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Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: Making Romance Readable

Posted in books, Classic literature with tags books, classic literature, pop culture on July 16, 2009 by Paxton

I wasn’t going to have any more articles this week, but this news is too good not to share. After the runaway success of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Quirk Publishing is at it again with Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. Seth Graham-Smith, the author of P&P&Z is busy writing his followup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, so he doesn’t return for this installment, instead this book is co-written by Ben Winters who wrote a bunch of the Worst Case Scenario books. I applaud the publisher for not going the easy route and using zombies again or one of the other more obvious monsters; werewolves or vampires. The Sea Monsters epic is set to be released on Sept. 15, 2009.

My wife gave me Zombies for my birthday which will get read in the next few months and I’m really looking forward to Graham-Smith’s Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter book. Now I have this to also look forward to. The entire idea of these books inspired my Little Women Fight Club article about making classic chick lit more AWESOME.

To help promote this book, Quirk created a trailer and it’s hilarious.

That’s how you market a book, people. F’n GENIUS!! Here’s a breakdown including a book synopsis from Quirk’s press release.

With Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Quirk Classics has also developed a new Austen to monster ratio. Instead of featuring 85% of Austen’s work and 15% new text as in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters features 60% Austen and 40% additional monster chaos! Most importantly, this new Quirk Classic stays true to Austen’s original novel…

As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?

This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of biting sea monsters. It’s survival of the fittest–and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

As I said, you can pick this up Sept 15 at your local bookseller.

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Slammy Awards: The 5 most hilariously awful musical albums by professional wrestlers

Posted in Hulk Hogan, nostalgia, pop culture, wrestling, WWF with tags Hulk Hogan, humor, Macho Man Randy Savage, music, nostalgia, pop culture, wrestling, WWF on July 8, 2009 by Paxton

WWF logos I used to watch and follow professional wrestling. In the mid ’80s, the biggest game in town was the WWF. Wrestlemanias I (1985), II (1986) and III (1987) were HUGE. In fact, Wrestlemania III, at the time, had the largest recorded attendance for a live indoor sporting event in North America and is considered the pinnacle of professional wrestling’s popularity. I had it on VHS but I’ve watched it so many times the video tape actually broke. The superstars that competed in those three Wrestlemanias are known to even non-fans today; Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Macho Man Randy Savage and even Mr T made an appearance to wrestle with Hulk Hogan. The most recent Wrestlemania was number 25, held in April of 2009, and while professional wrestling is still wildly popular, it has not kept the mainstream audience it had back in the mid to late ’80s.

Back during the golden years of the WWF, Vince McMahon was in his prime. He marketed the everlovin’ CRAP out of his little federation. True, he does it now, but really, McMahon has become almost a mockery of himself at this point. Back then, he was a marketing genius, now, more a media whore than a media mogul. Vince’s “all over the place” marketing strategies included video games, a line of giant, plastic action figures by LJN and a cartoon. Now, companies do that all the time but back in the ’80s, that kind of cross promotion was unheard of. Then, in 1985, Vince decided to move into the music making space. Wrestlers have always had theme music that accompany them to the ring. Instead of purchasing licensed songs, Vince thought they should record their own songs and market them on music albums. So he gathered pretty much every wrestler he employed at the time and had them record their own theme music. And the results were GLORIOUS.

Here are those first 5 heinously awful music albums as recorded by the wrestlers themselves.

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Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary; New Video Game, New Movie, but no new books?

Posted in books, Ghostbusters, movies, pop culture with tags books, Ghostbusters, Movie Novelizations, movies, pop culture on July 2, 2009 by Paxton

So, this year is the 25th Anniversary of the movie Ghostbusters. Released in 1984, it has become a comedy classic. There has been much buzz recently about the Ghostbusters franchise and several announcements and product releases that have got “Ghosties” (Ghostbusters fans) excited.

On June 16, the first Ghostbusters movie was released on Blu-Ray.

Also on June 16, a new video game called, appropriately, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released for all the next generation console systems.

One of the things about this video game that excited fans of the movie was that it reunites most of the cast from the original movie for the first time since Ghostbusters II in 1989 (which was also released on June 16). Returning to voice their characters are Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler), Dan Ackroyd (Ray Stantz), Ernie Hudson (Winston Zedmore) and even Bill Murray (Peter Venkman). Also returning for the game are Annie Potts as Janine and William Atherton as Walter Peck. Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis turned down the opportunity to return to voice their characters.

Ramis and Ackroyd wrote the script for the game and they both said that they treated the development of this game as if they were making a new Ghostbusters movie. Judging by online reviews, that commitment shows in the game’s play and storyline. I look forward to playing it on the PS3.

Ghostbusters III

When the actors reunited to voice their characters for the game, Bill Murray was quoted as saying he had a great time re-visiting the character of Venkman and working with his friends Ramis and Ackroyd. He also said he would consider returning to the Ghostbusters franchise in a new movie. That was big news as Murray has continually said for years that he would never do another Ghostbusters movie after the studio made so many changes to Part 2 that it was no longer the movie he signed on to make. Needless to say, Ramis and Ackroyd are in active development of a new Ghostbusters movie. Hopefully, it happens, I would love to see the group back together again.

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Spockcation 2009: My adventures in Jacksonville with 12″ Spock

Posted in Florida, humor, Jacksonville, movies, Star Trek with tags Florida, humor, Jacksonville, movies, pop culture, Spock, Spockcation 2009, Star Trek on June 30, 2009 by Paxton

Spock arrived last week and we got to spend the weekend together. I showed him the sights of Jacksonville and we bonded. It was nice.

Eclectorama is going to post a few of my pictures from this weekend as he’s the Spockcation host. But I’ll go ahead and show you guys a few of the pics with some commentary. If you want to see more of these pics head to my Spockcation 2009 Flickr set. Click the below images to make them BIGGER.

While waiting around for me to get home from work Spock had lots of time to read. Surprisingly, his reading choices did not deviate from reading about himself. The dude is a narcissist.

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Michael Jackson dies at UCLA hospital

Posted in 80s, Michael Jackson, pop culture with tags Michael Jackson, pop culture on June 26, 2009 by Paxton

Well, Michael Jackson was pronounced dead yesterday at 50 years old. Very sad. I loved Michael Jackson during the ’80s and ’90s. The guy was a phenomenal performer, whose career success and problems later in life mirrored fellow superstar, Elvis Presley.

Jackson’s most popular album, Thriller, was released in late 1982. It earned Jackson a record breaking 7 Grammy awards and stayed in the Billboard Top Ten for over a year. Seven of the album’s nine songs were released as singles. The videos for Beat It, Billie Jean and Thriller have become industry classics. Michael Jackson’s performance on the TV special Motown 25 in 1983 cemented his status as a performing sensation and kept Thriller on the top of the charts.

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