Waiting a week to watch my writing? Well, wejoice - wead on! ( I had to stretch there... )
May 18 - Cutbacks
With things being less than rosy globally, everyone is looking to cut back and conserve resources. For the last few years I have done what I can to save myself money, including using CFL lights( sparingly too ), cutting back on frills like cable TV, not having a car... these and many other things have reduced some, but by no means all, of my controllable costs.
What about residences? To be sure, I enjoyed living on my own, but right now it makes more sense to cut expenses by sharing living space... in this case, with my parents. I am still thinking about my own place, but I still run into space issues... though a Tumbleweed home does have a certain appeal. I just wonder where I would put everything that doesn't fit into it and where I might do some office work; maybe in one of these?
After looking over my bookshelf last weekend, I pulled out a magnificent book I remember getting when I was but a small lad of five years: The Trigan Empire. It is a collection of illustrated scifi stories by the late Don Lawrence, whom Neil Gaiman himself has praised. I vividly remember reading it for the first time, as the watercolour art was brilliant and the stories epic, containing elements from many historical cultures that I also began to appreciate as I grew up. Apparently a new publisher is going to reprint the entire comic series ... at the eye-popping cost of nearly $1200.00 USD a pop. Ouch... my nostalgia just burst, but check out the artwork there anyway.
May 19 - Brief thoughts
Sometimes, you get nostalgic... then you come across other people doing the same, and it becomes a shared experience. Growing up when I did, in the 70's and 80's, was apparently The Perfect Geek Age according to the author. He makes quite a few good points too, though thankfully leaves off any mention of Cabbage Patch Kids... or Transformers.
That could explain why I really, really have to have one of these when they come out. No, seriously.
I'm always on the lookout for good advice on writing( and my other interests too )so this article about selling SciFi to publishers was right up my alley. Good ideas are plentiful... salable ideads, not so much.
May 20 - Give credit when credit is...
Earlier this month, there was an article published in the NY Times about credit card companies that was an eye-opener. You may have noticed in the last few years that your card statements now have 'categories' where your purchases are listed by type: service, merchandise, auto repairs etc. What you may not know is that your card company is using this purchase data to better determine how much of a risk you are to them. That's right: what you buy and where you buy it is being assessed against your future credit by most companies today. With the economic crisis costing card companies billions( estimated to be nearly 400 billion USD$ in the next 5 years )they are focusing on reducing their risks... as well as recovering some of their losses, which the NYT article also talks about. Debt collectors are now focusing on 'bonding' with the people they call, all part of new psychological models designed to get more money out of debtors than simple pressure tactics of years gone by. Scary, scary stuff - sign up for free at the Times and read the article, then look over your shoulder...
May 21 - Upcoming
Is anyone else excited about the upcoming Ghostbusters video game? Have you seen the latest trailer? Are you excited now?
By know I'll bet you know I really like video games... and free games are even better. How could you not want to play one called Medieval Rampage?
Hungry after all that carnage? Do you like brownies? How about bacon? What if you combined the two? You get this!
I've been watching some episodes of Stargate: Atlantis Season 4 this week, and I really have to give kudos to their production values. Each episode so far has had a commentary by the writer and the director, sometimes a few of the actors as well. They generally stay on topic too: instead of joking around like a lot of commentaries seem to degenerate into quickly, these folks stay on track to offer insight on the creative process for each episode. Plus, the things area a pleasure to watch; the most recent entitled "Be All My Sins Remembered" was fantastic, and not just for the massive SFX budget that went into the space combat scenes.
May 22 - Friday
Today was opening day for Terminator: Salvation... and apparently it wasn't as good a movie opening as had been hoped. Quite a few people have not-so-nice things to say about the movie too. Maybe they should have brought in some outside consultants? After all, this is a war movie... though I don't think they should have asked these guys for advice.
I've been listening to the radio more and more at work, a habit I got into while working at the Fort St branch. Which is odd, as I haven't had a home stereo for what seems like forever - something that more people might have in common with me in this, the Age of the iPod and iTunes. Still, when I do want to listen to the radio, I can easily do so... on the internet. I just surf over to 98.5's java site and bingo: tunes over the 'net - have to love technology these days.
May 23 - Movie time!
The area I now live in, Langford, is becoming more and more familiar to me... and I am coming to appreciate all the things I can do here, as well as my proximity to quite a few things. I've already mentioned I am but a few minutes cycle from Goldstream National Park, as well as being close to the Galloping Goose Trail. What I haven't mentioned yet is that I am ten minutes by cycle from the Caprice Theatre, the closest I think I've ever been to a movie theatre since I lived a little north of the Pen Centre during my university years. In the last decade I've seen fewer and fewer movies at the theatre, for various reasons: sharing space with noisy, ignorant people, paying high ticket prices, not to mention the incredibly inflated cost of food and drink while there.
Incredibly, despite all those reasons, I decided to see the new Star Trek down at the Caprice today in a matinee. For a mere $4.25, I got myself a ticket and settled into the seat surrounded by a decent-sized crowd with a fair number of children being children. I had ignored the 'temptation' of buying a drink & popcorn combo... for almost twice the price of the ticket - no thanks. Once the movie began, everyone settled down and I was relieved to see the kids were fairly focused on the film. I may end up doing this on a regular basis: it's cheap, close to home and... well, those two things are big on my current budget list, anyway.
So how was the new Star Trek? I give it a 10/10... for the visual effects. Story? 5/10... sorry, but there were parts where I scratched my head about the choices that J.J. Abrams made. Given the fact that time travel is something that has always been a part of Trek, I thought they could do a better job on the story and put less lens flare in the effects budget. It was a non-stop action ride, full of phasers, big blasts, spaceships and pretty people... but I really hope they suck it up for the next installment, as it probably won't have Leonard Nimoy in it. Spock with false teeth makes my own teeth ache... sadly.
May 24 - Like a cottage by the lake...
Today was another Outside Day, though I didn't end up mowing the lawn. Instead, a few hours of garden work( I like rocks )was followed by intermittent deck time, as well as some more serious snoozes. I wasn't so foolish as to fall asleep in the sun though; make that mistake once and you never will again. Thankfully, the screaming that being near large bodies of water induces in children was fairly tame today, easily blocked by a pair of earplugs while on the back deck. Imagining a Langford Lake Ogopogo snacking also helped...
Some caution is in order for area gardeners here: make sure the front of the house is locked when you're out the back, or things may go missing. Yikes!
The movie Cube was on Space tonight, a film from 1998 I had not heard of before. It has David Hewlett and Nicole DeBoer in it, part of a small group trying to escape from a massive tech maze full of traps. It was obviously made on a small budget; you can see the set flexing whenever the actors lean a little too hard on it... but as costs go, it works very well as you can just change the lighting colour over and over and over. Not to mention shooting from different angles... over and over and over. DeBoer... she looks good with glasses, or without!
I did end the day with a headache though, which I cannot do much about - in preparation for my upcoming operation on the 29th, I cannot take most headache meds as they thin the blood. Which, right now, is something that I understand but really, really wish I could change - the Tylenol has worked somewhat, but I have a feeling the lovely weather( and accompanying high pressure )is going to give me an interesting week.
That's all for this week - more next week, after my successful operation.
May 18 - Cutbacks
With things being less than rosy globally, everyone is looking to cut back and conserve resources. For the last few years I have done what I can to save myself money, including using CFL lights( sparingly too ), cutting back on frills like cable TV, not having a car... these and many other things have reduced some, but by no means all, of my controllable costs.
What about residences? To be sure, I enjoyed living on my own, but right now it makes more sense to cut expenses by sharing living space... in this case, with my parents. I am still thinking about my own place, but I still run into space issues... though a Tumbleweed home does have a certain appeal. I just wonder where I would put everything that doesn't fit into it and where I might do some office work; maybe in one of these?
After looking over my bookshelf last weekend, I pulled out a magnificent book I remember getting when I was but a small lad of five years: The Trigan Empire. It is a collection of illustrated scifi stories by the late Don Lawrence, whom Neil Gaiman himself has praised. I vividly remember reading it for the first time, as the watercolour art was brilliant and the stories epic, containing elements from many historical cultures that I also began to appreciate as I grew up. Apparently a new publisher is going to reprint the entire comic series ... at the eye-popping cost of nearly $1200.00 USD a pop. Ouch... my nostalgia just burst, but check out the artwork there anyway.
May 19 - Brief thoughts
Sometimes, you get nostalgic... then you come across other people doing the same, and it becomes a shared experience. Growing up when I did, in the 70's and 80's, was apparently The Perfect Geek Age according to the author. He makes quite a few good points too, though thankfully leaves off any mention of Cabbage Patch Kids... or Transformers.
That could explain why I really, really have to have one of these when they come out. No, seriously.
I'm always on the lookout for good advice on writing( and my other interests too )so this article about selling SciFi to publishers was right up my alley. Good ideas are plentiful... salable ideads, not so much.
May 20 - Give credit when credit is...
Earlier this month, there was an article published in the NY Times about credit card companies that was an eye-opener. You may have noticed in the last few years that your card statements now have 'categories' where your purchases are listed by type: service, merchandise, auto repairs etc. What you may not know is that your card company is using this purchase data to better determine how much of a risk you are to them. That's right: what you buy and where you buy it is being assessed against your future credit by most companies today. With the economic crisis costing card companies billions( estimated to be nearly 400 billion USD$ in the next 5 years )they are focusing on reducing their risks... as well as recovering some of their losses, which the NYT article also talks about. Debt collectors are now focusing on 'bonding' with the people they call, all part of new psychological models designed to get more money out of debtors than simple pressure tactics of years gone by. Scary, scary stuff - sign up for free at the Times and read the article, then look over your shoulder...
May 21 - Upcoming
Is anyone else excited about the upcoming Ghostbusters video game? Have you seen the latest trailer? Are you excited now?
By know I'll bet you know I really like video games... and free games are even better. How could you not want to play one called Medieval Rampage?
Hungry after all that carnage? Do you like brownies? How about bacon? What if you combined the two? You get this!
I've been watching some episodes of Stargate: Atlantis Season 4 this week, and I really have to give kudos to their production values. Each episode so far has had a commentary by the writer and the director, sometimes a few of the actors as well. They generally stay on topic too: instead of joking around like a lot of commentaries seem to degenerate into quickly, these folks stay on track to offer insight on the creative process for each episode. Plus, the things area a pleasure to watch; the most recent entitled "Be All My Sins Remembered" was fantastic, and not just for the massive SFX budget that went into the space combat scenes.
May 22 - Friday
Today was opening day for Terminator: Salvation... and apparently it wasn't as good a movie opening as had been hoped. Quite a few people have not-so-nice things to say about the movie too. Maybe they should have brought in some outside consultants? After all, this is a war movie... though I don't think they should have asked these guys for advice.
I've been listening to the radio more and more at work, a habit I got into while working at the Fort St branch. Which is odd, as I haven't had a home stereo for what seems like forever - something that more people might have in common with me in this, the Age of the iPod and iTunes. Still, when I do want to listen to the radio, I can easily do so... on the internet. I just surf over to 98.5's java site and bingo: tunes over the 'net - have to love technology these days.
May 23 - Movie time!
The area I now live in, Langford, is becoming more and more familiar to me... and I am coming to appreciate all the things I can do here, as well as my proximity to quite a few things. I've already mentioned I am but a few minutes cycle from Goldstream National Park, as well as being close to the Galloping Goose Trail. What I haven't mentioned yet is that I am ten minutes by cycle from the Caprice Theatre, the closest I think I've ever been to a movie theatre since I lived a little north of the Pen Centre during my university years. In the last decade I've seen fewer and fewer movies at the theatre, for various reasons: sharing space with noisy, ignorant people, paying high ticket prices, not to mention the incredibly inflated cost of food and drink while there.
Incredibly, despite all those reasons, I decided to see the new Star Trek down at the Caprice today in a matinee. For a mere $4.25, I got myself a ticket and settled into the seat surrounded by a decent-sized crowd with a fair number of children being children. I had ignored the 'temptation' of buying a drink & popcorn combo... for almost twice the price of the ticket - no thanks. Once the movie began, everyone settled down and I was relieved to see the kids were fairly focused on the film. I may end up doing this on a regular basis: it's cheap, close to home and... well, those two things are big on my current budget list, anyway.
So how was the new Star Trek? I give it a 10/10... for the visual effects. Story? 5/10... sorry, but there were parts where I scratched my head about the choices that J.J. Abrams made. Given the fact that time travel is something that has always been a part of Trek, I thought they could do a better job on the story and put less lens flare in the effects budget. It was a non-stop action ride, full of phasers, big blasts, spaceships and pretty people... but I really hope they suck it up for the next installment, as it probably won't have Leonard Nimoy in it. Spock with false teeth makes my own teeth ache... sadly.
May 24 - Like a cottage by the lake...
Today was another Outside Day, though I didn't end up mowing the lawn. Instead, a few hours of garden work( I like rocks )was followed by intermittent deck time, as well as some more serious snoozes. I wasn't so foolish as to fall asleep in the sun though; make that mistake once and you never will again. Thankfully, the screaming that being near large bodies of water induces in children was fairly tame today, easily blocked by a pair of earplugs while on the back deck. Imagining a Langford Lake Ogopogo snacking also helped...
Some caution is in order for area gardeners here: make sure the front of the house is locked when you're out the back, or things may go missing. Yikes!
The movie Cube was on Space tonight, a film from 1998 I had not heard of before. It has David Hewlett and Nicole DeBoer in it, part of a small group trying to escape from a massive tech maze full of traps. It was obviously made on a small budget; you can see the set flexing whenever the actors lean a little too hard on it... but as costs go, it works very well as you can just change the lighting colour over and over and over. Not to mention shooting from different angles... over and over and over. DeBoer... she looks good with glasses, or without!
I did end the day with a headache though, which I cannot do much about - in preparation for my upcoming operation on the 29th, I cannot take most headache meds as they thin the blood. Which, right now, is something that I understand but really, really wish I could change - the Tylenol has worked somewhat, but I have a feeling the lovely weather( and accompanying high pressure )is going to give me an interesting week.
That's all for this week - more next week, after my successful operation.
