bracket than it did with the winners. For 6 games it was nothing but traps and kick ass durability-regenerating bow then I entered a complete drought of traps. A Desert if you will.

Still, it made for an eventful evening. Next up was Jurassic Park to take me right into bedtime.

Let me drive home a second point here. I really like Hearthstone, but I freaking LOVE Jurassic Park. It is one of my all time favorite movies – holding the number 2 slot on the list just in case you were wondering – but more than that, it completely holds up. That film came out in 1993 and totally nailed it. I honestly compare any move that has come out since to see if it has the same level of Jurassic Park quality. The CGI is a little dated, but it still looks great thanks to the animatronics and actual costumed stunt guys. The shortcomings of one style is more than made up with the strengths of another kind of special effect. They figured this shit out in 1993. What’s Transformers’ excuse?Featured image

Seriously, how great is that scene? The T-Rex … the rain … it’s freaking amazing! So what if the goat’s leg is weird or that I don’t understand the geography of the Rex’s paddock … I don’t care. That roar is one of the coolest things I have ever heard. Followed by a close second … “Ian! Freeze!”

I know I’m looking at things with some rose colored glasses too. I love the book, I love these characters, I love the plot, hell, I love everything I’m looking at when I watch that movie. There’s something magical in that film, that awe of nature, that was so perfectly captured. I even love the soundtrack. It gets me every time. That song. You know the one I’m talking about. I tear up every freaking time I hear that song. 20 Years later and I’m still getting chills.

Add a little scotch to savor with one of the best movies ever made on top of a personal best in Hearthstone and I gotta say that it was a pretty epic night. Eventful? Maybe not. But my inner nerd is quite indulged and happily satisfied.

Makes me wonder what I’ll be getting up to tonight?