StanleyWheeler

The Yuletide festivities have drawn to a close. The tree, the lights, the holiday cards and decorations remain; cold reminders of the joyous celebration played out, they are the empty cask that held the tasty beverage of merriment consumed. We had a full house. It was delightful. We wouldn't trade those joyful days together for anything less than a free oil-change and a bag of chips. Threatening weather, like some two-bit hood with a switchblade, persuaded our guests to head home early.

Now the last days of the year that was drip to the frozen December ground.

The year began with the water heater replacement; it moved forward with car repairs, motorcycle battery replacement, lawnmower repairs, car purchase, pressure tank replacement, and ended with washing machine repair. The last item, as well as some of the car repairs, I had to outsource; the washing machine repair came at a particularly bad time--see the aforementioned full house. For the most part, the year exceeded expectations. I did get two books completed and self-published (Smoke and Justice Resurgent) in completely different genres, and I've made substantial progress on the newest book (an as of yet unnamed flintlock fantasy novel). I've read a good number of books and written brief reviews of a few of them. There are, of course, more important things happening than my writing--if that's possible--but this is mostly a forum for my writing and a few odd topics that come to mind while I'm writing it.

Speaking of odd topics: The last movie I saw was called White Horse, Dark Dragon.

The movie features Christopher Lloyd, Dee Wallace, and Soon-Tek Oh. When I saw that it starred Christopher Lloyd and had Soon-Tek Oh, I thought it would be interesting. Admittedly, when I saw that Dee Wallace was in it, I was less enthusiastic. I don't have anything against Dee Wallace--she's a fine actress--but she was in a lot of 80's drek--I consider E.T. to fit into that category only with better special effects. (I was going to go off on how I think E.T. was tremendously overrated and a big disappointment for me but I won't; my self-restraint is laudable, n'est-ce pas?). So my expectations for the film were merely moderate--and yet I was still disappointed.

Lloyd plays some scientist hired to go to Faristan, a fictional eastern European country, to finish an environmental impact study for the evil American corporation which has a five-year lease to boldly go where no man has gone before do something or other; I never caught exactly what it was trying to do. Wallace plays a low-budget sorceress where Lloyd and his son of age 6 or 8 or stay. Sorceress has a blind foster daughter who must be in her twenties. Blind girl wanders about the hills and befriends a white horse that can turn into a dragon that can fry people with its eyes. Soon-Tek Oh turns out to be a bad guy assassin of some sort. Lloyd refuses to alter his findings to suit the evil corporation. The corporate honcho sends someone to explain it to Lloyd. Lloyd insists that there are four lights and the corporate guys try to eliminate him. Meanwhile, Oh and Wallace are set to eliminate the blind girl and Lloyd, and maybe the dragon too--I never understood what those two were hoping to achieve. Lloyd and the dragon save the day. Oh takes a fatal fall, Wallace takes a fatal fry after stabbing blind girl. Blind girl is healed by the dragon and even regains her sight. Evil corporate honcho gets bad publicity and loses his place on the board. Lloyd, son and blind girl live happily ever after.

The film makes no sense. None of the characters are believable or even interesting. Perhaps the book upon which the film is based was fabulous satire. At best, the film aspires to be dull.

I'll let Mr. Spock express my rating for the movie:

As for my own dull aspirations and endeavors, the new novel is up to 45K words. One of the good guys is locked in a combat with the evil antagonist; the plot is moving along even though I've decided on some serious changes since I originally outlined the story; and there is some character development. More importantly, the feedback from the sample readers has been highly positive. I hope to have the book completed and published before July.

Best wishes for the new year!

But wait, there's more.

I had a great time playing some games with our guests. One of those was based on the simple rules set ...And One for All. Because I didn't have many of my musketeers painted, we used Mega Bloks Star Trek figures with some Lord of The Rings SBG scenery, and some tables and benches made from popsicle sticks, and barrels and boxes made of wax. Our three player variant was a rocking success.