I think this is the only time in my life when I will compare Dungeons & Dragons to Jimmy Buffett.
Growing up, Jimmy (we called him “Jimmy” then) was this tropical troubadour who sang about leaving the mundane life of the 9-to-5 and bumming out on the ocean, sailing away to discover new shores, drinking to excess, and generally living a life of fantasy away from the burdens of adulthood. He was a beach bum in Bermuda shorts and flipflops wasting away again in the magical realm called Margaritaville, eating cheeseburgers in paradise, running from the Jamaican police in a plane full of weed (allegedly), and telling us all how much better life is when we change our latitude and attitude. The first CD box set I ever bought was titled “Boats, Beaches, Bars, & Ballads” which summed up pretty much everything Jimmy sang about.
I am in the middle of writing up my Big Buck Rogers Rewatch for the episode “Cosmic Whiz Kid” guest starring the late, incorrigible child star Gary Coleman as a 500+ year-old President of some planet. I remember he gets kidnapped, trades snark with his captors, and waits for Fleet McChickynugz to rescue him.
But this is my last week on chemo drugs, so I had to take a knee before I puked all over my monitors.
It’s not that Gary Coleman is unwatchable. He was king of prime time back in the 1980s with Diff’rent Strokes and… I think that’s it. But Strokes was huge and it was the time before prevalent home video recording, so he was appointment television.
Holy shit, I just read that Strokes began in 1978. The seventies??? A year after A New Hope??? Christ, I am old.
Coleman worked all the way to his death in 2010. The jobs weren’t as flashy or lucrative as his sitcom hit, but IMDB.com has him in some film or series every year. He seemed to focus on Christmas movies which I hear are great for residuals because they are trotted out every year (if they don’t suck too bad) for people to ignore while arguing politics with relatives.
The Rewatch is really a parody of recap blogs, many of which I enjoy. But the show…oh my god this show…has not aged well at all. It wanted to be a kid show but ended up being a man-child fever dream with lots of pointless blinky lights and reused stock footage. Gary Coleman was just an attempt to boost ratings mid-season and, I guess it worked. To a degree.
Wait, why do I give a shit about Gary Coleman? Where has this blog gone?
So, You Want To Be A Podcaster… Salon E, 10am – 11am (Sa) We’ll discuss the dos and don’ts of podcasting, things to know and equipment you’ll need to start.
Resident Alien Salon A, 11am – 12pm (Sa) We’ll discuss Season 2 of this offbeat comedy, based on a Dark Horse comic.
Author Role Models Salon D, 11am – 12pm (Su) Find out which authors our panels respect, admire, seek to emulate, both personally and professionally.
Toxic Fandom Salon E, 1pm – 2pm (Su) Used to be, fans proclaimed their devotion for TV shows, movies, books and the like with multiple viewings/readings, joining fan clubs, purchasing merchandise, even writing letters to protest cancellations. Now, fans feel entirely justified in trashing an actor’s performance or criticizing directors for their choices — even boasting that the fans could do better! Where did this sense of entitlement come from? Can we blame social media?
Author Autograph Session Hunt Valley Hallway, 2pm – 3pm (Su) Arroe J. Knight, Josh Pritchett, Jay Smith, Christopher D Abbott
This Wasn’t The Post-Apocalypse I Ordered! Salon D, 3pm – 4pm (Su) Now that we’ve lived through a few apocalypses, why doesn’t it feel like the world ended? Is it because there’s more reason for hope than we thought… or is it that the apocalypse is still ongoing? And why does everyone wear spikes in the PA, anyway?
Directed by Philip Leacock Written by D.C. Fontana (billed as Michael Richards) and Richard Fontana (billed as Clayton Richards), (characters created by) Robert C. Dille Season 1, Episode 10 (Episode 8 in original run) Original Air Date: November 8, 1979
Sizzle Reel
A girl on a horse says that a world without men would be invaded immediately.
Buck has his shirt torn off by Dr. Shrinker in the middle of what might be a Chippendales audition or a slave auction. He is informed that his next stop is to meet his new “mate” and not the English drinking buddy kind.
Dr. Shrinker tells a nice lady that her slave has been delivered to her quarters.
Buck fights two women in disco attire as Dr. Shrinker warns them not to damage the merchandise.
Leather-clad Buck and the horse-riding lady escape explosions by jumping into a starfighter.
Wilma warns Buck she is going to shoot him if he doesn’t “deviate from this vector.” Buck warns her not to try and stop him so she orders someone off screen to open fire. They do and Buck and Horse-riding Lady suffer a near miss!
Oh noes!
Assemble All Pilots on the Flight Deck
This week’s stellar guests:
Ariela Dyne: Ann Dusenberry Cassius Thorne: Jay Robinson Prime Minister: Anne Jeffreys
Go for Launch!
Buck is on patrol, headed back to Earth for a hot date with Wilma. He’s checking in with her to say the Ruathans are honoring a truce and letting ships through a narrowly-defined blockade allowing Madrea to get much-needed supplies, or their monthly supply of soft drinks and apple sauce. I don’t know and don’t judge. Captain Bunk Cheesesteak mentions that they (the Madreans, I assume) aren’t exporting much Barbarite. Instantly, the 5-12 year old target audience is alert and engaged. A TRADE WAR? With barricades and unequal materials exchange? How exciting!
Directed by Dick Lowry Written by Bill Taylor, (characters created by) Robert C. Dille Season 1, Episode 9 (Episode 7 in original run) Original Air Date: November 1, 1979
Sizzle Reel
It appears that preview videos have been restricted or removed from YouTube in my absence.
Captain Bulk Grinface is talking to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in what appears to be the least imposing prison set ever constructed (see, when your guest stars eat all the drywall and lead paint…sorry, I’ll shut up about it now).. He interrupts her to tell her to get down, and not in the funky way. He pulls her down as we cut to an explosion in the desert! In out next shot, Buck and Wanda Gerswitz wander down a sand dune and then pause to smile at each other before setting out across the desert where Linda Drysdale is caught by a subterranean tentacle puppet!
A murderous robot kills a townie on his way through the Universal backlot usually reserved for Mexican towns in western flicks. You know he’s a robot because he has an open hatch in his belly revealing a bunch of circuits and wires. I’m surprised Jim Cameron wasn’t sued for aping this plot, too. The murderbot explodes through a wall like the Kool Aid Man in ninja garb, screaming at the poor, terrified people inside.
A shuttle pilot asks another ship to identify itself. It’s a starfighter that introduces itself by firing on the shuttle. Wilma Deering, copiloting the starfighter tells an off-screen lieutenant to break off an attack as Buck looks on with that expression that suggests he’d rather be looking at a rack of freshly-baked muffins.
Two dudes talk about a “she” that’s arriving in a tone that suggests she’s not there for funsies. The one sinister dude says they will have to kill her.
Driving home the point, Wilma Deering tells someone off-camera that “they” are here to kill her, not rescue her.
Somewhere else, Buck emerges from a smoking hole, probably the writer’s room. He helps this “she” out of the hole, too. Sinister dude laments that the one person who managed to break out of this Space Stalag 13 was his once side-chick Kimberly Hammond.
Elsewhere, “she” is really sorry for using a hangover ray on Buck, who falls to the ground like some tequila lightweight.
Facebook reminded me that today is the one year anniversary of my first trip to the local Emergency Department to figure out what was wrong with me and my butt.
At the time, I really thought it was just hemorrhoids, maybe a fissure. At the time, the ED was packed with masked people waiting to be seem, some in a state of great pain covered in blankets and rolled into a corner to wait for a bed that was hours from becoming available. At the time, I thought my situation wasn’t worthy of keeping these people from their turn.
My wife and I stayed 12 hours in the waiting room before they took us back for a quick look-see up my bum. They didn’t see anything in their superficial exam. They didn’t go more than a fingertip deep. By the time I got back into an exam room, I hadn’t developed any new symptoms or demonstrated any of the things that brought me into the hospital in the first place. I was given the option to wait there for several more hours and check into a room for more examinations and tests or go home. If the symptoms returned, I was instructed to come back.
Fredonia was a kingdom so poor they could not afford the second “E” in their name. In liberating the nation, I restored that second “E”.
I post on Reddit every so often. Every so often, I’m serious. Someone posted to the colorectal cancer subreddit that they had just been diagnosed with colon cancer and was terrified. They were asking for reassurances. So I offered the following:
You will feel more confident once you know exactly what you’re dealing with. Once your cancer is “staged” it will guide your oncologist and surgical team to a course of treatment. It will likely be a combination of radiation, chemotherapy, and then surgery to remove the mass.
Knowledge is power. This thing will knock you on your butt and give you some rough days and weeks, but you will find strength inside yourself you never believed you had. You will find friends and allies everywhere. Look into local organizations that will help you with legal, financial, transportation, and psychological support. They exist. Look into them now or have a caregiver (partner, friend, family) start lining up resources. Your job will be to beat this.
I was encouraged by family and friends to keep a diary of my cancer journey. Aside from updates on my daily progress on Facebook, I really haven’t had much to say in this forum. But there is good news.
As of 1/10/2023, I am unofficially cancer-free.
I say “unofficially” because I am on the second wave of chemotherapy which is designed to eliminate any pesky cancer cells left over after my Halloween surgery to remove 16 inches of my colon and rectum. Pathology reports indicate no cancer in the samples taken from my body.
To quote my surgeon, “We got the bitch.”
The second wave of chemo is also the result of having to stop my first wave four weeks short due to nearly dying. Twice.
Aspiring journalist Jill Woodbine finds herself fending off the undead as she seeks both shelter and the source of a global zombie outbreak. Seeking shelter in a House and Garden warehouse (HG World), Jill finds herself in a potentially more hostile environment and it gets worse as she inches closer to the truth about the outbreak.
THEunJAYdedBOOK 