This past weekend was definitely an odd one. For starters, I noticed on Friday evening that I was sweating in my bedroom. I went to my AC unit and tried to raise the cooling temp on it (or lower, I never can figure those things out) and found that the digital screen was blank and it was unresponsive to my flicking of the switches. I contacted my leasing office and eventually was told how to fix it (possibly a fuse box issue) but the AC was unresponsive to my ministrations. I am still sweating buckets in my room despite having two fans blowing on me, and the miniature ritual candles I just bought have been warping in the heat, so I put them in my fridge to keep them from melting entirely. Hopefully I can get someone to come in and fix this asap.
I visited my buddy Zach Strupp again for a belated birthday celebration. There were a few people there, but still under the 10 person limit. No masks were worn, but we kept to ourselves. It was nice to see my friends and we had some great food (homemade chicken and waffles!) and we saw some fun videos. I caught a bit of a British comedy/horror series called Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004), which IMDB describes thusly: “This parody series is an unearthed 80s horror/drama, complete with poor production values, awful dialogue and hilarious violence. The series is set in a Hospital in Romford, which is situated over the gates of Hell.”
Poster art for Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004).
I didn’t see more than about 10-15 minutes of it, but it was hysterical! Matt Berry (Laszlo, from What We Do in the Shadows) is part of an ensemble cast that is lead by comedian Matthew Holness who plays Garth Merenghi, the UK’s answer to Stephen King, and he introduces AND stars in his own series based on his novels. Zach has promised a marathon one of these days soon. We then watched a strange little show called Blood Machines (2019) of which Zach claimed is “As close to a Warhammer 40k live action film as we’ve gotten. The imagery is exactly how I imagine the Eye of Terror and specifically Slaanesh’s domain to be.” This means nothing to me, as I have not read those books, but I did enjoy the show, which reminded me of a darker take on some of the BBC Sci Fi series. We watched three episodes, which were only 15 minutes a piece, and it was visually stunning, albeit a bit hard to follow narrative-wise.
Poster art for Blood Machines (2019).
Lastly, we watched the Kiwi action/comedy Guns Akimbo (2019) with Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving. It was a wild ride and featured a great supporting cast of actors. Miles Lee Harris (Daniel Radcliffe) trolls a website that broadcasts video of a fight to the death event, à la Death Race 2000. People across the nation tune in to see contestants try to hunt one another down in a fight to the death. He is noticed by the leader of the group, Riktor, portrayed by actor Ned Dennehy (Hastur, from Good Omens) who has guns bolted onto both Miles’ hands and forces him to take part in the show, pitted against its champion assassin, Nix (Samara Weaving). Miles runs all over town trying to avoid Nix and ends up becoming a celebrity by staying alive so long despite all the near misses and setbacks he faces. There is a lot going on besides, but I do not want to ruin it for anyone who wishes to see the film. The supporting cast is great and there are many familiar faces here for anyone who has seen any genre film or television show produced in New Zealand.
South Korean poster for Guns Akimbo (2019).
I also recorded another recital, this one of Edgar Allan Poe‘s poem, The Conqueror Worm, which I dedicated to both my former colleague from Planet Poe, Joy Bingham Strimple, and my little cousin Bella. I included my cousin because I used my copy of The Raven and Other Poems by E.A. Poe, illustrated by Edmund Dulac, for reference and I bought her a copy of the same book a while back, which she seemed to enjoy. It went over fairly well, and I got another recommendation to start a YouTube channel for my recitation videos. I may do that in the very near future, after some research.
The Raven and Other Poems By Edgar Allan Poe Illustrated by Edmund Dulac. (2011)
manny's book of shadows 