Last weekend, Tim (Bear), Brian (Dick) and myself went up to DJ Webb’s (Thom’s) house for a party. What a party it was! Of the many people I’ve known, none is a better party host than DJ Webb. His guests’ whims are catered to in every respect imaginable, from choice of beers, to food (which was in this case the Maryland favorite – crabs), to cigars. What’s more, DJ Webb’s house comes equipped with the perfect party-pad layout. On his sun porch, sits an original Contra Arcade game. In the den, there’s an HDTV hooked up to satellite. And who could forget THE POOL.

Driving up, Bear explained to me how when practicing with one of the bands he’d played with in high school, he and his band-mates had access to a pool one evening. It was in this pool that he said he and the band made a whirlpool. I’d never heard of anybody making a whirlpool in a swimming pool. I asked Bear to explain. He proceeded to tell me that all you needed were a couple of idiots who would run around the pool in a circle for a while, and presto, you had a whirlpool.

When we arrived, along with Dick and Robert, we made a whirlpool. It actually worked and it was awesome. I lay on my back and was sucked round and round staring in inebriated disbelief at glowing tiki-torches and that moronic owl.¹

I can’t wait until next year’s party.

¹ The owl, made of plastic, sits on the fence surrounding the pool. Thom “claims” to have found the owl in one of the bushes in his yard.

Megan has started a blog. It collects her very astute and witty observations from diverse things like the sitcom Full House, to the book, Sing and dance with the Pennsylvania Dutch. She made me laugh and I’m sure she’ll make you laugh too.

Click here to visit Megan’s site.

Well Week 1 of the new regimen is over. I won’t lie either, it beat the hell of me. However, rather miraculously the plan is working and progress on the screenplays is not only continuing, but going extremely well. I have a feeling that Week 2 is going to be a lot tougher. And Week 3… I don’t even want to think about yet.

This all means that I’m not really sure how many updates I’ll be doing here on Protozoic, at least while I’m working 9 to 5 and getting up at the crack of dawn to write. However, I’m certain I’ll figure out a way to squeeze in an update or two from time to time (maybe after I get my evenings back from exerting my will against the employment-void by filling out job applications). In any event, I will continue to post weekly reports of the Amieviathan project’s progress here. And of course, I’m sure our other posters will throw up some juicy nuggets of truth here at some point too.

Is there anything else? I saw a deplorable documentary about Chemtrails (2001). It had to be one of the worst produced things I’ve ever seen, not to mention the work of foaming madmen. Really though, what did you expect if you are watching a documentary on chemtrails? So there are highlights for chem-fans, like the interview with William Wallace, and his dog, eh-hem, Braveheart.

Some better, and more enjoyable things I’ve seen here in the past week or so are [The Good Fairy] (1935), directed by William Wyler, The Long Goodbye (1977), directed by Robert Altman, the new Battlestar Galatica (2003), directed by Michael Rymer and Joss Whedon’s Firefly (2002-2003).
If you are not particularly interested in chemtrails, watch these things first.

See you in a week.

I sweat a lot. When I say a lot, I mean A LOT. I sweat enough that deodorant is a very big deal to me. Anti-perspirant doesn’t stop me. At all. What it does do is make me not smell as much. I can live with that. What I’ve had problems living with is the fact that I ruin shirts with my deodorant impregnated sweat. I’ve hopped around to various types; normal stick, gels, roll-on, etc.¹ After a good 10 years of dedicated deodorant experimentation, I finally settled on plain old Ban roll-on, Regular or Powder Fresh. It looks like this:

I went to the store today to get a new stick. I couldn’t find it. The thought running through my head was, “How the fuck could this enormous grocery store not carry Ban deodorant?” I looked and looked and then finally saw this on the shelf:

Now, we get to the meat of this post. Why the redesign? What on God’s green Earth motivated the odor-free people at Ban to change the color on a stick of deodorant? And why this awful yellowish-green?

¹ No sprays for me.

DJ Webb is now running his own blog, Namrepus Hunter. I looked at the name for a couple days thinking it was slightly odd before I finally had to sit down and figure out what the hell it meant. I have to say, it is a good name, escpecially considering that it came from the same man who rather famously named his own “Master of Flowers” Monk, Mr. Monk.

Click here to read DJ Webb’s blog, Namrepus Hunter.

Thom at Little Chef:

The summer has been good for the film project. Though I’ve not hit anywhere near the ridiculous goal I set myself, there has been lots of motion and development. Not only are things starting to take definite shape, but I can genuinely say I’m excited. Draft one of the first Ameviathan/ Suspension Invention script, “The Boggy Boogieman”, has been written. The only thing I can really say about the script is that it loosely has to do with the Delmarva Wetlands. And hey – thanks to Megan for alerting me to a recent article from the Associated Press about the good news for those wetlands!

In addition to the first screenplay, I’ve written up to the half-way point of the second script, “The Green Machine”. This leaves only one more script to write, and then the revision of the three. After the revisions, the second phase film (or rather video) project will begin.

But there can’t be good news without bad news. The good summer has taken its toll on my finances. They have finally run dry leaving the bills piled up (like that one from the dentist).

This means: I have to go back to work. This afternoon I begin working once again at Westminster’s Choir College’s Talbott Library in a temporary capacity as the Secretary. There is a chance that my temporary employment could turn into full time employment. Time will tell.

If this is the case, I’ll want to maintain momentum on the film project. In order to do this I’m going to implement a new regimen of waking up every morning at 4 AM and continuing to write.

I don’t figure it will be too easy. But, was anything ever easy.