Friday, November 1, 2013

A Robustious Periwig-Pated Fellow

 

Greetings, from Dave the Lumbering Mouth-Breather!

Yeah, I ridicule myself like that. Self-deprecation is all the rage nowadays with feeble hipster types like me. Here, watch, I'll do it again... I have to be so careful going out in public lately... someone mistook my giant nose for a two-car garage and tried to park his Smart Car in my face!

There, that should earn me a few sympathy pats on the shoulder and commiserating head-shakes...

So I was trimming the Lemon Bush in my back yard yesterday, and I came away with only two puncture wounds! Are you proud of me? Man, the thorns on those branches! Holy mackerel. I think those thorns are listed in the Geneva Convention under Banned Weapons. Those things must have an "armor piercing" rating... Of course, it didn't help that the hand shearers I was using are getting dull, so they only cut about 95% of the way through the barbed branches... They hang on by a little sliver of bark, and get entangled in the surrounding uncut branches... trying to get them free is a recipe for perforation...

But I survived!

Here's the latest Olan Rogers video... 8 minutes of pure story-telling joy...



Ah, hilarity personified. He's getting so much better at looking at the camera while talking instead of his own face on the monitor to his left!

So I was reading Winnie the Pooh to my 7 year old the other night -- no, scratch that.... she's 8 now! Just turned, on the 26th of Oct! She's so big now! Soon, she'll have her driver's permit and have her own apartment and a full-back tattoo! Anyway, I was reading the story to her, and decided to read it with the Russian accent... now, most of you know I also do pretty spot-on impressions of ALL of the character voices for the entire cast... so I decided to accept the challenge, and do all the character voices with accents as well! Yes, picture the Winnie the Pooh voice that you know and love, only in a Russian accent! Woohoo! Such fun!

Oh, wait, that reminds me... you are not going to believe this...

I won't embed it here, but I will link to it... I was looking for beginner's Russian Language videos on YouTube last week, and I happened upon a woman in Texas who is a native Russian, but moved to America, learned English, and now teaches the Russian language to American high school students... Now, apparently she moved to Texas, and learned English with a heavy southern drawl... so she has this extreme hybrid accent she's rockin'... a Russian/Southern accent that I can't possibly mimic... you have to hear it to believe it. Go to THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO, skip ahead somewhere in the middle and listen to this lady talk for a minute or two... trust me, you'll love it...


So on the off chance you haven't read Brandon Sanderson's series starter The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive), you can get the digital edition for your Kindle over at Amazon as I write this for a pittance - $1.26! A buck and a quarter!? Are you kidding me!? Go ahead and go grab it now, I'll wait...

Speaking of the prolific Sanderson, he has announced a buttload of Mistborn novels on the way. Along with two more stand-alone novels following Waxillium in the Alloy of Law wild west setting, there will be two more trilogies that are set to be follow-ups to the original Mistborn trilogy. Yep, he plans a trilogy of trilogies, two more Alloy of Law Mistborn books, as well as cranking out books in his dozen-title Stormlight Archive. That alone would set a normal author back 30 years or more, but Sanderson is a superhero whose superpower seems to be writing terrific books at a terrifying speed, without sacrificing quality in the least. Unbelievable.

Speaking of great books, I'm reading a rare one at the moment... I've read some terrific books this year (and a couple tepid titles, and a scattering of turds), but this may be the first title this year that pushed past the "hey, this is a great read" stage and into the "OMG, I must read this until I pass out or finish the book, whichever comes first" stage. It is called Heroes Die, by author Matthew Stover. The premise is so rich, and well-developed... it is a true hybrid of fantasy and sci-fi, in the purest sense I've ever seen... and it has levels like you can't believe. I'm about 20% in right now, and at the launching point for the meat of the story, which Stover has set up brilliantly. I can't wait to get back to reading it tonight, snuggled in bed, hoodie on, draw-strings pulled snug, the wee hours beckoning me... *shudder of joy* I hope to foist a glowing review upon you soon...

This girl is 9 years old...



Umm.... WOW. My youngest daughter just turned 8, as I mentioned earlier... that blows me away. Can you imagine a kid that young singing that well?... unbelievable.

So that competitive eating documentary I was film for a few years back (called Hungry) is finally ready for prime time. It is premiering in NYC on the 15th of November (about 2 weeks from the moment I write this)... where it releases from there, I have no idea. I hope it shows up in LA somewhere, so I can run up and see it in a theater... otherwise if it's more a straight-to-video thing, I'll get a copy and watch it from the well-insulated comfort of my own sanctum sanctorum. Here is the official website, if you want to watch the trailer or get more info. Here's hoping I didn't make a fool of myself...

Now that's a smart invention... unless it's your drive and you lose the key!

Well, I think that's enough nonsense for now. Next weekend, I'm going to meet with the director of the web series project I've been hired for, along with my co-actor, for a sit-down, and in depth discussion about the project and about character development, etc. I'll let you know how that goes...

Adios for now,

Dave the Wandering Wildebeest

PS By the way, that is a real photo of Saturn up at the top of this post. I'm currently using the high-res version of it as my desktop background...

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