QUOTE: Nothing Is Original

This is an interesting take on creating something new that I both agree and disagree with.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.

— Jim Jarmusch

Tuesdays Can Be Annoying

So the day starts all right. I get out of bed on time. I get Leah dropped off to pickup her mother’s car for the week on time. Hell I get to work on time AND all of my tickets are updated from yesterday when someone did them for me. Score!

…Then the day started. It alternated between being extremely slow to working with callerswho made me feel like:

On the slow periods I was actually able to get a few reviews typed up as well as work on a few other things. Still. I think it could have just been the idea of a 4 day work week but I was going nuts. All. Day. Long.

Buy Zombie Has Infected A New Medium

Well until now all of our advertising was pretty much based online in one way or another. Recently though we were given advertising in a book. I had mentioned previously in a quick blurb that Buy Zombie would appear in a book and now it’s actually happened! Yes that’s right! A real life book made of paper and ink and everything! How neat is that!

So which book is it? Well the one that is ‘currently’ out with it is “Dead: The Ugly Beginnings” though it will also be featured in Eye Witness Zombie which is a collection of short zombie stories coming out later this year! So. Awesome!

End Of The Week Roundup: 09/03/10

Wow what a week. Last Friday was cruising along with work, my weekly hang out with James, followed by – the accident. Leah’s been in pain most of the week and that’s sucked but it’s not life threatening and she’s getting better so that’s all that matters. Well it does until we factor in the car being wrecked and we’ll have to get a new one. Our original plan was to wait 2 years for my car to be paid off before buying a new one for Leah but that time frame has been pushed up a bit so we’ll have the joy of 2 car payments at once. Excellent.

Pretty much the week has been devoted to keeping things flowing consistently on projects, helping Leah in any way possible, and trying to figure out the new car situation. Yup. That’s about it!

(and in case there were any question on how I feel about Leah who has ‘oh so cruelly’ made me get up at 4:50am the past 2 mornings to drive her to work and take care of her while she’s been injured… this sums it up. If you don’t get it, she does and that’s what matters.)

Life

• Leah was in an accident. Her car is wrecked but she is thankfully all right.
• Dinner with James
• Leah has been spending the week narrowing down cars to replace the old one

Projects

• Buy Zombie is running a Night Of The Living Trekkies Giveaway
• Above The Pants launched it’s logo shirt in men’s and women’s
• Above The Pants launched a Cute Cthulhu shirt for women and kids
• Added a link to Above The Pants to the top of the Buy Zombie Links Page
• Added a link to Horror Episodes to the Buy Zombie Links Page
• Added a link to Buy Zombie to the Horror Episodes Links Page
• Added a link to Above The Pants to the Horror Episodes Links Page
• Buy Zombie was accepted into the dmoz directory!
• Buy Zombie was included in a “13 Deadliest Zombie Links” listing on Dark Side of the Net

Media

• I didn’t watch any new movies this week.
• Just tried catching up on True Blood, Futurama, Top Chef
• I also started reading a new book

My Writing

• Wrote a Dead on Earth entries

Above The Pants Cute Cthulhu Women’s and Kid’s Shirt

This is another Above the Pants first! Actually it’s two firsts! One of which is it’s our first shirt available for only women and children (sorry fellow guys this one was just a bit too cute for us to put out for men.) The second first is that it’s available in either pink or green for the style!

Who says Cthulhu can’t be cute? If he would look like this everyone would answer the call of Cthulhu

Available in a variety of shirt styles for women as well as a few shirt styles AND a bib for kids!

Back In My Day…

I don’t mean to bash the homosexual population with this. I’m really just running with the idea that once upon a time vampires (even when sexual) were scary.

(Actually I guess if you are a homophobe the new vampires might be even scarier….)

Above The Pants Logo Shirt

So our plan for Above The Pants this week was to release 2 shirt. We wanted to do the Above the Pants logo for men and women. Hey look we did that! SWEET! Wait.. Waitasec. We actually had a plan to release a second shirt this week as well. One that was just a bit cuter for either the ladies or those with children out there. That one. Well that one didn’t work out too well for us.

Apparently our print on demand shirt printer can be a bit strict on submissions and we just weren’t able to fine tune the shirt enough to get it out today. Sadness. (I’d like to blame Byron for being Canadian for this but I don’t see how that could possibly apply in any way, shape, or form. Dammit.)

May December Publications Is Taking Submissions For Chivalry is Dead…

Attn gentlemen! Ok Guys, now it is your turn!

This anthology will be released in time for Fathers Day 2011

Looking for standard zombie fare, the biggest restriction is that you must be male to enter. Bonus if the story is for or about fathers, but not necessary. The story must be between 3000 and 10000 words and should be emailed to submissions@maydecemberpublications.com attached as a .doc (preferred) or .rtf Please send in your submissions using 12 font Times New Roman , double spaced, justified. The title page should contain your contact info and word count.

Deadline is February 2011

…yea

So it’s Friday night. I’ve just been chilling with James for a couple hours and literally as he is dropping me off Leah shoots me a text that she’s leaving her monthly book club and should be home soon. Excellent. In my mind I’ve got just enough time to use the washroom, check my e-mail, and get a game of Call of Duty in before she gets home. I get through all of that and am starting a match of Hardcore Headquarters when the phone rings. Jump out of the match, answer the phone and the first words out of her mouth are “Honey, before I say anything else I want you to know I’m all right.”

Oh Shit is the thought that goes through my mind at this point. At this point she tells me she’s been in a really bad accident about 5 minutes from home and needs me to come pick her up and bring her laptop which has a copy of her insurance card on it.

Immediately I’m out the door and when I get to where it happened, well you can see above, it wasn’t pretty. I of course freak out and rush to park and run out of the car to make sure she’s actually OK and see people being taken away from the other car on a stretcher. “shit” I see Leah and aside from being in shock and her leg hurting a little she’s fine. Thankfully. After taking a brief statement we had to goto the police station for the official statement where her parents meet us.

Now first off let me give you 2 scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Truth
Leah is sitting at a red light which turns into a green turn signal. Half way through the intersection a car full of white trash assholes blow the light at 40+ miles per hour and take off her front bumper as shown above.

Well that’s pretty straight forward. Cut and to the point right? Of course we all know things can never be that easy. Now let’s goto:

(Not the actual white trash responsible for this accident... but close enough.)

Scenario 2: The Lies Of White Trash
“We might not be the most edumacated of people but we bought our car and can drive it however we want. We were going straight and through an intersection that was green and someone cut us off. That’s what we’re all going to say even though it makes no sense that someone would be at a complete stop and turn in front of us on a green that we clearly had. Thank GOD there were no cameras so we can all say it was green. We’re also inbred.”

That’s pretty much what went down. So that’s going to be a fun mess for insurance to figure out but since Leah got the citation we’re going to probably get screwed on that. Karma is a bitch though so hopefully these assholes get what is coming to them. We have a couple ideas on getting that taken care of but it’s a headache I really don’t want to think about on a Monday while at work.

While Leah could use a new car we were kind of waiting for another 2 years until mine was paid off so we only have 1 car payment at a time. *sighs* Wonderful. The 3 grand or so the insurance will pay out for totally her old one is REALLY gonna go far on a down payment for something nicer. Yea. We did kind of enjoy actually having one of the cars paid off. What a shitty way to end last week. When all is said and done though it could have been worse. Leah is fine. Bitching about the assholes who hit her car aside that is all that really matters.

End Of The Week Roundup: 08/27/10

After the slew of projects that needed to get done for the housewarming party it has come and gone. Wow. 12 hours of friends and family where we had well over 60 attend throughout the day! Thank you one and all for coming and we hope you had as good of a time as we did. I’ve actually never hosted that big of a party before though as Leah has we weren’t ever really out of control or short on anything. Really was a lot of fun and entirely nuts at the same time.

After the party most of the week was spent in veg mode.

Life

• Housewarming Party Of Awesome-Sauce
• Took Thursday off to spend with Leah. Ahh day of relaxation
• Leah and I went for dinner and drinks followed by bowling with Margret and Jason
• Veg. Mode.

Projects

• A link to Buy Zombie was added on Zombie Ambience
• Released the Checkered Zombie shirt for Above the Pants

Media

• Watched Green Zone
• Caught up on True Blood

My Writing

• Wrote 2 Dead on Earth entries
• Review of Last of the Living on Buy Zombie