Holy crap on a stick, it's been nearly a year since I last posted on this thing. Man how the lack of time and just plain forgetting really adds up. Anyways I'll just throw out some quickies since I really should be finishing up some projects. As of the 2nd week of January it will be 1 year since I quit smoking, been a hell of a year too since I went cold turkey and still have been getting strong cravings but I've kept them at bay.

Seems the only games I play anymore are the ones on my DS, I touch the home systems every now and then (except the xbox, still waiting on that replacement cord MS, been nearly a month). And from time to time I can get in some time on the pc in between photoshop and illustrator projects.

School was going pretty well for me till a few months ago when I had a relapse of my "conditions" and nearly had to check myself in for help but I found some ways to work around it and have some how managed to function again. I may still have to make up a few classes though.

Still working for chicken scratch at the theater, though somehow I've become head usher and got employee of the month a few times. Don't know how that happened since I do a half-assed job there all the time. Well I gotta get back to these projects, don't wont to be up all night again. I hope I can get the time to start posting again but the looks of it are getting kind of slim. If you have my name on AIM you can get in touch with me anytime now since I also have AIM on my cell phone.

 Anyways later ya'll.
XG

As I mentioned earlier it had been 8 years since I dropped out of college and I returned to it at this past fall. Though rough at first I slowly got back into the groove of things and got some pretty good grades.

Drawing I: A (big shocker there eh lol)

Three Dimensional Media: B (missed a few classes in this course and that kept me away from an A)

Algebra I: C (Math is my worst subject and for awhile it looked like I was gonna have to repeat this class, so I'm actually proud of this grade since it was the first time I got anything higher than a D in Algebra without cheating or any other weasel like tricks. For once I did it on my own and actually started understanding some of this crap.)

Next semester I'll be going full time and will be starting up most of my design and Mac classes and also I'll be taking Algebra II (the only other math class I will need, yay!)  and English Comp. That is if I can get the finacial aid I need. But anyways around it I'm happy, especially since I found out how high their job placement rating is and since I've already started making an impression on the advisers and teachers there.

So after a rather depressing year that was 2004 (my mother and uncle both passed away, the dealings with probate court and lawyers and loosing my job as the cover artist/designer for the mag I worked for.) and earlier this year (still dealing with those bloodsucking lawyers, a lengthy fight with the hospital, Insurance and Medicare and giving up the drink), things are finally starting to go well for me. All I have to do now is find some work to help tide things over and quit smoking and my new life will be at full steam on its way.

Just this week there was news/rumor of a remake of Predator, the week before there were news and rumors of remakes of Creepshow and Friday the 13th and then there's the countless others that are already in preproduction or are being shot as I type this. This news is the last straw, I'm totally sick of this ****. Seems that lately besides minor updates on stuff we already really know about or maybe even just a little bone of info on a lil indie film. The only news that been coming from the Horror sites is remakes. How many ****ing remakes do they have to make? I remember not even 10 years ago, I'd be talking with a group of horror fans in my film production class back when I first went to college and one of them would just mention a title I had never heard of. I'd ask about it and get a little idea of if it was something to invest some time into looking for. I'd then look up the title in one of my horror video book (like Terror on Tape, ect...) and if I was still interested I begin my quest to find it. Some times it would take months to find that tape, whether it was looking through old video shops, rare video dealers, flea markets and my last stop would be Chiller Theatre, sometimes I'd find it, sometimes not and other times I would find it for an outragous price and say forget it. But when I did find it for a reasonable price, it was like finding a lost treasure, sometimes it would be the gold I sought and others well a petrified turd. But still I felt good about finally finding it and adding it too my ever growing collection.

Some years later Anchor Bay finally started putting some of these rare and hard to find films on video (though it seemed countless of them were on LD) and it opened a new world for the people in my group. We could now easily see these films and didn't have to break the bank or pool cash together to try and get a copy and more importantly, it removed the constant searching  and wasting away those hours on the weekend we could have spent doing more creative things (not to mention the time for booze). Then along came DVD and then the floodgate was opened for these films and they were even easier to come across now thanks to most online shops carrying them.

Some of these movies are meant only for the hardcore horror, gore and cult movie fans and wont appeal to most of the masses and besides the people these films are aimed at usually know of, have seen or own them. So why waste the money retelling something that probablly will end up bombing at the theater or not even do to well on DVD due to the hatred they get from the fans themself. Then theres the movies that are well known, maybe not alot of people have seen them but at least there's a chance they've at least heard of them. So they remake them it and it will cause them to maybe check out the original. But of course the fans end up hating the remake and are usually so devoted to the original they could give a rat's ass about what the new people think, since they might end up liking the remake more. Then there's the popular to somewhat popular films, you know of them cause they play them on cable or regular tv at least once a month or sometimes wear the hell out of the film. So why should they remake these films? For a new generation? I saw the original Predator was playing on FX like 8 times or more last month and not to mention the local channels or even when AMC was showing it around 5 or 6 times a week awhile back. You could always go down to Blockbuster (or any other rental store) and rent the thing or go to any number of stores and buy it and sometimes that's cheaper than the rental price.

So what's my point to all this crap? Well its quite simple instead of wasting time and money ruining a beloved film by some snot nosed music video director, why not just restore the original (they seem to be doing that left and right now for DVD so it wouldn't be that huge of an investment) and re-releasing the originals to the theater (even if only a limited or touring release) and let the new generation find out first hand on the big screen why we love these films so much and for many of us, it would be a chance to see the original how it was meant to be seen, on film and on the big screen. I remember when I was a child and Disney would re-release their older animated films and of course my parents would take me to experience, since most of these films they saw the same way as a child and they were just as entertained re-experiencing the film as I was just discovering it. I remember as a child a local theater around here was showing House of Wax and in 3-D to boot, my dad made sure I got to experience my first 3-D movie on the big screen and he got a kick out of seeing it again. As I grew older and there would be some re-releases I made an effort to make sure I got to see the film, everything from Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Cassablanca, The Ten Commandments to Heavy Metal, Faces of Death, Godzilla (56) and Night of the Living Dead. And it was wonderful seeing these films shown the way they were meant to be seen but now they seem happy with just making a peice of crap and relying on it's name to make money while cutting out the heart and soul of the original like a black mass sacrifice.

I will grant that there have been a handful of great remakes, The Thing, The Fly, ect... (I would put the so called remake of Dawn of the Dead in there but it's not a remake, it's a damn fine zombie film trying to use the originals title to grab attention, when it would have been just as good under a different name.) But most of the time and I mean like around 95% or higher, these remakes are nothing more than studios running out of originality and relying on a known or somewhat known name to make a quick buck. Most of these films were made by struggling filmmakers, just trying to get a shot in the movie business. They were shot on a shoestring budget and that forced the filmmakers to be as creative as possible to make the most impact with little money, they poured their heart and souls into these films and sometimes they would spend up to four years or more of their lives working on their goals and visions. Yes these would later become classics but still too hand a guy that's only made music videos and has an MTV like mentality 15 or 20 million bucks and tell them to redo it. That's just bull ****. If you're gonna remake it at least hand it over to someone who has great love for the source material or even influenced by it and understands it. Not some flash in the pan filmmaker/s (I'm looking at Emerach and Devilen, for what you did to Godzilla) or someone that's only done music videos and have no idea what the original was (Looking at Bay now, wtf, he said the remake of TCM wouldn't be as gory as the original, did he even see it, the original's not even  ****ing gory ) and wait for them to piss all over what us hardcore fans love. This **** has got to end.

It's been eight years since I had to drop out of college due to money issues but finally I'm returning to get a degree. This week it was made official when i turned in all my paper work and got the date for my placement test for Pellissippi State and for once I'm going for what I am good at, Art, well graphic design to be exact. Never thought I'd be starting college again, especially after I turn 30 but hey things happen and if you want a good job around here, you need that piece of paper. Whats both funny and sucks at the same time is I have to study up on math and English for my placement test and I haven't studied up on that since I studied to get in the first time back in 1993. So needless to say, I've forgotten a great deal of the subjects.

But after the hell I had to go through last year of trying to help out my mother as she was dying and then the financial matters that follows a loved ones death (still trying to get things settled between the insurance companies and the hospitals, nothing but headaches that bring back bad and painful memories), I'm ready to get on with my life and do the things I love. Which mainly involves drawing and/or being creative in one way or another. Even though I have 5 years experience working as the cover designer for the magazine, The Hacker's Source: The Gateway To Independent Horror, I still cant find a job around here without a degree. So that's one of the main reasons to get me to return to school. Also the amount of damage that my body has taken over the years makes me want a job where they want my brain instead of my strength, a very bad back and a pair of knees that even surgery wont help kind of limit your choices of employment. I've already had surgery on both of my knees a total of 5 times and all it does is help you walk without pain for a year, then it returns almost doubled.

Though I should thank my brother for also helping me decide to return to school, he's fed up with being a cop and went back to school part time when he turned 39. He'll be graduating next year shortly after his 42nd birthday, so I guess you're never too old to go back to college and better yourself. Though it is kind of odd he started college the same day his oldest son did and will graduate around the time his middle son starts. Within the next few weeks I'll have to cut down on my gaming and start focusing on studying again, though my addiction to Guild Wars will make that a bit tough. lol Though this year has been about change and trying to start over, so far I've given up drinking (nearly 3 months sober), already gotten back into college and soon I will be giving up smoking (that will be the toughest). But it must all be done to begin my new life.

I just went through and put in all the DVDs I own at dvdaficionado.com and well needless to say my collection has far exceeded my guesses lol.
518 titles and 586 DVDs.
With this when I say I'm a movie nut you better believe it lol. You'll find the link and my sig and I can say it took me half the morning to get all those things put in there.

I figured I'd go ahead and put this in here too. Here's a sig I just got through making for ZZ, hope he likes it. lol

Anyways feedback is wellcomed.

Here's and Updated version with a new font.

And in keeping with "The Horror of" here's another one. which will also be my new banner here for the time being.

Well now, after all the delays I finally have Godzilla: Save the Earth and I must say it rocks. Now this will be heavily biased, so if you're not a G fan or didn't enjoy the first one, don't bother reading. This game is a huge improvement over the first game and I have to say the biggest improvement in the game is how it's balanced. No longer is Destroyah, MechaGodzilla, King Ghidorah, Kiryu and Orga impossible to beat, they will offer a challenger but not a throw the controller against the wall, cussing and pressing the button to continue hard. Though I have to say I am a little disappointed that its not as challenging as the first game, you can easily blow through the easy mode in no time but thankfully you can crank up the difficulty.

Also another thing that got me is now the arenas are at least 3 times the size of the battle zones from the first game, which means more crap to destroy. hehehe The military is way more aggressive this time around and will bombard you will all they have but this time they're not just little gnats slowly pecking away life, this time they can stop a beam blast charge or a throw. Speaking of throws its now easier to break free from it once the other monster gets a hold of you. It's also easier to unlock all the other monsters, arenas and galleries, you just you the points you score through all the battles to buy them at the shop. The graphics have also seen and improvement, especially the animation, you'll see Godzilla's dorsal fins flop sometimes like they do in the movies.

I've only played through the action mode and the story is pretty much nonexistent, though this is a game about Godzilla, not one of his movies. So we don't have to site through the parts with the people and whine about where's the monsters. This game is pretty much fan service, hell, even the Super X 3 from Godzilla Vs. Destroyah is a air strike power up. This game isn't for everyone and is mainly a gift from Atari to all the G-Fans out there and for that I'm thankful, I would want this to be the game version of GINO. I've so far only unlocked 3 of the monsters, Kiryu, Space Godzilla and Jet Jaguar but more will be mine within the next few days. Also I haven't given the multiplayer or live a go yet. So if anyone has this game and XBL, look me up and itching to try it out.

I'm gonna have to have a G movie marathon now after playing this game, it just captures all the fun from the movies and lets you play it out. Not to mention relive some of the greatest battles. Now I know there's more to Godzilla movies than monsters, destruction and fights, but I doubt the meaning behind the monsters would work to well in a game and even if they tried it might end up like past G games and not be any fun. Overall view of my impressions are very positive and leads me to believe this game will now take it's predecessors place, also putting the first game into my Godzilla collection shelves. If you're a G fan or liked the first one, I'd say this would be a good buy, then look me up on XBL so we can destroy a few cities during our battle. :)