Aw...isn't that sweet. (NO)

Someone at work is sick. All day Thursday I heard her in her office, hacking an alternately wet and dry cough, raking and frequent. I knew she didn’t feel well, but then she had the temerity to ask me for help not once, but twice as she gradually got worse and worse.

It’s probably just a chest cold, and Lord knows, I’ve been very blessed not to get sick until and unless I was on vacation. I was out a couple of days with something last week, and I really don’t feel like coming down with something like what she has next week. Or better still, over my weekend when I have to take my loving wife grocery shopping.

I know people get sick. I know they can’t help it. I know they don’t want to get sick and are so dedicated to their job, so indispensable at their employer, or simply too obtuse to realize they’re doing more harm than good by coming to work. Well, here’s a dose of reality for you.

Get beyond your contagious period, then come back to work!

This person is pretty well isolated by being in her own office, but then to drag others in there, where she’s been coughing up a lung all day is thoughtless, IMO. She didn’t care if I, or anyone else she dragged in her sanitarium today, got sick later.

For one thing — and maybe it’s just me, but this is why you have it — she’s got a laptop. Use it. Go home, work from there. Spread your happy little virulent bug among your kin, not among those of us who’d rather see you die with every orifice bleeding than to get sick with whatever malignant infection you’ve hosted. Leave me out of it. Ask me your questions over IM, don’t request I come to your little germ-choked cloud of viral pathogens. Gimme a break for pity’s sake. Use your f**king head.

She’s not the only one. “I can’t miss work!” is the Joe Beerbelly cry in retaliation to my arguments. To employers who think you shouldn’t let workers have sick time off — get a clue, f**ktards; you’re losing more money when three or four people come down with it in succession than you would have to let the one stupid drone have a few days off. To those stupid, mindless drones who don’t think they can afford to miss work — go bury your feet in your yard and water them daily until you grow a godd*mn brain, moron. You think you’re the only person in the building? the only person with a family? with a less-than-bulletproof immune system? You’re spreading the infection around like you’re passing out Halloween candy, dickhead. Go the f**k home and be sick alone.

It’s not that hard to think of your co-workers and be courteous of them. Use technology at your fingertips to maintain a healthy environment for everyone.

But maybe I’m too fussy. I am, however, starting to understand how Howard Hughes felt.

How are you all feeling?

-JDT-

Copyright DarcKnyt 2012, all rights reserved

Actually, I have been considering a snow-boot purchase. I’ve been insanely jealous of my kids’s recent acquisition of such boots in anticipation of what “experts” were prognosticating as the “worst winter” we’d experienced in some time. (Yeah. Right. How’s that guessing profession working out for you? ‘Cause, I could use the dough and being wrong more often than not isn’t that hard, yo.) While winter ’round here ain’t exactly joy and follies, this year’s been extraordinarily easy. Nevertheless, we got them both snow boots, and when I do need them, there is no substitute.

My son’s have no laces whatsoever. Just slide those bad boys on like any good pair of boots. They’re warm (he says), comfortable and water resistant. Let ‘em dry off on a hard surface and you’re good to go for next time. His socks don’t get wet and the snow’s not likely to be higher than mid-calf (they rise to just below his knees anyway). I figure, if I can do that, I’d never wear my work shoes out of the house again. I’d slip those suckers on and just carry my work shoes with me. Or leave ‘em here. Heck, what do I need ‘em at home for?

But I digress.

So everywhere I look for men’s snow boots, I see nothing like what my boy has. Nothing. They’re those weird duck-hunting boots (pictured) — rubber on the bottom and sort of a tough leather-like substance where the laces go — or full-on (expensive) galoshes, which, while not a bad choice, isn’t what I hoped for.

So, for those who dwell in snowy climes, what do you recommend? Since I retired my old Land’s End snow boots last year, I’ve had nothing but good luck with the snowy weather, but that’s bound to change eventually. Any recommendations? (UGGs, by the way, are hideously expensive, and not an option.)

Thanks in advance.

-JDT-

I have egg -- and other substances -- on my face.

Well, this is embarrassing.

I’ve had to admit defeat with my free hosted site, which now holds my darcknyt.com domain hostage. At the same time, the amount of effort and the limitations the free host placed on my loving spouse and I isn’t worth the stress involved with trying to keep it up and running. So, I’m going to let it go feral over there and move my domain as of March.

I’ll find someplace better ‘n this, but for now, this is what I’ve got — and what I’m willing to work with — so here’s where I’ll hang out for a bit and see what happens.

At least here I can use WLW and schedule posts for days in advance and such. Which has meant more consistent blogging (and writing!) for me. The other site? Not so much. I have to post or save as a draft and post on the day I want it to go up. No scheduled posts, which makes Johnny a dull and inconsistent blogger, because I don’t remember these things. I write when I have ideas, not when I have to publish. It’s better for me to store them and have them go up when I want them to than to have to be able to access the blog when I have something I want to publish. And it’s flat easier than trying to manage a bunch of files without forgetting them.

Anyway, the commenting over there stinks too.

When it’s time my buddy Bryce will help me get through the move (he already said so) and so will the new host, so I have about six weeks to find one.

But for now, I’ll be here. Sorry for the blog-hopping you guys. For your trouble, I’ll give anyone who’s interested a free copy of not one, but BOTH of my books to read in any format you like (other than print). Just let me know you want them in the comments, along with an email address to use, and I’ll send you a coupon for Smashwords.com (complete with links to the books) so you can download any format you’d like free of charge.

Again, thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you back here from time to time.

God bless,
-JDT-

For a lot of reasons – and I won’t discuss them so don’t ask – it’s time for me to move on from WordPress.com. I found WP back in 2007 and have been faithfully blogging here ever since. I’ve loved most of it. I loved that, unlike Google’s Blogger service, WordPress offered the ability to create pages for your blog so you could almost maintain a full-on web site rather than just a blog. (Blogger, later, answered this capability.) WordPress’s dashboard was phenomenally easy to use and clear. It had wonderful stats and Askimet anti-spam. It was, in short, brilliant and fun.

But they’ve recently lost some of their luster in my eyes. They claim to be about “free speech”, but I’ve seen their actions belie those words and so, with a heavy heart and a lighter pocketbook, I move over to my own domain.

I hope you’ll all update your links to my new site, and that I’ll be seeing you there instead of here from now on. (The comments on this blog will be disabled, FYI.) Starting today, my now house is:

http://www.darcknyt.com

Feel free to stop by and say hello. Things are a little different there, but it’s still me. Hopefully it will still be a place you want to see. There’s a landing page and a separate blog page, so be sure to subscribe to the blog page by clicking the RSS Feed button on the sidebar. And I’ll try to update the links as soon as I can, so my blog-buds will get their due. For a time, I’ll leave this blog up as a reference for those who want it.

Thank you for all your constant support and friendship. God bless, and have a wonderful 2012.

-JDT-

Seriously, as you may or may not have noticed, I don’t have a post for today. Matter of fact, as I sit here typing this right now, I’m tempted to jump on my SANDWICH searcher bash-rant machine just to see if I can generate some hits from those not yet drunk in anticipation of the New Year.

But no. No, today I’ll refrain from using the word sandwich simply to giggle over the hits I’ll get because of it. Today I salute my wife as the ULTIMATE sandwich queen. Never before have I loved sandwiches made at home so much as when she makes them. I can only imagine what she could do with really good ingredients like I had as a child.

Final football weekend of the 2011 season is this weekend. I’ll miss it, despite not having seen a single game. My two teams — one from my dim and distant past and one I’ve chosen for myself — both did great this year and are going on to the final single-elimination tournament. I can’t wait to see if one or both will go to the Super Bowl. And what if they faced each other? Oh, the joy!

Alas, I think the Green Bay Packers are destined to win again. I see no one capable of stopping them, really. On the other conference’s side, I would think the Baltimore Ravens or the Pittsburgh Steelers (UGH, really, again?) would be the ones to beat. Much as I hate both teams — and make no mistake, I hate the f**king pi$$ out of both of ‘em — I have to acknowledge not being surprised to see either in the ‘Bowl this year.

Oh well. I’ve been working out pretty consistently over the last week, and I think it’s already working despite how simple and short the workouts are. I can’t wait to see how things shape up over the next several months. Baby steps, for sure, but steps nonetheless. Let’s face it, you can at least move forward with baby steps. Doing nothing tends to make one stand still.

How ’bout you? Plans for the New Year’s Eve celebration? We like to stay home and watch it on TV. I mean, crowds, noise and drunkenness don’t hold so much appeal as they did once. I guess it had appeal once. When I was about 21. What are you doing?

Whatever it is, have a Happy and Safe New Year.

God bless and see ya in 2012. It’s the year the world ends according to a race of people who checked out off the face of the planet about 1200 years ago, you know, so make sure it counts for something.

-JDT-

I’ve not written much. I posted something to my fiction blog as an entry to the weekly Tuesday Serial Twitter feed collector. No comments on it, and it was very short. I have the second part written and ready for next Tuesday (I might have to post on Monday night if they’ll let me). But the gag is, I wrote those a while back.

I lamented not feeling the urge, the need, to work on my current book. It feels…dead. Like I ran out of steam. An acquaintance I’ve known online for a while keeps trying to tell me it’s a structural problem. If I just put the structure in place, he keeps telling me, writing will be fun again! Yeah, thanks. He doesn’t know me very well, and we only keep the slightest contact through Facebook so he’s unaware of how I’ve been spending my time since 2009. He means well anyway.

Fact is, I’m not sure what’s wrong, honestly. My beloved suggested I’ve possibly lost interest in the characters. Could be. Or maybe it is a structural problem.

(Aside: My online acquaintance later adjusted and said “theme”, which is NOT structure, but a different core element of what Larry Brooks calls “the Six Core Competencies of Writing”: Concept, Character, Theme, Structure, Scene Execution, and Voice. Since my online bud is hammering about this, I’m guessing he’s recently discovered Mr. Brooks’s website, or has recently gotten some formal instruction on writing and how important structure is to good storytelling. But that’s just a guess – maybe he always knew.)

Regardless of what the problem is, it’s there and it’s stopping me from doing work in my WIP, and that’s becoming annoying. I had high fantasies of adding tens of thousands of words to it, but it seems I can’t get away from Angry Birds long enough to care to do it.

(Another aside: Holy CRAP, what a time suck Angry Birds is!)

instead, I while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain. Meanwhile my head is scratching while my thoughts are hatching, and none of them are about my current WIP. Or any other story, for that matter.

If I only had a brain.

-JDT-

And Christmas day itself was filled with good eats (I mean, prime rib on Christmas Eve followed by a traditional turkey feast on Christmas day), good times, good people and loads and loads of love. I don’t remember happier times, even in my childhood. There’s something so much more special about being on this side – the grown-up side – of Christmas. It really is more blessed to give than receive, I suppose.

And today? Well, today I’ll be able to look back over the year that was and, for the first time in many years, I’ll be able to smile. The year didn’t get redeemed at the last possible minute, there wasn’t any floodgate opening to dump money on us like last year, but this year there was even more build-up, more anticipation, more hope, joy and freedom. Less pressure, less stress, and even though I have to log in to work a couple of times this week, I’m on vacation and will have a job to go back to when January rolls around. That’s a really, really nice feeling.

Now, however, is the part where I get a little melancholy because it’s all over. The gifts are unwrapped, all the new toys and games tried, all the paper stuffed into garbage bags and ready to be put out in the trash. The candles are blown out, the turkey carcass ready to be picked over for sandwiches (yum!), and the chocolates are eaten and gone.

This year, however, I don’t have the blues too bad. This year, I have that lingering joy, love and wonder of a Christmas made magical again. For the first time in memory, Christmas was a time to look forward to, a time to hope for and anticipate. And that little bit of warmth glowing inside will linger with me for a while, I suspect. I hope.

So I hope your day was blessed and as joyous as ours, and may the days left in 2011 be more of the same. And I hope for each of you the new year will bring only the best of life.

-JDT-

It just might not be the one you think it is.

The heavy train car is buried up to the window line in his yard, and a massive mound of dirt is piled in front of it. The train company can’t get there soon enough, and John’s idyllic life is slowly unwinding, bit by bit, as he struggles to keep his world in its proper order.

Without question the best movie I saw last weekend was Peacock. It has everything I love in movies – believable characters, interesting story lines, and tension so high I was on a wire the whole time.

Cillian Murphy’s not a favorite of mine, but in this role, he was amazing. I was blown away by the man’s range and ability. It was downright eerie to watch him play the role through the movie. Bravo, Messr. Murphy, bravo.

And the movie does the most incredible job of making a character sympathetic as I’ve ever seen. The townspeople are intrusive and nosy, and all the main character wants is to be left alone so he can … be. I can relate to that. I’ve known that sensation, and I have to say they hooked me and had me balling my fists through so much of the film I had to physically move around to get relaxed. Suspension of disbelief, anyone? Oh yeah. As an introvert, I can completely side with this character and his desires to restore things to normalcy.

Winding tighter and tighter, the reality of John’s life and recent past unravel fast and furious when the skeletons in his closet are brought to the light, and something’s got to snap. Looks like it will be John.

Peacock is a gripping story with amazing direction, cinematography, and storytelling. The dialog is tight, the acting stellar (there’s more than one person in Peacock with a strange life), and the characters rich. I gave it five stars on NetFlix because, well, it kicks some serious butt.

If you’re looking for a good drama without explosions or gun shots or government agents, just dial up Peacock with Susan Sarandon, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Bill Pullman and Keith Carradine. It’s a good ‘un.

-JDT-

Copyright 2011 DarcKnyt, All rights reserved

While the style of storytelling Lovecraft uses to tell his tales isn’t to my taste – I mean, can you say “show don’t tell” kiddies? I knew y’could – he nevertheless continues to influence and impact the imaginations of his cult-like followers, writers new to horror and dark sci-fi, and folks who just love to read a good, creepy story. His ideas and worlds are what captured so much attention. And, while Lovecraft’s imaginings are the stuff of late nights and things going bump in the night, they also make for horribly difficult translations to the big screen.

Well…they have so far, it seems. Any reasonable attempt to do so faded into the annals of obscurity, where they languished as cult classics or perhaps campy B-movie relics.

Until 2001, that is.

In 2001, a Spanish movie called Dagon attempted to capture the creep factor of Lovecraft’s 1931 story The Shadow over Innsmouth and infuse it with the whole elder god notion of Dagon, Lovecraft’s fish-frog god of the depths. While Lovecraft’s earlier story Dagon is the source for the title, the story of the movie follows TSOI instead.

In any case, making a movie of a Lovecraft story is no mean feat, and if you’re not familiar with Lovecraft’s work, that statement doesn’t mean much to you.

The Shadow over Innsmouth, however, is a great and riveting story, despite the weaknesses of Lovecraft as a writer. In what I consider one of his finer works, he weaves a story of increasing tension and horror which have the reader tied in knots before long. The narrator discusses a government investigation of the town of Innsmouth, MA, which has been ruined and run down. On an architectural and antique-hunting expedition around the region, the narrator ends up taking a bus (driven by a very peculiar-looking fellow indeed, with creepy hands) to the town of Innsmouth. He soon discovers things there aren’t as desolate and uninteresting as they seem.

Not wanting to spoil either the movie or the story for anyone, I’ll leave it there. Suffice to say, it’s a novella of five chapters, so if you’ve never read it, please do so. You won’t be sorry you did, if you’re open to creepy stories and don’t mind wading through old-school English from the first part of the 20th century.

The movie, Dagon, takes place in a small town on the coast of Spain and involves a completely different set-up than the original story. There are also a couple of other elements which are serious deviations from the original story, though I can’t say whether they’re parts of the original Dagon story or not (since I haven’t read that one). (UPDATE: Yes I have. My bad. And while the story Dagon has the same fish-god mentioned, it also bears no similarity whatsoever to this movie.) The ending text, presented in a similar twist of events to Lovecraft’s ending, is taken directly from The Shadow over Innsmouth, though the ending is a radical departure from Lovecraft’s.

Despite not having the best special effects or a high budget, the film does manage to present a fairly taut tale of running and fear and fleeing for ones life, only to have everything turn south. I found the film an admirable attempt to bring Lovecraft to life, and sort of wonder if there’ll be more like it in the future. The time is ripe now to do Lovecraft’s work justice on the big screen, and if Hollywood wants to try big money effects-fests, H. P.’s work is a relatively untapped source of material for years to come.

If you like horror without a lot of gore and slashing, but with plenty of creepiness, I’d say Dagon is a good movie. I sure liked it, and so did the kids, believe it or not.

It also has nothing to do with sandwiches, thereby lowering its cool factor a bit.

-JDT-

Copyright 2011 DarcKnyt, All rights reserved

Lake Mungo

Lake Mungo is one in a long line of films which are presented in a “mockumentary” style. This particular presentation is one in which the family is interviewed, with flashes of video and still photos which slowly unrolls the story for the viewer. There are no shocking “jump” moments, and the whole thing is a series of “talking heads” sitting around discussing their experience or involvement with the Palmer family and Alice in particular. While the film seems to drag at times, it’s also strangely riveting and kept me glued to the screen for the duration (a brief hour and twenty-seven minutes, though it did seem longer at times).

The hook and catch was simple: because the film doesn’t make any secrets about being a ghost story, the audience immediately is keyed to modern ghost story tropes. I kept looking in the background for movement or glowing images of floating faces, objects moving on their own, doors closing of their own volition, mobiles spinning unwound, yada yada yada. Problem is, those are tropes established by movies like Paranormal Activity and its unbelievably stupid sequel (for a “found-footage” film?! seriously?!). Lake Mungo isn’t so ham-handed and clumsy. Being a non-mainstream, non-Hollywood production, amazing care is taken to present the story. The ending builds beautifully and closes out with some very nice touches.

And don’t shut the movie off before the credits finish rolling either.

Lake Mungo is a good film, sensitive and spooky at the same time, and while the actors have little opportunity to be actors, they managed very well to communicate the feel of ordinary people being asked about someone they know and some tragic events and experiences beyond their direct interaction. Well done, I thought, and despite the central character’s minimal input, she nevertheless does a great job of doing her part to bring the audience in.

I recommend Lake Mungo to anyone interested in seeing a good, solid ghost story with a bit of a twist in its presentation. It isn’t hard to see why the film garnered so much attention internationally – including the hideous threat of being “remade” by Hollywood film companies, which is something I wish could be outlawed – and was praised so highly. I rated it five stars on NetFlix, and while it wasn’t as amazing and wonderful to me as Let the Right One In, it still charmed me into believing if I find the DVD somewhere for less than $20, I’ll add it to the permanent collection.

-JDT-

Copyright 2011 DarcKnyt, All rights reserved