Happy Turkey Day 2008!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, a lot has happened since I last posted (Obama elected, I signed up for Graduation, etc)... sorry about not posting. Between school, the TV station, work, and family I don't exactly have a lot of time to spend blogging. ^^()

Oh, don't forget the writing!

I tried again for NaNo this year, with less than stellar results. I didn't get past the second day... probably my worst showing since 2005. Ah well. My short story writing is doing well though: I've submitted two stories to two magazines for consideration, am ready to mail a third, have finished the rough draft of a fourth, and have two additional stories in the midst of being written. I'm excited! Perhaps, 2009 is the year I get published?

I'm still editing Flight 62 (in my extremely slow, practically-not-working sort of way). It's a difficult slog...but, SOMEHOW, I'll get through it.

Also, I got around to playing Portal recently. AMAZING. If you've been putting it off like I have, then stop right now and go get it! It may very well be one of the best games ever made. ^_^

I've also been playing Zombie Panic! and Facade. I highly recommend Facade (it's an "Interactive One Act Drama"... essentially an interactive play), the AI is the most advanced I've ever seen in a game and no two games have played out the same. In fact, I played it for the fifth time today and learned something new about the character Grace that managed to never come up in the previous four times I played!

Most recently (as in, as I type) I've been playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It's fun, although there isn't actually much gameplay involved. ^^()

Anyways, the family's coming over this afternoon for dinner, so the house will be brimming with people.

Let's see...

That's about 20 people (including my parents, my sister, and I) plus however many of Kim's friends, unexpected relatives, and friends of relatives turn up as well. How am I going to fit all of these people!? o_o( )

Ah well.

That's the holidays! XD

I've been Elected!

Well, vacation was fun! It was hot all week, but the water was ice cold until almost the end. I did eventually get to swim, though, so it wasn't a total loss... and I turned out to have a lucky streak at the Boardwalk this year! ^_^ I won a Poland soccer t-shirt and a stuff bear, and while playing video poker got (one after the other) a Straight Flush and Five of a Kind... ACES!

Since I've come back, I've been playing GTA4 again and have tried to get back to work on my book (semi-successfully). I've also outlined a rewrite of Man of the Century, which I've just been stalling getting to work on. On a more annoying note, I just found out that the reason I never got one of the Bush checks was due to myself being named a dependent on my parents' tax return. Argh!

Oh yeah, and I've been elected to the Parliament of Alternatehistory.com! You see, the message board has a virtual government (a sort of forum game, I suppose) that's been operating since 2006. This year, I decided to run and managed to win one of my party's seats -- I'm a member of the Yorkshire Socialist Party. Since I happen to have done a lot of work on the offtopicAl political section of the site's wiki, I've also been appointed Minister of Legislative Wikiness. Finally, yesterday Parliament passed the 2008 Wiki Task Force Act, which names myself "Commander of the Wiki Task Force". Yay for meaningless titles! XD

Also, as I'm sure 50 to 100% of the person(s) who read this blog are aware, I'm a fan of fake movie trailers - videos that edit together pieces of unrelated movies to create the impression that it is a preview for an exciting, albeit nonexistent, film. While I have many favorites from Youtube (several of which I've shared with Ed and others), I think I'll end on a note I believe at least one of you would appreciate:

Vacation!

I'm off to the beach for a week of fun in the sun (which probably means nasty sunburns, but oh well)!

I'm gonna bring my newish mini-DVD camcorder along too, so for the first time I'll have some real video records of my summer. If I manage to tape anything remotely interesting, I'll be sure to post it on Youtube. ^_~

In the meantime, I STILL haven't finished reading Count Zero or returned to editing Flight 62. It's bothersome enough that I'm bringing both with me to the beach in the (probably vain) hopes of finishing one or the other while down there. Hey, who knows? Removing the Internet from the equation usually results in a big burst of productivity from me, so we'll see.

And on a final note, I hereby present, for your benefit and mine, The Ballad of John McClane:

If I made an American Godzilla...

This is an idea that's been on my mind for a few weeks now, so I figured here is about as good as anyplace to mention it. Essentially: if, hypothetically, another attempt was made at an American-made Godzilla series, how would I go about doing it?

Firstly, if I were to do this I would NOT start with another remake of G'54. Let's be honest: the first movie may be suspenseful, but the average movie-goer will be going in expecting horror and action, the latter of which the original story doesn't exactly ooze with.

So, instead, I'd remake Rodan.

Rodan has everything the modern American moviegoer wants: high-speed action, pulse-pounding (and potentially gory) horror, and a romantic subplot. The original movie is still exciting today, imagine the dogfight sequence with modern SPFX! Since it's an American remake, I'd localize it but try to keep the original feel as much as possible... I'd place the action in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It has volcanoes, coal mines, and two pretty good target cities: Vancouver and Seattle (I'd probably choose Seattle, I feel its more well-known).

Rodan would act as a proof of concept film, proving that there is in fact a market for Japanese-style giant monster films. Even if Rodan doesn't turn out to be a success, we should at least have ended up with a fun update on the original.

A successful Rodan would mean I could at last propose my main goal: an American Godzilla trilogy. I'd expect hesitation from US studios, still wary from 1998, but if Rodan is successful enough they may trust me to go ahead with at least the first one.

Here's the proposed trilogy:

KING OF THE MONSTERS: Imagine the plot of the original Gojira, but with the action scenes of GRA. I'd set it in Hawaii, with Niihau standing in for Oto Island and Honolulu for Tokyo. The main problem will be the ending...

MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA: Essentially, this would be a remake of Mothra, only with Godzilla thrown into the mix in a role similar to the one he played in Mothra vs. Godzilla. Not sure where I'd set this one... Los Angeles, maybe? Something in me wants to set it in Brazil, but I'm not sure if that'd make much sense.

KING OF TERROR: For the finale, I'd remake Ghidorah - The Three Headed Monster. It's perfectly fitting and would wrap everything up nicely: Mothra and Rodan return, Godzilla fights Rodan, and Godzilla's archenemy, King Ghidorah, descends from space to wreak havoc on the Earth. Only the combined might of Earth's three greatest monsters can stop him! Not sure where this should be set, although Tokyo seems like the obvious choice.

So, that's that.

The other big idea I had regarding this would be making Godzilla smaller... MUCH smaller... so he could more easily interact with the human cast. It would be the regular Godzilla design, but oriented like a normal dinosaur (via CG, obviously) and maybe about 60 feet long (he'd be about a third larger than Spinosaurus).

Really, that's sort of all for now. I also have an idea floating around for a live-action, semi-realistic Pokemon movie floating in my head... I don't know why... but that's for another day. ^^()

Wall-E was Awesome!

If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, do so!

I saw it last night. The movie is both enormously touching and hilarious, a wonderful piece of science fiction and cinema. While I've always enjoyed Pixar's movies, I think this may be the first that I actually will go out and buy. Definitely see it! Also, if possible, go late enough so that you won't have the annoying distraction of little kids... it's much easier to appreciate Wall-E when watching it with adults.

Otherwise... um... what have I been up to?

Remember Hard Power? That board game I was working on about a year ago? Well, I revisited it this week and have spend the last couple of days reworking the rules and cards. I've attempted to simplify some things, although whether or not I succeeded is debatable. There's been two big changes:

1. The resources are no longer tied to specific territories. Instead, there will be 56 "resource chips" - one for each territory, divided in a 3/2/1 scheme amongst Food, Metal, and Oil - which will be placed, face down, on the board during set up. When a trading tie is placed on a territory, the resource is flipped over, revealing whether or not the player made a good or bad choice in investing in trade with this territory.
2. Battles are no longer determined in a Risk-like fashion, instead battles are card-based. There are eight different "tactical cards", ranging in value from 1 to 8. Basically, the player whose hand has the highest value wins the battle. I'm hoping this injects a little more strategy into an area that was, until now, just a matter of chance.

There's a bunch of other things I've also altered, but I don't feel like boring you guys with it right now. ^^()

This week promises to be... eh. I have school until Wednesday (finals, yay... -_- ) and work until Thursday (I think). I have to feed Kim's turtle while she's away at Wildwood (I'd be there too if it weren't for finals this week) and the family dog-sitting my cousin's chihuahua. He's a really nice dog, but he just reminded me once again why I never want to have a dog. I'm a cat person, plain and simple.

Oh yeah! I finally got around to buying Halo 1 and 2 for the PC. While I've played both games countless times, both through story (co-op) and multiplayer modes, I've never had the opportunity to sit down and play through the campaigns by myself, so as to really gauge the story (I already know the gameplay and soundtrack are fantastic). Based on my previous experience with both games, I suspect Halo 1 will have the tighter story while Halo 2 will be deeper and a bit more well rounded. I expect to find both stories to be better than Halo 3's plot, which I found to be... well... rushed. It felt like they dumbed it down... but, I guess I'll just have to play through the first two games to see whether or not that's true.

I still haven't finished reading Count Zero. It's a good book, I just haven't had much time or energy to sit and read. I'll see if I can do that this week.

I watched the Japanese versions of Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster and Terror of Mechagodzilla this week. ToMG was better than I remembered, especially since this was the first time I'd ever seen it uncut. Ghidorah... not so much. It wasn't bad, but I can easily see how this was the beginning of Godzilla's transition from "Godzilla the Villain" to "Godzilla the Superhero". I, personally, consider the middle of the Showa series - from Ghidorah to Destroy All Monsters - to be a transitional period called "Godzilla the Anti-Hero", basically that Godzilla is acting like the Superhero but still being treated by the humans like the Villain.

My main problem with Ghidorah is that while the human storyline is being treated fairly - it concerns a police officer sent to protect the crown princess of a foreign kingdom who has lost her memory after an assassination attempt - the monsters, who in the past were treated as walking mountains of horror and might, had been relegated to comedy relief. I specifically refer to Godzilla and Rodan, who spend most of the film fighting (off camera, mind you) and are generally portrayed as stubborn buffoons. Mothra is once again shown as heroic (as usual) and only Ghidorah is allowed any measure of fearsomeness.

Ah well, just ignore my fanboy rantings. ^^()

This was a long week...

Man, I'm beat. >_>()

I did WAY too much school/job/socializing this week and not enough editing/sleeping. I saw The Incredible Hulk (which was fun, although not quite as good as Ironman) and a crappy comedy show (I was invited by a friend who moonlights as a stand-up comic to see the show and have dinner. I somehow ended up being Assistant Director to another friend's video project... ><# Ah well, at least the food was good). How crappy was the show? Of 18 comedians (there were more comedians than audience!), only 2 were any good, and 2 were so bad they didn't even get sympathy claps!

I've been thinking a bit about Godzilla today and how a new American Godzilla could play out. The movie I came up with was sort of a cross between the original Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Destroyer. ^^() The idea actually gives a lot of personality and characterization to the Destroyers (there's a few of them), but unfortunately little for Godzilla himself. Hm...

Oh yeah, and Godzilla's back:

Mystery of the Mystery Wires!

I picked up my first paycheck for the new job today. Yay! ^_^

Most of today consisted of tracing odd million-mile long wires through the Communications building at William Paterson. The first was confusing because it seemed to wrap in, out, and under this one bank of A/V equipment. The second... ran through the floor into the next room, under that room into the Studio B control room, under Studio B, up the wall, and into the ceiling of the main lobby.

We still haven't found the end! (Although, we suspect it ends in Master Control.)

The edit of Flight 62 has hit a bit of a snag... thanks to the combination of the new job, work, and the HOT weather, I've been too tired to really get any work done... for two weeks. Geez, I should be done by now (or close to it!), not grumbling about no progress. Ugh. I'll see if I can get some work done later tonight.

In the meantime, I have added some updates to The Race, without their Empire, ISOT to OTL 2007 (I really need to come up with a new title...) that wrap up my planned first act of the timeline: I describe the first Race-Australian war via a series of news clippings from The Daily Telegraph dated between November 2007 and June 2008. In the next act, I plan to wrap up the storylines for a few characters and explore a few ideas, including some semi-suggested by my readers: a radical Harry Turtledove personality cult, major societal decay and collapse amongst the Race, an Earthling virus jumping species, and the reactions of the Race to the slow realization that, yes, they are the only ones of their kind -- their homeworld and their Emperor didn't ISOT with them.

Also, I just realized that I've failed to move on my short stories at all. I really need to get on that. Argh, the summer is just such a lazy time for me... it's so hard to get anything done!

My new favorite novel

So, I've finished reading William Gibson's Neuromancer. I picked it up a couple months ago... one of those things I spotted in Borders and thought "Hey, I should read that!" It turned out the be really good, if you haven't read it yet I highly recommend it.

I've been fascinated by the cyberpunk genre for a while now... I've always liked The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite manga and anime, and now Neuromancer is my new favorite book. The future it presents seems... plausible, very plausible, even considering it was written about 25 years ago. A world where multinational corporations have grown in scope and power, where capitalism, advertising and technology pervades every aspect of life, where the Internet (called "cyberspace", or "the matrix") is central to both the social and economic worlds. Considering Neuromancer was written before the modern Internet formed, I think Gibson made a pretty good guess as to how hacking, data security, and the Internet in general would operate. Even the three-dimensional, hallucinogenic, direct mind-machine interface he described doesn't seem all that far-fetched. Hell, he describes an orbiting space resort/city in plausibly realistic detail!

I've gone ahead and picked up the rest of Gibson's "Sprawl" trilogy, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, and will probably spend the next few weeks going through those (depending on how much I enjoy this trilogy, I may move on to his "Bridge" trilogy: Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties).

Again, if you haven't read Neuromancer yet, do so!

New Job: Panda Consultant

I got a new job!

I am now a student technology consultant working for the Instruction and Research Technology division of William Paterson University (*whew!* That's a lot!). Basically, I'm a tech guy working for the school (I check out cameras, etc.)

Finally!

A job that's actually related to my studies! With a year (if even that) left of school, I'm hoping this job will give me a good jumping point on to a more substantial full-time job. (Also, I can finally quit my other job! Yay! Not yet, of course, but by the end of the summer it won't be practical to work both jobs any longer).

Also: go see Kung Fu Panda. I don't care if it's a kids movie, Jack Black is funny! (And it has Jackie Chan!)

"Why does everyone say the same thing before I kill them?!"

You know what? I really like the Narnia movies. I saw Prince Caspian last night and it was, well, quite awesome in my humble opinion. It was a bit darker than the first movie, which was a more straight-forward fantasy adventure, and I appreciated that. While C. S. Lewis' usual Christianity allusions were still in place, they weren't quite so blatant this time around. I suppose this MIGHT have something to do with Aslan -- the infamous Jesus-allegory lion -- being much less involved in the story and (besides a single dream sequence) not even appearing until towards the end of the film's finale.

What I loved most about the movie, though, was the new character Reepicheep. Imagine if Errol Flynn was a 6 inch tall mouse, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what he was like. I felt he had some of the best lines in the movie. ^_^

Squirrel: Oh! We could collect nuts, and berries, and eat those!

Reepicheep: Oh, yes, that's a wonderful idea! Then we can just throw them at the enemy. Shut UP!

Or:

Enemy Guard: *turns to see Reepicheep hanging upside-down from a rope and pointing a sword at his face* You're...

Reepicheep: Yes, I'm a MOUSE! *kills guard*

If you liked the first Narnia, definitely go see it. If you haven't seen the first one, don't be afraid to go, you don't really need to have seen the first to understand the second (they do a pretty good job explaining the backstory, according to my friend who never saw the first one).

Yay for better days!

Today is MUCH better day than the last few. I wrote a new story! ^_^

I'm calling it "On the train to Yonkers"... obviously, a big chunk of it takes place while the narrator and his girlfriend are riding a train through Bronx to Yonkers. The girlfriend sees a man with a cybernetic arm standing on the far end of the train and suspects he's a terrorist...

My only gripe about the story is that the last three or four paragraphs ended up moving the whole story in a very different direction from where I started... I may have to revise it, but I'm not entirely sure HOW yet.

Until then, I think I'm going to make a concerted attempt at finishing "The Atlanta Incident". It's more than half done anyway, I just need to plow my way through to the end (easier said than done... this is one of those stories that's really difficult to write for some reason). I might end up shafting again in favor of writing something else new, though, so we'll just have to see.

In the meantime, I've been getting really geeky recently. You see, the alternate history site I go to has been running a mock government... game, I suppose? Anyway, over the last few days I've decided to dig through the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary threads, see what legislation was actually discussed (which was WAY more than I thought had been discussed), and post it on the site's wiki. I've finished posted the 2006 stuff and I'm now compiling the information for 2007. I should be done soon, I think.

I also saw Speed Racer last night. Not bad, really hyperkinetic and bright... it was like watching a live-action anime. Sort of. Go see it, you'll have fun! ^_^

Also, did you know they're coming out with a new, all-CG, Star Wars movie this August? If not, consider yourself informed!

I have such a headache

UGH.

Remember those Music papers I mentioned a few days ago? Turns out they're not due next week during finals week, during the Music final that would be during finals week because that's when FINALS are SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN, but rather tomorrow, during the last class... where I'll be taking my final rather than REVIEWING for the damn thing, which everybody ON THE DAMNED PLANET knows my class is nowhere approaching prepared for. I'm wondering how many people aren't going to show up tomorrow because the professor never actually made a big announcement about the final, as he should have, and assume that there is no class tomorrow... just as there aren't ANY classes on the Friday before finals week EVER because that day is for STUDYING.

God, this guy is such an asshole! >_<

So, I'm here ranting instead of writing those worthless papers. I'm halfway through one, the legitimate one, and dreading the one I have to make up. Did I mention that these are supposed to have works cited? >_<#

Honestly, this class has hit my final nerve just in time to end. Thank goodness this will be the last class, I can't stand this guy any more!

Of course, now this means I have to go to work more, which is just as frustrating, annoying, and unfulfilling. I can't stand that place either, but at least I'm getting paid for that, not money to sit through three hours of crap. The only reason I go is because I happen to like the music and I do enjoy spending a few hours listening to it. I just can't stand this professor! I wonder what was it that pushed my distaste for him over the edge? Was it the callous disregard for the well-being of his student when said student had a sudden nosebleed and refused to walk away from a test, instead lamenting that the student had the audacity into interrupt the proceedings and ruin the paper? Or was it the casually racist conversation I overheard him having with a student, a veteran, who obviously did not want to be discussing Iraq?

Ugh. This guy is a disgustingly pretentious prick. I have half a mind to just write "FUCK YOU" over and over again and hand that in, TWICE, tomorrow. But... the other half of my brain is quite sane and understands I need to pass this idiocy. Thus... Ugh. ><#

Man, I have such a headache.

Stories and Music

I've managed to progress a bit on the Titan story and, although I'm not quite happy with how it's working out, I'm glad I'm that much closer to finishing. The story isn't going to so much need a rewrite as it'll likely need some reorganization... I don't think the story is playing out quite right. I think I'll worry about that more after it's finished -- I'm sure the ending will be fine -- and after reading the whole thing figure out what needs to be done. It's possible that what's needed is some pruning and streamlining... also, I might need some actual character names besides "The Visitor". ^^() Kinda hard when the story is supposed to be set over dozens of generations...

Besides that, it's the last week of classes for the spring semester and, well, I've got a minor problem: I was supposed to see two concerts for music, and only saw one. Crap. I think I'll check Ticketmaster, but more likely I'm probably never going to see that second show. Gah... I hope I don't fail because of it. >_>()

I looked at one of my other stories, The Atlanta Incident, too. It's good, although unfinished and probably a bit wordy. I have two versions of the story on my computer, one of which has some interesting background info on the narrator. I'm not sure which version I'm going to use yet, although I'm leaning towards the older version. Neither has an ending yet, although I do know that they both end the same way and that I'm just going to dump all of the stuff I originally wanted to write between where I stopped writing and the ending and just skip ahead. The story comes out better that way anyway.

Um... I guess that's about it. G'night!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today was blah, as usual. In the morning I did the usual busywork they force down my throat in work, in the afternoon I sat through American Government (a class I enjoy, but today wasn't too interesting). Gah.

For most of the day, I thought about videogame ideas to pass the time. I decided a long time ago (I believe it was one of my first blog posts that I mentioned it) that a fusion of Grand Theft Auto's open world concept with Half Life's in-game (no cut scene) storytelling is the future of how games will tell their stories. After playing GTA4 for a few days, especially the social minigame/subplot, I can see even more clearly that this is the case and that this will be the avenue for games taking on more substantial story concepts (specifically, moving away from Action based to more Drama based stories). So, in wondering how that could work, I thought: "If I want a more substantial story, why not adapt something... Shakespearean?"

Thus, my idea: Henriad.

The player takes the role of Hal, the young delinquent prince and the future King Henry V of England. The game takes place in a stylized representation of Britain and France during the Hundred Years War... miniaturized a la California and Nevada in San Andreas. There are no cut scenes (except for perhaps an Intro and Ending), all dialog and plot will be relayed through in game dialog with the other characters. The plot itself will be based upon Shakespeare's Henriad cycle -- Richard II, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V. In order to properly adapt it, it may have to be partly rewritten so as to focus more on Hal... also, I'm not entirely sure how to incorporate the events of Richard II properly into the game (perhaps as an extended prologue?)

That's more or less the gist of it.

Man, today's dull. Considering the wonderful weather and Cinco de Mayo... aw man... *sigh*

I need to find something to do.

Best Random Dancer EVAR

So, I drove out to Iona on Thursday to visit Rob and take care of that transcript business. All went well, although I felt bad about not joining Rob & Co. in seeing Iron Man that night. I really did want to go, but considering I hadn't been sleeping much (thanks to my cousins, who kept me up to the wee hours of the morning the weekend before and screwed up my sleep schedule) and that I had work the next day, it just wasn't a good idea to go see the midnight showing. I wouldn't have gotten home until 5 A.M.! >_>()

I did get to see Iron Man this weekend, though. It was good! At times, it seemed more like a military thriller with a sci-fi twist rather than a superhero flick. I think what really made the movie was Robert Downey, Jr. ... he brought something to the movie that it would have seriously lacked otherwise. I honestly can't imagine ANYONE else playing Tony Stark now and look forward to the inevitable sequel:

The Avengers.

^________^

BTW, if you haven't seen it yet, DEFINITELY wait until the credits are over. A character barely hinted at during the film appears, played by an actor you may not at all expect (but makes sense, because the latest version of the character's design is specifically based on this actor).

Go! See! Now!

On Friday, I went to a party. Like usual, I was just about the only person who WASN'T drunk. >_>() On the plus side, though, I won an award for my work with the TV Station!

Paul Cwiakala, BEST RANDOM DANCER!

^_________^

In the meantime, I'm having issues finishing one of my stories (not the story for the contest, that's already finished and submitted). I think the problem is that the nexus of the creative energy for it was about a week ago... I didn't take advantage of it until too late, so I haven't been able to get much further than a page. It's not a difficult story (and I really like the concept here), but it's being bitterly slow.

I'll probably give it another shot tonight.

I should probably mention what the story is about, eh? I'm calling it "All Hail the Gods of Titan"... yes, it's pretty much that Titan story I've been kicking around for who knows how long. I've decided to attack it from a different angle, though, and now I'm telling the story from the POV of the Huygens probe rather than either the Titanians or the ISRO gaganauts that arrive at the end. The premise is that NASA lands its probe on Titan, it remains active for 2 hours, and then shuts down. In those two hours, how was this stationary object supposed to learn that there ARE in fact intelligent, albeit primitive, aliens on the moon? Little does humanity realize, but we have just introduced a metal piece of technology on a world that knows neither. The story follows the chaos that overtakes the Titanians and, ultimately, the reactions of the Humans when we finally conduct a manned landing 150 years later.

Oh, I also bought GTA4 yesterday. It is AWESOME. More news as it arrives. ^_^

As a final note, I recently noticed that I forgot to actually include a link to The Race, but not their Empire, ISOT to OTL 2007 the last time I mentioned it. So, here it is! Let me know what you think... I've been getting pretty good reviews, but I don't know how good it could be... I mean, it's just fan fiction. ^^()

Ah well, until next time!

Money, Titan, and Godzilla

I need to go talk to Financial Aid today about my summer classes. It seems I'm having problems getting a loan to pay for them, and I have some questions about the alternative loans my cousin Malinda suggests I apply for. Shouldn't be too big a deal. ^_^

In the meantime, I just found out that they've started naming the seas on Titan! XD Wikipedia has articles on two, Kraken Mare (the largest sea on Titan, about the same size as the Caspian Sea on Earth) and Ligeia Mare. Both are located at Titan's north pole and are, basically, immense bodies of liquid hydrocarbon... essentially, natural gas. I wonder how long it'll take before somebody realizes there's more gas on Titan than on Earth and starts organizing a campaign to mine it? ^_^()

Here's a cool map of Ligeia Mare I found (I knew about the map before I saw the articles on Wikipedia):



I believe a history teacher in California drew that...

Titan becomes a more and more interesting place the further along we get! I can't wait until we send another probe back and start taking more pictures, ESPECIALLY of the seas. I wonder if we'll find life...?

On a final note, here's a cool Godzilla video:

Lamentations of a Procrastinator

So, about a month ago, I decided that I wanted to enter a writing contest. Any writing contest, really, just to give me something to shoot for with my writing besides the nebulous concept of getting published at some point in the sorta-near future. After a quick search, I found and settled upon the Writer's Digest Annual Writing Contest. Since I had finished a story only a few weeks earlier and was in the process of starting a new one, I figured I'd work on both and submit one (or both!) by the end of April.

I proceeded to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. >_<()

I'm a procrastinator. I've known this for a long time now and consider it my greatest weakness, it's something I struggle with all the time. It's the reason why I'll be given an assignment in January to hand in in May, and will still find myself writing feverishly in the wee hours of the final morning (or later). It's the reason why I'll start writing a short story in June and not finish until February. It's the one part of my character I would absolutely LOVE to erase.

So, yesterday morning, I looked at the calendar and realized I had only 2.5 weeks left until the submission deadline. That's bad, because the finished story needed editing/rewriting, while the other story was only barely started. In an attempt at damage control, I decided to set aside the unfinished story and try to jump headfirst into the edit/rewrite. That... proved semi-disastrous. It turned out that in order to get the story where I wanted it to be, I'd really have to just throw out everything I'd done already and start over from scratch. I tossed that aside in frustration.

Still, I knew I had to do SOMETHING. I had that urge to write in me...

"I hate writer's block..." I whispered. Then, I turned around, opened up MS Word and wrote just that. The result was a short rant by a struggling mid-21st century author about not only his inability to come up with any ideas, but the industry's devolvement into uninspired unoriginal dreck. It's short -- only 600 words, I think -- but I like it quite a bit. There's no minimum word limit for the contest, so I think I'm going to submit it! ^_^

I think I'll also try submitting to Ed's site, the Coalition for the Preservation of Pretentious Authors. I've been meaning to participate in that site for a long time now, but I'm so bad at finishing things that I haven't had anything to really submit until now. I should probably check whether or not posting it there counts as publishing, and if so whether or not that would disqualify the story from the contest, though...

Eh, whatever. When I figure it out, I'll post it here and there.

I'm attempting to retry the other story I started a month ago in the same style as the new one... I've had moderate success so far. Let's see if I can make it work! ^_^

2001

I FINALLY saw 2001: A Space Odyssey yesterday. It was a great movie, a real work of art, although I didn't quite understand the ending. While I always hear about how the real 2001 didn't live up to the predictions of the film, I was impressed by how much the movie DID get right about the future: flat screen and portable TVs, modern usage of credit cards (I'm not sure when credit cards started being used as they do today, but the movie got it right), computer chess, TV's in the back of airplane seats, voice recognition and voice operated systems...

Sure, space isn't quite what we envisioned, but we're not THAT far off. Everything else (with the notable exception of Videophones) seems pretty damn close to, well, today.

I've Seen California!

Yep, I flew to Sacramento and back this past weekend. I visited Ed, which was a blast, and got to fly on a plane (which wasn't so fun, but ah well).

Man, I seriously need to post here more often! I'm sorry to those few who did read this, because I'm just so damn lazy. =/ Ah well, I'll make more of an effort.

By the way: one year has gone by since I started this blog! A whole year! Wow. A lot has happened, hasn't it? (Not really, but just work with me here) Hopefully, this year will be a better, happier, more successful year. I've finished Man of the Century and am working on rewriting Flight 62. Assuming all goes as it should, by this time next year I should be a published short story writer and, maybe, getting close to being a published novelist.

Oh, and if Emma is reading, I got your package! Thanks! ^_^

Happy New Year!

After a year of ups and downs, of accomplishments and a few disappointments, of hellos and sad goodbyes, 2007 is at last over. I hope everybody has a safe and happy 2008! If I haven't texted or called yet, don't be offended (please? ^^() )

This year, I have two simple resolutions:

1. Get at least one of my short stories published, by any means necessary.
2. Find an agent to help me get my novel published.

I know I could just self-publish, but... I want to do it traditionally. I want to go through the agony and heartbreak, just so that in a few years I can walk into Borders and find a ragged copy of my novel on the shelf. I want that experience, that satisfaction, and there's no time better to get started than now.

Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you in whatever you set out to do!