Tuesday 30 November 2010

Z-Day: The Zombie Musical

There are loads of home-made videos on youtube of aspiring Romeros, this is rather funny too.



Vegetarian Zombies

Yesterday I read somewhere someone asking "what do vegetarians who turn to zombie actually eat?" and the reply comment was "people in a coma" = WIN!

So I was looking for ridiculous comments on vegetarian zombies and come across this video that made me laugh out loud for a good five minutes.




Friday 26 November 2010

OZ comes to WoW...

I made this some time ago, when I still had time on my hands playing World of Warcraft...








































































































Wednesday 24 November 2010

Strane Crisalidi (or Strange Chrysalides)

This is the amazing drawing made by the incredibly talented Leomacs for the cover of my book of short stories "Strane Crisalidi" (in English it would translate Strange Chrysalides), of imminent release in Italy (Aletti Ed.)

The drawing represents a moment in the story "Popped Out," where the protagonist, Allen Allen, emerges from the pages of his novel's manuscript to search for his author, Kelvin Popp, who's suddenly stopped writing and disappeared abandoning his half described creation (hence Allen lacks a proper face).

Jingle bells

I have just booked my ticket to fly home for Christmas and I'm seriously happy (what a wonderful oxymoron, isn't it?!). After years of bad travelling with Ryanair I converted fully to British Airways. Yes it's more expensive, although only slightly, as once Ryanair is done adding taxes that sound like pretexts with a cause, you end up paying way more than you expected from the early stages of the booking process. So BA it is, and Xmas in Rome it is, hurray!  I know it's about a month away, but booking the flight has immediately put me in a festive mood. This will be a nice Xmas. Surely there'll be arguments, it's not Xmas without a good family argument, over whatever topic. Normally my mum leads the dance in that as she always has plenty of things to pick fights about, she's full of resources like any devout Catholic. But the prospect of family arguments is not tainting my good mood. I am thinking of being home with Dad who's recovering from chemo, operation and well... cancer. I'm thinking I'll be seeing my nan who's not in great shape herself, but she always smiles. I'm thinking that my book of short stories will probably make it into print just in time for Xmas and I may have a chance to do a presentation for it somewhere in Rome. I'm thinking of all the good food and most specifically all the panettoni, pandori and torroni that will land on the table. I'm thinking of spending some time with my sister, who's still recovering from her leg injury. I'm thinking of all the cuddles and hugs I will exchange with my family and friends, all the catching up and laughter, and that makes for a cracking Xmas.

Friday 5 November 2010

Revisions and rewrites

I've been revising the second draft of my collection of stories that will be published (in Italy) by Aletti editor, and my oh my, it's becoming a form of torture. I have practically learnt the stories by heart, and that's not a problem because they are mine and I like them, but finding the mistakes, spelling, verbs, punctuation and consecutio temporum, is rather a challenge now. If you've ever re-read dozens of times something you wrote you'll notice that you are unable to spot any mistake, so in that sense it's like a torture. What's worse is that I keep wanting to change, add or take out parts of the stories, sentences and so on. But that's something I can't do at this stage or I'll be fine tuning the bloody thing for ever and it would never be finished.
I'm also writing a fun feature script on a special chef who cooks very unusual menus. The script is coming together nicely, but there too, every time I interrupt the writing flow I feel like I kill neurons in my brain. It's a painful process in the sense that I'd rather just sit down and write, fully immersed, and I'd like to surface up only once the script is finished, rather than have to write it in short bursts. But life doesn't work that way and most of the times the inspiration comes when you are busy earning money to pay rent. Anyway, I mustn't complain because it's coming together. I just dread having to do the re-writes once it's finished. That is definitely the part I like the least of the creative process... but it's gotta be done.

Nanoo nanoo

Follow up on sex issue...

Well, Stephen Fry has spoken up and here it is :)
http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/11/04/silliness/

Thursday 4 November 2010

The Sex Issue

So... one is saying it's better to be straight and drooling over girls all the time, rather than gay, and the other is saying he feels for straight guys because they don't get as much sex with women as gay men do with men. Better straight or gay? That is the question. Well... it seems it's only an issue if you are a man. If you are a woman you are still just either an object of desire, a dominatrix, a whore, a virgin or anything alse, but not what you should be, a human being interested in sex for the pleasure of it and why not, love. And yet again, it's a male point of view on the whole subject matter, women are not protagonists, they are the object or the objective.

This according to 2 famous public figures who are making the press talk about them, one in Italy and one in the UK.

Right now Italy's most vain Prime Minister, Berlusconi dearest, is caught in yet another sex scandal, one that would have made any leader in the world hide his head in the sand in shame. But not he, no, the Cavaliere keeps calm, smiles and carries on. In fact he does smile a lot and brushes off the scandal as something that will soon be forgotten, a passing cloud. I seriously cannot conceive why he still gets any support from the voters as well as from fellow politicians. He's a massive walking liability. I'm amazed that he makes no mystery of the shit he's up to, which quite frankly is probably just the tip of an iceberg of filth that he hides from view, and he still sits in his high chair. The most amazing thing of the sordid stuff he's trying to pass as good and right is that he thinks that sleeping with under age girls is perfectly alright. On top of that he made these ridiculous remark that it is better to salivate over girls than to be gay, which in any civilised country should have been enough to have seen him receive a massive arse kicking, but not in Italy. The gay activists maybe can't speak loud enough? Berlusconi's fellow politicians don't have enough balls to comment against his ludicrous behaviour? Well, so far only one has come forward publicly and that's Nichi Vendola, he's a great guy, a politician to watch (in a good sense) and he's gay, so of course he didn't take it too well. The problem with that stupid behaviour of Mr Berlusconi's is that so many Italians think like him. It's mostly out of ignorance and laziness, it's so much easier to stick to a medieval social structure rather than opening up to the real world.

And whilst Berlusconi makes it in the news for being such a cock, Stephen Fry fuels anger by saying that women only have sex with men because it's the only way to get into a relationship. Mr Fry said his remark was misquoted by the press after his "Attitude" interview. Now, if you know Stephen Fry's style you'll know that he likes to joke and that he would never willingly say anything so out of order. I believe he intended it as a joke. If you know what the press is like you'll know that they like a good stirring up, especially when someone's words can be reproduced to create an incendiary piece of news without much altering and just as easily taken out of context. I'm a woman and I personally enjoy sex as much as any other woman I'm sure, I don't think sex is the only way to get a relationship just as much as I don't think the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But that's never stopped anyone in the press from using and abusing bad clichés. I guess this time, with Fry's interview, they (all the journalists who wrote about it) thought it was a good chance to push a few more copies and they took it. I believe that what Stephen Fry was saying was to do with the promiscuous urge that most men, gay or straight, feel pretty much constantly. Maybe it's part of their genes, and maybe men and women are different from that point of view, but it's a generalisation and most of all it's a comment that is so out of character for him that I don't believe should be interpreted the way the press wants us to. On the other hand, I think that simply getting angry and saying "bye bye", like he did on Twitter, will make matters worse. If I could say something to Stephen Fry it would be: clarify your position, you have a sense of humour, your fans and the general public have a sense of humour, don't let the press win this game. And if indeed you weren't joking and you really believe women don't care for sex and that they only accept is as a ticket to ride in a relationship, please read some of those cheap soft porn books for women, they are corny but well entertaining.