I haven't posted for a while, been a little busy with a side project, but this has been a roller coaster of a week. Thanks to a decent life outlook and some good friends, things ended on a great note.
Work has been a little busy and several things that I had been working on didn't work as intended. Projects were interrupted, things were dropped for those that deemed themselves more important than others, who in turn deemed themselves more important than the person that deemed themselves more important then the other, feelings were hurt, tempers were flaired, hackles were raised, insults were spat, names were called.
And then came Tuesday...
Actually, Monday wasn't bad. My son's band Vyralisk played a short but rockin gig for a battle-of-the-bands type show, and even though they believe the promoter kept their set short because they didn't sell enough tickets, some of the other, more mature bands perked up their ears and took notice. In addition, like true rockers, they helped the other bands with equipment, staging, and bringing the audience to a feverish pitch, complete with head banging and moshing. They've made some good contacts and you should probably check the other bands out - In Oath of Hera and Fringe - when they play next or if they come to your town. I also enjoyed Killing Casual, though my son's band wasn't into them as much - okay, they aren't progressive metal, so I understand. Still, I enjoyed them, and they had good stage presence.
In addition, over the weekend a fundraiser for this year's DEDfest went down, with representation from my festival - well, the one I am co-chair of: dEdmonton. Things were a success, money was raised, my props were displayed, and horror and zombie fans got to see a killer flick in full 35mm. The sponsors were plenty, and things went well!
Tuesday was another roller coaster. My text messages alerted me (following iNews880 on Twitter) that an off-duty police office was found dead in the parking lot of my wife's work. They did say it was non-criminal, but I was still a little worried... It looks like the officer in question had some troubles in his life and committed suicide, though they haven't released the details even yet.
Tuesday night was good though as I went to Edmonton's Pecha Kucha Night 4 and saw some really interesting presentations.
When Wednesday rolled around I was looking at my text messages during a break and found an interesting little tidbit. One of my Tweeps (a Twitter friend) received a letter from Rob Zombie's (yes, that one!) lawyers issuing a Cease and Desist. You see, Eric (aka ZombieRiot) is a really nice guy and put together a group of friends that play some Misfit's songs, and new ones in their style. Their band is called ZOMBIE! Yes, all caps, exclamation mark, 'nuff said. The lawyers had a bit of a fit, and in their letter gave poor Eric two weeks to change the name, and he was not allowed to change it to anything that contained the word 'zombie' lest the public get confused with it. Excuse me?
Eric posted on Twitter that this had happened. Before he even had a chance to post the actual letter online, the Twitterverse was alive with condemnation of Rob Zombie himself. Much of it was very harsh, my own comments included. Several of us that follow ZombieRiot on Twitter tweeted repeatedly and I used the hashtag #zombiefail to denote this. Others started using it, others wrote blogs, tweeted, commented on Facebook. This hit home, the Man kicking the Little Guy when all he wanted to do was coexist with him.
It got noticed.
In just over 24 hours from receiving the letter, tweeting about it, blogging about it, and slamming Rob Zombie himself for his attitude, something miraculous happened. Rob Zombie called Eric. Personally. And they talked for some time I understand. It turns out that Rob did not know of this, found out about it through the social media connections (like Rob Zombie's Twitter account) and reached out to Eric. Immediately after the call, Eric posted on Twitter that things were all right - Rob Zombie was going to call off the lawyers, the name ZOMBIE! could coexist with Rob Zombie, White Zombie and all the other bands that have zombie in their name, and that Rob Zombie was actually a really nice guy. (note: this is something that I've heard before from others!) The lawyers were just doing what they were paid to do, though they went a little overboard (can you actually trademark the single word 'zombie'? Don't think so, therefore you cannot prevent others from using it...) they were acting on the best interests of their client. Or so they thought.
Okay, this little miracle isn't as big as the atrocities that are happening in Iran, but, this is something that I was able to help out in my own neck of the world. It made my Thursday.
Then Friday. It started out like any other day, and during a break I though about checking one of my other email accounts that I hadn't checked since I started running Windows 7 RC1 at home. In the mass of emails I noticed that some items that I had ordered had come in - my Jello molds in the shape of a hand and a heart! (The brain one was backordered, but that's okay because I already have one, I just wanted a second to use for non-food items like latex or plaster...) so I went and picked them up. When I arrived at Karrie's Kostumes in St. Albert to pick the items up, I found out that they are now an authorized Ben Nye theatrical makeup distributor, and they have and excellent selection in stock! Edmonton and area - if you need theatrical makeup, that is the place to go. They even have mint-flavoured stage blood!
I also used this week's Michael's coupon to pick up some more mold builder liquid latex - 16 oz for $13 after coupon is one heck of a deal, the stuff is usually $24. And once I'm done with the project, I'll post things online.
Things were going good. When I got back to work the project that I was failing on suddenly worked. Made a couple little changes and 'hey, it didn't do that before'. Sometimes that is the best thing to do, when it doesn't work and you slave over it to get it work, find something that is good and successful, and then come back to the original problem with a fresh set of eyes - you'll be amazed at what you see. Alternately, you can show it to your boss/peers and you will notice the stupid mistake as soon as the words leave your mouth. The problem is, they also notice it at exactly the same frickin' time and you look like an idiot...
There was one other good piece of news, but I haven't received it officially yet. Once I do, probably Monday, you'll be some of the first to know - keep an eye on my Twitter and FaceBook accounts.
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