Hey gang,

Not much progress on the comic strip this week. The heat and personal life getting in the way once again. I do hope to get some more work done on the latest this weekend. Squeeze a few last drops of perspiration from my already moist forehead.

Emily had some free passes to go see an advanced screening of The Chronicles of Riddick earlier this week. We went with our friends Kate and Derek. I was the only one who had seen the first movie in this series, Pitch Black so I wound up telling them about Vin Diesel's character beforehand. It was actually pretty enjoyable. Some of the fight sequences were a little "over edited" in my opinion, but that has been a bad trend for about the last 10 years or so, but it is getting worse. Memo to Hollywood: You don't have to have an edit every quarter second during a fight sequence to make it exciting! Sometimes it cuts so quickly, that when its over you can't help but think..."What the hell just happened?" slow down a little and pull back. SHOW the action...It doesn't have to be all close-ups! There were of course the usual head-scratchers in logic including some scenes on a hot desert planet named appropriately Cremetoria, but overall a pretty good show. Vin Diesel makes a surprisingly charismatic lead actor, and Writer/Director David Twohy has put together a pretty inventive universe even if some of the concepts are recycled from other sources. The Necromongers reminded me a bit of Star Trek's Borg (convert or die!) but he adds an element of religion to it that makes a commentary on zealotry and cult like mind-think. Desert prison planets have been done before, but Cremetoria really ups the ante! Dame Judy Dench shows up as an "elemental" and honestly doesn't do a whole lot but she does add an element of credibility to the film which is populated with decent unknown actors...Well unknown to me anyway. Some of the leads are pretty big in British theater, I guess.

I did put in a little time into my ELECTION! game, as I plan on play testing it some more this weekend! Derek and Kate are the latest Guinea Pigs for the cause! Hopefully I can get this thing into shape enough to maybe submit to a real company and see if I can sell them on it! More on that when the time comes!

The new web site design is coming slowly. I have toyed with a few things but nothing is really sticking. Nothing is really grabbing me by the collar. I hope I have a break in that soon.

Cryptic note:

an idea has sprung to mind recently that I am working on regarding my book division. Nothing I can report yet since it is in the idea stage, but I will reveal more when it is ready!

ciao for now,

---Doug, who still hasn't seen Shrek 2