chuntastic

My Mad Skillz

2009-11-21T18:51:00.001-05:00

My dollar origami skills has gone up a new level.

Manny Dog

2009-08-06T12:48:00.002-05:00

I've decided to call this the Manny dog. For some reason his carefree smile reminds me of the Dodger's slugger.

The Animals I Have Eaten

2009-06-15T20:20:00.020-05:00

Today

2009-01-20T10:49:00.002-05:00

Hearing about Obama's victory created a rare kind of happiness on election night. It was the kind of happiness that bubbles back up without notice for months and months, as if the joy is too big to experience all at once and so needs to be experienced in small portions. It feels like we've been working for this day for most of our lives, if that's understandable.

On a side note I want to talk about those of us who walk around with a big sign taped to our backs yelling "I AM DIFFERENT THAN YOU". We normally wear our signs with pride, but the biggest burden is knowing that we can never take them off. Most of us have accepted that by now and we're cool with it, but I gotta say it sure is a thrill to see someone wearing that same sign taking the oath to become President of the United States. Now we just need 43 more and we'll be even.

Zombie Article

2008-11-07T07:14:00.002-05:00

I'll come out of my academic cave to let you know that I've gotten this here Zombie essay published. Hope you like it.

http://www.simegen.com/writers/dissections/October%202008/dissections_page_08.html

I'm Alive

2008-09-02T18:00:00.004-05:00

Thank you to all the people who have been inquiring as to the state of whether I am a breather or not.

Hurricane damage so far has been minimal. A roof across the street flew off, a stoplight came off it's foundation, and a few trees were snapped or uprooted. We also lost power when said stoplight was twisted around but I had forseen this and purchased many comicbooks in anticipation of the power loss.

All in all it was pretty exciting. Below is a picture of our poor banana tree.

29

2008-07-08T19:02:00.002-05:00

I am on the precipice of turning 30 now.

Hows the Comic Book Going?

2008-07-07T14:07:00.004-05:00

This was the most often-asked question I got at rez. The simple answer is "Buy Veins". The not-so-simple answer is we need some more money to get the books going and in order to do that we we need to raise some. We are not accepting donations. Will has a company after all and sells things. So if you buy things from him the money goes to paying artists and writers and inkers and writers and letterers, and writers.

Here is the Veins website if you want to take a look at what the books about. You can also use the Sails banner to the right to take a look through Will's company website.

I've Caved

2008-04-18T08:54:00.002-05:00

Considering all of the movements I'll be making this summer I decided to get a cell phone so that I can be contacted and or contact you if I need to. Please email me your phone number and I'll give you mine. It's a prepaid phone so I won't be chatting with you but we can set things up so we can meet and chat things up then.

Beating Cancer

2008-04-16T16:57:00.001-05:00

I just learned here that I will never get prostate cancer. Hurray for the good news. Put 'er there!

Marvel's Amusement Park

2008-03-24T22:09:00.002-05:00

You know that I'll be there when an amusement park featuring Marvel Superheroes opens up. Here are some observations I made.

Stan Lee would be disgusted to find that his street intersects a crime-ridden alley like Yancy Street.

Doctor Doom's hiring practices: Humans need not apply.

The Hulk ride, one of the best coasters I've been on, but what's the deal with this? It's never a good sign when a coaster has a net under it. I rode it three times anyway.

This is the most important sign I've ever encountered. Do not hump couches. Words we can all live by.

Sold

2008-02-27T20:31:00.003-05:00

My short story, "Oath of the Oni Brothers" has sold to the anthology Paper Blossoms, Shattered Steel. We won't be seeing the anthology in the bookshelves for at least two years but it's still nice to make a sale and another thing to mention on my queries.

Didn't Make it to the Next Round

2008-02-19T10:02:00.000-05:00

Sigh, the world is over, the sun will never shine again, and food will always taste like the tears of an unrecognized artist.

Okay, I'm done moping. Lets get back to querying, and start the process over again. It was fun while it lasted.

Happy Puppy.

2008-02-17T12:07:00.002-05:00

I promised you a happy puppy should I get some reviews last week and I was not denied, so here it is.

Horrible News!

2008-02-13T19:00:00.002-05:00

First the Pats lose and now this? How am I supposed to keep believing there is a God?

One Last Plea

2008-02-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

I have a pretty good assumption that any more reviews beyond the next week will not be taken into consideration for the 100 entry cut on February 19th. So I'm gonna make one last plea for reviews. To be honest reviews have slowed down to a trickle since last week.

To help make your decision for you I have put up this picture of this sad puppy.

This poor puppy wants you to review here.

Xboxing it Up

2008-02-08T17:08:00.000-05:00

I got my Xbox 360 today. I also bought Halo 3 and Command and Conquer. If you want to send me a friend invite my gamertag is chuntasticxbox and we can Xbox it up.

Entertainment Overload

2008-02-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

Mardi Gras started yesterday and won't be ending until Wednesday. Superbowl Sunday tomorrow. Lakers just put themselves over the top to become title contenders in the West. There's also a thing called Super Tuesday this week, which may determine who will become the next president of the US. The only bad news is that I have until now and next week to read Ulysses. If I go mad during that time blame James Joyce.

I'm at 34 reviews with the ABNA. If you were thinking about doing a review and just didn't have the time to do it, I gotta ask for it soon. The problem is that on Feb 19th they announce the 100 top semi-finalists and I doubt any reviews written near that date will effect Penguin editors opinions. To be perfectly honest I don't even know how much good a review will do but I imagine having a lot of them can't hurt. Certainly it tells Penguin that I can generate a decent following if the book was published.

Enjoy your weekends all. I know I'll be busy.

More ABNA Stuff

2008-01-23T03:35:00.000-05:00

Just got my Publisher's Weekly review and it's pretty positive.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00115T09A

I want to thank everyone who put up a review for me. I really think it helps.

If you were planning on putting up a review but think it's too late please do. The quantity of positive reviews is also a factor in getting to the next stage and I so want to get there. Now I'm gonna try to sleep, I'm supposed to teach in a few hours.

Chun

ABNA Update

2008-01-21T11:55:00.000-05:00

This contest has been pretty darn educational for me. Here are some of the things I've figured out. My novel is way more bloody than the regular book reader cares to read. I've been getting a lot of reviews about how excessive it is. To be honest it's a horror story but you can't sell horror these days to the major publishers unless your name rhymes with Even Wing or Mean Boots. So I decided to label it a dark urban fantasy, which is another label for horror. But that label doesn't exist in regards to the contest so I threw it in under the Sci-fi and fantasy genre. I really wasn't sure where else I could put it.

I wanna thank everyone who put up a review for me. I think all those positive early reviews will help with the judgment of future ones, including the much important Publisher's Weekly review. You should also be aware that the next deadline is Feb 15th and not early March like I said before.

ABNA, Yup, I'm Making You to Do Stuff for Me

2008-01-15T20:45:00.000-05:00

Hey guys, I just got the email saying I made it to the semi-final round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (1000 out of 5000). I would like to make it to the next round (100 out of 1000) and to do that I need your reviews. Actually they need to be good reviews. If you like my writing then this won't be a huge problem for you. Just a few clicks and then you write what you honestly thought and we're good.

If you hate my writing and want to give it a crap grade you could just send me a private email instead and hurt my feelings that way. Am I asking you to lie? That all depends on the type of person you are. Are you someone who thinks that burying your opinion for the kindness of others is a lie? If you do then yes, lie. Lie for me. Are you willing to do that? Awesome. Now that you are lying why not just go the extra mile and give me a positive review instead?

Okay, I think we're all clear on what you guys need to do here's the link

What it's Like to Miss Residency

2008-01-08T03:31:00.000-05:00

Remember when all of your friends ditched you to go to some place that was really cool and they had the greatest time of their lives and they came back with a bunch of in-jokes that you would never get and talked about people that seemed cool but you never got to meet? Multiply that by ten.

The Perfect Pie

2008-01-02T21:11:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have been able to avoid hearing about the Patriots perfect season, but I'm afraid it's happened and it can't be denied. Do you want to know who denied it? My friend Beau. You see, we bet on the Patriots going 16-0 and he lost. The wager? A pie from the House of Pies. Below is a picture of me and my pie.

Notice how happy I am with my pie. It's a bananna cream of victory.

Now let's take a look at the loser's pie.

An apple pie of crumbling discontent if I've ever seen one.

To the Other LA

2007-12-17T14:08:00.000-05:00

I'll be heading down or is it up? (just checked google maps and it looks like up, to LA and hang out with my SoCal buddies. Looking to have a lot of fun and maybe work on a 4th draft of the novel. Let's hope I get somewhere.

QuBlam!

2007-12-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

Just sent off a a 40 agent query bomb. The aftereffects of this blast may not be felt for a good 10 months from now. Here's hoping it does some good.

Zombie Picture

2007-12-10T17:42:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of a zombie that I took back on Halloween night. I normally wouldn't risk my life for a picture but these were zombies. Don't worry I kept my distance, that's why the pic was so grainy.

Recommendations

2007-12-09T03:58:00.000-05:00

The semester is finally over and all I have to do is get some essays graded. This is the perfect time to watch some movies and read some books. I thought I would recommend some good books and movies you guys probably never heard of and maybe you guys can give me some suggestions yourselves.

Movies

OldBoy: It's twisted, it's messed up, it's intense, and brilliant.

Lady Vengeance: Same director, once again, twisted, fucked up, not as brilliantly written but the style of this movie is amazing.

3 Iron: The weirdest love story I've ever seen. The two main characters have only one line between them.

TV

Deathnote: It's an anime, but its the most clever anime I've seen since Evangelion.

Books

Forgive me but I've pretty much only been doing zombie research so it'll all be zombie related.

Book of the Dead: If you ever wished some guy would watch every single zombie movie there was and tell you about them then you got your wish. Best zombie book period.

I am Legend: It's got nothing to do with zombies except for the fact that it's what inspired Romero to do Night. It's also the kind of horror I've been wishing there was and it was there all along.

Comic Books

The Walking Dead: Yeah it's about zombies again but it does a great job of answering what happens after the end of the movie and the characters realize they have to live in a zombie apocalypse for the rest of their lives.

Okay, I showed you mine now you have to show me yours.

Sails and Sorcery Review

2007-12-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a place that reviewed S&S. I get mentioned (needs more polishing) but it's nice to be mentioned anyways.

Heckled!

2007-11-17T23:12:00.001-05:00

I got heckled by a drunk guy at my comic book reading! I was so shocked I started laughing and telling everyone how awesome it was.

My Zombie Research Blog

2007-10-28T21:07:00.001-05:00

I started a research blog for my class. If you are curious to see how my zombie research is coming along, you are free to take a look here.

Cajun Cooking

2007-10-18T23:48:00.001-05:00

People keep asking me about the food here. It is, after all, world famous. I have to say the Cajun spices agree with me and I do enjoy it. I've also been enjoying some things I've never had before. For instance tonight I just had some squirrel. I didn't even know you could eat something so small and cute but I was proved wrong when someone brought Squirrel Jambalaya to dinner.

I have to say it was pretty darn good meat. I would consider it something like dark chicken meat. The only thing that bothered me was that I was unsure of where the bones were. When I eat chicken I have a pretty good idea of where to bite because I know where the bones are but I was totally unsure of where it was safe to bite into and where it wasn't. One wrong bite and I could get a neck full of squirrel bones.

Anyways that's my squirrel experience. Here's a pic of the animal in case you had a hard time envisioning a cute rodent getting turned into spicy stew.

Samurai Story

2007-10-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

Would anyone like to read my Samurai story? I need some opinions about it and I am most worried about the ending. It's my first non-action-packed ending but it is a climax and I think full of the right emotional weight.

Let Me Add

2007-10-02T07:35:00.000-05:00

I met Ferrett, writer of Home on the Strange, a fellow panelist at the Science Fiction in Comics: Where the Hell Did it Go? panel at Context and wanted to let you guys know that Home on the Strange has quickly become my favorite webcomic. Yes, better than Pennyarcade.

Context

2007-10-01T21:30:00.000-05:00

I would give you an update but Heidi did such a good job all I needed to do was give you a link over to her site.

To the Ohio

2007-09-27T07:59:00.000-05:00

I'll be in Columbus this weekend for Context. A bunch of people I know will be there but if you happen to be stumbling through my blog on accident and you just happen to be going to Context as well, then come and say hi. I promise I won't bite, except for the initial bite to spread my horrible zombie disease.

Argh!

2007-09-19T21:17:00.001-05:00

Can you be guessin what day today be me matey?

It's a New Car!

2007-08-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

I got it used but you know what I mean. It's a 2002 Dodge Stratus and it's the perfect color.

My New Marketing Strategy

2007-08-14T18:18:00.000-05:00

You can now preorder a copy of Sails and Sorcery, which also has my short story Stillworld: Sailing to Noon over here.

I've been racking my brain over how to market this thing but I just wasn't sure until a moment of brilliance hit me. Instead of telling you that it is a short story anthology with some bigtime authors giving you a bunch of great adventures in the high seas and then telling you how awesome it is just for the wonderful pictures done by Julie Dillon. I decided to just threaten you.

That's right, my new marketing strategy is to just punch you if you don't have a copy of Sails the next time I come to visit. Brilliant isn't it? I so hate the begging you to buy my anthology approach. I mean it degrades the book if I have to beg you to take a look. It's got freakin pirates doing magic and stuff in it, it doesn't need your pity; I just need to threaten you with a punch in the gut.

So everyone who knows that I'll be making a visit sometime in the future, I'm talking to you folks in Columbus in Sept and SoCal in Dec, you better have a book in your hands when you greet me or you'll be surprised with a punch in the gut.

Now maybe you're an old lady with arthritis and you're saving your money to have heat this coming winter. You think you would be exempt from the punch in the gut marketing plan, yes?

No! I'll give you a punch in the gut just like anyone else and I'll even add a little sting to it for thinking you would be exempt.

Now there are a few of you who could take a punch in the gut from me. I'm not the greatest puncher in the world after all. Maybe you think you can take it. If you do so then I'll just introduce you to the second half of my great marketing plan, a kick in the face.

I just bought me a pair of steeltoes baby, you don't want to see a kick in the face from me even if you are an NFL linebacker or UFC fighter.

Anyways, why don't you just save me a lot of grief and exertion and buy the thing? Here's the cover, it's pretty with mermaids and stuff and much better to have than a black eye.

Gators!

2007-08-14T10:22:00.001-05:00

The school has a gator pond full of fishes, turtles, and of course gators. I snatched a few pics.

And here's a brave turtle that swam right into the gator's face. He was chomping on a fish at the time and I suspect the turtle was waiting for left over fish bits.

Oh Yeah

2007-08-08T18:34:00.001-05:00

That's the cover for issue number one. I finally got approval to put it up here. On a scale of 1 to awsome I think it's a "Holy bajezus that's crazy good".

Heidi's Pick Six

2007-08-08T18:19:00.000-05:00

I got interviewed by Heidi and had to answer six out of fifteen question. Did I get them all right? You'll you have to check for yourselves...

Bye Bye Cali

2007-08-02T21:48:00.000-05:00

I had a marvelous time in Cali but it's time to get back to being a student. I'll thank everyone who let me crash at their place or use their pool.

I finished the samurai story so now I have to clean it up but I thought it was fitting that I finished it on the last day of vacation since I startedit on the first. Seeya when I see ya.

I'm So Tired

2007-07-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning after the blur that was Comic-con. I am sore as hell from carrying around that giant WB bag. I have lots to tell you so I am considering not telling you anything at all since I am very very tired and lazy. Let's just say I had a great time and maybe I will drop some details on you from a later date. Now I am just kind of sad because summer is over and I have to get to working on getting a PhD. I was given classes to teach and, yes horror upon horrors, I have been given an 8am class.

Aborted Stories

2007-07-20T15:29:00.000-05:00

I thought this would be an interesting post especially for my writing friends. How many of you have aborted stories? Stories that never got off the ground, even though you gave it a lot of thought and maybe even wrote a few lines for it? I'm mostly talking about short stories since novels are a completely different animal.

I'll list three of them here.

Premise 1.
Jesus knocks on a young carpenter's door and becomes a roommate and teaches the guy how to build things old school. Nothing about religion is mentioned just some wacky hi jinks ensues.

Why it was Never Written
Had no idea how to end it. I had a vague notion of maybe Moses coming in to hang out after Jesus left but that is just a bad punchline and not a real ending. I suppose if and ending ever comes to me I'll give it a whirl but for now it is filed under never left the drawing board.

Premise 2.
Man does some gardening for his wife and finds part of a black glass-like rock buried in his backyard. He keeps digging and digging but it turns out to be bigger and bigger. Greed makes him think the rock will be worth money at first but after a while he realizes that contact with the rock gives him the power of suggestion to other people like his bossy wife and mean bratty daughter. As he digs more of the rock out he goes crazy with power and eventually kills himself when the rock is finally dug out.

Why it was Never Written
Come on. Guy finds a magic rock and the power of the rock corrupts him? How cliche is that? The only part about the story that I liked was the last line I would have written, something like "when he finally dug it out it crushed his leg and it trapped him against the side of the hole. It was quite large, and the exact size of his coffin."
... yeah even that line sounds kind of cheesy now that I think about it. Yeah that one gets filed in the round cabinet.

Premise 3.
As a prequel to my novel Uriel, the Angel of Assassination, has to convince a creature of chaos to swallow up a scared little man named Jonah.

Why it was Never Written
The idea came to me after I finished the novel and I was totally angel-ed out by then. Also Uriel is such a dick back then that I would have trouble writing the story. He is definitely a do it or I'll just kill you kind of a being back then. Also I couldn't think of a satisfying end to it. If one ever comes to me I might still give it a whirl but I would much rather go into Uriel's head after he merged with Jason.

Okay that's it for now. I wonder if any of you would be willing to share your aborted stories? I'm interested and I'm sure a lot of other writers would be too.

An Update

2007-07-10T14:52:00.000-05:00

Okay it's been a while since I let you guys know what's been going on so I'll give you an update. I'm in California right now. I'm hanging out with friends and such until I head back to Maine so that I can move down to Louisiana in August. I'm waiting for Comic-con to happen so that I can be a geeky fanboy.
On the writing front I sent out my first 50 pages to a really nice agent named Jennifer Jackson who was our guest at the residency alumni retreat. The rejections have slowed down to a trickle. The publishing world pretty much shuts down around this time so I guess it'll take a while before I can raise my rejection count.
I just had my 28th birthday and I feel like the things that were really important to me a few years ago don't really matter anymore. It's weird but I guess that's a sign of me getting old.
That's about it. I imagine when school starts I'll have more to say but for now I am on Vacation.
Rejection Count: 11

What the Hell?

2007-05-28T12:35:00.000-05:00

This is not about this news story. It's about the picture they use to illustrate the story. It makes zero sense and they don't explain why they even used it.

Zombie Week Day 7

2007-05-27T08:06:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that I didn't have a post yesterday but I intended to have the last day coincide with my debut of my short story at The Late Late Show. The debut came a day late but I can finally get the last post of Zombie Week out now. Are you a little teary-eyed? I can understand I feel the same way. If only there were 10 days in a week but we can only let this go on for so long.

If you would let me be a bit self indulgent I decided to talk about the zombie I have in my short story. I played around with the rules a bit in this one. The most important one is that only the firemen in my short story became zombies. I wanted this story to be a reactionary tale to the government response to Katrina and I always thought the part of the government everyone could agree that we needed, no matter what type of politics you might have, are the firemen.

These zombies are undead and still want to eat flesh so I went classic with the old Romero type but I made it so the bites they make are lethal but didn't change anyone into a zombie (it would dilute the story if others that weren't firemen became zombies). That means I had to give some more umph to these zombies since they would be few in number so I made it so that even brain damage couldn't kill them. In fact, not much of anything could kill them.

I also wanted them to be more horrific from the regular zombies so I made their bellies bloated to bursting from all the flesh they consumed. I reasoned that since zombies are dead, they don't have functioning digestive systems so all that flesh in their bellies would stay in there and just rot. Pretty disgusting image but I liked it and used it.

So if you want to actually read the story in question you can read it here and also listen to it here.

Zombie Week Day 6

2007-05-25T08:49:00.000-05:00

I can see the end in sight and it makes me a little sad. There really is much more to talk about than just 7 days worth so I'll just gloss over the remaining zombies in this post. Some of these monsters won't even be zombies but they are the dead come back and you'll notice a strange trend when it comes to the dead come back to life.

We should start with one of the most famous reanimated corpses. Frankenstein's Monster was never really written as a monster that was a patchwork of dead people parts, but ever since the Universal movie came, it became the general consensus. This guy follows many zombie characteristics so I thought we was worth a mention. He can't talk in the first movie, resorting to just grunts and the masterful acting of Boris Karloff to get the monster to come to life. He stumbled around like a zombie and was often seen with arms stretched reaching for something like zombies often did, hell Karloff probably invented that walk.

There are also the movies with generic zombies. We can see these guys from Evil Dead movies to Simpson's Halloween specials. Most of these zombies don't really have any rules per say. Sometimes they want brains, sometimes they just want to bite you and other times they are smart as hell. Sometimes it's only a bite that will turn you into a zombie, other times just dieing will do the trick. It's the lack of consistency that makes it impossible for me to classify them as a species or sub specious of their own.

I also want to mention the few times that the dead come back different. I wouldn't call them zombies but they do have a murderous intent. A prime example is the little kid from Pet Cemetery who came back from the dead after being buried in a pet cemetery. Five year old undead kids with a scalpel are worse than any zombie. Why you ask? Cuz they can hide under the bed. In fact 9 out of ten times if you are missing your five-year-old undead kid you'll find him under your bed with a scalpel. Fun fact btw the little kid killed the actor who played Hermon Munster, who was a Frankenstein monster, so you can see it as a kind of passing of the torch amongst undead monsters... nahh I'm just talking out of my ass.

Zombie Week Day 5

2007-05-24T18:32:00.000-05:00

Hey there, sexy. You want me to seduce you, you say? Well there's only one way to do that and that's with another zombie related post!

Today we're going to take a look at a subspecies of zombie. This zombie came to us from a Romero film and I think it added another dimension to the regular zombie. I am talking about none other than the smart zombie.

Now I am not going to say that a smart zombie is in any way smart as a human, but when you consider the fact that a regular zombie is about as smart as a roll of toilet paper then you have to admit that a zombie who can figure out how to use an assault rifle is the freakin Einstein of Zombies. This zombie, named Big Daddy, is one of the most dangerous of its type because it can actually direct other lesser zombies to do things like walk through a river, take apart some walls, and even teach them to figure out how the ever-elusive door knob works.

We saw glimmerings of a smart zombie in Day of the Dead in which a zombie managed to use a hand gun but that zombie seemed just as surprised as his victim when he managed to use the thing so I'm gonna chalk that up to luck and simplicity in gun design. Hell, I don't even know how to use an assault rifle. Don't those things need to be oiled and reloaded and junk?

You also have to appreciate the fact that Big Daddy works really hard for his fellow zombies. He isn't satisfied with just flesh for himself. He wants flesh for all of his kind. If only our own leaders had as much passion for us.

Zombie Week Day 4

2007-05-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

Is it day 4 already? Oh how the time flies when you're knee deep in zombies. Who should we look at now? How about a zombie class that arent even zombies?

When the movie 28 Days Later came out the zombie genre got a new kick in the pants. What's funny is that the creatures in this movie arent really zombies, ie they are not the dead come back to life. Instead of the dead, it is a virus known as the Rage virus that is making all these kids go cuckoo for Coco Puffs. These people don't really want flesh or brains like our previous zombie friends. Instead they just want to kill the hell out of anyone that isn't like them and when one of them bites you the virus spreads so rapidly that you become one in a matter of seconds.

The real strength of this type of zombie, or Rage infected as some of you would rather call them, is the virus itself. Most zombies will slow down to chomp down on a newly captured victim but if a single bite is all you need to turn someone then you're in big trouble and entire seas of people can become a hoard of zombies in a few minutes.

The one thing that helps people in the never-ending battle of humans vs. Zombies is the fact that these zombies are actually alive. That means a good shot in the gut or punch in the face can knock one out. On the other hand there is a new aspect to these zombies that can make them more terrifying than any other zombie; they can run. Getting chased by fast zombies is far more scarier than raptors in my opinion and much harder to avoid than your average slumping zombie.

We saw fast zombies again in a remake of the classic Romero film, Dawn of the Dead and now the debate rages. Do you like your zombies fast or slow? It's a debate that pits brother against brother, father against son, and tears at the very fabric of this nation. Like the great Less Filling/Tastes Great debate, this issue may never be settled, all we can do is wait it out and hope the bloodshed stays to a minimum.

Zombie Week Day 3

2007-05-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

Come, children. Sit down in a semicircle as I regal you with information The zombie we will be examining today will be the Return of the Living Dead zombie.

In 1985 the zombie genre had all but run it's course. There really was nothing new to the market until Return of the Living Dead decided to hit the general public. These zombies had different rules than the Romero zombie. Instead of an unknown, mysterious reason as to why the dead come back to life there is a definite reason in this movie, a chemical. It's this horrible lethal toxic stuff that brings back the dead. When they come back they have a huge hankering for brains. Yes, this is one of the major contributions to the zombie genre, the hunger for brains. These zombies also differ from the general zombie because they can't be killed by a blow to the head. We'll get to how to kill them later since it is a bit complicated. Another difference is that these guys can actually talk. In fact they can be quite articulate which means they can also be cunning if it came to that. Depending on there state of degeneration, they could also be quite fast if they were hungry for delicious delicious brains. They hungered for brains because they said it was the only way to fight the horrible pain of being dead. I don't know what that pain would be like but remember that brains are the only aspirin to that pain.

I always wondered if one of these zombies could be reasoned with. Perhaps they could be bribed with brains or a brain supplement and we could all live in a happy zombie wonderland. Unfortunately, that idea never came up in the movie, what from all the running away from zombies.

Now, because these zombies couldn't be killed by a smashed brain, these zombies were extra difficult to kill. One could reason that you could chop one into pieces and burn that into nothing, but when they tried to do that in the movie the really bad thing about these zombies became apparent. You see, the real threat wasn't the zombies but the chemical inside them. When a zombie was burnt, the chemicals inside it would go back into the atmosphere and when it rained come back down contaminating any dead thing it touched. Very very bad news. The answer to killing them came in the sequel Return of the Living Dead 2 in which zombies could be killed through electrocution. There are further sequels Rave to the Grave, and Necro-something, that changed the rules but those movies were crap so no one saw them, thankfully.

Another aspect of zombies that was brought to the plate with this movie was the comedic zombie. This is because you can only look at a bunch of stumbling zombies begging for brains for so long and not start laughing.

Zombie Week Day 2

2007-05-21T15:29:00.000-05:00

Talking about zombies just makes my mouth water. I'm pretty happy that I decided to have this week. And today we get to talk about none other than the classic zombie.

This zombie came from the genre defining movie Night of the Living Dead, directed by the father of zombie movies, George A. Romero. The Romero zombie is pretty much what you think of when you think of a zombie. They are slow and sluggish. They are the dead come back to life and they want to eat your flesh. If you were ever forced to deal with one of these guys, you would be better off just avoiding it. They are slow but they are strong and they have a lethal bite. They don't talk but do moan a lot, I suppose I would moan too if I had a top speed of 2 miles an hour and my prey can go 15 easily.

It would be quite easy to get away from one but their strength lies in numbers. When a hoard of them are surrounding your house you are in big trouble. Your best bet is to fortify where ever you are as much as you can and stick to the second floor with only a rope to get to the next level (zombies are not known for their dexterity and have enough trouble with step ladders). You can kill these zombies with enough damage to their head or brains.

One thing I always wondered about these zombies was that they craved flesh but did not eat one another. So at what point does a zombie stop eating a victim? Till it's dead? Till it becomes a fellow zombie? If the latter were true then is there an awkward moment when a new zombie just stares at the guy eating him and go... "do you mind?"

The latest version of this zombie would probably be Shaun of the Dead, a great movie and worth a viewing. Hell, any of those zombie movies are worth viewing but some people tell me they don't like zombie movies and then I just stare at them like they just said they can hear bees farting.

Chun out.

Zombie Week Has Started

2007-05-20T09:35:00.000-05:00

There's a sense of energy in the air. Do you feel it? It may be that spring air or it may be that Zombie Week has started! I decided to make a series of posts describing the many types of zombies there are in anticipation of the release of my zombie short story A Contained Inferno.

I thought I would start with the classic zombie this time, the one that started it all. The following is not fiction if you can believe it or not. Certain witch doctors of the Voodoo persuasion would often find a need for a mindless servant to do farm work or labor intensive kind of grunt jobs. I think we've all wished to have such a servant but while most of us kept the idea to just wishful thinking, proactive Voodoo witch doctors decided to do something about it. With the help of an unknown recipe (many think the main ingredient is blow-fish poison) the witch doctor would blow some of this powder on a victim and the victim would suffer from a paralysis that is so effective that many people assume that the victim is dead. These people get buried by family members, but are, in fact, still alive. The Witch Doctor will dig up this person and as the effects of the poison wear off it will leave the victim in a mindless and suggestible state.

This is when the witch doctor can take his new zombie to his home and show it to his family so others can pet it and give it a dish of milk.

And that, children, is where zombies are made, at least in our world. The practice has pretty much fallen off the planet since doctors have become better at figuring out if a dude is dead or not, but it should be noted that it is still a crime punishable by death in many Caribbean Islands.

Monday will be the Romero zombie. Can you stand the anticipation?

I'm Moving to Lafayette

2007-05-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

I didn't tell most of you because I wasn't sure I was going to be accepted anywhere and I didn't feel like spreading my misery around if it didn't happen but I got accepted into a Ph.D. program for English at the University of Lafayette. I got accepted so now I can breath easy until the first class starts. It's a new stage of life for me and I am a bit scared but also excited.

Zombies are Coming

2007-05-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

If you look here you'll see that my story is on que for the May 26th issue of The Late Late Show. I'm trying to think of a good way to get people there what do you guys think? I was thinking of having a zombie week where I will post a zombie related article until the story is up.

A Writing Update

2007-04-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

Haven't mentioned what's been going on in the writing front for a while so I'll give you all an update. So far the script for The Fracture #2 is in the poop shoot and in the hands of our artist. I finished a short story that is only 1400 words. It's more serious than my usual voice but I can write depressing things every once in a while. The thing I like the most about the story? The Title. What do you think of A Likeness in Remembering? It's a short story about a man experimenting with memory altering drugs so I think it fits. The next thing I'll work on is a rough draft for #3. Then I'll gather my energy for a 4th draft (sigh) of Angel's Reflection. On a good note The Secret Society of the Talking Cross has been racking up those rejections. I've been intentionally only been looking at response times for suitable places to send it. That's it for now!

Rejection Count: 7

That's It Men, We're Done For

2007-04-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

We had a nice run guys but this technology signals the end of men in the human species. We were around for a while so there is no need for spite. I'm sure in the back of your head you knew this was coming. We'll just go to the same place the dinosaurs went to. To be perfectly honest, I was wondering why no one had figured out how to do this earlier. Certainly a lot of problems would have been solved if asexual reproduction was possible. Anyways it's been a fun few million years, I hope you girls the best for the next million.

P.S. please try to keep the Lakers franchise alive. I know you can do it!

Uhhhh.. What?

2007-04-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

Is this the worst idea ever? Or the greatest? All I know is that I do likes me the bacon and no matter what this will not alter my opinion of it.

Thank You, Ten-Year-Old Chun

2007-03-28T15:47:00.000-05:00

When I was ten years old a movie came up late at night titled Mazes and Monsters. I thought "it's called Mazes and Monsters? It'll be a fantasy movie, I have to watch it!" As the movie progressed I soon came to the realization that not only did the movie lack any fantasy but it featured an anti-roleplaying story telling you about the dangers roleplaying and how it can make you go crazy. Ten-year-old Chun did the right thing when he realized this. He turned the blasted thing off even if it was one of the first performances of Tom Hank's acting career.

Unfortunately, I didn't take Ten-year-old Chun's advice. Recently some friends decided to netflix this movie and made us watch it in some form of cruel torture. Strangely enough I knew exactly when I stopped watching this movie 17 years ago. It was during the emotionally melodramatic montage scene accompanied with the most ear drum poisoning music I have ever had to encounter.

Anyways I just wanted to take this time to thank Ten-Year-Old Chun for keeping this horror from my eyes for so long and apologize for failing him now. You were right, I was wrong.

Stillworld Pics

2007-03-17T14:31:00.000-05:00

Hi guys. I got some work in progress pictures for Stillworld. Remember that there will be some changes to it but I am pretty darned pleased.

Hope you like it. I already posted a link to Julie Dillon's website but here it is again if you're curious to see what else she can do.

If You're Bored

2007-03-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

I give this link to you. I really used to love watching Where in the World is Carmon San Diego. She was pretty hard to catch and I think I only saw it happen once.

Eating A Dead Horse

2007-02-21T17:50:00.000-05:00

To continue celebration of February Movie Sucktasticthon I thought I would do another review of a February movie. This time I saw Hannibal Rising and I think my eyes are trying to punish me for putting them through it, oh wait, I was just thinking of the exploding eyeball scene from the movie.

Man has this series dropped in quality from the Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs. This movie tries to explain to us where Hannibal came from and how he became the monster that he became but my question is did I really want to know? Hannibal was always the perfect movie monster because you didn't know why he does what he does but you do know that he is much smarter than you. Knowing what motivates him takes away from that unknown and turns him into a little boy who misses his little sister.

Now that I've dismantled the reason to make this movie or even the book for that matter, I'll go about dismantling the movie. It's crap. It wasn't poorly acted or poorly written but its just this movie just feels like a waste of time. If your going to make a movie without any stirring characters or a good story then you would think they would at least make up for it with new and fun ways to kill people but even that was lacking. Drowning? come on. Katanaed? Meh. What happened to flaying someone alive and turning them into a giant butterfly? I'll even take a good brain eating. Even the aforementioned eyeball explosion was edited in such a way so you don't see what's going on. Even the hot Asian chick in the movie was a let down. That's right, I was waiting for a good boobie shot but even that turned into false gold.

So to sum up: a waste of time, no real gore, and zero boobies. I give it a three out of ten.

The Rider

2007-02-17T20:04:00.000-05:00

Many of you think of Valentines day when you think of the month of February but I like to think of it as the month movies go to die. This is the month big time Hollywood puts movies that are turkeys but are under too much pressure under investors to get the thing to the theaters. It's a magic time where week after week we get served crap and I look forward to it each year (I guess I just like to punish myself). Last week was Hannibal Rising but this week I felt was the crown jewel of the crappy February movies, Ghost Rider.

I have to first say that I had low expectations for this movie. I mean, did you see the trailers? Even the trailer bits (the best jokes and images) looked a little lame.

I'll start with the movie's weaknesses. The plot is forced. There are horrible cliches followed after more horrible cliches. Action scenes feel forced and there is no real sense of tension in the most of them. The very very worst thing in this movie is the dialogue. The guy who dubs old kung fu movies could do a better job with dialogue in this movie. There are times i laughed out loud or cringed from how bad the lines in this movie were, especially any scenes with the over the top villains.

But even with all that crap I mentioned the movie still has some redeeming values. I have to give it to the computer animators. Ghost Rider did look very good. They got just about every element of him right so I commend the team for that. It also seemed like the people working on this movie realized that this was going to be a corny movie because they took a lot of their scenes with tongue firmly in the cheek and I think it helped the movie when they recognized that. There are several scenes where it seems everyone realizes how silly the situation is.

So that's what I thought. I'll give it a 4 out of 10. Better than I had feared but still pretty bad.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

2007-02-17T03:53:00.000-05:00

Yes, we pay our congress to sit around, pick their nose, and eat their boogers.

How Bad?

2007-02-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

How bad will Ghost Rider be? I want a general consensus. I'll still watch it because well.. I don't know... I like to hurt myself and it's a comic book movie?

I'm gonna give it a 2 out of 10 but what do you guys think? When it comes out I'll tell you what it actually is (yes being on the Internet automatically gives me the power to know how good a movie is) and we can all have a horrible sick laugh about it.

Linkalotofpus

2007-01-31T15:21:00.000-05:00

Hey the new chuntastic is still getting on it's feet and I need links. I know some of you let your blogs die and I respect that but for those of you who are still alive and want a link to their blogs please give me an address and I'll do as you wish.

Proving You Wrong

2007-01-31T00:27:00.000-05:00

This is for all of you who argued with me saying that a music video about the Karate Kid, more specifically a music video about how Cobra Kai's Johnny should sweep Daniel-san's leg, was a good idea. I now have the proof to show you why it is actually a horrible horrible abortion of an idea.

Giant Spike of Doom

2007-01-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

Last year I showed you all the spikes of doom that haunted your dreams but now I present you with the GIANT SPIKE OF DOOM! This four-foot monstrosity will one day impale someone. You can tell how evil it is by how the sunlight glints off of it. Beware, it may be a heat-seeker.

I'm Not Getting to 100

2007-01-19T02:24:00.000-05:00

I have to admit it. I can tell at the rate I am getting rejections I won't be able to get to 100. Just sold my zombie story A Contained Inferno to the

For My Friends Who are Chargers Fans in SoCal

2007-01-15T00:07:00.000-05:00

Suck it! Suck suck suck suck suck it!

Chuntastic is Dead Long Live Chuntastic

2007-01-12T02:28:00.000-05:00

The new blogger program was no longer compatable with the old template I was using. Guess this is what happens for not modernizing.