» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Fringecast 20

jelewis8 — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:55:29 +0000

Our 20th episode is packed with extra goodness as we lament the fact that the number 20 is so maligned in our culture due to its unfortunate placement between the age of consent and the age of drinking. So we’ve provided more content than usual to celebrate this very special number. What follows are musings on the emotional state of vampires, debate on the term “on the wagon,” and a frank discussion on Taco Bell’s recent e. Coli outbreak. We also discover that the Santa Ana winds bring both magic and crime, and Sean Connery graces us with his presence to discuss Indy 4.
If it sounds too awesome for you to handle, we’ve even got a special trailer for Snakes On A Space Shuttle. Need I say more? Oh, but I will.
The iTunes feed makes for good morning listening. You can also download the episode directly in mp3 format. The Fringecast XML feed is available through a feed reader. All shows are archived by date, and can be accessed on the right hand sidebar.
Music was provided for free by the Podshow Podsafe Music Network. If it was any more free it’d be a crime.

Da Vinci Bits

jelewis8 — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 02:36:32 +0000

If you haven’t heard our latest Fringecast offering, or you refuse to download the 30mb file and have resigned yourself to a life without colour, then today is your lucky day, because for the first time ever Fringe is offering one of our favourite portions of the Fringecast as a solo download. I’m talking about the movie trailer/commercial segment we put together. Each one is specially tailored for maximum effect, written and put together in exactly the same manner as professional trailers and commercials, but at one hundredth the cost!
For today, I’m proud to offer you Da Vinci Bits, a new cereal that may astound you with its level of mystery and taste conspiracy that just may inspire you to discover the code that we like to call Crispy Goodness.
I’ve been slack on blogging this week, which I’m fully aware affects the lives of millions in the pan-dimensional but parallel universe of Kronk, but since we can’t see those poor souls (actually, they’re more like luminous pieces of intelligent quantum streams, but that’s another thing), it’s something we can ignore and make resolutions to amend later. However, it is for good reason. I’ve been working on getting Greg Piper’s blog The Smoking Room up and running again after a long hiatus due to server issues and a rather nasty bout with trackback spam. I’m proud to announce it is about 75% complete, with just a few of the archive pages to be put together, along with comment and trackback popup windows needing some styling. But it works, and hopefully by next week Greg will have slathered us all with his gooey take on the world and status updates on his fragile ego. I’m sure I speak for the multitudes when I say I can’t wait.
We’ve hit a curious stride here in Los Angeles, weatherwise [Ahh, your old fallback topic...weather. -ed. Hey, when you've got nothin', you give nothin'.]. Days are balmy, like a giant piece of two-ply toilet paper has settled on the entire city and given the angular landscape a soft blurry edge. Nights are still cool, but they’re warming up, and mornings proffer the requisite blanket of smog/fog that soon dissipates into the clear by 10am. Not exactly exciting, but there’s a certain comfort in the steady routine, and the lack of horrible heat and humidity of the East Coast more than makes up for any humdrumness of it all.
But it’s the weekend, which means that life slows down somewhat and you take stock of where you are. Still searching for a job, though I’m expecting a call back from a potential employer on Monday. I interviewed on Tuesday and had a decent time of it, though I’m not sure I stood out in a crowd of candidates, except in the fact that I didn’t wear a business suit to the interview. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where one would be looked unfavourably upon for wearing nice jeans and a classy button up–it’s a toy directory company–and the employees were attired quite a bit less strenuously than I, but I caught a glimpse of the next candidate as I walked out, and he was dressed to the nines, including a patriotic tie. Nice subtle reinforcement technique, I thought as I walked out. I’ll have to see if my Angelino approach worked. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I’m a Published Author (Technically)

jelewis8 — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:55:02 +0000

The book is done, incidentally. I spent the day editing and fixing up the file and making it ready for PDF-ifying, which is not as easy as it sounds. Because the PDF file has to be a specific size, with bleed margins and all sorts of embedded font nonsense that eventually makes you realize that maybe the reason it’s so hard to get published these days isn’t the competitive market, it’s the fixing of all those bleed margins.
There’s something very satisfying about creating your own cover art, writing a blurb for the back, and putting it all together in a neat little package, complete with shopping cart goodness for the masses to discover via a random Google search. Oh, sorry, I forgot to link it!
Please purchase The Cold Goodbye!
There’s even a one chapter preview, which should entice you and send small electrical shocks to your cerebellum if you click on the link and then decline to purchase. The second part may not work properly, but it is enticing, like a nice hunk of mutton turning on a spit over an open flame, juices spitting and popping like corkers and fireworks. Why mutton? Because it seems like it’s a Christmas-ey kind of meat, and I’m feeling very seasonal right now.
By the way, this is only the “evaluation” version of the novel. Here’s the breakdown. Readers of this version will tell me if I should write Book 2, because honestly, I don’t know if the story’s any good. I suspect it might be, but the real litmus test is unvarnished responses from interested readers. I expect honesty. Should I write Book 2? Should I condemn the whole thing to the dung heap? And if so, where would I find such a dung heap?
So, once again, please, go check out The Cold Goodbye and if you’re feeling extra charitable, drop me a line and tell me what you thought of it.

Link Blog Active

jelewis8 — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 11:03:56 +0000

As you can see, I’ve added a Link Blog to the side. This is something I’ve been wanting to add to Fringe for a while, but just never got around to it. Now if I’m feeling lazy and don’t want to post a longer article, I can still find a couple of cool links for you to peruse. These will be updated fairly often, so check back often for linky goodness.
I’m not keeping archives of these links (well, technically I am, but I’m not making them accessible), so once the links leave the page, they’re gone forever, baby. Just one more reason to get ‘em while they’re hot.
Please let me know if you have trouble viewing the site now. It shouldn’t have changed fundamentally too much, so you shouldn’t see any errors or weird layout problems, but I have been known to make mistakes. From time to time. Oh dear, oh dear.

Cereal Barons

jelewis8 — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 20:04:31 +0000

Why is cereal so frickin expensive? $4.59 for a box of Life? I don’t think there’s anything in Life cereal that’s worth $4.59. Heck, I don’t think cereal named Golden Bricks of Awesome Grain could be worth more than $3.00. Maybe the saps down at Kellog marketing think I’m so foolish as to be suckered in by the good times had by the characters on the boxes. You know who I’m talking about: the little boy who looks like his face is about to explode in joy at the prospect of eating a bowl of Life cereal; the cartoon kids who gambol and frolic about chasing cartoon leprechauns and occasionally crushing up those marshmallows to snort lines of sugary goodness; that old grandmother who glows after eating Shredded Wheat.
I’ll tell you why they’re smiling: they got free boxes of cereal. If they had to pay these outrageous prices, you’d see an awful lot of glowering looks on those boxes.
They ought to have a cereal called Stabby-Ohs, and on the box is a picture of Anthony Perkins holding a knife and grinning. Every time you pick up the box, a tiny microchip activates a circuit that plays the REEEE! REEEE! REEEEE! sound through an embedded speaker in the box top. Man, that’d be sweet. The cereal would be the shape of a shower drain. Cereal killers never tasted so infamous.
I never buy cereal that’s more than $2.00/box. Occasionally I’ll see cereal for $1.50, but usually it’s about $1.88 or more. I have no set cereal, but you tend to see the same cereals over time. The price cuts seem to happen to the same ones. On the other hand, there’s very little cereal that is actually “good”. Cheerios? Lame. Corn Flakes? Drab. Raisin Bran, aka Turd Flakes? It speaks for itself. Cocoa Crisps, as I recently discovered, are Satan’s gift to the cereal world, and Golden Crisp is like a stale bed of pebbles covered with honey. As if honey covers a multitude of sins. Honey is like the default cereal condiment. Whenever they come up with a new cereal and can’t think of a way to make it taste like something other than dried feces that resemble anchors or boats or hearts or rainbows, they just add honey.
EXEC 1: Hey Bob, we’ve got this new cereal called Banana Crisp Medley. But our boys down at the lab can’t seem to get the taste right.
EXEC 2: Just add honey.
EXEC 1: Brilliant!
EXEC 2: And make sure to jack up the price by about $3.00. Those saps think honey raises the cost of the cereal!
EXEC 1: When all this time we’re paying pennies for Chinese and African children to work 17 hours every day shaping those banana flakes into all sorts of amusing shapes! Man, we’re evil.
EXEC 2: Oh yeah. Pass the brimstone, would ya?
And they all have a good laugh about it and go off and take joy rides in their sports convertibles bought off the profits of their $4.00/box cereal. Lousy corporate cereal barons…

COTV 131 – Code Blue

jelewis8 — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:35:09 +0000

Carnival of the Vanities #131 is at Code Blue today. Wow. 131. And still going strong. Check out bloggy goodness there, if you dare.