I Ain't Afraid of No Reboots!

This post has no spoilers unless you think drawings of myself and characters from the movies are spoilers, then there are spoilers, but no details of the plot of the movie itself.


So, if you've been paying attention for any amount of time, you should know that I am a gigantic Ghostbusters fan. Unlike most of the people on the tubes, I was super looking forward to the release of the new Ghostbusters reboot, which should be clear since I made a goal of going to the movie AND picking my nose in said movie (which I totally achieved):

Artist's Rendering

I even made my own shirt for the occasion, which was the most obnoxious experience ever. I mean, who makes a t-shirt transfer that CAN'T BE WASHED *glares at Horizon Group USA*

If you want one, too, you can buy one by clicking the picture, because iron-ons are a pain in the ass (There are also stickers, mini skirts, and prints available). Or pledge a dollar or more on Patreon for access to the unwatermarked version to make your own if you enjoy ass pains.

But my thoughts on the movie...

I LOVED IT!

Now my nephew, who is the kid next to me in the picture above ignoring my finger in my nose, thought it was better than the original, but I quickly corrected him, because that is verging on blasphemy. But it was just as good, I think, and its own thing. 

Of course, there are many (cheek-bustingly delightful) references to the original, which I won't elaborate on, but it really is an entirely new thing which real fans of the movie (who don't have some weird principle against a universe being expanded -- or yucky girls) should absolutely love.

Love, love, love, love, love. And so far, all the fans I know are really feeling exactly that, so it is not just because I usually keep my expectations almost as low as they can go when it comes to media. That is to say, if I am entertained, I am willing to call something entertainment, but this was more than entertainment; it was a new and expanded look at a franchise that has been dear to my heart since I was 8 years old, and I think it will bring a new generation of 8-year-olds into the fray. I can't wait for more!

In the meantime, I'll just bring everyone I know to go see it, and draw fan art, and read all I can about it and fantasize about joining the crew!

 

Cheeseblarg's 2016 Nerd-Out

In addition to reading a bunch of books, last year (but incidentally not finishing the reading challenge... after Tracey's coma, I got a little distracted, to say the least-- but I did finish most of it), I also found a whole bunch of new nerd things to be obsessed with.

It's amazing when you are spending every day in bed, in pain, how much nerdy joy can bloom in your heart.

SUPERNATURAL

I basically started watching this so I could understand the million memes that show up on my Tumblr and Facebook timelines, and I highly recommend it if you are into monster and demon folklore... or if you're into hot guys. It works for that, too.
Supernatural is the story of two brothers who hunt monsters of lore (you know, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, chupacabras, etc), crossing the country on various quests in a Chevy Impala, with a bitchin' old rock soundtrack. Seriously, I think they spend at least as much on song rights as they do on production quality, which is pretty good. There is way more to the plot than that, and it gets quite interesting (though there is a lull in the beginning of season 6... just push on through, it really is worth it, I think). The greatest thing about it is that the show nods to so many of my favorite nerd things. There are Ghostbusters references galore, and all sorts of 80s references, which are so much fun, and there are some good jump scares to boot.

STEVEN UNIVERSE

I know it is weird since I draw comics and such, but I don't really love cartoons. It is hard for me to make myself watch them, but again, all of my good friends were obsessed with Stephen Universe, so I figured I would check it out, and then I watched all of the episodes in a few days. They are just 15 minutes each, so it is easy to fit some in when you have a moment... or a few days.
Steven is a pre-teen boy who lives in a seaside town with three alien warriors, called Crystal Gems, who have tasked themselves with protecting the Earth from anything that might threaten humans. His dad, Greg, a former small-time rock star, runs the local carwash and every once in a while checks in on his son, divulging more about his mother, Rose Quartz.
The show is different than any other kids (or adult) show I've ever seen. There are some great songs that you'll want to download (if you're anything like me), and some really poignant social commentary that doesn't feel like it is being shoved down your throat. Most excitingly, it is really inclusive. There are fat characters (who are loved and amazingly not the butt of every joke), and gay characters, and characters of all different colors and creeds.  Really, Steven and the Crystal Gems are just the kind of people that you want to be friends with.

My favorite song!

DEADPOOL

If you've seen the movie and have been paying attention to my sense of humor, you should already understand this love. If not, Deadpool is a wise-cracking, foul-mouthed anti-hero who regularly breaks the 4th wall (i,e, talks to the audience). Major crush. See the movie if you're into funny gory action movies, but don't bring your kids, please.

Ezekiel 25:17

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies ever. It came out my first year of college, while I was in a class where we were tasked with making installation art pieces based on a director's movies. I did not get Quentin Tarantino, though my good friends did, and it was my introduction to his work, for which I am grateful. QT is on my list of celebrities/fellow artists that I most want to hang out with.

Valentine's Cards: Set Two- From Your Unromantic Boyfriend

My next set of Valentines are what you would get if your boyfriend/husband could really get you the card he wanted to... that was based on an action movie. Or the ones that I would get you, because I like classic action movies, despite having a vagina.

And again, some available in my Zazzle shop if they haven't been taken down.

The Best of the Bad: The Horror of my Youth

For Halloween this year, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite BAD horror movies. By bad, I mean of course, good, but bad.  They are not polished or necessarily deep, nor would the acting in them win any awards, other than a Razzie, mayhaps, but they are some of my favorites of all time.

(for those viewing by RSS, there are trailers for each video on the actual blarg)

The Stuff (1985)

The acting is really horrible (as you can see in the trailer), but it is really amusing, and only slightly gross.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

This has it all, sex, gore, graphic nudity, witty teenaged banter, creepy older men trying to hump teenagers, bad acting, and it is fairly bizarre to boot. The ending has apparently made it a cult classic, so join the cult. The kool aid is delicious.

Frankenhooker (1990)

 The VHS box of this at our local video store, when I was in high school, had a button on it that would declare "Hey, wanna date? Got some money?" when pushed. This was repeated by me and friends throughout high school and college, which got me some weird looks, let me tell you. It is hysterical, though, and bizarre and icky (not really gorey like things are today, but icky all the same). And did I mention it is funny. Horror comedy at its best.

House (1986)

Again, funny, and scary.  There is some good creature work in this and it stars The Greatest American Hero! My sister and I watched this as young teens, and then made our dad watch it with us because we thought it was really good and really scary.  He spent the first 5 minutes asking us "Is this the scary part?" and declaring "This doesn't seem very scary." And then, he spent the rest of our teenaged years terrifying us by sneaking outside to press his face against random windows, since he looks like one of the scary characters in the movie. He might be the reason I have intestinal issues.


Invaders from Mars (1986)

This movie has always been one of my favorites. It is unfortunate that it is not on DVD, but it can be viewed in entirety on YouTube.  It is a  remake of the 1953 Invaders from Mars that nods to the original. This movie fascinated me as a kid, and is more suspense and creepy sci-fi than flat-out horror, really, though it does have some creepy creature design done by Stan Winston who is responsible for some of the best special effects in cinema (Alien, The Thing, Edward Scissor Hands, seriously, the man is legend).


So, now that I have shared my favorites of the B rated horror classics, that I hope you will check out for Halloween, what would you recommend I watch?

Hungry for the Games of Hunger

I'm excited to watch The Hunger Games in the theater next week during the first cheap matinee. My husband doesn't read... not that he can't. I know for a fact that he has the ability, he just doesn't have the attention span to read fiction. My point was, though, that I get to share the story with him, as a result of the movie, and about that I am excited. I have described it to him as The Running Man, but with kids... (and also a tamer Battle Royale) and so I have managed to trick him into going, which is bitchin'.

Also, now I can stop drawing doofy fan pictures!

Katniss, your denseness makes me want to gut you with your own hunting knife, but the rest of your story is boss!

Life in a Vacuum.

My husband is vacuuming in our bedroom, where I am, and while I appreciate that there will be less debris on the floor from my favorite blanket that likes to unravel itself, leaving strings everywhere, I really hate the vacuum cleaner.  See, our room is not all that big and there are times that he has to pick up the vacuum, to get to other parts of the room, which he does while it is still on, and it makes one of the worst sounds I have ever heard, like a garbage truck falling off the empire state building.

The vacuum itself is from the 1960s and I don't think a single part of it has ever been oiled since it was made, by the amount of squeaking coming from it. It also has its own transmission, since it weighs a ton, and you have to be careful not to get pulled under it... which is part of the reason that I refuse to vacuum.  As well as the fact that loud sounds startle me and it is very hard to vacuum whilst curled up in the fetal position with your hands over your ears.

And I must admit, my cat like reaction to the vacuum cleaner might have possibly been influenced by the movie "Mr. Mom", which is about an evil vacuum cleaner that likes to eat woobies.  That is what it's about, right? Well, that's what I took away from it. Vacuums are bad and have evil intentions, always.

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I entered this contest to redesign a Guylian candy box. There is a substantial cash prize I'd like to win to remedy that "no income" thing.  Half the score is likes from friends, family, whoever you can sucker into clicking, so, if you would click like to vote for mine, it would go towards possibly winning me a buttload of money that I can then use to take myself to the Grand Canyon, and I would be greatly appreciative. =D  

Click here and like over on the right, by my name, please, and then send over everyone you know!

P.S. Thanks to those who have bought stickers and donated! You helped get my husband's medicines this month so he doesn't have any more strokes!  <3

Move, you stupid horse!

Sometimes, it is best to take the advice of 80's movie characters, and not wallow to where you feel like your drowning in the Swamp of Sadness.

Sometimes, you just need small erase figurines of cute animals to come out of the damned vending machine that you put your last two quarters in because you knew it would cheer you up when you were having a really crappy day because your body decided to wake you up by sticking you in the bathroom for 2 hours in agonizing pain, for some unknown reason, and you feel like there is someone trying to hack apart your head so you slept most of the day and didn't get anything done and you just want a freaking eraser dolphin with a flower on its head. But no, the machine jams, and you are left angry and quarter-less, and I just wanted the DAMNED DOLPHIN!

(reposted after it was eaten yesterday by the blogger monster... if there are two of them, comment on this one because I am deleting the other if it reappears. Thank goodness for RSS or it would have been goneski)

Nerd Love- Star Wars

I just watched Star Wars this morning and I was reminded of the following:

OMG, I LOVE R2D2!

Yup, that's it. 

And yes, I did fall asleep during it...

Movie-Induced Narcolepsy

I suffer from a terrible affliction. I've found no medical evidence of it, but I have coined it "Movie-Induced Narcolepsy."  This is a condition in which watching movies in the comfort of my own home (or that of close friends) puts me, almost immediately, to sleep. It has never happened in a movie theater, not around strangers, only when relaxing and watching a private showing of a feature-length film, no matter the time of day.

There are many theories floating around as to why this happens, however I think it boils down to this:  I usually use subtitles, because I have another medically invalid condition called "What the hell did he say?" which occurs when any background noise is of a similar volume level to that of the dialog, wherein I am able to hear what is said but my brain refuses to interpret it (and I fully expect medical people who read this to now tell me that I have terminal ear cancer or a nerve deafness brought on by something that is equally terminal).

This triggers yet another issue, known as "Reading makes me tired," wherein reading... makes me tired. Yes, I know, I clearly am going to die.  But as a result of my afflictions, it took me a day and a half to finish watching Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark last summer because I fell asleep every 25 minutes, and I really wanted to watch it, because all I could remember of it from when I was four years old, was being in the theater with my sister and having her cover my eyes towards the end so my face wouldn't melt on the advice of our cousin who had already seen it, but had somehow managed to escape face melting, to tell her that shielding was necessary. And of course, the part with the ball was mildly familiar from the spoof of it in UHF...

This post is not meant to poke fun at or belittle actual sufferers of Narcolepsy (or ear cancer, or terminal nerve deafness). Seriously. Don't yell at me.

The Bête Noire

I just started watching all of the episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" recently.  In one of the episodes that I watched within the past few days, it mentioned "Field of Dreams." Since I've never watched the movie (don't dig on Kevin Costner or baseball... or dramas), and since it was on today, and since HIMYM was talking about how awesome it was, I figured I'd watch it... and then, I quickly lost interest and took a nap because on to the screen walked my film foe. It was like, "Four strikes, you're out, movie!" (See, told you I don't like baseball...)
Now, I am sure that Ray Liotta is a lovely man.  I've never heard a single bad thing about him that I can recall. I understand that actors are not the parts they play, but gha, I hate Ray Liotta*.
Really, the problem is, he is apparently too good of an actor... and the first movie I saw him in was Unlawful Entry. I just can't get over it. Especially since he is a character actor and plays the same icky bad guy all the time.  Even when he is not playing the bad guy... he is still the bad guy to me.

 Kinda like Sam Rockwell and Craig T. Nelson (Poltergeist 2 ruined him for me).
*shudder*

* In movies, I hate him in movies. It's not like I would spit on him and shove him into traffic if I ever met him.  It is only on the screen that I never ever ever ever EVER want to see him. Except in Identity, that movie is AWESOME!

Llama Theatre: Total Llama

Ready for our date? Wha!? You're wearing sweatpants?! Oh well...

It's Llama Theatre time again!

Another of my favorite movies, this time from 1990. I actually employed this movie quite a bit in college to try to attract nerds.  It worked a couple times.  I'm still using it... *waggles eyebrows*

Get your ass to Mars!

Llama Theatre: Weird Llamas

It's Friday night again, date night. I hear people go to movies and things like that on dates. Here is a scene from one of the greatest 80s movies in a new series I call "Llama Theatre." *whispers* I spell it fancy to make it more special.
Now I can pretend like we are out on a date.
Too creepy?

Original can be purchased at Etsy

As long as it is not part of a shower caddy.

I need a source on waterproof paper and writing implements, or even better, a waterproof digital device of recording that I can wall mount/wear/have implanted into me, because I regularly come up with great ideas for posts in the shower and by the time I dry off, at which point I could make a note or start working on them, I have lost the idea completely.

Clonerator 3000

During my childhood, we moved around a lot.  I started school in California, moved to Arizona, then to Florida in 2nd grade.  I went to two different elementary schools, a magnet school that was an hour away for middle school, and a different magnet school for high school. That should explain why it is that it wasn't until college, again, that I realized that people look pretty much the same when they are kids as they do when they're adults. College was a big time for discoveries for me.

I realize now, that everyone else knows this, but I had never seen anyone consistently while they were growing up and it wasn't until I ran into a kid from my 2nd grade class in college, who looked exactly the same only taller and with facial hair, that it clicked.  My only frame of reference for aging before that moment was movies and TV. Well, and my sister, but maybe it was just really good casting.  Okay, fine, I have no explanation.

I have a solution though; I think this confusion could be avoided for other people if we just had actors keep a collection of clones of themselves at different ages, just in case their movie requires a scene that flashes back to childhood.

Kids, it will grow back!

Yup, I have no reason for painting this.  I just really like the movie "Dragnet" and thought it would be enjoyed. Though I do have a sneaking suspicion that my sister, who classifies herself as a pagan on facebook, may actually be referring to P.A.G.A.N. instead of the actual established Pagan religion.

Monster Math- Variables and Demon Possession

A lot of people are afraid of algebra.  I think that it is because they don't know that algebra is just basic math dressed up in scary costumes. I mean, for the most part, it is just addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division-- it is just a matter of understanding how they are dressed up to understand the concepts.  But don't worry, I'm here to unmask the monsters of math for you, kinda like in that movie Van Helsing, only not so boring that you want to throw yourself off the balcony to avoid having to watch anymore.

Variables

Variables are like the Regan McNeil of algebra.  Each variable used to be a cute little number but then they made the bad choice to play with a Ouija board wherein Captain Howdy turns them into pea soup spitting letters of fear and uncertainty.  Yes, they seem scary, but basically are just a demon-possessed number masquerading as a letter.

With variables, your job is to figure out what number that letter used to be to free them of their demon.  Yup, each math problem where you are solving for a variable is a mini exorcism!

Suggested watching: The Exorcist, Jennifer's Body

Distributive Property

The distributive property in algebra can be likened to the movie Rosemary's Baby.  You take possessed numbers (aka variables) and their mates (should they have any) and spread their seed into the other numbers in the parentheses next door.  Once everyone is done with their multiplying orgy of the damned, you combine like terms into teams, that is, demon numbers combine by addition or subtraction, as do plain ole numbers who have avoided being possessed.  They are organized from most possessed to least possessed as follows:

(y+2) (y+2)

y²+2y+2y+4

y²+4y+4

* note- this concept works with possessing aliens also!

Suggested watching: Village of the Damned, The Stuff

Factoring

Factoring is the paternity test of algebra. Where did all these variables come from?  How do I get rid of them!? How did I get to be such a great lawyer even though I talk like a surfer pretending to have a southern accent? Well, let's take a look at who the parents REALLY were.
In factoring with variables, you want to get it so that you end up with the parents; the groups of entities that created the original problem.
To do this you separate out as much of the variable expression as you can.
VARIABLE EXPRESSION!?  Yes, variable expression...
15y² would be an example of a variable expression. It means that there are 15 double possessed y's.
y+2 would also be an example of a variable expression.
Variable expressions would be the entities I was talking about above.  In the case of horror movies, it is usually just a very religious woman and the devil. In the case below, it is 5x² and (1+4x).

5x² + 20x³

 5x²(1 + 4x)

<sup>Suggested Watching: The Devil's Advocate, Angel Heart


Stay tuned for more monster math-- Negative Numbers and Zombies - coming soon!</sup>

GREAT SCOTT!

The Back to the Future series is one of my favorite movie series EVER, with Back to the Future II being my favorite.  I just love all things futuristic, especially big budget 80's futuristic.

 I've watched the 3 movies hundreds of times. I put them on when I am particularly stressed or sad.  It allows me to sleep when I experience insomnia, but I have a major gripe, A MAJOR gripe, that needs to be addressed!

This is the McFly house. 

There is something conspicuously MISSING from this house.

Let me give you a hint-- The story starts October 25, 1985.



WHERE THE HELL ARE THE HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS!?

I mean, fine, maybe the McFly's are Jehovah's Witnesses and they don't celebrate Halloween, though with that drinking that Lorraine is doing and celebrating Uncle Joey's release from prison with a cake, I would imagine not... perhaps another religious sect? Or perhaps they are just lazy? But REALLY, is EVERYONE IS HILL VALLEY RELIGIOUS OR LAZY!? Because there is not a lick of Halloween decorations ANYWHERE! Not a single pumpkin or ghost or ANYTHING to indicate that Halloween is 5-6 days away.

Obviously, it has nothing to do with the plot, but then why set it THAT close to a holiday that is known for decorations?
Again, in 2015 when they arrive 10 days from Halloween, nothing!

Here, this makes me feel better.

 Like I've always told you, you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything!