Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Soooo many DVD box sets/film collections. Must get rid of them/spread the love.

Everything is $5+shipping unless otherwise noted.

( Here is the list )

If you want something, leave me a (screened) comment and we'll work out payment and shipping.

Cleared out most of the living room in the new place yesterday. Hope to finish up tonight, get some vacuuming done since Mom's allergic to the apartment for some weird reason. Going to IKEA at some point this weekend to get a dresser for the roomie and additional DVD storage for me (I'm running out of space, especially with the addition of midnightfae's DVDs to the mix).

Still need to finish up my room. I can pretty much live out of it as-is, but I still have a few boxes worth of miscellaneous crap to sort through. Additionally, there's a good chunk of my stuff still at the old place, including all of my kitchenware and my clothes hangers (the things you forget...).

Gearing up for Comic-Con ridiculously early, partially because I don't want to be situated so far from the convention center again and partially because I (emo tear) miss my Comic-Con friends a lot. Like moreso than usual.

Classic-Horror is sludging along, slowly but surely. Posted a review last night, will post another on Thursday. Neither is mine. I haven't written a review since October and I need to rectify that. I have something like six unfinished reviews going right now (Mad Love, House of Wax '53, It's Alive, Satan's Playground, The Mole People, and Terror at Red Wolf Inn, the latter being the best cannibalism film nobody ever heard of). Also slowly but surely moving everything to the new dynamic format, which rocks and will save me so much time in the long run.

Working on Yuletide... meant to get this started earlier, but oh well. Going to finish it over the weekend and have it beta'd in time for submission on the 18th.

Oh and just got some contracted web design work. Go me.

Er, that's all from this corner. I lead an exciting life.

Just going over the ever-dwindling collection of VHS tapes that are filed with DVD because no DVD equivalent exists, and a thought struck me that may be of interest only to myself.

Universal owns the entire Paramount catalogue from before 1949 (with the exception of anything in the public domain and Preston Sturges' Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which they would not buy as the material was far too racy). While Paramount's never been a big horror studio (something that they've stuck with through multiple changes in ownership), they did produce seven minor, but notable horror films that are not available on DVD in any shape or form. They are:

* Murder by the Clock '31
* Island of Lost Souls '33 (with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi)
* Murders in the Zoo '33 (with Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, and Randolph Scott)
* Supernatural '33 (with Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott)
* Dr. Cyclops '40 (the first all-Technicolor horror film)
* The Monster and the Girl '41 (with George Zucco)
* The Uninvited (with Ray Milland)

(two more are available on DVD -- The Ghost Breakers, which is a horror/comedy starring Bob Hope, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde '31, which through convoluted circumstances is owned by Warner).

It seems like Universal is sitting on both a treasure trove and a problem. Only three of the films have saleable horror stars, but most of the rest have either historical value or a "normal" star of some kind. However, major Hollywood stars of yesteryear do not tend to sell horror films of yesteryear, unless said stars are specifically linked with the horror genre.

Releasing each film individually would be folly, but there's also no major thematic link or star that brings all the movies together. Releasing a "Paramount Horrors" collection would be confusing (what's Universal doing advertising for Paramount horror films?). A generic "classic horrors" set might work, especially if the tossed in some of the harder-to-classify Universal horrors of the era (like Secret of the Blue Room, Mystery of Edwin Drood, and the 1943 Phantom of the Opera).

Anyway. That's your classic horror geek rambling for the day.

Got my new stereo receiver of awesome. With the new record player of awesome. And a passel of new films of awesome, because I can't go to Best Buy without buying more movies (it's a sickness).

However, one of the films, Elizabethtown, was in f'ing full-frame. I can't believe I didn't catch that. I have to return it now. Bah.

But the stereo sounds... amazing.

My Doctor Who Season 1 DVD Set (which I *thought* was shipping to Mom's since I'm never at home when the nice UPS man delivers) has arrived at my door, ready for my lovin's.

Just in time to freak out over the end of Season 2!

...I need more Doctor Who icons.

1) I am still making New Earth icons. I think I'll just save a bunch up for a big-ass icon post sometime in the future. I like my latest one of 10. It's saucy.

2) I still need to load all my files and pertinent software onto JD. I'll be using him for the website, writing, and other text-based adventures, and the desktop will be a pure design machine -- icons, vidding, and music.

3) I didn't get to do my morning routine of dicking around for 30-60 minutes this morning due to oversleeping. Bah.

4) This whole "I'm not buying DVDs by the shovelful anymore" thing is quite annoying.

5) Due to needing to pick up my laptop from Mom's (I have everything shipped to Mom's, since picking it up from the apartment complex office is a pain), I had to watch American Idol last night. Not terribly impressed. Mom and Xoë were cooing over the contestants, but I kept picking out flaws in the performances. I was not won over. I am, however, eagerly anticipating "American Dreamz," the new parody from Chris Weitz ("American Pie" and "About a Boy").

6) I like traffic lights, especially today. They were kind.

7) I need Turk icons, dammit.

Some of ya'll may recall that back at the end of 2005, I co-ran a little RP called fandomhigh (and occasionally ran ran, much to the consternation of my stress levels). This was an amazingly huge timesuck and prevented me from doing a lot of the things that I loved to do -- like actually watch fandom shows.

I'm starting to really cringe every Thursday morning after Lost and Veronica Mars have aired, because I haven't caught an episode since early November. I want to know what's going on, but I don't want to run out and just spoil myself, either.

At the same time, what with having the girlfriend and all, I just don't have the time to download and watch the shows. Pretty much, right now, I'm waiting for the seasonal DVDs to come out this summer and I'll catch up then.

But I'll be damned if I'm missing the new season of Doctor Who. No how, no way. No sirree.

Instead, I've been watching a metric crap-ton of films and guiding midnightfae through the wonders of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

( What I've been watching )

And in case you were wondering...

( The Birthday Haul )

I felt like an old man last night. midnightfae and I went to Borders and they had a Buy 3, get 1 free sale for all DVDs. Very impressive. However, everywhere I turned, I was crochety old man guy. "I've seen that on Amazon/Deep Discount DVD/whatever for 5-10 dollars less! No way!" I eventually picked out eight films, but it took me two hours, during which time I'm sure midnightfae was getting quite tired of my meticulous film antics.

( What I picked up )

Then we went to Cheesecake Factory and had cheesecake. It was divine -- so much so that I could not finish it, and ate the leftovers for breakfast this morning. Delish!

I'm very behind on Classic-Horror, though. Bad webmaster! No biscuit!

Had a heck of a day yesterday. Went with Mom to Best Buy to help her pick out a gift for her husband. At same time, figured I should have a better solution for storing my increasingly massive DVD collection, so I picked up a couple cheap "all you need is a Phillips-head screwdriver" media shelving units.

Put the first one together with little difficulty, but the second one... some things didn't line up properly. I know the thing to do in that situation is to turn around and return the thing, but I don't have a car, so I did what all good little Macgyvers do: improvise. I widened a few slots so that things fell together just right. The second cabinet is not as sturdy as the first (which won't be winning any craftsmanship awards), but it works.

So I then have to shift everything around, pull all my DVDs and videos down, deconstruct my Target-bought wire-mesh storage cubes and rebuild them where necessary, reorganize my collection, rewire my so-called entertainment center so that it's less of a jumble. My original solution for my stereo turned out to be lousy -- the piece of furniture I put it on collapsed, sending my record player flying and nearly damaging a vintage Joni Mitchell album. At this point, I was sore and tired, so I limp over to my computer and turn it on... nothing.

Boot-up screen, sure, but after that? Blank. Well, hell. Boot up off of the Windows Restore disc, repair my installation of Windows and run a Disk Check on my C: drive. Everything appears to be normal, but still no worky. Make panicked phonepost saying I might not be online for a while. Turn around, turn on computer, and it loads like there was nothing wrong.

Gr.

Oh, and I've put my name in on the wacky Christmas validation post: here.