Ambush Bug Costume

31 Horror Movies

Happy Halloween.  Each year I watch 1 movie for each day of October.  To make this happen I watched a couple of films in one day and even went to a movie marathon in Santa Monica for the experience of seeing it with a crowd.  Most of these are on Hulu or Netflix.  I must say that this is getting harder and harder each year, and it might come to a point where I can't do it, finding good stories.  Here is the list, not ranked:

1.      The Tenant

2.      Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf

3.      Salvage

4.      Evil Dead

5.      Evil Dead 2

6.      Aliens 3

7.      Aliens 4

8.      Horror Express

9.      Children of the Corn

10.  Pieces

11.  Naked Fear

12.  Atrocious

13.  Amityville Haunting

14.  Amityville II

15.  Night of the Living Dead

16.  Wrestlemaniac

17.  The Fly

18.  Kingdom of the Spiders

19.  Rites of Spring

20.  Cabin in the Woods

21.  I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

22.  I spit on Your Grave (2011)

23.  Human Centipede

24.  Exit Humanity

25.  The Afterlife Investigations

26.  The Haunting of Whaley House

27.  InnKeepers

28.  The Sentinel

29.  The Bay

30.  The Conjuring

31.  The Devil Inside

To be fair, a few of these I did not finish the film, it was either too bad, or I'd seen it many times previously.  

Not that impressive of a list, but if I were to recommend any of these here's what I would say you should see:

The Fly (1986)

This is possibly the best on the list, VERY good.  Creepy, great effects, and wonderful acting.

I will consider this a modern classic in the genre

Night of the Living Dead.

Don't you dare watch The Walking Dead or any other zombie movie without first watching this one.  Still holds up, great social commentary.  It was shot on black and white on purpose for goodness sakes!

Kingdom of Spiders

It's old-school, it's Shatner.  It's fun.  A whole lot of real spiders were used.  I saw this with a crowd so maybe that's why I had so much fun, but I say go see it.

For Runner's up:

Cabin in the Woods - Joo Weden at his best.

Children of the Corn - Stephen King

The Bay - Modern found footage film, I liked it.

More Ambush Bug costumes

Final touches were made, ready to start taking pics!

Ambush Bug costume part 4

Another picture. Mask coming out great. It's hot though and the antenna are a challenge to stay in place.

Ambush Bug part 3 - The Villian

Ambush Bug part 2 - the sidekick!

Work in progress.

Halloween costume!

Alpha Brain day 2

SO we are in Day 2 of this little experiment.  Effects??  Hmm, hard to say.  One thing I noticed was that I feel slightly nauseous after taking them with a little breakfast.  I haven't read it that's a side-effect.  As far as cognitive functions are concerned, I don't have much data either way on the matter, I will assume no effect until something miraculous happens like I remember my daughter's name on the first try.

Part of the challenge is also that I am neck-deep working on my preparation for San Diego Comic Con and my booth for my book, Pariah Missouri (Facebook page ).  My mental state and thoughts have all been centered around the action items that need to be done in the next 2 weeks.

There is this ever slight feeling of confidence or security knowing that potentially you have an extra boost of mental acuity, which might be the driver for their product marketing and the main reason for becoming a consumer.  This also could just be my own defect and thoughts as I try to become the Dr Doom of our times.

Dreams:  I always remember dreams, and do not believe that this dream has anything to do with Alpha Brain, but here goes.  I was in a large building with rows of chairs, an airport or conference hall, and behind me was Brian Michael Bendis ( Wiki ).  I turned around and spoke to him and I told that Jinx is still one of my favorite comics and that I have been a fan for like 15 years or whatever and then he started getting all teary.  We talked about The Good the Bad and the Ugly.  That was my dream.

Alpha Brain day 1

So Maybe I'm a sucker, or experimental, whatever title/honorific you want to give me, I decided to take the advice of fellow comedian Joe Rogan and try out some of Onnit's Alpha Brain.  It's a Nootropic, which according to Wiki is:

... also referred to as smart drugs, memory enhancers, neuro enhancers, cognitive enhancers, and intelligence enhancers, are drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that purportedly improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration.[1][2] The word nootropic was coined in 1972 by the Romanian Dr. Corneliu E. Giurgea,[3][4] derived from the Greek words νους nous, or "mind," and τρέπειν trepein meaning "to bend/turn". Nootropics are thought to work by altering the availability of the brain's supply of neurochemicals (neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones), by improving the brain's oxygen supply, or by stimulating nerve growth.

It has a money back guarantee and I have 30 pills so I thought, what the heck.  I have had bad memory since I was little, and at times I do have a small case of losing focus.  So for 30 days I'll be sharing my thoughts on it and let's see what happens.  One of the effects they state is that you may receive lucid dreams, which for me is not a draw, I have always remembered most of my dreams every morning, so I'm not enticed by that.  

Day 1 -

After a full 24 hours since taking Alpha Brain.  I feel.... the same.  This is where I can tell the placebo effect can start influencing things.  How and the heck am I going to tell if this is working?  I'm going to suddenly understand what the heck i"m doing here at my day-job?  I'm going to remember why I went in the kitchen?  How  do I evaluate it?  I have no idea.  Really the purpose of this blog is to record some strange event or effect that I can say I believe is coming from the pill.  Realistically I should not expect any changes for a few weeks so that's a factor as well.  The last factor would be dosage.  They say 1-2 pills a day and if you want to go crazy at night, 3 at night, and I am only taking 1/day, so that would of course is a consideration.

Stay tuned.

Why Battlestar Galatica is NOT a good show.

Why Battlestar Galatica is NOT a good show.

It’s a bad soap opera.

I don’t know why I do this to myself.  I just finished watching Battlestar Galatica for the second time.  The first time was about the time season 3 was out on TV, and now I wanted to re-watch it with my wife.  I blame ALL of this on the writing of the show.  I’m not going to bash the actors or crew, it’s the writing that is to blame here.

1. I hate Gaius Baltar.  I mean seriously hate.  One thing is to make a character that is flawed, or even a villain, which he could very well be, but COME ON!  I mean, after 4 seasons, he is the same guy and just so freaking horrible.  Yeah he goes from scientist to President to Cylon guy to religious guy but he’s still a guy whorin’ it up and coward.  Part of this goes to #2
2. The same stinking scenes… YES we GET IT.  Gaius gets it on with the blonde Cylon in his head!  Caprica 6 is probably the most annoying character  on the show.  Literally for seasons all this poor actress did was kiss and perform love scenes with Baltar.  It got boring after episode 3.  The show continued ad nauseam to show his “relationship” with her. 
3. It’s not science fiction.  I don’t know what the theme of this show was, religion, faith, God, all that yeah, but there was no science fiction in it.  It’s a soap opera in space, straight up.  Did we understand anything that was going on?  Did the writers attempt to explain anything?  The fact that the Cylons were just like humans, that they weren’t mechanical, had feelings, abused each other, were petty and acted “human” in every way was just boring, and half of it made no sense.
4. Characters did not do the logical things.  Why on earth would you EVER trust the Cylons??  They completed destroyed your planet.  They are forever on your “poop list” and I can’t figure out how/why a baby or whatever would make them think otherwise.  They start trusting these machines and to me it made no blooming sense.  Why wasn’t Blater like executed like 8 times?  Why didn’t they kill/destroy the cylons that they found out?  Because she was in a romantic relationship with a crew member?  Makes no sense.  You don’t risk a ship full of people because someone “loves” them or is kidnapped.  And why didn’t someone just shoot Baltar in the head?  Like a million times.  I felt that the writers made the characters do Illogical actions only to keep the characters/actors around for the show.  A show like this if written where people acted with some sense of reality would have about half the cast, because they would have been strung up.
5. The use of sex and booze.  Seriously, you might not have seen nudity, but there is more sex and drunkenness than ANY show ever made.  I bet if you added Sopranos and Days of Our Lives you still wouldn’t get as much.  And it’s all around too, humans, Cylons, they all are getting sexual, Baltar I think sleeps with everyone but the old President Lady and Starbuck sleeps with everyone but the Admiral.  We have a drunken scene every other episode (no joke) and yeah, I get it, but man does it go over-board.
6. The Final Five.  All this “mystery” or who the final cylons is just a gimic, it means nothing, has some sort of convoluted religious theme to it, them being Gods and it makes no sense.  I seriously don’t think that any of this was thought out prior to building the show.  There’s all these other characters that have these moments or powers, we have no idea what’s going on or their connection, it’s like Lord of the Rings, magical and not science fiction.  The whole Starbuck coming back from the dead and all of that was a waste and took so long to pay off it didn’t matter by then. 

Okay, that’s it for now.

If you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favor, don’t bother.  Go watch ST:DS9 or B5.

Portenzo Ipad Mini case review

New service! Crowdfunding help

Thinking of starting a project on Kickstarter, Indiegogo or another crowdfunding site but unsure of how to proceed?  You have a dream product but are not familiar with social media and how to produce a great video?  SCC is here to help!

From Design to Product, we help build your crowdfunding project and oversee your promotional and Social Media needs.

We are a full-service crowdfunding and creative consortium, experienced in Social Media and have successfully launched a 280% Kickstarter project.  We have produced films and videos for entertainment and the corporate world.  We have all the tools you need to get started - from establishing your project on a firm business foundation and sharing your story in a compelling way to unleashing the power of today's social media to help you get your project funded.  We have the drive to move your project forward and make your campaign successful. 

We are offering consultations for your project, whether it be creative, tech or design SCC will assist you in making a great crowdfunding campaign.  These consultations will be as in-depth as you need.  The following is an example of possible areas in which Salazar Crowdfunding Consultancy can assist you:

• Consultation An in-depth meeting (face to face or teleconference) with you discussing your project’s target goals, reach and social media strategy.  Following the meeting a consultation report will be delivered to guide your project’s success with recommended steps on media outreach, campaign production, promotion and backer communication.

• Video Production We will develop and produce your project video.  With your close-input we will assist in developing your vision for the video and add professional production value.  Full-service video production, editing and final delivery of your project video.

• Campaign Management  We will manage your campaign how you see fit.  We offer services to manage your press releases, social media interactions and campaign updates, at the level of interaction that you determine.  We will do whatever “heavy-lifting” that you require.

For more information about our services please contact:

Andres Salazar

805-746-6884

andresjsalazar@gmail.com 

Ipad Mini Case Reviews are coming!

I have been in contact with many of the top Ipad mini case creators and will be continuing my line of reviews on cases.

Some of the cases that are on deck are:

Portenzo  (my favorite so far!)

Germanmade

Dodo case

Pad and Quill

Apple Smart case


stay tuned for more updates and videos!