Jason F.C. Clarke

Came across this article in which Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro says he’s trying to film a trailer to convince Warner Brothers to finance his big-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Apparently the studios are “very nervous about the cost and it not having a love story or a happy ending,” but Del Toro says “it’s impossible to do either in the Lovecraft universe.” Which is quite true.

ATMOM is possibly the only film I would like to see more than Hellboy 2 right now, so fingers crossed that Del Toro convinces Warner Brothers to give it a shot. Though I suspect the failure or success of the similarly-themed Thing remake will influence the studio execs more. It’s also possibly Warner Brothers will decide to torpedo the project due to the similarities to The Thing. Anyway, fingers crossed that Lovecraft will finally get his big-budget due.

I hate it when websites have terrible search engines. It seems especially common with sites who should know better. The immediate impetus for this complaint is Salon, whose search provides results in no discernible order and no method of sorting them by date or relevance. And this is Salon—ostensibly a literary magazine whose archive of articles are one of its most important draws.

Many other sites have crappy searches. CNN’s is awful too. I almost always end up just doing a site search via Google (for those who don’t know, here’s what you do: type the keywords you’re looking for into Google, then type “site:X.com” or whatever the website you want to search, i.e., “site:cnn.com”. That will search only CNN for your keywords).

I just don’t understand why any website would have a bad search engine, especially when you can always just partner with Google if necessary. Perhaps Salon can’t afford a partnership? Or there would be a conflict of interest with Google’s advertising? If anyone has any idea what the problem might be, I’d love to know.

Of course, I just noticed my own search—though powered by Google—is a kind of Google-lite, since it doesn’t offer any sorting options. So apparently if you want those you’ll have to do the aforementioned site search on the real Google.

Apologies for the extended absence. After a wonderful Thanksgiving at the parents’ homestead, a fun trip to western Mass. to cut down the family Christmas tree, and a relaxing Sunday, I went to work Monday to discover I’d come down with some sort of cold/sinus infection/creeping death. I tried going in again Tuesday only to find I was even worse than the previous day. Today I didn’t even bother trying to go in and I now seem to be on the mend and will be able to return to duty tomorrow.

What did I do while I was sick? Mostly I slept and watched season three of Angel.

Other than that, there’s not much to report at the moment. I can’t comment on last night’s Veronica Mars because DG and I haven’t watched it yet. Looking forward to a new Mythbusters tonight. Does anyone else think they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for myths these days, though?

By the way, please welcome the newest member of my Sphere of Influence: Robynjade of robinsworld. Robynjade (hereafter referred to as RJ) is a college friend of DG (my girlfriend, for those of you who just tuned in). Check out her Lovejournal for thoughts on comics, movies, and innoculating maxiprep.

Robert Altman died last night at age 81.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve only seen two of his movies—Gosford Park and…Popeye. But I have every intention of catching up. And apparently my father has caught some of Altman’s early directing work while watching Combat! reruns.

From Variety:

Strike Entertainment and Universal Pictures will remake John Carpenter’s frightener “The Thing.”

Script will be written by “Battlestar Galactica” exec producer Ronald D. Moore. The 1982 original dealt with a shape-shifting creature from outer space that terrorizes researchers at an Antarctic facility.

I recently finished watching the first season of Battlestar Galactica, and while I’ve aired my admittedly unfair grievances about the show before, I recognize it’s a great series and I’ll give Moore the benefit of the doubt on this arguably unnecessary remake of a remake.

Back to the $10 word titles. Nothing new to report, really—I just wanted to get something up here before it began to rot.

I’m still working on my “Zombie Alamo” story, tentatively retitled “The Wanderer.” Yeah, it’s more generic, but it’s also more evocative of what I’m trying to do with the story. DG says she prefers “Vengeance Upon the Dust,” and of course there’s a very good chance she’s right to do so, seeing as how she’s usually right, but I’m sticking with “The Wanderer” for now. It’s a reference to a famous Anglo-Saxon poem of the same title, which is the thematic inspiration for my story.
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Mariners report new island in South Pacific

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A new volcanic island has risen from the South Pacific near Tonga, according to reports from two vessels that passed the area.

The crew of the Maiken, a yacht that left the northern Tongan islands group of Vava’u in August, reported on their Web log on August 12 that they saw streaks of light, porous pumice stone floating in the water — then “sailed into a vast, many-miles-wide belt of densely packed pumice.”

This is it, people—the stars are right! As predicted in The Necronomicon, R’lyeh has risen and soon dread Cthulhu will lay waste to the earth. Your only hope is to be eaten first! Pray to be consumed quickly by the Bloated One and his hideous spawn! Ia! Ia! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!