~Drakirath

Dear Hollywood,

Please immediately cease all current and future filmmaking projects everywhere. Your job is done--congratulations! Your efforts to entertain us throughout the years have given us countless memorable and beautiful films. You should be proud. Further efforts on your part, however, will succeed only in wasting time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. This is because nothing you could create, ever, could possibly be as perfect as Wall-E. Please, for everyone's sake, stop making movies. Bow out gracefully while you still can. There is really nothing left for you to do. Just leave the movie industry to Pixar and everything will be all right.

Sincerely,

Me

As of this moment, I have three--count 'em--three reasons to be ecstatic.

1. I'm heading down to San Diego this weekend to visit Chloe. We'll have maybe three days together, which is more than enough to kiss her until we're both breathless. At the same time, it's nowhere near enough--nothing less than the rest of our lives will ever be enough--but it'll keep us alive until Thanksgiving. I'M COMING, BABY!

2. Transformers is coming out on DVD in three days, meaning I will finally be able to own what is, in my estimation, one of the finest movies ever made. Understand: there are certain subject, certain films, that it is impossible for me to be objective about. Transformers is one of them, alongside Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and...

3. THE GOLDEN COMPASS. Let me repeat that: THE GOLDEN FUCKING COMPASS, the finest work of fantasy literature to be written since the days of Tolkien, has finally been made into a film, and from all indications it is going to rock so hard that it'll be a wonder if my smile doesn't split my head in half. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy has surpassed even Terry Pratchett's Discworld in the pantheon of my imagination, and I have no doubt that this film will do the books justice in a way that has never before been equaled.

If you have not read His Dark Materials yet, there is something seriously fucking wrong with you. Go read them, now, before the movie comes out, so you'll understand the true, marvelous extent of the story's beauty.

Understand: His Dark Materials brought me to tears. Me. I just finished reading the story last week on the ride home from class, and I remember sitting there on the crowded bus with tears in my eyes and rolling down my face, tears of bittersweet joy, and I just felt this indescribable longing to be a part of the world that Pullman created. No book--nothing by Tolkien or Pratchett, Goodkind or Lackey, Orson Scott Card or Robert Heinlein or Dan Simmons--no book has ever made me feel like this before.

Read The Golden Compass. I guarantee within five pages you'll be aching for a daemon of your own.

To wit:

Geeks think about sex more than anyone else on the fucking planet. While their practical knowledge may be lacking, nobody can question the depth of their dedication, curiosity, or inventiveness.

Geek girls are more highly desired than any other genre of girl on the planet. They might not be desired by as many guys as other girls, but the degree to which they are desired (by geek guys) far outstrips anything even Aphrodite could conceive of in her wildest wet dream.

The number one reason there aren't more girls on the internet / playing games / partaking in geeky activities is because of geek guys who don't know how to fucking act around women. I'm not talking about social ineptitude, I'm talking about the jacksauces who actively offend everyone who comes in contact with them. Ineptitude can be cute. Misogyny gets your testicles pulverized.

Girls who are looking for serious commitment / fed up with usual guy bullshit / want to be treated properly should give geeks a chance. As mentioned before, some geek guys are cockmongers. Those of us who aren't are some of the most compassionate, caring, loyal men on the planet. Here's why:

- Geeks are used to getting ignored or spat on by girls. Any positive attention inspires instant and utter devotion.

- Geeks live in fear of dying as virgins. The possibility of sex--or the promise of a committed sexual relationship--is a powerful motivator, perhaps the most powerful. The corollary of this is that geeks are less likely to cheat, since this would jeopardize their long-term sexual prospects.

- Geeks base their approach to women almost solely on works of fantasy and/or archaic tradition. Want to be treated like a princess? Geeks are the answer.

I realize I'm generalizing here, but, as is so often the case when I generalize, I don't care. The simple fact is that geek guys make the best long-term romantic partners for women. If you can get past the odd habits, you'll discover someone who happily worships the ground you tread on and will never, ever break faith with you. Oh, and the smarter ones tend to make a metric fuckton of money. Jocks may have muscles and chiseled jawlines, but Bill Gates could buy every sports team on the planet a hundred times over.

One last thing, but it's also the most important: I am the luckiest geek--the luckiest man--in the whole fucking universe. I've won the love of a gorgeous, caring, sweet, and clever girl whose geekiness is matched only by her skill at kissing. Chloe, heart of mine, lovergirl--I love you to hell and back, and heaven and back, and have, and do, and will.

It's been more than three months since my last entry, which means that an entire quarter of school has come and gone. NOTHING WHATSOEVER HAS CHANGED. I'm just as desperate for Chloe, just as fed up with college in general and the film department's bureaucracy specifically, and just as exhausted. Ooh, but this time I'm feeling really guilty because I haven't written anything in a couple days and I'm in the middle of a creative malaise! Joy!

Maybe it's just that I can't concentrate when I'm so stressed out about finals and moving out, or maybe I just need a break from Ranth for a little while. Or maybe I'm depressed because I tried drawing again and realized how bad I am at it, and I haven't done a Cinema 4d render in three months.

Maybe I just need Chloe.

People often ask me, "What does Drakirath mean?" Actually, they don't, but that's their problem. Anyway, here's the answer:

Drakirath means hating yourself for procrastinating yet doing it anyway.

It means coming up with brilliant story ideas every few months and then abandoning them for something new.

It means being just as awestruck by Star Wars today as you were when you were three years old.

It means wishing Babylon 5 was still on the air ten years later.

It means feeling guilty for just about everything.

It means moving around in Jade Empire by doing the evasive forward roll while singing that one Limp Bizkit song.

It means talking to any bird who'll listen.

It means all dogs love you and treat you like part of the pack, probably because you don't smell wrong.

It means living in a perpetual state of SLEEP MADNESS.

It means favoriting every catgirl on dA.

It means you'll wait until the end of your life for a dragon to swoop down out of the sky and carry you away.

It means hearing the music from Battlestar Galactica as your own personal soundtrack.

It means thumbing your nose at soap operas yet watching Questionable Content for updates every day.

It means loving a girl who's far more beautiful, caring, and patient than you deserve.

It means writing.

All I can say right now is thank the gods we don't have a lot of plagues anymore. If consumption was still a big problem, you can bet I'd be coughing up the last bits of my lungs right about now. Thankfully, it only feels that way instead of being the literal truth. Gods DAMN I hate being sick. The only good thing about being sick is that it triggers Chloe's latent nursing instinct and she showers me with treats and love and affection and all the "feel better!" makeouts I can handle. But considering I won't see her for another three weeks... GRRRRRARRRGHLE!!!!*head a-splody*

Anyway. It's eleven at night, and my big C4d render ("big" being a relative term... it's only about thirty seconds long) is taking slightly longer than forever to finish. Let me put it this way: if it were rendering any slower, it would be going back in time. Ah, well, it's my own damn fault anyway. Stupid particle effects. So we're looking at... hmm... at least another full day of rendering time, probably more. Good thing I have a GameCube, or I'd start getting really bored.

Making progress on the New Amaranth, Amaranth Mk. II or whatever you want to call it. I dunno if I've mentioned it before in this journal. It's basically a re-imagining of my old Amaranth story, and I've been working on it rather industriously, though progress has been sporadic of late. I'm trying to keep to a page-a-day schedule (no, not like Congressman Foley), but all the midterm and finals work lately has been fouling it up, with the result that I've been writing in fits and starts. The other day I wrote seven pages in about four hours, and I haven't done anything since. Maybe tonight if I can stop coughing.

What else is new? The 'Cube rocks pretty damn hard. I love Resident Evil 4, and MGS Twin Snakes is pretty sweet too. Haven't played Skies of Arcadia or any of the Zeldas yet. Been obsessing over Supreme Commander for the PC. Holy frakking shit, that game is awesome. Any strategy game where you can launch air strikes from a submersible aircraft carrier, fire artillery rounds clear across the map, and roll massive mobile factories over everything in your way is all right with me! The only reason I'm not playing it now is because C4d taps both of my CPU cores. Thank the Gods it does; otherwise, I'd have finished finals before this render is finished.

I'm probably boring everyone big time, so I'm going to bugger off before you start throwing stuff at me. In closing, let me say that the new Battlestar is one of the finest sci-fi shows... no, it's one of the finest shows, period, and that Edward James Olmos > everyone. And that tabletop Dungeons and Dragons is one of the best things you can do if you can be bothered to detach yourself from your computer screen, especially when you've got a bunch of funny, crazy bastards in your party. And that Chloe is gorgeous and sweet and I love her and I can't wait to get home and curl up with her and forget that there's such a thing as "college."

Oh, man, I think I just blogged. Did I blog? I think I did. I'm sorry, internet. I'm sorry for blogging.