Pebbles, Pots and Practice

The word of the week is archery!

April 9 - APPROVED!

Today was Easter Monday, when Good News traditionally arrives. A little before noon today my sister and I received news that our rental application in Victoria on Cook Street had been approved! We were ecstatic, as this is the place we really really want to live due to its proximity to the downtown core, the ocean, Beacon Hill Park and Cook Street Village. I'm especially happy as the building happens to have a rooftop lounge stunning views of both the mountains to the south and the city all around through floor-to-ceiling windows. As an added bonus, the building manager told me that few people ever go up there on a regular basis as it is accessible only by stairs and not the elevator. Can you say "personal writing lounge" for the next six months? I knew that you could! This is the best piece of news yet so far this year aside from my for EI and we're really looking forward to moving in mid-May!

April 10 - Archery... with your feet?

Years ago, when I belong to a medieval reenactment group, one of my hobbies while a member was to regularly participate in archery practice. That went by the wayside as school and work took priority over my recreational activities that it is been years since I shot a bow for recreation; it still hanging on my wall in pride of place for me to get to soon. Sometime later this year, I may search out and join The Victoria Bowman's Club. Though they still will have a yearly membership fee… hmmm. It is also inspiring to see how some people have taken archery to new levels, such as Lilia Steppenova, who can shoot a normal bow WITH HER FEET with perfect accuracy.
 

Oh, and my regular EI amount came in today: MORE than I thought it would be! Which means I should be VERY able to spend the next 6 months writing my novel. ONLY doing that, EVERY day; it's like a dream come true. Thanks, Government of Canada, for seeing that I worked many years paying my EI dues and sending it back to me now when I needed it!

April 11 - Musical Ballads

After going out for a walk this week and listening to some of my music, I discovered something new about my musical tastes. Apparently, the songs I like are ballads; they tell a story! Most of the music I have is not repetitive in a lyrical sense but tells a story of some kind throughout the song. Well I don't listen to balance like those from Johnny Cash all that often, I think it is telling that the songs I do like appeal to me from an author's point of view. The best songs will always have something new for you when you listen to them as the years pass by, very much like the best stories: you can always come back and reread them two more years experience under your belt. This insight was brought to you by the letter 'Z' which is rather underused in the English language - which starts with the most-used letter, 'E' … weird, that.

April 12 - Classic Video Games!

Crowd-sourcing is the new buzzword nowadays, especially in the videogame industry where many games do not get made because producers don't want to take the risk of creating a flop( similar to the movie industry ). Quite a few indie games and worthy sequels never get made because the funding simply isn't there and most people in the videogame industry want to make a living just like the rest of us. So I'm especially thrilled to see that a sequel to the amazing Wasteland game from the late 1980's has now been massively funded through Kickstarter.com! What's really amazing is that many of the original team members from the first game have come on board for this sequel. I remember playing this game with my friend on his Apple II and just being sucked into the post-apocalyptic game world; it was probably the major reason that I'm so fascinated with that particular genre! Set with a release date sometime in 2013, Wasteland2 promises to give a similar transcendental gaining experience, thanks to the enthusiasm of the indie team it has now! You can download the original game here, as it is long past it's due date...

April 13 - Starbase: Las Vegas??

Sometimes I really wonder about the stupidity of Hollywood executives; no, scratch that - I don't really need to wonder since they keep giving examples of how stupid they can be. Case in point: in 1992, Las Vegas ALMOST built a full-scale replica of the Starship Enterprise as an attraction to revitalize the downtown core. I'm not kidding; this was so close to happening that it came down to the decision of a Paramount executive to give the project a green light. As we now know, stupidity won out over the dreams of millions of g33ks the world over. Incredible, I know: instead of the graceful lines of a starship wreathed in lights and real to the touch, Las Vegas' downtown got giant overhead TV's showing ads and cute patterns. Paramount's top executive at the time, Stanley Jaffe, was solely responsible for killing this dream dead… so if you see him, give him a kick in the shins for me and every other g33k who dreamed of walking the decks of the Enterprise for the price of a day pass.

 

 
April 14 - Pebbles and pots?

All right, we're on a g33k theme here, so here's two things that caught my eye this week that I really think I'd like to own in the near future. Both went to Kickstarter.com to fund their creation and thankfully, BOTH have more than reached their goals, so we'll see them become available very soon!

 

 

First is the Pebble smartwatch. It's an eInk-based watch that connects to your smartphone via bluetooth and is totally programmable in terms of apps. Meaning that the watch can check emails, display SMS texts, FBook updates and almost anything else developers can dream of creating. It's a greyscale, low-power display that is highly readable in sunlight and makes always checking your phone a thing of the past. Available Sept 2012.. for $150.

The other gadget is one that I've never seen before. Called the PowerPot, it produces electricity via a thermocouple, which means you can use it anywhere that you have a concentrated source of heat such as a campfire or stove. Unlike solar chargers, this is an immediate source of electricity that can be used day or night and won't take most of the day to charge a single device. I think this is especially cool as a survival tool, as it means that you can go completely off the grid and still have access to devices without having to carry masses of batteries around with you. Just boil up some soup and you can charge both your GPS and satellite phone at the same time!

April 15 - Grrr....

Today was very, very frustrating for me in several areas, including the scanner on my tablet malfunctioning so that I can no longer scan any books into my database! In the main though, my WRISTS are STILL a problem: the tendons insiders still like cables, very tight despite the exercises I have been doing daily. It makes it hard to hold things for very long or type OR play video games with a mouse or controller - in effect, to do ANYTHING that I want and need to get done around here daily. So Monday I am making an appointment with the doctor to see about finding a therapist to help me with the physical exercises, as it's been a month and these symptoms are still lingering heavily.

On the bright side, I did manage to rig up my voice dictation software so that it works properly with all my programs and even some games. While using a mouse is still difficult, I can type and write fairly fluently without too many mistakes and my PC can handle it without strain, thankfully. Writing this blog today was somewhat time-consuming, but for the most part I got it done in one pass and then went back to fix things as needed. Some other people have used the same program to overcome difficulties they've had in typing with their hands; in fact, one person use the program to play video games way back in the day when text was King. this allowed me to enjoy the rest of my evening online, where I gamed with a few friends in NWN and left the typing mainly to my voice. It worked, needed a lot of corrections and left my wrists alone, which was good.

This week is going to be make or break for me in terms of my wrists; no, I don't intend to break my wrists, I just need to get them on the road to recovery. I'm trying very hard every day not let my frustrations boil and simmer as the clock ticks ever closer towards the end of 2012 and only a few words trickle onto the page of my novel.

Habits, Habitats and Hope

The word of the week is free!

April 2 - Deals!

I like 'free' - it's one of my favourite things in life and one that can pop up anywhere, at any time. A recent site I discovered is GiveawayOfTheDay.com, where the site hosts give away for FREE software that normally costs a fair penny - all for the sake of promotion! I also drop by BitsDeJour.com, where software also comes up on special for usually 50% off, things that almost NEVER come up for free at Giveaway. Both sites are great to drop by for 5 minutes each day… but I spend even more time sorting through RedFlagDeals.com for ALL things Dealicious( not affiliated with the site of the same name )where ALL SORTS of deals are pounced on and posted by the general public, 24/7. I have managed to score a few deals on various things over the years by being in the know BEFORE everyone else, thanks to RedFlagDeals. Check 'em all out!

April 3 - Brave

I have a weakness to confess: red hair. With the upcoming release of Disney's CGI film Brave, my weakness has been given life and hundreds of hours of work by artists to render each red strand in perfect detail… but that's not the focus of the movie. I also have a liking for strong female characters and the role of Merida is being pushed by Disney as a 'passionate and fiery' which obviously goes hand-in-hand with those of a more flame-haired inheritance. Given that my own novel depends in a large part in having a believable, likable female protagonist, I would consider Brave to be a good bit of research for comparison. Though writing a teenager would likely give me headaches…



April 4 - Vertical Forests?

Green roofs are nothing new: they're a way to take back some space in a city and put it towards better use making urban landscapes healthier. Yet for all that, the actual overall surface area of roofs in a city is rather small compared to that of concrete and asphalt which serve as roads, parking lots and the like.

So why not forget about the horizontal and go VERTICAL? That's the idea behind an initiative in Milan, Italy, where several buildings are in development that carry the green concept into the sky. Instead of walls of concrete, their exteriors are covered with trees… all the way up! It's an innovative way to put trees into a dense urban setting while sharing space needs with other uses; it's hard to turn a parking lot into a forest and still get cars in there. I applaud the out-of-the-box thinking in projects like this and hope that other similar new solutions to old urban space-usage problems come up soon for all cities!

April 5 - Habits

Habits can be good or bad; I've formed a fair deal of both over the years, though none were of levels requiring therapy… even my puns, if you can believe it. Routines are the cousins of habits and I am curious to see which new ones I will form once I have moved into a new place and settled into a new version of my life, one that I choose the pace of for the rest of 2012.

It's going to be interesting. Sometime this year I will finish my first novel and will have found a new job. Or managed to break into a new field of employment, such as freelance writing or voice acting. Each new day in 2012 will be one where I have to balance the needs of an emerging career with things like downtime and socializing, of playing games to relax and watching some of the MANY DVD's that sit gathering dust on my shelves. New habits and routines will form and I will be watching them as consciously as I can, as I want to form more of the positive-career type and fewer of the lazing-around-not-progressing kind. The last 2+ months have seen me progress little, other than moving my mental processes around to focus on ME and not my previous work habits; that's been hard and I STILL answer my phone in less than three rings. I may never cure myself of that habit, but as such things go I think I can live with that, if it means I can focus on more important things.

April 6 - Found a place, almost!

Over the last two weeks, my sister and I have looked through dozens of apartments in Victoria. For the most part, the places have been rather outdated or lacking in some major ways; the one had mouse holes in ALL the rooms and the balconies were off-limits as they were falling OFF the buildings. Many places simply hadn't been updated since they were built, just repairs and new paint and the occasional new carpet. Several buildings were under overall repair and several had new places ready to be built NEXT to them; in both situations, the noise would have been unbearable for years, so no thanks.

Today though, we settled on a place that ticked so many boxes that we felt it was a 9/10, and the building super hit it off with us right off the bat. We'd seen it earlier in the week and came back today to put in an application and put down a deposit. It's located VERY near Cook St. Village, has a decent amount of room, is in a solid quiet building… the list goes on. We'll be waiting the weekend to hear on Monday if we've been approved for the place; our fingers, toes and even eyes are crossed, hoping!

April 7 - Pillow Fight Day!

The weather today turned out to be simply GORGEOUS: temperatures in the mid-teens and barely a cloud in the calm sky. Which was PERFECT for a pillow fight! Yes, today was International Pillow Fight Day, held in cities all over the world; I found out about it earlier in the week thanks to my friend Kevin. We hustled out of Langford after lunch, picking up a few pillows on the way and arrived in Bastion Square in Victoria just as all the fun was starting! My sister recorded the action( using a nice FlipVideoCam that I'd picked up in Dec'11 )while Kevin and I wandered around the melee pummeling and whomping. We had a great time; there were over 100 people there and someone broke open a feather pillow right at the start, so those were swirling around the while time. I gave as good as I got and while the clip below doesn't show any of my ninja-like moves, I'll add a few of those clips to FBook soon enough:



It took me hours to put together the video though, as I don't own any video-editing software capable of inserting text and a soundtrack… so I improvised. I used a royalty-free tune from Incomptech.com, installed AVS VideoReMaker( NOT free! )and used several other bits of software to record FROM the AVS video window into other formats. I ended up with a 2.5gigabtye AVI file( HUGE! )which I converted into a 68 megabyte MP4 file( TINY! )which I then uploaded to YouTube. If I did this sort of thing on a regular basis, I would definitely save myself the 6 hours of work, trial and error and buy an all-in-one software suite like AVS4You. But for now, the results were worth it:

April 8 - Rainbow's End

This week, Google announced Project Glass, which in essence crams all the features and power of smartphones into a pair of wearable 'smartglasses' - which are still a ways from appearing on local store shelves. I love the idea and wonder how long it will be before people start walking into traffic with smartglasses just as they do now with handheld devices. I am reading a book right now called Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge, which is a head-hurting but fascinating look into the end results of where Google and its tech-spawn will be in fifty years or so. As an author, I am staggered by the sheer vision of the concepts that Vinge puts out in his story; if only a part of what he envisions comes about, the world will be a VERY different place in a generation or so. To be honest, I tried to read the book when it came out in 2006 and the concepts were so 'out there' that I had to stop. Now, with far more experience with Google and FBook and all the sundry social apps, it’s a much more palatable read; I originally felt that it spoke about things that had no meaning in my life but now I can see how far ahead Vinge was peering. If you want to see a glimpse of a very possible future, I recommend his book highly… and I also recommend reading it slowly to digest in small bits as you go - today I spent more than a few hours reading while I rested my wrists. And watched Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs with my family as an Easter treat!

By this time tomorrow, I will know if my hoped-for application to live at a GREAT place in Victoria will have been approved. It will be quite a change and I am working on my mild CTS / wrist pains so that when I am settled in my new place, I will have PLENTY of time AND ability to devote to my novel, which right now is a hunt-and-peck typing affair to work on. Painful on many levels, that.

Movies, Memories and Mourning

The word of the week is memory.

March 26 - Time

Today was a very sad day for me: my grandmother passed away, aged 89.

She went peacefully, which is all any of us can ask for.

How big a part of your life is your family? What holes do they leave in your life when they are gone? These and many other questions ran through my mind today as I thought back on all the good memories I had of my grandmother, who was always unfailingly kind to me. Others may paint a different picture of her, but to me she will always be the one who dried my tears after a visit to the doctor's and whose calm British voice made every visit to her home one of relaxed enjoyment, especially around tea time.

Distance matters not,
Now that you've left us, to rest.
Be at peace; be loved.

Good-bye, Gran.

March 27 - My sister arrives!!!

Change is in the air; today, so was my sister! She landed here in Victoria this AM, having moved here to the Island permanently. She and I will be searching for a place to rent in the coming month, to continue my plan of total independence that I began so many years ago. It is our hope that we can find a unit in Victoria itself, as this time of year sees a LOT of places come up for rent as university students leave the city once the school year has ended in April. Having a place in the city itself is important for many reasons, some of which being transit and easy access to social venues such as Cook St. Village. Sadly, I had access to Cook St. Village when I first moved here, but I wasn't able to take advantage of the social aspect for several reasons: a busy job and a lack of contacts in Victoria meant I met few people my first year here. That has changed since and with the entirety of 2012 open to me to Be Social, I hope that I will be spending a lot of my time OUT of the house!

March 28 - Kindle and SciFi

THIS is the news I WANTED to hear as an author: that new methods of publishing stories is making it MUCH easier for NEW authors( such as me! )to get their work Out There and to find an audience! It's incredibly exciting to think that I don't necessarily have to languish on a slush pile somewhere for years; the New Media of today means I can actively PURSUE an audience. The harder I work, the better my chances of getting noticed and reviewed; building a brand is all part of the process of finding readers for one's stories. To be sure, I will still submit pieces to online magazines and try for other venues, but just to KNOW that I can break into eBooks( and do a better job than many of the current best-sellers on there )is a hugely liberating thought!



Sadly, my wrists STILL hurt this week after only a little effort, so I have been remiss in plugging at my novel, understandably. I'm investigating methods and exercises to get them back up to snuff while avoiding any future relapses - I'll also be using my voice recognition software to get basic draft work done.

March 29 - D&D no longer uncool?

Here I could write pages about how D&D was a huge part of my childhood, but others have done that far better than I can. Just recently I realized that it helped fuel my creative desire to tell stories, steering me towards finding my way as an author at this point in my life. While I wasn't the greatest D&D player ever, I know that when I was telling a story through the artifice of the game, I was in my element - and my audience, captive though they were, did experience the magic of being transported into the world I had created. That feeling is what I long to capture in my writing and is one that I always experience in the best stories: to leave yourself behind and enter the world that the author crafts through their words. Unlike any other form of storytelling, when you engage the mind's eye, real magic can happen. Believe.

March 30 - Wine?

Wine is one of those things that becomes common ground among many as we get older; like golf, perhaps, you can debate the fine points endlessly. Myself, I don't like red wine as the tannins give me headaches and in general I don't see myself as ending up with a wine cellar, cooler or collection of more than a couple of bottles for company. It's a BIG topic, for once you have the wine bug bite you then you can't really go back… and it's fashionable too, as you can spend an evening feeling sophisticated talking about wine, as opposed to debating the merits of beer. Hard liquor aficionados need not apply. All I want to know usually though, is how long that bottle of wine I've forgotten in my cupboard is good for. Thanks to the folks at CellarNotes.net, I can consult a handy chart to tell just that. Or, I could just ask a friend.

March 31 - Rentals and Gaming

After narrowing down the rental possibilities to about a dozen places( thus far )my sister and I went to see one today. Disappointing; it was only a few minutes' walk down the road, a newer( 2004 )basement suite on a quiet street with all utilities included in the rental price… and it stank of mildew. Sigh.

Tonight's NWN gaming session( a day earlier than usual )was fantastic! Five new characters were specifically created to game together as part of a new story arc, which incorporates each of their backgrounds into the overall plot. We had a blast, as there was a lot more roleplaying than usual with the group that gathers - planning ahead with new characters definitely paid off here! It was a big deal for me as well, as I am loathe to create new characters in NWN; odd for a writer to whom new characters should come as easily as changing socks. Perhaps I don’t like playing them as much as I do writing them, at least that's how I see it. In any case, my entire evening vanished in a happy twinkle as I gamed with my friends and let the world outside vanish.

Oh and today is possibly the world's most boring special day: World Backup Day. I've been doing this regularly for ten years and it's not exciting. But necessary.

April 1 - Not Foolish

Yes, it's April Fool's Day today. I didn't do anything or fool anyone, which I haven't for years now, not since my first year on the Island here. Not having had a fun workplace for the last few years might have had something to do with it. I do like browsing through the fun stuff that they come up with at ThinkGeek.com for April Fool's, like the Beta-to-HD-DVD convertor - fake, of course. I also liked the Inflatable Star Trek Captain's Chair, which just happens to be real and unfortunately sized for kids only; pity.

Click image for a full-size Coraline wallpaper!

No, today was very much a homebody day; I didn't end up going out to a party last night as it turns out I wasn't invited. Which happens and was honestly  expected, but it still tweaks a little Hurt Button inside me all the same. I myself have forgotten ALL SORTS of similar things over the years, so really this is just karmic payback - paying attention to the details is what I've learned from it. All in all, I've done fairly well in not unintentionally offending anyone in the last ten years or so - but if I have, would you tell me? There's the question… and finishing up the day by watching Coraline with my family really put the Weird But Wonderful badge on today. Next time: watching it in 3D!

My cold has lingered on all this week, moving from my throat to my nose and leaving me with very little energy until this very night, April 1st. Now that my system is recovering, I will be diving right into the rental search AND my novel work - there's lots to do and the clock is ticking for 2012!!!!!!!!!!!

CGI, Colds and Chrome

The word of the week is lassitude.

March 19 - Writing Cold

It's been difficult to write the last few weeks; physically it was painful last week and this week I simply have no energy as the cold has stuck full-force. Which stinks, but it's winter's last hurrah, I think. I won't be doing much this week save killing Kleenexes, resting and keeping myself as entertained as my fuzzy head can manage.

At times like these, I turn to some of my writing idols, such as Neil Gaiman, as they look at the writing process and how they face it some days when it's not as easy as it could be. Here's Neil's take on writing and the strange places it can take you, for good or bad.

Another thing that occurred to me today was to do something for the upcoming 250th blog post here in B.C. Beginnings. I've been debating what exactly to do… suggestions? It's a few months away, so there's plenty of time!

March 20 - A week to go for EI?

A week to go until my EI comes in; I've done all that I'm supposed to do and now it's up to the Red Tape dispensers in whatever office you care to name. It's still stressing me out, as I've of necessity had to become a person who believes things when I see them - too much in my life has gone haywire due to details large, or small, getting muddled. So until my EI shows up in my bank account next week, I'll still be on tenterhooks about it.

Once it's in though, I'll be all smiles, as it means I can go forward with my plans to write( and complete! )my novel in the next six months. Along with the accompanying IP( intellectual property )development, marketing plan and all the sundry things that are also a part of creating a work of fiction yourself. Not giving any thought to this beforehand would be foolish, for as I've already found out from my research many new authors just write and worry about these 'small details' later - wrongly so, I'm told. Being foresighted as I am, I will be juggling all these things as I go along, which will actually help with the writing process as I can 'step away' from the writing itself to work on other aspects of the whole. I can even deal with the 'distasteful' project of working on Personal Branding, something which I understand only a little of right now but that I KNOW is vital( almost key! )to promoting myself as an author. As well as getting practiced in public speaking, which I dread along with many.

March 21 - BSG: Blood And Chrome

Yes, I'm loathe to admit it: I never finished watching the last season of the recent Battlestar Galactica. I was totally turned off by the 'miraculous' arrival of Starbuck and the total left-turn the series took at that point, which I felt was an insult to the loyal fans who had followed the incredible potential the series had offered up until then. I likened it to a main character slapping everyone upside the head and stating "Everything up to this point has been a dream." Which stank, as I thought it was all incredible up until that point…

So seeing the trailer for the series pilot Blood and Chrome which would have followed the young Adama at the outbreak of the Cylon War brought back feelings of wistfulness for the same awesome feeling the first season of BSG engendered. It has all the things that made the first season mind-blowing and I'm not just talking about the FX - it looks to have story out the wazoo. Too bad SyFy decided to pass on the series and instead make it into 'webisodes' - I hope that these will manage to keep a level of production quality on a par with the trailer, as that's still better than nothing at all. There could have been so much more…!!!

March 22 - Armored

I'm considering a lot of things to include in my novel, one of which is powered armour. Which won't be explained AS powered armour, at least not at first. There's just something about strapping oneself into a suit that makes one as powerful as a tank on two legs that appeals to me; the original Starship Troopers was built around this concept, which vanished in the more recent movie. Powered armour stories such as the classic Armour have always had a special place in my imagination, so when I heard that there's a new short-story collection due out in a WEEK called Armoured, I was tickled! Even better, you can preview( in full! )several of the stories on the book's website, which I found to be VERY informative. Gives me a few ideas for promoting my own novel, as a matter of fact… but I won't give any of those away, yet. Not while I'm waiting for the free-to-play MechWarrior Online to launch later this year… huzzah to giant mech combat action!!

March 23 - RUIN CGI

What people can do with a relatively inexpensive home PC setup nowadays blows me away sometimes. What used to cost tens of thousands of dollars ten years ago can now be done with software costing hundreds of dollars, on regular hardware bought off-the-shelf. In the case of RUIN, OddBall Animation has put together a jaw-dropping eight minutes of CGI eye-candy set in a post-apocalyptic world. With flying robots, laser-shooting missiles and nanotech samurai swords, it's a treat to watch, especially for the small touches. Prepare your eyes for awesome( BEST VIEWED FULL SCREEN ):


RUIN from OddBall Animation on Vimeo.


March 24 - Preparing to Move Out / On

Today was all about one thing: moving boxes. Moving them from our condo locker downstairs to the storage locker I've rented for a month, or two. It's all of my Stuff: things useful and not so useful. Books and dishes and small appliances and all the other things that make a place a home, as well as somewhat cluttered. It's still puzzling to me that after moving a half-dozen times in the last 4+ years I can still have so much Stuff, but I've at least whittled it down to Essentials and Nostalgia. I think I've about reached the point in my life where THIS month, April, I can go down to the storage unit, haul out a box, take a bunch of pictures of Nostalgia Stuff, and get rid of it. I probably won't even bother to sell any of it on eBay, as Nostalgia usually doesn't command a worthwhile price unless it's extremely rare or still in its original box. For the most part, I think I can condense things with only a little effort and pain on my behalf, as today I spent almost 6 hours moving those boxes from one storage to another. As I don't want to just have things SIT in storage, wherever I end up, it's going to be a process of paring down to the point where it will all fit into whatever apartment I end up in.

Along with all my books. Those, I will never part with. Though I'm trying NOT to buy more paper ones and so save space with eBooks. We'll see how that goes.

March 25 - Check. Not Mate.

I slept in today, a bit, as I was up late last night - playing chess. In NWN, of all places - Samuel has added in a module that allows players to play with animated monstrous chess pieces, with all the correct rules. Given that it was the first game of chess I've played in over ten years, I did fairly well… and I love that I was able to play a game within a game, with friends. Too bad NWN's been giving me a video stuttering problem since I installed my new video card a month ago; I'm still working on finding a solution, but for now it means the game is a real pain to play and hard on the eyes to boot. Argh.

The weather today was spectacular, so after only a couple of hours of gaming online with my Xbox, I gave my wrists a rest and headed out to Starbuck's for the afternoon with a friend. It was deliciously sunny and I spent a fair few hours there, people watching and enjoying the fact that I could sit down at an outside table and not have the metal chair singe my legs with arctic frost. I suspect in a few weeks I will be out a LOT more, as I find my muse more active to match my own activities. That would be a most welcome change!

Although I never thought it would happen, I've found myself wondering what day it was more than once in the last couple of weeks. As someone who's VERY aware of the time, I find this funny AND disturbing - it means I have to get into my writing routine ASAP, or I might find myself losing days to lassitude and laxity too often. My time is free right now, but NOT infinitely so!

Mars, Muscles and Money from the government

The word of the week is relief.

March 12 - Wrist Ouchies!!

Well, this was a first for me: I hurt my wrists this weekend… using the PC and playing Xbox. Feels like someone's kneeling on the inside of both my arms; classic Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I'll be seeing the doctor to confirm this week, but I'm doing what I need to to minimize my distress and long-term damage. Yes, I'll admit I'm worried and damn frustrated, as I have the TIME to write but as of today I can't due to the pain; twangy tendons do not a good typist make. If this is part of getting older, it sucks… and the irony of not being able to write when I have the time, as I've said, also sucks large.

Thankfully, I have technology at my disposal to help me along as I recover from my ironic irritation: voice recognition. Some time ago I purchased a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking, which allows fairly accurate and speedy speech recognition for most mundane tasks to do with text on your computer. Previous versions were fairly slow and inaccurate due to the slow computers that I was using on. My current setup is fairly speedy and seems to do the job, though I am finding I'm doing a lot of correcting as I have not used it in some time so it is overall much slower than it would be typing. But it spares my wrist. Also it is rather cool to be able to type with my voice and not have to take sips of coffee in between sentences; see the entry below!

March 13 - Nerds

Nerd or g33k? Seems in this Information Age, where gadgets are proliferating and tech has become mainstream, the Age of the Nerd has arrived. Which I'm somewhat hesitant to ascribe myself as part of, as there's still a stigma of sorts attached to being a nerd. Yet when I really think about it, what is a nerd except someone who is steeped in the wisdom and the knowledge of technology? I'll admit that being part of the mainstream is something that appeals to me, in that it's only doing what a lot of other people are doing and loving it's because tech is what I love. And there's a lot of history to being a nerd... ahem, g33k. Whatever.

Yet being a nerd doesn't exactly do wonders for your social life, though I'm finding more and more that it's not as much a matter of acceptance as of tacit indifference. Movies like Revenge Of The Nerds once showed a complete separation between those who steeped their lives in knowledge and trivia and those who simply got about living life while acknowledging their ignorance. Now after the dot-com boom and bust, we live in a world where technology follows us around in her pockets and often shapes the way we go about our daily tasks. Being part of the culture within a culture that helps define the culture as it develops is a very heady thought, don't you think? I like it.

March 14 - Finally EI!

After over a month of waiting( not the 28 days EI states... )the phone rang this morning: a woman on the other end wondered if I knew I had been approved for EI coverage? I said I didn't, she said I was. I said I was smiling like crazy, she said have a good day. And that was that. So I have coverage for the remainder of the year, thereabouts, for a comfortable amount similar to times when I wasn't working like a madman and becoming more like one each day. The EI means I can take the time I need to look for a job that will suit me, instead of one that will just hire me for a paycheque. And in the meantime, I can continue to pursue my dream of writing, chapter by chapter, with a lack of outside pressure - it's all on me now, to produce and perform, for me. Only.

 

March 15 - The Ides Of March

Today marks the day of the murder, more than two millennia ago: the death of Julius Caesar. This is referred to as the Ides of March, where famously Caesar was warned by a prophet that he would not live out the day. The fact that we remember this so long after the fact is somewhat staggering, as so much of history tends to focus on the violent rather than peaceful. Another good example is Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, which is a strange holiday in my eyes as it celebrates the almost-destruction of the UK Parliament by a liberal. Sometimes I wonder about our tendency for remembering things simply for remembrance and letting the context slide into obscurity; seems to be a failing of ours.

 

However, being famous does have its perks at least when it comes to famous persons of antiquity. Julius Caesar as much written about him when it comes to deeds done in tasks accomplished, both good and bad. I think I would rather be remembered if it came down to it the way that many of history's notable personalities have been: for what they accomplish rather than just what they were, as many of today's personalities seem to be instead. The old phrase "those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it" seems very apt in an age when nothing can be forgotten and much can be measured against the giants of the past.

March 16 - World Of Tanks

All right, I'll admit it: I love tanks! Ever since I was a little boy I love playing with model tanks, usually ones made out of metal so I could beat the crap out of them. The sense of invincibility that obtained gives to someone who commands it appeals greatly to me, though now as an adult I see that these metal dragons and the all too easily slain. Such seems to be the case with a new online game I am trying called World of Tanks which is a free to play MMO that anyone can jump in and try. Which I did, and I have to say it was fun for the first week or so, until I ran into the 'Dollar Wall', which happens with a lot of Free-To-Play games. You use up the initial credits and then have to enter into the 'grind' phase, where like every other MMO you 'kill rats' until you manage to accumulate enough gold to advance. In the case of World Of Tanks, I played with the scout tanks until I got tired of dying in EVERY battle… and had my eyes bug out when I calculated the cost of advancing if I 'bought' a few mid-range tanks. We're talking potentially hundreds of dollars here, for someone like me to go from 'newbie' to 'Wallet Warrior' via the magic of in-game purchases! It's no wonder that Free-To-Play games have taken off in popularity with publishers; they can make two or three times the retail price off their user-base and KEEP doing it as long as they control the release of new content that people can buy… to avoid killing rats. Smell a rat, do you?

March 17 - John Carter and Irish Fizzles

Today turned out to be spent mostly OUT of the house; I went out for breakfast and ended up getting back late in the afternoon, with a movie in between. That movie was John Carter( Of Mars )which I had the delight of seeing in IMAX 3D, which really brought me totally into the experience. I was completely absorbed in the film almost all the way through, as it was a grand spectacle along the lines of the greatest of adventure films. It was quite obvious that a lot of money had been spent on the special effects but they were done in such a way that they didn't draw attention to themselves, for the most part, throughout the movie. I'm disappointed that Disney didn't to the film justice by bungling the marketing, as you can tell by the lack of 'Mars' in the film's title - here's a few more reasons the film flopped at the box office. I hope it picks up in DVD sales for a sequel~!

 

Deserving special mention is the character of Dejah Thoris, whom I have to say is one of the strongest women in cinema history and before that science fiction in general. It is a great pity that her example of a strong, smart, capable woman did not carry far beyond the pages that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote due to society's views of women at the time. Lynn Collins played the character of Dejah perfectly, embodying the warrior princess who was the equal of any man yet able to accept the help of a capable stranger when fate offered her the chance.

 

As it turns out, I stayed in for St. Patricks' Day; there's few people here that I hang out with and nobody extended an invitation for tonight - so it goes. Probably for the best, as there's NO bus service to the Mountain here and last time I checked wait times were around four hours for a cab. No thanks; I'll see what I can get up for for next year and see if I can make some new memories.

March 18 - Being Me. And Phil.

Those of you who know me know that I'm not a complicated person, yet I do have my layers. Lots of layers, I do a lot of thinking about a lot of things a lot of the time; my brain is constantly making connections here, there, everywhere. Lately I've been thinking about a lot of things to do with the future: where I am going to live, what I am going to do for a living, who I might be living with - if anyone. My current situation, one that I planned over a year ago to be in, amazingly has turned out to be pretty close to what I hoped for. Where I am right now in my life and be easily examined through the camera lens of one movie: Groundhog Day. Again, those of you who know me know that this is my favorite film for many reasons and I refer to it again today for one of the simpler ones: change. Bill Murray's character is offered a chance to discover and change the things about his life that he is lacking or doesn't like. Through self-discovery and difficult process, he is able to become a better man and see more of what life has to offer him.

For myself, I am in that very same position now, minus the timewarp. I have placed myself where and when I need to be, so that I can work on discovering the better parts of myself. I have the time now for my writing, for my other searches, for my thinking and relaxing and all the things I have not allowed myself due to necessity or hardship or stress. Much like Phil in Groundhog Day, I have a lot to do to get ready for the coming Spring - I have seen my shadow and I am not afraid of it, as I know I have a lot of work to do.

 

It's been an interesting week, not being able to type or play video games... but good in that all the same. I've kept busy and with the stability that EI will provide, I can concentrate on doing what I want, what I need to do, for myself. Took me long enough to get here...

Patience, Projects and Perception

The word of the week is turmoil. 

March 5 - Soak Boats? 

When I get stressed, I used to be able to hop into the hottub in the basement; it was always ready at the right temperature and baked the bad away. How nice would it to be to have that comforting heat on the go? A company in the USA has created hottub-boats, which let you cruise around a lake in steamy style with a few friends or even solo! When I was living on Langford Lake, there was a 'mobile BBQ' platform that one homeowner puttered around the lake on with friends on weekends that I thought was pretty cool. This would have been a PERFECT compliment to that, I think… especially given that the 'fixed' hottub at that place I was renting broke down after only a few months. If the hottub was floating on a LAKE, it wouldn't have mattered if it was leaking water slowly or not!!! 

I hope my next place can have a hottub... or a jacuzzi tub. Anyway...

March 6 - Render The World? 

I mentioned that I scored a new video card for a great sub-$100 price a few weeks ago; it's been great and few of my games even come close to using most of its power. So I've been looking at other things that might harness the raw graphical horsepower sitting under the hood, so to speak; alas, only Nvidia cards can be used to do things like re-sizing videos faster( I didn't know or I might have held off buying this one, an ATI - sigh ). I did, however, find a very curious alpha program, a demo really, that in addition to using a LOT of graphical horsepower proposes something astonishing: it can render almost to scale the ENTIRE SURFACE OF A PLANET. Before you wonder why this is so mind-bending, consider Google Maps and Google Earth: they allow you to view our planet in excessive detail… but still draw on something that is already THERE. With Outerra, developers of games like Mass Effect can use the software to allow players to explore virtually limitless vistas of other planets almost on a 1:1 scale. So in effect, you CAN to wander in the mountains, the forests, anywhere you like, with NO invisible walls holding you back because the designers didn't actually build that part… 

March 7 - Still waiting? 

There's been no word from EI a month after I applied… despite their claim to process most applications within 28 days. I'm supposed to call this coming week to check on things, again, as well as checking on the Service Canada website( a few times a day ). It's frustrating, to say the very least. 

While I wait, I've been doing a lot of things, like cataloging some of my 2000 books. And going through my saved bookmarks; after editing and deleting the old / broken ones, would you believe I still have over 5000 bookmarks? That surprised me, as did FireFox when it garbled an update with the 'new' set of bookmarks that took me the rest of the night and most of the next day, on and off, to fix. Thankfully I didn't lose any of the newer sites from recent months and didn't have to re-install FireFox, but it's still a little wonky. Which simply teaches the lesson to back things up regularly( like I do )and prepare for the inevitable day when Things Go Wrong. So you don't tear out any hair. 

Ironically, this also helps when waiting for EI. 

March 8 - IKEA house? 

In a happier world, I would have been house-hunting for the last few years for a place to lay my head, obviously a smaller place as it would just be me and my small allotment of stuff. Given my lack of resources, it's not going to happen for a while, which is also fine: my main reason for wanting a place of my own is so that I don't have overly sensitive neighbours who complain about footsteps in the night while on the way to do one's business. Sheesh. 

I'm not alone in wanting a smaller place; quite a few people are seeing the advantages of having a home that is sized to YOUR needs, not that bank's idea of what someone should be buying. As with my previous blog entries about small-house companies like Tumbleweed Houses, it all depends on your budget and what sort of space needs you're willing to work with. I like the homes designed by IdeaBox, whose Activ model is furnished by IKEA for those who are really into that place of wonder; prefabs seem to fit the spot between mobile homes / RV's and traditional houses, in my opinion. Some smaller houses are still mobile, in that they can be moved from a property fairly easily if not permanently attached to a foundation. I find that flexibility appealing, as it would allow me to 'move' elsewhere without having to sell my treasured home. Unless I needed more space, in which case it would make sense to sell. Life's like that. 

March 9 - Project Kara? 

I've already spoken about video graphics above, but this deserves a special mention all its own: Project Kara from Quantic Dream. 

It's a tech demo from Sony that shows off the incredible power of the PS3 gaming console. The video shows what happens when an android is assembled in a futuristic factory… and doesn't want to be taken apart again. The incredible part is that the ENTIRE video was run solely on a PS3, meaning that this sort of technology could make it into in-game graphics, letting the player experience gameplay JUST like this - no more 'ooh, that was a pretty cutscene, but the game graphics are nowhere near that good' gripes. The emotion conveyed in this demo really pulls at you as well, have a look!

March 10 - Stressing?

It's growing in me again, the Stress Factor. Today it was worse, as I found out my plans to move nearby might not be possible until late in the summer; this means finding an alternate place has just become top priority. Which sucks, as things would have been MUCH simpler with Plan A, but as with all things: plan for the worst, hope for the best. Adding to the stress is EI dragging their feet and a lack of decent jobs for someone with my managerial skill set, so in effect I am floating in a limbo of my own frustrated desires for completion. Not good if I want to maintain my sanity, as well as my financial well-being. 

But that's life. It's still a LOT better than if I had stayed where I was at MMart, even in hindsight, so I have to keep reminding myself of that. And of the opportunities and possibilities that ARE opening to me now that I have my 'freedom' albeit one that has no income at present. I'm looking at several ideas of mine for self-employment, including freelancing, so I'll get those further fleshed out in the next several weeks as I wait for EI, KEEP looking for a job, and try to find a place to live that isn't Hell waiting in disguise… so the picture below is quite apt for my state of mind right now: 

March 11 - Borderline?

Borderlands, the game, has crept back into my life again this week and I've been quite enjoying it; as with many of my games, I never finished it originally. It's the quintessential buddy game, best played with friends and very, very rewarding. So much so that I had to rest my arms later today, they actually hurt from too much controller-gripping and mouse-use this week, which is unusual. 

Back in the day, I never owned an NES, which I've not really regretted in that I've owned so MANY other video game systems otherwise. That's meant that I never played Super Mario Brothers or quite a few other 'classic' games, so I've sort of made up the lack in finding them here and there as flash games online. Word this week reached me of a new mish-mash, made from the ground up to resemble an old NES title. It's called Mari0 and mixes Super Mario Brothers… and Portal! It's incredibly fun to play( on the PC or Mac or Linux )as it perfectly captures the old feel of the NES game while using the mechanics of Portal to give it a wholly new twist. Try it out, it's freeware!! 

Another rough weekend; it's hard maintaining a positive outlook in the face of such uncertainty, despite my own constant mental assurances that This Is The Right Path. I think it's being IN limbo that scares me the most; that I'm just passing through on the way to better things is what I have to keep reminding myself of.

Achievements, Anger and Animation

The word of the week is patience.

Feb 27 - Animation 

Growing up, I loved anything to do with animation. Disney and Don Bluth were just two of the giants that filled my childhood with fantastic visions and great adventures. Animation is the closest thing I know of to translating imagination directly into tangible form, to take ideas and make them appear magically for anyone to watch exactly as you want them to appear. Not being talented in that area, I make do with the rich imagery that words conjure in a reader's mind, yet I've always had a fascination with the world of animation.

A good friend of mine had the good fortune to become friends with one of the most talented animations of their generation: Michel Gagné. Anyone in the field of animation knows who Michel is, as his talent stands head, shoulders and knees above all others; it's just stunning to watch his work( search YouTube! ). Have a gander at his student film, fully rendered in colour with incredible effects when most of his peers struggled to animate a few frames in colour themselves. Breathtaking:



Feb 28 - Raspberry Pi( yes, there's no 'e' )

Computers are becoming ever-smaller and cheaper every year; I'll not bore with you the specifics, as Google can provide far more timely info for you than I can here. Instead, I'll just give an excellent recent example: the Raspberry Pi, produced here in Toronto and sold via a UK firm for just $35. It has 2 USB ports, an ethernet port, runs with any TV as a monitor and uses cheap SD cards as memory. It's akin to the early AppleII and C64 computers from the 80's, only a hundred times less expensive. Now anyone with lunch money can have access to a computer for whatever they wish to use it for, as it's easily programmable( not my bailiwick )and simple to use. Much like the OneLaptopPerChild and OneTabletPerChild programs, these devices are aimed at bringing computing to the masses, anywhere in the world. Amazing! 

Feb 29 - Novel Beginnings

February DID see me complete the first chapter of my novel, something that I am proud of despite the mental contortions I went through to decide where to start. I write a little of my novel every day, as well as expand the idea jar and sketch out more of the world and its characters so I can refer to the structure as I go along to ensure a cohesive whole. Parts of it are ready, waiting for me to fill in and flesh out when I get to them. Other areas are barest skeletons, where I am not quite sure what will fit and what won't, so likely I'll redo those a few times once I get other parts locked down.

I sometimes find my muse taking on a life of its own, seeing myself as an observer in the world in my head, privy to all that transpires as I rush frantically to write down the barest details to recall later as I write. This is the way my best work comes to me, I think: the characters take on a life of their own and I watch what they do with wide-eyed wonder. Having those moments makes the whole writing process worthwhile, as I feel like a privileged guest in a play first performed only for me… and then I have to be the one relating it as best I can second-hand to my readers. I can only hope I do what I saw in my head justice as I craft the words to their best effect…



March 1 - Having a life

One month since I left MMart and I can feel myself relaxing... but not too much, as I STILL haven't heard boo from EI. It's damn frustrating, biting my nails every day almost as I wait for someone in a government office to tell me that Yes, You DO Qualify for leaving a workplace that was killing you. Sure, I've planned to be off work for a few months at least while I job-search, but I am not the sort to sit around and think that lazy is the norm. I want to KNOW. So I continue to search for a job, while I wait.

Plus relax. I'm getting out for a solid walk every day, eating on a MUCH more regular schedule and just enjoying being able to choose the course of each of my days. Despite not much getting as much done as I think I should, I am still trying to get in time to read, relax and even nap( briefly )when I feel like it. With as little TV as possible, as that's just filler time as far as I'm concerned; I have hundreds of hours of TV shows on DVD that I've been converting( slowly... )that I'd rather watch than channel-surf. They represent the time that I've never had to just sit down and catch up over the last few years.

March 2 - More On Writing

The afternoon rain saw me sitting in James Bay Coffee and Books, where I met with several members of the local Victoria Writer's Group. We were there to discuss the mysteries of publishing with a local self-publisher who has helped dozens of authors realize their dreams of creating a tangible book from their hard work. Most of the questions were not directly related to fiction writers such as myself, but were more focused on the self-help and non-fiction authors. Yet seeing as this local publisher normally charges $150 an hour for consultations, her gracious offer to speak to anyone who came for the price of a tea was impossible to pass up.

What I've learned from today's meeting( and last week's )is that I am ahead of the game. I've given thought and planning to many aspects of my novel that do not occur to most writers, apparently. The discovery that my habits of thinking around a problem, researching things and planning ahead have already served to put me in the front of the pack of new authors working on their first novel is VERY heartening, to say the least. Having confirmation that my hard work being poured into my novel will NOT be in vain, that I will at least have a solid chance at getting my book out there, is steadying to me. In some ways, I am even more eager now than before to WRITE, as I can see many avenues and possibilities for getting my stories Out There and not seeing them languish in some unsold pile in the corner of a small book shop.

March 3 - A Day On The Town!

A windy but lovely day that I spent most of in Victoria, a total departure( literally )for me compared to my hermit-like habits of late. I waited in line for breakfast at The Blue Fox, a fantastic bistro restaurant whose food is beyond compare( check it out on Yelp! )and well-worth the wait in the wind. Yes, I was VERY windy today, but not so that going outside was a health hazard. After a leisurely semi-brunch, a friend and I went browsing along the shops of the downtown area... and I ended up at Russell Books, where I gave in to temptation and purchased a dozen used paperbacks, all of which I had never seen before and sorely wanted. For research, as many touched on parts of the world I am creating and refining for my novel. Research, yes, ahem. Once I had managed to tear myself away from the book shop, I finished up the day people watching in the afternoon at The Soda Shoppe, where I enjoyed a root beer as the world walked by; the place has an excellent view of the promenade in front of The Empress Hotel by the inner harbor. A lovely day.

Marred by a frustrating evening tonight playing games online, but I'll mention that later...



March 4 - Anger

Oh, how the foibles of emotion can grip you! I embarked on my usual day of gaming online with my friends, playing a pleasant hour and a bit of Borderlands with a friend( BL2 comes out in Sept, yay! )and then turning to Battlefield3... which was a mistake.

It sucked. Big time.

BF3 is the one game in my collection that (almost) drives me to smashing things with my controller; expensive things I can't afford to replace. Game after game today was a teeth-clenching anger-drenched experience, where I learned time and again that I was playing people who spent ALL their free time playing THIS game to become viciously efficient virtual killing machines.

For me, it's a short-fused line that I get dragged across, screaming in my head every time I die uselessly in the game at the hands of some UberGamer. I realize that in order to get NEAR as good as many of these BF3 gamers, I will have to dedicate some serious time to the game. To the exclusion of other games. And my writing. And my social life. Which I'm NOT willing to do. Nope.

My solution? Put the game away for the rest of the month. Go for an evening walk to clear my head and think of other things. Put on some Enya to relax and swallow down the bile that I'm Not Good Enough and I Was pwnd. Especially when I was separated from my group of friends / squadmates( cute message break here ):



I think that's what gets me; that in a very immediate, measurable way, I have been found wanting in an arena that I entered in order to enjoy myself and instead found continual frustration because my skillz aren't sharp enough to Keep Up. So I'll let the UberGamers fight each other and sit out for a while, rather than work up my blood pressure in a one-sided war with no real winners, despite the mocking glow of the online leaderboards. I'm better than that.

After putting together the blog, I managed to mellow out for the rest of the evening, which was VERY good in it's own way. I disappeared into a book and forgot all about the shallowness of online victory. Which was itself, a victory!