Dave Mancuso dot Com

I have two words for you:

Doctor Octopus.

Check it out here.

Can you see how it works? It took me once or twice to see how the “magic” happens.

I’m going tomorrow to see the triple Lord of the Rings showing in a day completely different from The Two Towers a year ago.

Last year I drove to the premiere of TTT aware that I’d be traveling to Michigan the following morning to get to my grandmother’s funeral. It was to be a 12 hour drive one way, which turned into a plane ride thanks to my dad.

Which turned into a bumped connection in Chicago, which turned into a 300 mile drive in a rental car from Chicago to Pinconning (near Saginaw). And then a 300 mile race back the next day in blinding snow to turn the rental car in within the 24 hour deadline. And then a flight back to Philly to get to my car so I could drive 2 more hours home to Etown.

All on the day that Trent Lott’s career unraveled, weirdly enough.

This year, all I have to worry about is stretching my feet in between movies. Bliss.

Mommy: Alyssa has a stuffed nose still.

Daddy: We should give her some Sudafed. Didn’t we give her some last night?

Alyssa (matter of fact): No–I told you to, but you both just ignored me.

Daddy: No we didn’t. When did you say that?

Alyssa: Oh , sure you did. I told both of you and you just didn’t listen to me at all. Nope, not at all.

Mommy: I don’t remember you asking me about that, Alyssa.

Alyssa: Yep. I did. You didn’t.

Then our daughter laughs at us in a “whatever” attitude. As old as she is, though, she can’t drive a car yet, at least. I know because she told me. “No, Daddy. You drive the car, not me. Let’s go–stop stalling.”

How long can a time-out be for subtleties of attitude? (grin)

Decorating the Christmas tree; Alyssa’s appraisal:

Alyssa: The top of our tree looks like a cactus, Daddy. No, really. A cactus.

Maybe we should think of a new tree motif this year. Southwestern Christmas with Santa in shorts and a T-shirt.

I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep and eat a little better to recharge for next week’s Lord of the Rings marathon. I’ve fallen off the wagon with carbs in the last few weeks and I really feel it. Energy, outlook, carb addiction–it really makes a difference for the worse.

So I feel better now, but I had some really bad dreams last night. I kept dreaming that they cancelled the show next week. This is a once in a lifetime event–all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about it, but it’s too late now. I watched the Return of the King preview on The Two Towers DVD last night and I got chills. I’m getting really psyched–I know this is all I’ll be thinking about for the next six days. Cut me some slack; I read this book when I was twelve, seven of my friends bought me the red leatherbound edition of LOTR when I was fifteen, and I’ve read it backwards and forwards for almost thirty years. I confess my total geekdom.

Man, writing this post only passed fifteen minutes. HOW WILL I EVER LAST THE NEXT SIX DAYS?!

Geekdom over Lord of the Rings–here’s an illustration of my point. I showed the guys at work the Return of the King preview today and I was complaining about a mispronunciation on the part of the executive producer.

Me: See? He said “Sore-on” when it’s “Sour-on.” Bad.
Mike: So what?
Me: It’s not the correct pronunciation.
Mike: How do you know?
Me: What?
Mike: Seriously, where is there any pronunciation guide? Did Tolkien write a pronunciation guide and include it in the book? (Laughs)
Me: Yes.
Mike: What?
Me: Yes, he did. It’s in Appendix C or E–I think it’s in Appendix E.
(Mike, Brad, and Dan make murmurings about my complete and utter geekdom)

The sad thing is, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I admit it here first: when I was sixteen, I started a trivia book on Lord of the Rings.

It feels good to come clean. Maybe there’s a twelve step program somewhere I can join. Or a D&D game I can join, anyway.

So…Drew was talking at dinner about how he watched the end of Almost Famous with me the other day. He proudly answered Denise’s immediate question with “there was no violence in the movie, Mommy.” I felt obligated to mention that there was a bad word in the movie, but Drew said “Don’t worry Mommy, I didn’t learn it!” He didn’t remember it, actually.

Which put me in mind of a story I then told the kids. When I was little, four or five years old, I came back home to my dad after playing with Johnny Pritchard down the street. I revealed to my dad that Johnny had told me a bad word.

“What was it, David?”

“Daddy, it was a very bad word, I think. I can’t say it.”

“No, tell me, David. What was the word?”

“OK–it was f*&%!”

I saw the shocked look in my dad’s eyes almost (but not quite) in time to avoid the loud slap. My head wasn’t ringing, but blank surprise would be a good description of my own reaction.

“DAVID! Don’t ever say that word again!”

I think I learned that day that it’s not always wise to always give your parents what they ask for. (grin)

From Neil Gaiman’s Journal, a question from a nascent writer:
“My professor for comic book scripting told me once that it is impossible to listen to music and write at the same time.”

Neil replies:
“What an odd thing to tell people.

I’m sure it’s true for him, mind you, but deciding that it’s true for the rest of the world is a leap of faith I wouldn’t have made, much like deciding that everyone in the world needs to write using your lucky brand of pen or it won’t be any good.”

I do find that occasionally it’s hard to write with music playing, but it’s certainly not a rule of thumb for me.

From an interview with Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer:

“So you are confident that humanity will survive the current deluge of information?
Undoubtedly. There are many who are genuinely alarmed by the immense amount of information available to us through the Internet, television and other media. To them, I can offer little consolation other than to suggest that they put themselves in the place of their ancestors at the time the printing press was invented. ‘My God,’ they cried, ‘now there could be as many as a thousand books. How will we ever read them all?“