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So Long, Stinktown!

Well, Serious Week (as friend of the website Ridley and enemy of the website Rachael Ray dubbed it) is at an end. Maybe you’d think I could use a break after that.

Maybe you’d be right!

But either way, it coincides with my move back to civilization! As of this morning I’ll be in Denver proper again, and I have strong intentions of kicking butt on this blog, now that I’ll have a place of my own and — presumably — more time to write and / or eat sad nachos in my underpants.

I don’t know when my internet will be set up, so if this week is quiet, that’s why. There will be a new ALF review on Thursday at the very least, so if you want to make fun of me behind my back, that comments section may be a good place to do it.

In the meantime, as ever, thanks for reading.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where the ads went…I felt bad “profiting” off of the things I was posting last week, so I removed them. I could put them back, but, frankly, I’d like to be able to post things like that now and again without feeling guilty. So for now, at least, they’re gone. I may reconsider in the future, and I appreciate all of your support and feedback on the subject, but I think it’s a story for another day.

You guys are awesome. Be good while Pappy Chatters is gone!!

Some Belated Thanks / Updates

This actually came a while ago, but I forgot to post about it, and only realized as I was boxing stuff up that I owed Phil Malkowski (who sometimes posts here as Another Phil) some genuine gratitude for sending me his copy of Project: ALF.

If you aren’t aware, this was the made-for-TV movie that tied up the loose ends from the sitcom. It aired a few years later on a completely different network, and aside from Paul Fusco it retains none of the original cast. Needless to say, I’m sure it’s fantastic.

I have actually seen this before. In fact, I watched it when it first aired…and may not have finished it. I certainly didn’t ever feel compelled to watch it again. I remember it being awful, and as a kid who liked the sitcom, the prospect of dusting this off after episode 99 is not an exciting one.

Regardless, this was the last piece of the puzzle, and I’ll review this in its proper place, after season four. I may break it into three posts, but we’ll see.

You can click the photo to see it larger, but I’ll point out that the Hollywood Reporter evidently claims this film contains “at least a chuckle a minute,” which both sounds like damning with faint praise and overpromising. I don’t think I laugh out loud 90 times at Dr. Strangelove. Is Project: ALF a better film than Dr. Strangelove? We’ll find out together!

I also want to thank Jeff, our resident curmudgeon / luddite, who chipped in for the German DVD set. He sent a check so it arrived a bit late, but is still welcome, and thanks to that the set was almost completely paid for by readers. Which is…humbling, to say the least. Thank you.

He did, however, see it fit to include a note with the check:

…and I have no clue what I’m looking at. I was an English major. You can’t do this to me.

Anyway, thank you, sincerely, to Phil and Jeff!

Also, you may have noticed something I said above about moving. This is good news. I’ll be in a great place with a champagne hot tub and supermodels and a rocket dog.

No, actually I’m just moving to a much nicer apartment in a much nicer area with a much better amount of roommates. (Zero.) It took a while, but getting back on my feet financially has been great, and I thank you folks for helping to keep me sane.

I really might get a dog, though.

The good news? It’ll probably also give me more time to write stuff here, for reasons that are too boring to list.

The bad news? I’m not sure when my internet will be hooked up in the new place. I doubt it’ll be a huge delay, but the week after next could be a quiet one. Your fair warning.

Anyway, thank you for reading / contributing / being all around incredible people. Onward and upward!

Update: Good News and Touchy Subjects

So, first things first. The good news: The Lost Worlds of Power has a release date.

It’s later than I had hoped, but…well, I’ll explain all the lessons I’ve learned in a blog post down the line. Suffice it to say…

The Lost Worlds of Power will be released on Friday, October 31, 2014. That’s Halloween, which seems appropriate to me for many reasons. It also means you’ll have the whole weekend to read novelizations that you can spend the following week wishing you hadn’t.

Again, the ebook will be free to download. Physical copies and other updates to come, but for now, that’s the important thing: the anthology releases on October 31. Be here!

Now…well, not quite bad news. But maybe a touchy subject. And I’d like your honest feedback.

I mentioned it a while ago (back when my Breaking Bad reviews were pulling in daily visits in quadruple digits), but this blog / site / whatever the fuck it is got popular enough that it must have triggered something, somewhere.

Very soon after that I got flooded with offers for product reviews, guest posts, link networks…all kinds of stuff. Most of it, I’m sure, unsavory. So, hey, that’s an easy no.

But I also got a few invitations from ad servers. Some looked like garbage, but one seemed pretty legit. In conversation with the rep, I came to trust her enough that, on my own, I’d be willing to give it a whirl.

Having said that…I kind of want to open it up to discussion. After all, you guys are reading this page. If you suddenly stopped reading, that would make me pretty sad. That’s exactly what I don’t want to happen.

So, full disclosure: I’d be paid to host ads on the site. She told me they’d be entertainment themed, so probably TV and film-related stuff. I won’t know until I see it myself. She assured me that the ads would be non-invasive (ie: no autoplaying videos or crap like that), and I could put them wherever I want. So, probably in the sidebar.

As much as I love this site, it is a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time to keep running. I know we go through dry spells here, but even then I’m still putting out 2-3 pieces per week on average, which is more than it might sound like. And while I don’t need to get paid, I have to admit…it sure would be nice to get paid for writing the things I truly love to write.

Those are the pros.

The cons are in your hands. Let me know, and be honest about it. Personally, I don’t care about ads on the sites I visit, as long as they don’t do anything annoying. But I know others have strong feelings about them, and it’s only fair that I ask before I do anything.

There’s no commitment with the ad server; if I try this for a week and we (or I, or you) decide that it’s not working, it stops the moment I remove the code from my own site. That much is easy.

But if you know up front that this is going to be a deal-breaking, let me know. I’ll leave this open for discussion (at least) until Monday.

My intention is not to piss anybody off, or make this place less pleasant for readers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I absolutely love the collection of commenters this site has accumulated. All of them. Especially the ones who seem like they hate me.

I don’t want you going anywhere. If it comes down to keeping you or making money from the site, I’ll unquestionably choose to keep you. But if I can have both? Well, then I’m one step closer to writing creatively for a living, and if I hit that point, there’d be a hell of a lot more content coming from me.

Anyway, that’s enough outta me. The floor is yours.

Update: Me Time

So, okay. It’s been a little quiet here lately. That’s not due to a lack of interest, or even a lack of time. It’s due more to a shuffling of my priorities…which has caused some other things to fall behind.

The first year of this blog’s existence, I took January off as a kind of “me time.” Nobody — literally, like, fuckin’ nobody — liked that. And I can’t blame them. Some content is better than no content. And since then, I’ve decided I’ll never take a full month off again.

Which means that every so often, I guess, I hit these phases of distraction. I have plenty to write about…but other things demand my time. And when those are done…I kind of want to relax, and enjoy myself.

I’ve also — as many of you who follow me on Facebook probably know — entered into a relationship with a very special lady. For once, I don’t intend to get sappy, but I will say that the spare time that I do have is being spent with her. And happily so.

Additionally, I’m moving in August, so I have a few ducks to line up. All of this is to say that I need a little “me time.”

So, as far as content goes, some updates…and a proposition:

– The Lost Worlds of Power is still coming. I’ve taken a break from editing it, because I was beginning to lose focus. I thought it would be much better for everybody if I pushed the release date back a bit, so that the final product could be of the highest possible quality. I apologize to everyone who pre-ordered and gave me their money and OH WAIT THIS THING IS FREE SO YEAH IT IS COMING

– I’ve also held off on posting the last few Author Spotlights for this reason. I will run those in the lead-up to the actual release…which is getting closer all the time. It’s just not here yet. Trust me, though. You’ll love it. I’m seeing to that.

– There will not be an ALF review this week. Why? Well, I’ve got the notes and screencaps together, and while I could write something up before Thursday, the fact is that the next episode (“Night Train”) is one that deserves a truly solid entry. Feel free to watch it yourself in the meantime. I’m not saying whether or not I liked it…but I am saying that it’s earned a respectful writeup that I just won’t have the time to get to by Thursday. Once again, it’s a delay in aid of quality.

– On Independence Day I intend to have something major posted here. Not a huge announcement or anything…just a big piece of content. You can probably guess what it is. (No, seriously. You really could probably guess.)

– I have an idea for a very brief Pop Questions feature that I keep forgetting to actually start. So, maybe if I write it here, I’ll remember. You can probably guess how that will pan out.

– And I’d also like to pose a question to you: would anybody out there be interested in writing a piece regarding social issues, and how they’re dealt with in any aspect of media? Games, news, television, films, music…anything. I ask because I’m always tempted to write a piece exploring, say, body image. Sexuality. Equality. Racism. Hot-button topics that never quite go away, but may or may not evolve into less problematic popular explorations over time. Somebody better-versed in the subject (any subject), who has already paid attention to the kind of representation it gets in popular culture, would be better equipped to write something of substance…so, please, get in touch if you’d be interested.

That’s all for now. I do hope you understand. Certain things are just coming together for me right now…and I want to take some time to savor that.

Good stuff is coming. It’s just coming a week or so later than usual.

ALF Reviews: The German Box

A few weeks ago, when I finished my reviews of season one, I opened the floor to donations to buy the ALF Complete Set of German Funfun. The reason was that this set, as far as I could tell, was the only one that contained uncut episodes, and I thought it might be a little more fair to the show to review those versions moving forward.

Of course, I didn’t actually expect there to be much interest, but there were four brave little toasters who pitched in:
– Casey Roberson
– Eric Lemoine
– Alessandro Arzilli
– Kevin Loy

A fifth asked if he could send me a donation through the post. Nothing’s come through yet, but if it does I’ll be sure to thank him as well.

Between those four, nearly the entire cost of the box set was covered. I was happy to pitch in the rest, and, as you saw from my review of “Working My Way Back to You,” it did indeed arrive in time for me to cover season two.

So, as a way of saying thanks, I figured I’d do a little mini-review of the physical contents themselves. I don’t know if there are any bonus features, but if there are I’ll cover them at some point. The episodes, of course, will be covered in sequence SO DON’T RUSH ME.

The box itself is just a cardboard slip that houses copies of the individual season releases. These are standard-width cases, and there’s a nice little hinge in there that lets you flip through the four DVDs that each case contains.

Why is it that crappy shows make these much more convenient packaging decisions? As much as I love those super deluxe mega awesome rockem-sockem collector’s releases of the things I actually enjoy, I sure do hate having to fold things out and dig through envelopes and packing bonuses to get to the fucking disc.

Speaking of which, I know the individual season releases here in the States are much thicker than this. Does anyone have one of those? Do they come with booklets or something?

For some reason, every single picture of ALF that they chose to use is terrifying.

Seriously, the puppet isn’t scary. So why is every photo of it the stuff of nightmare?

Here’s the DVD for season two. It’s the only one I’ve done anything with so far, but eventually I’ll have to circle back around to season one to review the scenes cut from syndication.

This picture of ALF makes him look like he’s seriously beefed up. That’s a terrifying prospect for reasons I’d prefer not to put into words.

Additionally, each of the season boxes contains one of these:

It’s nothing special, just a little foldout card that lists the episodes and a brief description of each. At least, I assume it does; I can’t read this scary Melmacian script.

I also notice that at least one of the episode titles is not a straight translation. “We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert” is truncated here to what I’m sure translates as just “Uncle Albert.” Maybe at some point I’ll pump these into a translator (or ask commenter Marleen, our German correspondent) so that I can find out if other changes were made from the original titles. Maybe certain puns or song titles wouldn’t work with a straight translation into German. Either way I’m a nerd and I am curious so get out of my way.

The cover for season three makes it look like he’s beckoning me into the back of a van.

The cover for season four definitely looks a bit stupid, but it’s the least terrifying, so I’ll take it. The funny thing comes when you flip that one over:

Man, does ALF not look like even he’s fed up with this show? Such a stench of defeat wafting off of that puppet there.

There’s not much to say about the backs of the cases because I can’t read them, but I will point out because I’m a pedantic shit that the pictures on each do not reflect the actual contents of that season and I’m really sad that I know that.

Each season is spread across four discs, and something about the images they chose really bothers me. For every disc they use a different promotional shot of one of the characters. But each time, it’s ALF, Willie, Brian and Lynn.

Granted, I know there are only four discs in each season, but they couldn’t cycle Kate into at least one set? Or even use a shot of both her and Willie together or something? I can’t exactly say why, but this rubs me the wrong way. Of course, if I had it my way I’d exclusively use pictures of Kate, Mr. Ochmonek, the little girl that wanted to kill ALF and the scampering midget, so what do I know.

The bottom of the box helpfully identifies exactly how much of my life I’ll waste watching this shit. 2,394 minutes.

That makes me sad, thinking about how much I could do with 2,394 minutes. Then I realize that I wouldn’t actually do any of it, so whatever.

It also lists 101 episodes. I’m only aware of 99, plus the Project ALF movie, which I don’t believe is included here. Maybe there are some episode-length featurettes or something. We’ll find out.

Anyway, as an additional thanks to those who donated to the cause, I have a gift.

Courtesy of reader / tormentor Jon Wahlgren, I’ve come into the possession of five sealed packs of ALF trading cards. If any of you four generous donators would like one, shoot me a message with your mailing address. Each of them comes with a stick of gum, which I’m positive is delicious.

I’ll keep the fifth pack and review that at some point. Or if (FOR SOME REASON) you are entitled to a pack of cards and don’t want them, I’ll keep those to review as well.

Anyway, thanks, everyone. Casey, Eric, Alessandro and Kevin especially, but a sincere thanks to everyone else who reads these, makes funnier jokes in the comments than I do, and occasionally calls me an asshole.

I love you all.