More Than Meets the Eye

I also could have titled this: Michael Bay Hates Me

While other kids were playing with He-Man (only saw the cartoon when I stayed with my grandparents, so for about 2 weeks a year) or GI Joe (Mom didn’t want me playing with soldiers) or Thundercats (OK, I was watching Thundercats), I was buying, watching, playing, collecting, and living Transformers. Comics, toys, and tv shows. I created scenarios where planets lived and died due to the eternal struggle of these mighty warriors. And if dinner was announced in the midst of battle – they’d hang onto the edge of the bed or dresser and hope I made it back to finish that story.

Many Autobots and Decepticons died while I ate corn dogs.

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I just wanted to include a picture of corn dogs. Jeremy gets to have skulls every week, so I wanted to show these bad boys.

But like any obsession, there comes pain and suffering.

Suffering when it came time to get your Christmas presents from relatives. All those boxes under the tree. I just knew that I’d get to open Omega Supreme or Optimus Prime or Starscream or any number of other bots.

Well, I did get to open some bots… Go-Bots. The not-so-cool cousin of the real guys.

You’ll never know the pain that a 10 year old kid can go through when he misses Transformers the Movie. Not that it is entirely my Mom’s fault. We lived in a small Georgia town, one theater, and a ton of movies only came for 1 week (Godzilla 1985 being another that sticks out in my memories). For some reason, lost to time, I wasn’t able to go see it opening weekend (“I’ll take you next weekend.”).

Transformers-movieposter-west

But there wasn’t a next weekend. It was gone. Instead I had to suffer the ultimate in 10-year-old humiliation: having all my friends tell me about it.

A transformer who was a planet?

Optimus Prime dead?

Megatron transformed?

Starscream dead? (this hurt more than Prime’s death).

And who the hell was Kup?

That was maddening… and I made sure my Mom knew my disappointment.

It took me about a year before I saw the movie. I had been counting down till it was released on VHS, and somehow they decided to play it on tv. And it was glorious. Everything that my friends had told me and more.

I figured that would be the only movie.

When the 90’s rolled around and this new Transformers show: Beast Wars came on, I scoffed. “That’s not Transformers. It looks weird. Who are these characters.”

I was wrong. When I sat down and watched it…dare I say it, Beast Wars might be the best story the Transformers have told.

But still, that had to be it. There couldn’t be anything more, could there?

I must confess something… I didn’t mind Bay’s 1st Transformers. Yes, it has lots of flaws (tons), but I enjoyed it for what it was. And what was that? A live action Transformers movie! For the sake of my 10-year-old self I could say I liked it at the very least.

But they say that time has a way of giving us perspective… and with enough time that first movie didn’t age well. I didn’t go see the 2nd one in the theaters. With the vitriol that people were throwing towards it, that was easy enough to avoid.

When it finally came on HBO and there was nothing else on, and the wife was in the bed… I watched it.

The Horror!

So, yeah, I’m not seeing the new one. Fool me once… not going to go see a Bay Transformer movie. The only reason I’m writing that down though is to give myself some kind of willpower…

So I’ll be strong and explain to my inner 10-year-old why we can’t bother with it. And he’ll be mad, I’m sure. Maybe not as mad as I was when I missed the animated movie, but mad enough. He’ll talk to me right before I drift off…

“But it is a Transformers movie. That’s still cool!”

“Why have you given up on the old school cartoons? Go see the movie!”

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Yeah, he’s riding around on this guy!

“Dude! Optimus is riding on Grimlock’s back! Dude!”

Pray I have the strength to avoid this one…

 

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

This post originally appeared on tesseraguild.com.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Please excuse the following. It is mostly a rant about something of extreme importance. You might laugh at it. You might question my sanity in bringing it up. Up until this moment I have written about things like writing books and comics, stories about almost getting killed by hitchhikers, and even about one of my favorite sports teams. However, I must recall Monty Python this week…

Now for something completely different

 

I want to talk about pizza.

Yes, that pizza.

Look tasty? Think again!

Look tasty? Think again!

But first a bit of background…

I am an EXTREMELY picky eater. Wait, no, that’s not entirely true. It’s not like I am one of those people who can only eat chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. There are plenty of foods that I do like. I mean, most meats I really enjoy (save for tuna and salmon and liver and sushi in general). And fruits I do like (save for coconut and grapefruit). But veggies are my nemesis. It would take far too long for me to detail all the vegetables I do not like, so I’m not going to bother.

So I guess I should say I am a picky eater, without the EXTREME in there (maybe – my Mother-in-law may disagree).

I’m not proud. I’m not trying to win a contest. I want to like various foods. No, really I do.

But…

I…

just…

don’t…

BUT I have noticed something due to that very behavior. Over the years of watching the habits of people when it comes to ordering pizza I have hit upon a theory. And with NCAA Championship Game coming this is probably the most timely blog post I could have ever dreamed of writing. I am going to save you a lot of heartache.

You should be ordering more pepperoni and plain cheese pizzas at your parties.

Wow. That’s it. That’s all.

Oh?

You want more details as to why I just blew your mind? O.K.

Say you need to order 5 pizzas for your party, lots of people end up doing the following: 2 Pepperoni, 2 Cheese, and 1 Supreme (like the one above).

And there is your mistake. Only you like everything on the Supreme. Sure, you did the call-out about the Supreme. You covered your bases. Two or three hands popped up for the Supreme. You’re set. What could go wrong?

So what happens is that the pizza arrives and you grab a couple of pieces of Supreme, no big deal. Those others start to get scarfed down because of the one guy who doesn’t like onions, and the girl who hates olives, and so on and so on. Those people who said they liked Supreme? Yeah, they ended up grabbing Cheese because they forgot about one of the toppings.

If I have seen it once, then I have seen it a thousand times.

Then at the end of the night everything is gone save for whatever bits of the Supreme you didn’t eat. Now maybe this isn’t a problem for you… left-over pizza rules. But what happens when this guy shows up a little late and all you have is 6 pieces of Supreme? And he hates green peppers?

Last time he didn't get a piece, he burned the building down.

Last time he didn’t get a piece, he burned the building down.

And to be sure that I’m not just picking on my vegetable lovers out there, it also applies to the meat lovers. The solution is to be bland. Be boring. People will eat some cheese pizza. People will eat Pepperoni. Just Keep the pizza simple (KPS for short… Trademark Pending).

Plus, it is not a pizza only problem. This is something that is out of control in society confounding me at every turn. And just then, when I think it isn’t going to show its ugly head, my company has a lunch meeting and the premade sandwiches have their DEFAULT ham and cheese sandwiches in RYE bread? Why? Why? Why?

What was so wrong with plain old bread?

What was so wrong with plain old bread?

Yes, you in the back… I understand you don’t see a problem with that… but what happened to the staples: White and Wheat? What were wrong with those two? Why is the default setting so bad? Or maybe, if you are going to have a few RYE bread versions… LABEL THEM!

Though I can guarantee that they will be the last ones taken (KPS in effect).

Now, normally this would be the portion of the blog where I would tie things back into something I’ve learned about writing. Maybe even something I learned while writing The Dark That Follows (available at Amazon). Like sometimes being complex for complex sake is not good. That when you build a maze for people to comprehend it might just cause them to turn the Kindle off or put the book down. Sometimes you can be too clever for your own good.

But, this is too important a subject to be bogged down in such discussion.

Just don’t let a good pizza go to waste!

 

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

This post originally appeared on tesseraguild.com.