ZAPNotes

From Yahoo!: Tara Reid and Christian Slater's scary movie "Alone in the Dark," [underachieved] with just $2.5 million, finishing well out of the top 10. [...]the movie stars Reid as an anthropologist and Slater as a paranormal investigator[...] It is depressing when a deserving art film, such as Alone in the Dark fails to find the audience it deserves. The movie was a labor of love for all involved, with the actors working for scale. Directed by the visionary Uwe "Germany's Scorsese" Boll, the movie tells the heart-wrenching story of gumshoe (Slater) and the woman he loves (Tara "America's Kidman" Reid) as they fight for the future of the world against all odds. The cast is rounded out by Stephen "America's Anthony Hopkins" Dorff. The movie has also missed out on the awards season, because unfortunately, it was not released in time for Oscar consideration because everyone involved wanted to get it right, no matter how lo...

Hoy es cumpleaños de mi del amigo Latigo Flint. Le $5 deseo la gran diversión, puta de Tijuana y una botella del tequila más fino que una cuenta de dólar diez puede comprar. También le daría un saludo de 21 armas (o deba que sea 29?), pero me parecía haber colocado mal mi arsenal entero.

1. The Razzies, that protector of quality in film, have sold out and gone political, nominating Bush and others for Worst Acting honors for Jabba the Moore's film of last summer. 2. We need to send a Terminator back in time to kill Axl Rose right after he completes laying down vocals for Use Your Illusion albums. This is a good thing on many fronts. It prevents the band from being ruined by Axl. It stops The Spaghetti Incident from ever being contemplated. The 3.5 GnR albums would be elevated even higher because of what might have been. And several years later, Courtney Love-Cobain won't kill Kurt and make it look like a suicide because it would just look like he was being an Axl copycat. Let's get our scientists on this! 3. Was I the only one who was hoping that Terrell Owens would slip and snap his broken leg in two when he was jumping up and down on the bench Sunday? At least the Eagles get to be dismantled by the Pats, bringing a lousy NFL season to a...

As traumatic as the Vince Neil run-in was earlier, my day has been resuscitated by Ian Andrew Ziering's wife. (Yes, they're still married, apparently the divorce isn't final. They're making it work, unlike those A-List ) I get to play with photos of her in a bikini. And get paid to do it.

So I'm playing some music via iTunes and I decide to pop into the music store (iTMS) to see if there's anything new and interesting. And there was. But not for the right reasons. For wrong reasons, so very, very. Wrong. Vince Neil had the third "ad" at the top of the iTMS home page. I can only hope that these are paid ads, making Apple a little money, because there is no other good reason on this earth for that to be where it was. So I just had to click on it, to see what he was up to. ... Who can I sue to reclaim the 30 seconds of my life that were wasted listening to this drivel. Don't get me wrong, I love the Crüe. I can even make the umlats quickly as I type. "Kick Start My Heart" and "Dr. Feelgood" are in a class by themselves. The problem here is that Crüe-less Vince sounds nothing like Vince+Crüe. Vince+Crüe=Gold, at least for a while. He should have looked to the successful solo careers of other front men, who...

Apparently Fox TV has realized that they "relied too heavily on Reality TV" . This is a revelation up there with "Hey! The sky is blue!" and "Toast is good with butter." "Reality" TV is the most gawdawful invention foisted upon us since Muzak. It doesn't even qualify as reality. It's just cheap programming. Producers don't pay scale to the writers—yes, if you think "Reality" TV is unscripted I can hook you up with Jennifer Aniston, real cheap like. Hell, they don't even call the writers writers, all in an effort to protect the lie that this is something out of real life. No royalties are paid to the (non)"talent" people in front of the cameras. DVD royalties? Hah! Don't make this bitter entertainment industry vet laugh. The contracts they offer contestants on American Idol make being a sex slave in the Middle East look like a good gig, or at least one with more dignity. Fox has become the ...

Natalie Portman won a Golden Globe this weekend. As my friend Rube Waddell* has pointed out, this could be the start of a new trend; play a stripper, take your clothes off, win an award. Joy. This hopefully will replace the depressing trend of; ugly up, win an award (Hillary Swank, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron). Some may argue with Hillary Swank's inclusion in my parentheses, but that's why I've got comments turned on. * Don't bother with Rube's blog, he doesn't post there anymore, which is a shame, because he's got one of the great blog names out there.

I won Latigo Flint's coveted Best Comment Ever Award! This is right up there with my Key Art and Alex Awards. Unfortunately, I did it anonymously, to mess with my bro, who was messing with me, so Latigo may not believe that I did it. But I did! I used Google's Language Tools to do it. Oh yeah, here's the winning comment. It's #4.

Don't Panic, click the image for a larger version.

Not me, I assure you.

A while back, I created an Amazon list of DVD packages I've designed. As I noted then , it was not complete. One of the titles I was hoping to find is currently only available from the publisher. Carnival of Souls is a classic horror film, one that George Romero credits as an inspiration for Night of the Living Dead . (Hey! I did a package for that one, too! What do a coincidence!) Both movies include commentraks from Mike Nelson of MST3K fame. Go ahead and buy them both. I like this package a lot because it is one of the first finishes that incorporates work I did in 3D, which was cool.

KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has turned me onto The Chapin Sisters , a 3-girl group of singers and their musical stylings. They're kind of like a cross between Sepultura and Bambi .* I recommend you check them out, especially their cover of Britney's "Toxic" . Joy. I found out their next show is going to be here in LA, a mere number of blocks from where DarthMoridin toils. Double Joy. Are you still here? Click the link , dammit! * They sound nothing like this. I just wanted to see if you were awake. But who knew that Sepultura would have an official web site? The Brazilians are still in full effect. Yo. Dog.

cpMaia likes to come up with fun games you can play with your friends. Her latest inspired me to come up with one of my own. Everyone who plays has to come up with three (3) songs they wish they had written. I hope those of you who aren't musicians play along as well. I'll start: Paranoid Android , Radiohead Divine roller-coaster vocals along with some out-of-this-world guitar work. With Or Without You , U2 Simplicity and restraint elevate what could have been a late-80's power ballad to classic status. Comfortably Numb , Pink Floyd 2 of the greatest guitar solos of all time.

I'm a slut for all things Apple. I admit it.

I think that if next year the Broncos make the playoffs and wind up in a match-up up with the Indianapolis Peyton Mannings, the NFL needs to step in and replace said Broncos with the 7th seed. It would probably make for a much better game. In other sports news, it's official--the NY Mets have lost their collective minds. Of course, you could also argue that Carlos Beltran has lost his mind for agreeing to go to the Metropolitans and treating the Astros (with whom he was one game from the World Serious) like garbage. I would not disagree with you. If you were to say that Scott Boras is the devil, or is at least having NIN's "Closer"-type sexual relations with Beelzebub, I would say you were quite observant.

WARNING: thar be jargon ahead, matey! Quark XPress sucks. Actually, it doesn't just suck, it invents new ways to suck. It's actually so good at doing so that you kind of have to admire the dumbass engineers at Quark for being able to delve to new realms of suckage. It's quite spectacular. Quark XPress is, unfortunately, the current standard for desktop publishing (DTP) page layout programs. Back in the day, when we could only work in square interfaces and RAM still cost upwards of $20 per megabtye , it was the bomb, yo. It was mean, lean and let you put whole categories of businesses out of work with a single click (typesetters, etc.). But then they started upgrading, casually ignoring advances in the system software it was running on for years at a time. And then there's the bugs. Bugs so bad that some major releases (*cough* 4.0 *cough*) got categorically ignored until the next point release (x.1, x.2, etc.) in which the bugs were squashed to the ...

I created a list on Amazon of DVD packages I designed. It's not complete as there are a few I probably can't remember and some that aren't out yet, but you may find it of some interest. This is a domestic release only list. I may at some future point do an international list on their UK site.

While we here at IJAD strive to avoid such things as politics or serious current events like a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster strives to prevent you from being sober, some things just cannot be helped. It occurs to us that it might be a good idea for the news networks and outlets in this country to stop being PR flacks for the "terrorists" out there. How about not running every video tape from OBL? How about not reporting on every possible person out there and their supposed reasons for operating? There's a concept! You will instantly reduce their "power"--much of which is perceived, not real--by at least 95%. Their capabilities are in actual fact so miniscule that they would be nothing without the media to give their message strength. Yeah, I know. Too logical.

Hope this one is the best so far. dM