Not too bad.....the IM seems to be working fine on my end, though. I'll give it another try real quick.

Last Stand of the Wreckers, The Transformers 22 & 23, More than Meets the Eye series, the whole Dark Cybertron story arc. These are my favorites. More than Meets the Eye 28, Holy God damn.
Also, the brand new Windblade series, good god, the art is gorgeous.

Looks like we've hit the cap on our first thread.....while we're on the subject of wildly creative people, I just now read something that seriously bummed me out.

www.imdb.com/news/ni57179009/?ref_=hm_nw_tp_t2

NO! I...I loved his work, and I was having such a darn good day, too! Oh God, that's terrible news.

I found an excellent tribute to his life and work, which I'm reading as we speak:

www.rogerebert.com/mzs/grim-and-endless-night-sweet-prince-of-darkness-hr-giger

It's funny, because as I'd been working on my writing recently, I found myself thinking I would have been honored to have him design the animatronics for my parasite creatures. Oh well.

I will have to read that. Man, I can't believe he's gone. As 4chan said, age is not a creak in your bones or a pain in your back, but crossing out one more thing from your childhood that gone.

That's quite the profound quote.....for a site that puts most people in mind of the ridiculous **** we see on our front page, 4chan never ceases to surprise me in that regard.

RIP, Mr. Giger. You will never be forgotten.

Not by the two of us, for certain. But we are far from his only fans.
Any chance we can speak of some happier times?

Indeed.....did you do anything fun for Mother's Day? We pretty much just relaxed around the house; I gave my mom the new Spenser novel as a present, and my dad picked up a bunch of Godiva truffles and a pecan pie for us to split.

Very nice. Me and my brothers all came over and made her a big lunch. Grilled chicken & pork chops, homemade mashed potatoes, sweet corn (that no one ended up touching) and I brought over a bottle of her favorite wine. I also got a nice framed photo of us for her. She took that to work with her.
She said it was the best Mother's Day she ever had, so: Mission Accomplished.

Wow, you guys really went all-out.....sounds like a great time.

If you want to get back into a little movie news (of the more pleasant sort).....Zack Snyder recently put out a promotional picture of Ben Affleck as Batman. It looks pretty cool if you ask me.

insidemovies.ew.com/2014/05/13/zack-snyder-ben-affleck-batman-costume/

Looks kinda funky. Guess we'll just have to see. Or rather, let others see. I've no interest in this movie. I wasn't a fan of Man of Steel, kind of underwhelming for me.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Man of Steel, but I've got it on my DVR and will probably get to it sometime in the near future. I know it divided people quite a bit, but I've still got a lot of respect for Snyder coming off of Watchmen, and I have a hard time picturing him truly ******* something up.

Have you gotten out to see the new Spiderman yet? I haven't, and it's another one I've heard mixed reviews of, though I did enjoy the first one.

It's not a **** up, and I'm a Snyder fan too, it's just... let's talk after you've seen it. I'd like to see your opinion as a movie buff. Get a better perspective on it.

Anyway, I'd probably better be going for the moment.....dinner's going to be done any minute now. Do you think you'll still be on later this afternoon/evening?

Sure, why not? About what time, so I can see if I'm home by then?

It's hard telling, because I'm not sure what's on the agenda for the evening yet.....it'll either be in about an hour, or somewhere around eight or nine (my time; I've gathered you're an hour behind me, so I'd presume seven or eight on your end).

I'm on Central Time, if that helps. Yeah, the 7-8 (your time) works for me. I'll be a bit busy in an hour, but this evening's free.

Hopefully I'll see you then. Take care as always.

Is the IM not showing up for you? I tried shooting you a message on there and all I'm getting is the Red Light of Doom.

Yeah, IM's down for me for whatever reason. Might have to do with the fact that I'm using a public wifi. Using my local library's. So, 'cause of that, we might keep our speech strictly PG, then again, I don't think we really talk that much about anything messed up. Mitt Romney in Herbert West notwithstanding, ha ha.

Ah, well.....it's FJ, so I don't think anybody who stumbled across my profile would care too much what we talked about. I can clear stuff off of my profile if we choose to anyway.

Sorry to hear about your Internet going down. What happened?

Used up my monthly allotment of data, that's all. Pain in the buns too, it's the best service there is, mostly 'cause I live left of the middle of nowhere.

That sucks. Even if it is good service, having a cap on the amount you can do seems hardly worth it to me. Do you know if the place you're moving to can get U-Verse?

Hmm, U-Verse? Never heard of it. I'll have to research it. We're moving to a pretty hip town that's decently populated. Could be there. I'll also be looking into Cox, a friend of mine who lives in town has them, and his data cap is 500G to my 10G. I tell you, I was green with envy.

Yeah, U-Verse is through AT&T, and I gather that it uses special fiber-optic cables, which is why you can't get it everywhere. I've had it for about six years now, and I can't even imagine switching to anything else.

I'm looking up Cox right now, and it sounds like a pretty good service. I'm not seeing anything on their site about data caps, though, which is worrisome.....leaves you with the old "that's how they get ya" vibe.

Hmm, yeah. Will definitely have to look at U-Verse. Crossin' my fingers they have it. Is it because it's fast or because they have a data cap (or even no cap at all)? Both? 'Cause that would be amazing.

If there's a cap, I've never been made aware of it.....and I can't tell you how often I've watched long Youtube videos on into the night, so I would probably know. It is indeed pretty damn fast, too, since it uses a proprietary broadband modem. You can also get packages that cover your TV and phone service, too, with premium channels and tons of free movies on demand (although those can get fairly pricey).

Really, apart from the price and occasional technical troubles with boxes being fried by electrical storms, I have no complaints with the service. You'll see Comcast just relentlessly attacking it in all of their commercials, but if you've ever had U-Verse, it's obviously a case of the lady doth protesting too much; I've had Comcast in the past, and while their Internet speed is on the same level as U-Verse, their customer service is utterly abominable by comparison.

Dang, sounds almost too good to be true. Again, I'll look into that. So, in other news, how is that project you mentioned long ago going, the horror movie?

I haven't done a whole ton more of the actual writing lately, being that I've been back and forth from work so much, but the storyline itself is coming along pretty well. I've also started developing a concept for a sequel, inspired by (of all things) Cosmos and Alien Planet. It's going to revolve around a semi-obsessive scientist with a wormhole fixation, whose guerrilla-style research seeks to cultivate an understanding of the true vastness of the universe; when he discovers the parasite threat, he decides to trace their line of evolution, hoping that an understanding of their ability to read mental impulses will help him in his quest to elevate humanity. It's going to be a ******** , I can tell you that, maybe even more so than the first one is.

Ooh, when you finish I simply must have the title, so I can buy and watch it! This kind of thing seems right up my alley! Also, does this mean you've watched Alien Planet at last?

Ah, **** , I thought for sure I'd told you Of course I loved it, and I've been dying to talk about it. It really is a whole lot to chew on, in terms of how life might develop along totally different lines depending on the environmental conditions of the planet.

I'm so excited! I'm thrilled you liked it. For me, such a world is what the video game Spore could have been if EA hadn't watered it down for a mass market.
But yeah, definitely a really cool concept. I would dearly love to get the artist's book that the show was based on. See his original painting along with a story he wrote himself.
He's also written an amazing book called God's Demon. It was the first time I ever read a book in a single night, I just couldn't put it down!

Yeah, I would love to read the book too. It really was a fascinating world, and very clearly thought through from the ground up; it really goes to show how limited a lot of our thinking is when it comes to how alien life might develop.

I'm looking up God's Demon right now, and it seems quite intriguing as well.....the excerpt I found on the website reads kind of like a Tolkien-esque take on the concept of Hell. Wayne Barlowe clearly has one of the world's more vivid imaginations, that's for sure.

Part of why I'm such a big fan. He's also done a lot of work for movies. The creatures for Harry Potter, designs for Hellboy 2, and the kaiju in Pacific Rim. Dude's got some skills. I'm sure you could find his whole resume on Wikipedia, but those for me are the big names to drop.
I first discovered him through his first book, Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. In it, he illustrates a number of alien critters from a range of classic sci-fi novels. Dune, Wrinkle in Time, and even At the Mountains of Madness. He is, at least partly if not mostly, responsible for introducing me to H.P. Lovecraft.

Wow, he really has done a huge variety of stuff. I'm almost ashamed to admit I'd never heard of him before looking up Alien Planet; he'll be one of my names to watch from here on out, I can say that for sure.

Definitely. It serves as a reminder of something that I've believed for a long time. You don't need drugs to be creative, and in fact, they may not help it at all. Dunno, haven't tried any myself, but to me, I think that if you're already creative you'll come up with cool stuff. The most I could imagine illicit substances doing is perhaps lowering your inhibitions and letting go of certain anxieties you might have about fear of rejection or something.
Bob Marley wasn't a great singer/songwriter because he took drugs and Ernest Hemingway would have written just as well if he wasn't boozed up. Hell, Jackson Pollock was drunk as a skunk and his work is bullcrap.

I remember Stephen King telling the story of how his wife and children banded together to help him with his alcoholism back in the late Eighties, and how he was terrified at first that he wouldn't be able to function as a creative writer without the booze, but it turned out to be the exact opposite as he rediscovered how well his own imagination could work with a clear head.

I think that fear is there for a lot of creative types who use drugs, that they'll lose their motivation or their wild states of mind if they don't have their poison of choice there to help them, but I think you're probably right that in most cases it's unfounded. You get your occasional John Lennon or Hunter S. Thompson who takes genuine inspiration from their altered states of mind, but on the flip side of that, a whole hell of a lot of people who embrace drug culture because of that element don't turn out to be creative or inspired at all.

Exactly, though I personally maintain that Thompson and friends would have probably been just as creative without that kind of stuff, because creativity is something you have to find within yourself. I like to think everyone has it, but that very few people ever seize it in a meaningful way.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is up with the IM. It seems to be working fine on my end now, but I can't tell if anything I'm typing is coming through.

Not much. It seems erratic as to what is getting through on my end. Did you at least see my review of Captain America 2?

Yeah, I did see that, and it sounds really cool. I was right in the middle of composing a huge comment while we were going back-and-forth there, which was why it might have seemed a little sparse on my end.....did my last three messages show up at all?

Maybe? Something about "did my messages get through".

Yeah, the last couple were to that effect. It should be working fine now, so why don't we try it again? (This **** is a pain in the hindquarters to do over comments.....)

I can try, but I'll go back to this if the problem persists.

Houston, we seem to have a problem again.

**** . I was saying you're one of few dudes I can spend this long talking to. ****** mad cash. You are an pretty cool guy.

Well, as I've said numerous times before, thank you for that, and the feeling is mutual.

I'd really better be going, though; it's getting late and I've got to work tomorrow. Take care, fellow traveler.

Indeed. Carry the blessings of the Red Lantern within your heart.

LOL, sorry.....I got busy playing a game and forgot I still had FJ open. I should probably get to bed anyway.....maybe I'll see you tomorrow.

Probably not, I'm going to Dungeon Master tomorrow. My players will not know what hit them.

Ah, well.....probably some time next week, then. Good luck with your D&D game ;)

Indeed. I'll PM you, so we can just shoot back messages to each other when we are online, rather than waiting 'till the stars align and we're both on.

Sounds like a plan. Take care, old friend.

And you as well. May we meet in Valhalla and slay trolls together.

Shoot me an offer and I'll see what I think of it.

what are you looking for?

Nothing in particular (I've kind of fallen out of the business of serious collecting), but I'm open to anything I don't have as long as the trade seems fair.

Indeed it has, old friend :S Sorry I haven't made it over to Fortune in a while; I have just plain-assed not had the mental energy for it. These past few months have been stressful on too many levels to get into on here.

Good to see that you're still around :) How have you been? Anything interesting going on with you?

Going back to school. Going to live my dream as a video game designer. One day, you may play games designed by me.

Sure; I'd be more than happy to trade duplicates, if you've got anything I don't have.

Thanks for the shout-out, and I'm glad to have turned you on to a great band. Sadly, the guy I'd posted those songs for never replied.....but what are you gonna do ;)

By the way, your username made me do a bit of a double-take.....my quasi-claim-to-fame on here is a series of long, thought-provoking rants called "Double Shots of Truth" (they're titled "Worth the Read" on my profile, just in case you feel like checking them out). At first I thought you were some alt account of one of my subscribers, trying to play a joke or something ;P

Hmmm, seems someone got tuned into some good music by you. Got anything for a fan of instrumental as opposed to lyrics?