Couple Random Things...

I think I have an art for procrastinating. Maybe it's something that we all have. Then again, I should not be procrastinating. I have a long review of the Lucifer grahpic novel series to write, I need to go comic book shopping and manga shopping for the Triumvrate. Hell, I should toss a couple nostalgic video games in there. But alas! I am here. Waiting for a response to an email I sent out about maybe meeting with an artist who seems promising.

I should be doing so many other things...

The tangent for today is Grey Region Comics in Toronto, Ontario. (www.greyregion.com) I love them! I went into the shop yesterday for the first time trying to build a relationship with one shop so I don't have to walk all over downtown Toronto in order to make my writers happy. Or me for that matter. I found Grey Region. The owner is incredibly friendly and helpful regardless of the fact that he was babysitting his two children. Great selection, incredibly helpful.

My insomnia is also back and I need to stop procrastinating.

I had a dream last night that The Strange One asked me to learn how to run an SLA Industries game. Well, it wasn't a full dream and it was more like an interruption at 10 am this morning when I napped. I wonder how rue it is, I will have to ask him.

Oh, and it is he that I blame for keeping me up. He made my mind all blurry and I wrote a vast array of one track mindedness down. That looks to me like a bunch of insanity, until I realized I completely failed to dot any i's and cross any t's. Once that was done it all made sense.

Okay, on with the day. I swear.

Things I have to do.

- Grey Matter Comics.
- Write "Tales of an Expat Version 2." for Thinking Fluidly.
- Review the Lucifer graphic novel series after reading the last volume.
- Advertise for the Triumverate.

I should probably speak to the Gray Goddess as well. And take a new picture. She needs one.

I feel like I'm forgetting something.

TRUTH! ...as told by Warren Ellis

This is brilliant! I've been reading Freakangels which is an awesome series. But in the middle of one of his interludes we are given this:

How It Works

I still get asked with appalling regularity “where my ideas come from.”

Here’s the deal. I flood my poor ageing head with information. Any information. Lots of it. And I let it all slosh around in the back of my brain, in the part normal people use for remembering bills, thinking about sex and making appointments to wash the dishes.

Eventually, you get a critical mass of information. Datum 1 plugs into Datum 2 which connects to Datum 3 and Data 4 and 5 stick to it and you’ve got a chain reaction. A bunch of stuff knits together and lights up and you’ve got what’s called “an idea”.

And for that brief moment where it’s all flaring and welding together, you are Holy. You can’t be touched. Something impossible and brilliant has happened and suddenly you understand what it would be like if Einstein’s brain was placed into the body of a young tyrannosaur, stuffed full of amphetamines and suffused with Sex Radiation.

That is what has happened to me tonight. I am beaming Sex Rays across the world and my brain is all lit up with Holy Fire. If I felt like it, I could shag a million nuns and destroy their faith in Christ.

From my chair.

See, this is the good bit about writing. It’s what keeps you going. It’s the wild rush of “shit, did I think of that?” with all kinds of weird chemicals shunting around your brain and ideas and images and moments and storyforms all opening up snapsnapsnap in your mind, a mass of new and unrealised possibilities.

It’s ten past two in the morning, and I’m completely wired, caught up in the new thing, shivering and laughing and glowing in the dark. Just as well it’s the middle of the night. No-one would be safe from me right now. I could read their minds and take over their heartbeats with a glare.

Faster than the speed of anyone.

That’s how it works.

-Warren Ellis

Is there more truth than that about writing?

The Ciopinno Post

I'm supposed to be working today. Supposed to be is the key words here in this statement. Instead, my mind is elsewhere to later occurences in the day that have not happened yet. Why? Because the Strange One is coming to town. And with him I am promised answers. Or at least a ride to Toronto in which case, I can get more work done that I have not thought of doing yet today... then again, I can't do it here. I have to go to the city.

But really. I'm in this mood, this giddy on the verge of anxious because the Strange One is coming to town. I haven't felt this way since I was little girl on Christmas Eve, not waiting for Santa, but waiting for the flock of family that could come crawling up the drive way at two o' clock in the afternoon to eat cioppino.

**Tangent**

Cioppino is a California Italian-American creation. Right out of the San Francisco Bay Area. There's a story about Italian American fisherman and how they'd chip in the sea's daily harvest to create a banquet for friends, family and each other. Being a native Californian from an Italian American family, yea... Cioppino. It's what's for dinner.

Cioppino According to Nunabutt

Garlic - Yes, it's the number one ingredient for a reason. Use as much or as little as you like. I love Garlic, we have a special relationship. So, with the amount I use any Vampires I hang out with are screwed.
1/4 cup Olive Oil
8 Oil Cured Anchovies - It'll say on the package.
2 Bay Leaves
1/2 cup diced Celery - If you don't know a dice is a little tiny chop. Itsy bitsy cubes. And if you've never taken a culinary knife skills class, be thankfull. I never used to add celery into my Cioppino, but it was recommended by the Strange One and the idea of a mirapoix is not a bad one.
1/2 cup diced Carrot
1 large Onion, diced
1 Red Bell Pepper, diced - Please do not try to substitute red with yellow, orange or green. It doesn't work. Trust me.
1 cup Red Wine
1 pint Vegtable Stock
1 pint Clam Juice
28oz can of Diced Tomatoes - Unseasoned, please.
1/2 cup Fresh Basil ciffonade - A ciffonade is a simple cut if you don't know how to do it already. Take the basil leaves you want to use and stack them flat on top of each other big to small. Once that is done roll the stack as if you're rolling a blunt. If you don't know how to roll a blunt, don't worry, just roll. Once that is done, julianne or thinly slice the tube of leaves.
Tabasco - Use to taste.
Worchestshire Sauce - Use to taste.
1/4 cup Fresh Parsley
2-3 tsp Lemon Juice

Dry Seasonings - Salt, pepper, oregano, rosemary, fennel. I've only ever used the salt pepper, but it's your kitchen. My recipe is only a guidline.

1/2lb Shrimp
24 Mussels
Crab Legs
1/2lb Scallops
1lb White Fish
16 Fresh Clams
8 Oysters
1 Lobstar Tail or Claws

**With the seafood, this is everything I've ever put into it. At one time, it's a pricey but exquisite adventure. Feel free to jumble the seafood at your convience and budget.

Sourdough Bread FRESH!

The how to:

Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add in the garlic and onions until they are just beginning to seat, then add in the carrots, celery and red bell. After sweating those together a good minute or two, add in the red wine and let simmer for 5 minutes. Then add in the veggie stock, clam juice, tomatoes and dry herbs EXCEPT the salt and pepper. Add in seafood (uncooked), lemon juice, tabasco and worchestershire sause and cover. Stir occasionally but let cook covered for 30 minutes. Serve hot with warm sourdough bread, fresh lemon wedge, tabasco and the fresh parsley and basil for garnish.



One helluva tangent that has made me momentarily lose my place and need to decide where to go. Ah. Right, it was meant to do that. I've worked myself to that place of a calm mind, albiet a slightly stoned mind. The work has to be done immediately is done. And I've somehow come up with a new random bit of what ever the hell I'm blogging....

"Nunabutt, the internal monolugues. Act one scene five."

I NEED OTAKU!

I really do!

I'm looking for freelance writers to review, blog... write a column, report all in our realms of geekdom. Comic Reviewers, Gaming Craft and Broken Pocky are in need of writers. Check it out from the desk of the CRC:

"Getting review material is easy. Comicreviewers.com will supply you with prepurchased materials that you can request or you can pick up the comics you want locally and with authorization be reimbursed for it's purchase price once a review is posted. Reviewers are expected to follow our general format for reviews which now include a synopsis (with spoiler warnings where applicable), production quality review, and then your opinion. This ensures a robust and thorough review of all comics and gives you the freedom to say whatever you want about what you've read, good or bad. Genres are chosen by the individual reviewer and with the ID and private email you are given for the Comicreviewers.com website, you can post your review whenever you want to, be it 1 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning.

Writing reviews is a great way for student journalists and English lit students to add versatility to their resumes and extra curricular activities list.

Serious inquiries only. You will be required to share limited information with the head editor and be able to be reached by IM or phone on a regular basis for updates and notices. "

Except it goes for all three websites...

Keanu Reeves?! Really...

This morning when I awoke I was struck with irony. Not immediately, but as I sat down to start my day before making my trip home from a tangent in Toronto. A friend back in New York City had sent me a link, I am both reviled and intrigued by this link. It is telling me that because of the believed success that the Dragonball movie has to have, Fox Studios is looking to make a live action Cowboy Bebop. In what I'm guessing is an attempt to compete with Warner Brothers and Columbia House in their successful run with Marvel and DC titles; Fox has decided to get their feet wet with bringing anime to life. Death Note transitioned successfully. Why can't other titles?



This question is answered easily, you don't start with the worst when your studio hasn't been accumulating a reputation for quality. In turn, you don't jump to one of the best.

According to "The Hollywood Reporter" Fox Studios has acquired the rights to film Cowboy Bebop. Shinchiro Watanabe, the series creator and collective genius behind the culture of Bebop, is to serve as an associate producer alongside Kenji Uchida, Sunrise President.

Frightfully, Peter Craig is scheduled to write the script. This is an unknown with a cult classic animated series in his hands. I would prefer if Shinchiro Watanabe were to write the screenplay himself, but if the need for an American Writer is dire, please Joss, please? Your care with "Firefly" has lead me to believe that you're the only english speaking writer who could handle such a thing. Well, you and Kevin Smith, but great New Jersey icon is my answer to everything.

What has me screaming sacrilge as a Cowboy Bebop fan is the signing of Keanu Reeves as Spike Speigal.

What.

The.

Frak.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i4b7a99706a1f6a07e7120ead30352504

How does Keanu Reeves even slightly tempt the tiniest recognition of being Spike Spiegal? Sometimes, there's a little voice inside my head that wonders what crack these casting people/directors/writers smoke before they choose these people? A little research into the anime/Bebop fandom forums and you'll find hundreds of recommendations. Keanu Reeves will not be one of them.

Being a Bebop fanatic, I've had this movie cast in my head for years. Or somewhat cast. Personally, this is what I think Fox should do, this would make me giddy and most likely live in the theater.

Spike Speigal should be played by Benicio Del Toro. (Really.) The husky voice, his hair, his build. Just the onscreen sex appeal and panache of both the actor and the character.


Jett Black should be played by, brace for it... Mickey Rourke. And no, I'm not really kidding. I'm a fan. He really made me believe in Frank Miller's Sin City. Again, we find a gritty voice in an actor that is chiseled by something other than a few classes. The build, the fatherly tone he can take in his style and body language.





Faye Valentine might be consideribly tricky to cast. She's not too complex a character on the surface. Just really needs to be a woman that is both in incredible shape, lanky, and have a certain whine to her voice at times that is unable to completely shred like nails on chalkboard. Nevermind the fact that she would have to believablely pull off that honky tonk attitude and charm. So, I'm throwing this one out of left field, Brittany Murphy. I'm not a fan, but I think she'd fill out the role of Faye Valentine in much of the same way that Jim Morrison filled out black leather pants. Perfection.







I realize now that at this point, I'm looking at a proposal of Sin City veterans. Unfortunately, there is no one from Sin City to be able to tackle the role of Edward. I'm left wondering if there is anyone at all who can. Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV is an interesting character to put it very lightly. Youth, vitality, spontenaity. Considering the mannerisms and the fact the feeding a child actor high doses of mind altering hallucienojenic drugs is highly illegal, I highly recommend looking into CGI.

Super hacker braincase dog, would be a challenging role for any pup. Except maybe a Welsh Corgi. Though, if Fox Studios manages to cast Ein as a german shepard, I will not be surprised.



Viscious. One of the more mysterious characters to ever grace the series and one of the stories that would most likely explode if ever told in detail. I've seen recommendations for Rodrigo Santoro to take up the shawl of Viscious to run in conflict with Spike in a live action reproduction and I can't help but to agree at this point. With his aquiline features and lanky figure, he would show a form of grace that is imparitive to the character of Viscious.



Last, we have Julia. She is the contrast of this series. The piece that it all revolves around yet, the most mysterious detail of it all. In the series she was only a flicker in random flashbacks that was not fully touched upoun until the final two episodes. Yet, she remained engraved in out memories. The beauty of Julia is eternal. She lingers in your memory like that bright spot on the wrong end of a migraine. Julia. As played by Daryl Hannah, maybe? I don't think I could think of anything sexier.



And Fox Studios. Let Watanabe Direct. Or allow him to choose the visionary who can properly capture this. You're playing with a cult following. Its fire.

I'm frightened, yet unexplainably excited about the prospect of the live action film. Just be wary of where you tread and who you cast. It's very easy to take something exceptionally brilliant and ruin it.

A New Hope

Thursday Night:

It's 2 O'clock in the morning and I'm sitting here at my computer, knowing that tomorrow I have a lot to do before the weekend begins. But it's 2 O'clock in the morning and the world will wait for me. I'm currently debating the benefits I would have to going downstairs and heating up some dinner in the oven. Questions of sound pollution and scent come into mind when there is five other people who live in the same house. And yes, this is a big house. We're not sardine-canned in here.

I've been up writing guidlines and goals, directions for these websites that I edit. I've never done anything like this and I'm excited. Like everything else in the past month, it seems to fit together. Somehow there is a puzzle coming together that I've spent my life tracking down the pieces of.

One month ago, December 22, 2008 I woke up in a small bedroom of a small apartment that I shared with my roommate and good friend, Amy the Red. I was waking up in New York City. I was waking up broken. I had let the city eat me alive. I walked out of one job when I had everything to lose and into another one. I sold my electronics to make rent and buy groceries. I should've asked for help and I've been told that a hundred times since. At the time, there was something more important. Something I was ready to give my life to prove. That I could make it in New York City. And I did in the last weeks of December. I crawled out of my hole. I stood proudly in my platform boots and said, "Neener, neener fucking neener."

I also took the money I had put aside for a new computer and spent it on a ridiculous trip. I had to come say goodbye to a group of people I had come to love as family. I was done.

Twenty-Four days ago, I landed in Toronto, Ontario. I knew something was different at that moment. It wasn't like I was getting off a plane in a foreign country. It was like I was coming home. Twenty-four days ago, I found where I am meant to be.

It seems like a lifetime has passed me by and that I've been given another chance. Or my first chance, depending on how you want to look at it.

To me this is all so very ironic, almost drastic. A month ago, I was done. And now, now... I have too much left to do. Too much left to still give. Tonight I'm writing these guidlines. I'm also putting together the folder of files that need to be published for the various sites I write for, including this which will wind up in my personal blog. And I still haven't began the first half of my Lucifer review. Let alone, read the new graphic novel I picked up almost a week ago.

I'm driven again. I have a place and a balance.

I have a rock. And a shoulder. And a ....question.

But I have balance, so the question can wait. There's no trying to make sure that the mask I wore didn't get too heavy. I'm incapable of hiding the bits of insanity I have anymore. I'm inspired to speak what is in my mind regardless of how insane it sometimes can sound.

I could really be going insane for the sake of convience. But then again, that would be such irony. To say that I've never felt so sane yet, gone insane. I'm sure it's happened before...

Point being, there is a center. The gut tells me, I will be okay. For the first time in my life, I'm not about to question it. I've never been so happy.

Friday Morning:

Well, the Lady Slumber found me before I was finished with this and the work I needed to have done today. And thus the game of catch up begins. I need to remember on top of it all to dress up tomorrow to have some pictures taken that can go with my introductions to the websites.

For now the work… the tasks for today. Post this, write three introductions, post to thinking fluidly on a topic I still haven’t decided upon. Start brainstorming ideas for three separate weekly columns and three weekly blogs. And that’s all with forgetting my need to track down the latest news to report for comic reviewers and gaming craft.

Welcome. You know, work is more fun without responsibility. Too bad I'm loving this.

Of Lucifer And The Strange One

"I'm oblivious." It was a statement that came out of what some may call blue. "Sometimes. Well, most of the time." Came an even quicker defense of the statement, I was stumbling quickly over the words I had carefully formed in my head. It's a bit of a nervous habit, taking time to think out phrases and contexts long before I say them. I let them build up until I'm absolutly sure I'm prepared for the consequences. These thought out bursts of monologue quickly become awkard when I begin to stumble.

"Johnny Cash, forty-two or twelve?" He asked me, trying to help settle me with a bit of laughter. I failed to laugh but was successful in smiling.

"Forty-two." I answered, taking a deep breath in order to build the last bit of courage I needed to utter the words. "Look...this is weird. And I've probably over thought it. Cause, I overthink everything and that's a tangent. Yeah, I'm attracted to you. And it makes me nervous to say anything because I asked you to marry me to help me with citizenship and..." I took another deep breath, I was letting the waves of anxiety rush over me as I spoke. I needed to calm myself again but the butterflies in my stomach forbade it. "That's not it. I'm attracted to you. It distracts me and makes me blush. I can't focus sometimes because I just want to know if there is chemistry."

The amused look on his face intrigued me, scared me a little. Almost. But I continued on. I had come this far. "Nevermind that I need to read these books for work and this would be much smoother if we could just get this out of the way."

He chuckled. Chuckled and looked as if he were considering his own words, or pausing pensively for the dramatic effect. Of course. "Well." He began slowly, that eternally mischievous grin forming under his goatee. "It was my plan to come over there with you as I am attracted to you as well." That smile. It always glowed.

~~~~~~~~~

I have butterflies in my stomach again. It's getting to be surreal and somewhat reassuring, although I can't recall in the least when this has ever happened to me in the past. The only time they go away is when I am with the Strange One. This is making me nervous, giddy... excited and anxious. Why? Because I don't know what it all is!

Hi, I'm Nunabutt. We just met a post ago, when I started this blog. Or maybe, we met in another life which in some circles could also be another website. I write for four sites. Comic Reviewers, Gaming Craft, Broken Pocky and Thinking Fluidly. You can find those links somewhere on this page. I am also an American expatriate beginning to try for citizenship in a new country. I'm a writer, a chef, a sommelier, a bartender, a ditz, an anarchist, a disillusioned catholic... different titles for different days. Today I think the discription of writer, pot head, ditz are the fitting ones. Espicially if I add professional onto ditz and then we'll call it a rambling thought. Back onto topic...

Forming of the topic that is.

The butterflies in my stomach.

I'm trying to read through the eleven volume collection of "Lucifer" at a friends house. For a completed series, I find it ridiculous to review one little snippet ontop of the other when a series should be viewed upon as a whole unless the writer changes. But that's a discussion for another time. I've gotten seven issues into the series with five volumes to go and I'm going through these periods of not being able to focus at all on the task at hand. The Strange One distracts me. Sometimes he means to, undoubtably and others it's just his presence. It's this screaming attraction to him when we met for the first time that smacks me across the face and forces me to pay attention.

But, the fact remains that the butterflies in my stomach won't go away.

It could always be that this batch of pot makes me overly pensive. And yes, I'll admit, I'm a pothead. Sometimes it calms my brain down and allows me to focus on these thoughts that I'm somehow molding into internal monologues. Some of these are one sided conversations that should be held with the person they are focused towards. Most of the times they are forgotten. Just happy to state such facts to myself is reward enough. Not this time though. I'm too confused in these regarding the Strange One. And this is new for me.

Normally people are somewhat easy to read, even for someone as oblivious as myself. The Strange One is a wall. Solid and unreadable. Well, not entirely, just enough so that things are confusing as fish swimming in opposite directions. I don't do well with patience, confusion and curiosity. And at this point all three are running rampant through my brain making even a shiney moment near impossible. A part of me needs to know the intention or the direction of the meeting between the Odd and the Strange. Though I need to straighten out my own thought process. What is the story of this?

Will it read like Terry Pratchett? Explode in your mind like Terry Gilliam? Or will it play back like a View Askew production?

Speaking of View Askew, I do need to remember to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Yes, there was your shiney moment.

And on the Seventh Day...

I have done it. I think it was something I should've done long ago, but at some points I forget what was then and how it might wind up being what is now. And yes, that is a dizzy line of thought.

Welcome to my corner of the internet. And the fact of it being my corner is a debatable subject as I could be seen to have many corners. I might need a real estate license in the future. Enough with the circles and on with the show.

I am Nunabutt. You can find me in little alcoves under the stairs. Or writing with impassioned haste on any form of mass transit. Maybe even your couch if you're not careful. And yes, I tend to write first rather than type. There is something about the way that my handwriting looks scrawled out on white chunks of paper. Or that the ink stains on my fingers tend to accentuate the length of my hands.

I'm not too sure. I am sure that I learned the answer isn't always 42. I've been proven correct on this. Once. And only once, but that's another tale for another day that'll prolly never happen. Or maybe it will... but not in this post.

I'm not going to tell you what to expect as I don't know what to expect even for myself. Some days you might get snippets of fiction, a rant on the excess of deja vu or even my strange thoughts on the stumblings of Justice Roberts during the inauguration. In the end, this is my blog and it may just be wonky.

Welcome to the world of Nunabutt; comic reviewer, anime critic, gaming fairy, and well... any other tagline I add to myself on any given day. Warning to the cautious though, be wary of what you may find here. It might not make sense all the time.