A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

   "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." – Murphy’s Law Hi, everybody, how are you all doing? It’s early afternoon here in West Florida on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Currently, the temperature outside is 90 ˚ F (32 ˚ C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the west at 13 MPH (18 KM/H) and humidity at 55%, the heat index is a whopping 97 ˚ F (35 ˚ C).   Today we were supposed to get light rain, and we still might, but as of right now all we are getting is broiling sun and heat. The high is expected to reach 91 ˚ F (33 ˚ C) by 3 PM Eastern. Tonight, the skies will be partly cloudy and the low will be 71 ˚ F (22 ˚ C). I’m writing this as an update to May 3’s Update from New Hometown post. That’s the one where I mentioned the purchase of a new Lenovo – IdeaPad S340 15″ Touch-Screen Laptop. If you recall, I wrote: Apparently, Best Buy does not have any laptops of my model in stores close to New Hometown, so my new  Lenovo IdeaPad S340 15" Touch-Screen Lapto

  Photo Credit: Lenovo, via BestBuy.com  It’s early afternoon here in New Hometown, Florida on Monday, May 3, 2021. Outside, it is a hot, almost summery day; the temperature is 92 ˚ F under sunny skies, but the heat index is 98 ˚ F and the light rain promised in the forecast for our area is nowhere in evidence. The afternoon is still young, though, so maybe we’ll see a few showers and a blissful bit of a cooldown later. Well, the trusty Compaq laptop that I bought – somewhat presciently – in 2009 and used to write many of the pre-2016 posts I wrote at my old house in Miami “died” on Saturday of old age and because it was running on an operating system (Windows Vista Home Edition) that Microsoft no longer supports. (Official mainstream support for Vista ended on  April 10, 2012 , and extended support ended on  April 11, 2017 )   I was able to use my old Compaq on safe mode for a little while late last month; I recovered several drafts of reviews I wrote for Epinions between 2003 and

Luke Skywalker is my favorite Rebel character from the Original Trilogy.  Photo Credit: Hasbro. © 2021 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd.     Hi, there, Dear Reader. Long time, no see, right?  This won't be a super-duper long post; I already wrote a super-duper long review of Hasbro's Star Wars The Black Series Chewbacca & C-3PO deluxe 2-figure set and I don't feel like sitting here at my desk for another two hours writing.  Photo Credit: Hasbro. © 2021 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. I do, of course, want to let you know that my collection of Star Wars The Black Series figures will (or should, depending on the reliability of a third-party seller on Amazon) grow by one more figure by Thursday the 22nd. You see, a few weeks ago I bought Han Solo (Endor ) , a 2021 Star Wars The Black Series figure and a modern counterpart of Kenner's Han Solo (in Trench Coat) figure from 1984.  I then wrote a review of it for my WordPress blog - you know, the blog I had to start a year ago because

 Hi, there, Dear Reader. It's me again, with a quick update on our fundraising efforts to finance Popcorn Sky Production's next film, the one to which I am attached as screenwriter and associate producer.  Well, as you may have read in my previous post, we had passed the $500-in-donations (we need $50,000) in our GoFundMe campaign last time I wrote. Well, that was enough to get the clock running on the project; that means that the screenwriter was officially paid to start the first draft of the script. Since we don't have the money to begin production any time soon, I'm not rushing through the process - I am still trying to work on the outline for Act One and I have already written the first shot. No action or dialogue; I am not that far into the script, but at least I know how the film should start.  Most of my focus, like it or not, has been on raising funds, which is why I am an AP as well as the designated screenwriter. And so far I have been somewhat successful; ou

 Happy Easter, Dear Reader.  This is just a quick update to let you know that the GoFundMe campaign for Popcorn Sky Productions' next film passed its first milestone - the $500-mark - this weekend.  As of this morning, the campaign has received 11 donations for a total of $525. This is a good start since it means that the screenwriter can now start writing the first draft of the script. I estimate that it will be around 90 pages long (or enough material for a 90-minute feature). I'm not sure how long it's going to take to write, but I will be working on the screenplay five days a week until the first draft is finished.  While this is a positive turn of events, this is only the tip of a huge iceberg. The budget we've drawn up calls for a minimum of $50,000; thus, we still have $49,500 to go before we can say "Mission Accomplished."  If you would like to make a contribution to our GoFundMe, you can do so here .

A screenshot of our GoFundMe page.  Hello, everybody. I just want to update you on the status of our new film, which doesn't have a title yet, so we refer to it as Untitled Sequel to Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss.  As you know, this time the folks at Popcorn Sky in New York City want to make a true feature-length film, with multiple locations, a larger cast, and a story with a running time of around 90 minutes.  This, of course, is a far more ambitious project than our previous ones. So far, we've managed to do four films of varying lengths with minimal budgets and small casts; the ones I've written on my own - at least as far as first drafts go - have two, three characters at most.  The film to which I contributed the least -El Grande de Corona - has a cast of five:  Juan Carlos Hernandez Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez Steve Arons Matthew Martin Ward Natalie Hernandez Clearly, we're not quite ready to compete with Cecil B. DeMille in size of cast or scope of s

Ka-Boom! A Chinese fighter burns in its handstand in Cold Waters' Strike from the Sea Single Mission. © 2017 Killerfish Games  I've been playing Killerfish Games' Cold Waters for nearly nine months, and all this time I've thought that there were only eight Single Mission engagements in this 2017 submarine combat simulator and spiritual heir to MicroProse's1988 classic, Red Storm Rising.  How wrong I was.  There are 17 Single Missions in all, starting with the relatively easy sub-versus-sub  The Duel all the way to Foreign Trade , a sub-versus-convoy mission. In addition, the last six missions allow players to take on the burden of command of either Soviet or Chinese subs and pit their boats against the best antisubmarine warfare (ASW) forces in the U.S. Navy. I have to admit that I would have discovered the nine missions that follow Junks on Parade had I bothered to read the manual (I've glanced at it a few times, but since it's a digital PDF document and no