The word of the week is attitude.
Aug 13 - Volcano Yacht!
We’ve all played the game “If I won a lot of money, I’d do /
buy …” ( insert expensive item here ), right? I’ve played it just as much as
other people and I wasn’t surprised to learn what a lot of Canadian winners did
when they’d won – only 5% didn’t seek
professional financial advice( they probably were bankers already ).
What would I do with it? Get cool stuff that’s useful… mostly.
While I don’t love the ocean, I DO like the idea of cruising around on my own
boat( not sharing it with tourists, right? )to see the world at a slower pace.
Getting a VERY expensive private jet doesn’t really appeal to me due to the
massive ongoing costs… and that if an engine fails on a plane, it’s not as easy
to land in water than a boat with a bad engine is. To wit:
So something like the Tropical Island Yacht might appeal to
me if millions fell into my hands. I’d definitely do some changing to the
design though; sailing around the world with a giant volcano on the top of the
boat doesn’t strike me as being cool a few years into ownership. Maybe a fake
Mayan temple with a waterfall instead?
Aug 14 - Starships Dancing? Nice!
Flying as a profession isn’t my cuppa tea; I don’t have a
head for heights or a constitution for heavy g-forces. I can appreciate the
views from high above the earth and how they make you feel though. So what if
you’re WAY above the Earth, as in outer space? Spaceships in TV and film do
incredible things, thanks to the work of the many artists that bring them to
life, especially when those ships and their crews are performing some amazing
acts, usually in the name of heroism. The video below is set to a song by Nikki
Menaj, whom I’ve never heard of( shocking? Not for me )and it’s catchy. The
first couple of minutes made me break out into a rare smile, as the video clips
are perfect for the song… kudos to the artist who put this together( password is 'starships' ):
While it DOES have Farscape clips in there, I can’t BELIEVE
that there’s not a single frame from Babylon 5… ! Ah well… maybe it’s better that B5
doesn’t get mixed up with the likes of Menaj, or the universe might implode. I mean, starships and beaches? Hmm,
maybe distant shores are metaphors for galaxies…
Aug 15 – I’m a Winner, Twice!
Since I left my job earlier this year, I’ve been enjoying the
flexibility of my days – when I wasn’t moving, wrecking my arms or otherwise
busy doing things like writing a 100,000 word novel or trying to find a job
that I can do with just my toes to type with.
It’s also meant that I’ve entered more than a few contests
over the last few months; I’ve used LookContests.com to vet ALL the contests
that I choose to enter, as it filters out the scam artists and makes sure that
every entry is valid for Canadians. I’ve got the ‘contest routine’ down to
about 30 minutes a day, which is great and gives me that little ‘hope-thrill’
that I might win something…
Today, I DID! TWICE! Two emails came in today within an hour
of each other to tell me that I was a contest winner! Mine for FREE was a $50
Subway card and even better: a Lagostina cookware set worth over $400 - BOOYAH!
The Subway card arrived the next day and the cookware will be a few weeks in
transit before I can pick it up locally from Safeway… and my sister’s already
claimed it, as she’s said it’s a VERY high-quality set. I’m just thrilled and I’m
very grateful to the universe that smiled on me today.
Aug 16 - Chapter 30 is DONE!!!
Holy fubar, it’s HOT out there! My apartment’s a cool 74F
but that doesn’t do me any good when the ceiling’s vibrating to the tune of
tiny feet bent on reaching critical mass. Yeah. I had to go up to the
SkyLounge, opened every window and both sliding doors which got a breeze going,
thankfully; then I was able to write. It was difficult, as I pace when I verbalize and the
heat made even that rather taxing.
BUT: I produced what I think was my best chapter yet AND
it’s also the 30th one! So I have less than ten chapters left to go,
probably more like six or seven by my count. It’s astonishing that I’ve made it
so far so fast after getting the ball rolling in earnest back in June 2012. At
that point I only had a half-dozen chapters written, some of which were unfinished to boot. Having my wrists in the state they are in, I couldn’t
have gone any faster typing the chapters myself, so my mother’s suggestion to
have HER type was incredibly generous on her part. It ALSO freed me creatively,
for as I’ve said before I’ve been able to simply DESCRIBE each scene as I see
it in my head and it is translated to the page without my being distracted by
spelling errors and all the other things that typing can interrupt your flow
with.
Now I have to write the hardest half-dozen chapters yet, to
wrap up the book and let the reader fall back into their chair with a rapturous
sense of satisfaction.
That’s not going to be easy. But it IS going to be exciting
to try to get there!
Aug 17 - Two Cool Things In September
I’m the first to admit I don’t get out much, but it’s not
for a lack of things to do around here that are inexpensive or even free.
There’s two events coming in September that I’ll definitely be making time to
take part in. Well, be AT, anyone.
One is the re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark for the IMAX
screen! I absolutely loved this film as a kid and I watch it every few years
just to remind myself of the incredible sense of adventure it’s imbued with.
Harrison Ford was the perfect choice for Indiana Jones and the humour that is
woven throughout the film also appeals to me greatly. Seeing it on the huge
IMAX screen will be just incredible!
Less massive in scale but still a spectacle in its own right
is the Victoria Chalk Drawing Festival 2012, which features several artists who
do unbelievable 3D-perspective drawings on sidewalks! I’ve caught a fair few
of these over the years online and to have people doing it IN TOWN is very
exciting! I wonder if they’ll do any pieces from fantasy or sci-fi… ? I can’t
wait to find out!
Aug 18 – Ad Creep
Try this experiment: search for a few unrelated things using
Google or Yahoo, then go visit your favourite websites. See how many of the ads
that pop up are targeted along the lines of what you JUST searched for. Find
this disturbing at all?
I know we live in an age of tracking cookies( mmmm…. )and
similar technology, but I am somewhat freaked out by the thought of our world
tumbling into a Minority Report advertising hell. Or like Fry in Futurama, when
Leela asks him if he had ads in the 21st century:
“Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.”
I’ve been diligent in checking the apps I’ve installed on my
phone for ads, especially the ones using ‘AirPush’ which can pop up ads at ANY
time while you’re using the phone, not just the app, using the Notification
bar. While I’m all for developers making money on their apps, I don’t hold with
being spammed while I’m not USING their app; that’s just dirty pool.
Aug 19 - Head Noise
I’ve wrote a good portion of this week’s blog upstairs in
the SkyLounge on August 18th, due to the noise in my apartment. It’s
a great space that I’m happy to have available to me for FREE to go to when I
need it; it’s not home and it’s not work and THAT is the key element to help me
keep my sanity. August 19th saw me spend much of my day OUT, as the
SkyLounge was prepped for some kind of party and the noise overhead was
unrelentingly severe as the kids ran laps around their apartment screaming and
thumping.
For those who snark that I am being an 'old man' about the
noise, let me posit this to you: think about how you spend most of your day. Is
it at a job? Good; let’s say that job is how you make your living. Now imagine
if someone came up to you every five minutes during the day, got IN YOUR FACE
and interrupted the work you needed to be doing to make a living in a way
that’s impossible to ignore given the nature of your work – I’ll leave you to
imagine the details. The faint whisper of the muse, the diaphanous images in my
head, are my work that I hope to translate into what I do for a living. When
noise intrudes too far into my muse and my mind-images, I can’t hear or see
them; it’s the equivalent of being poked in the eye every five minutes. If you
want to feel how that is, all you need is a finger and a clock… go right ahead. I'll wait.
Please, no more snarking about how noise bothers me. My eyes have
developed nervous twitches again, my back is a mess of knots and I’m trying
desperately to cope. If you call yourselves my friends in reading this blog,
please know that I’m not being dramatic here or fishing for attention. Just
understand. That’s what friends do, right? I don’t think I’ve EVER looked at
someone else’s pain and dismissed it offhand. Why would you do the same?
It's been a tiring day, Sunday; I've had little sleep. I took today and tomorrow 'off' so I can tighten up the outlines for the last chapters of the book and it's hard going. Everything has to wrap up properly while keeping the pace of the action going and I'm wasn't feeling it today. So I went for a walk in Beacon Hill Park with my sister in the sunshine and got a root beer softserve cone; all three really picked up my mood as did watching a few episodes of Arrested Development in the evening. I LOVE that show! I'm going to make it an early night tonight, as I have WorkBC seminars every day this week at 9am; mix that in with finishing off the last half-dozen chapters of my novel and it's going to be a BUSY week!
