Magic, Movies and Merriment

The word of the week is malaise.

October 22 - The Empire Strikes Back, in PAL?

It's strange in this age of abundant information, that I still find myself surprised when I come across new information about what I loved as a child.

Back in those pre-net days, ANY source of information about Star Wars was a revelation. I read official magazines, subscribed to a few fan rags and watched every 'making of' and 'Behind the scenes' TV special I could find. I thought I'd seen everything there was to know about the original Star Wars Trilogy, but I forgot something important:

Star Wars was( and is )a global phenomenon.

Meaning that specials like this one from Holland were made and NOT SEEN by people elsewhere. This is Part One; you can click to YouTube and the list on the right should have Making EMpire(dutch)02 to show the last 5 minutes. It's damn good stuff, probably even better if you speak Dutch:

October 23 - Feedback!

It wasn't the day that had me excited: I spent most of it in two WorkBC seminars about resume's - not that exciting.

No, it was my trip to the Garrick's Head Pub in the evening that I was really looking forward to. Why?

Feedback on my novel, of course!

Talking with a friend over beers about the second draft of my novel was incredible, especially as he had a LOT of GREAT feedback to give! My ears were open and I was prepared for anything, but to hear him talk about the world and the characters I had created with such curious reverence was spectacular!

Even though he was only a hundred pages in, his comments told me that I hadn't wasted all that time writing. He knew who the characters all were, what they were up to, what the world was about, who the factions were and a myriad of other details that I had woven together into what I hoped was a good story. 

As we talked, I had to fight to keep an idiotic smile off my face, as most every word lifted me to new heights of authorial bliss. I felt my worries about the story being derivative or too complex melting away and I felt, for the first time, the glow that someone feels when they've done the best job they are capable of... and they are told that not in words, but in the satisfied smiles of people reading their work.

I barely felt the sidewalk under my feet as I walked home late - I was lifted by the wings of my story.

October 24 - Detached Dreams

I have never dreamed of love.

It's odd. My dreams are not like other people's, from what I've heard when the subject comes up. I don't have nightmares, for one, not since I was a very small boy. I decided then that I didn't like nightmares and ever since I've been free of those terrors. It's not lucid dreaming per se, as I don't manifest control in my dreams that I'm aware of... but I haven't woken in a terrified sweat for many decades now.

But love? Never. I dream of places, of people, of weird and fantastic worlds mixed in with twists on the mundane, but much like nightmares, love doesn't enter my dreams.

That bothers me on some level, as I can't discern a reason for it. Maybe my subconscious sees it as more of an abstract, as I've never really experienced a 'love event' in my life, so it doesn't know how to manifest one in a dream - save in a surreal, movie-like manner. Maybe it's the intellectual longing I feel, in that the minds I try to connect to in my dreams are far more important than their physical forms. Yet I do dream of beauty, in all its forms... yet nothing in a form I know has a heart I can touch.

October 25 - Friendship

I thought I'd share a little of my thoughts this week, that have percolated up through the muse of my mind.

For whatever reason, friendship has been on my thoughts of late. To me, there are three stages of friendships that form, best illustrated by school, of all things.

In grade school, friendships form honestly. Kids find each other without pretense, stating their interests and likes and hanging around with others who share the same. Friendships formed at this age, to me, seem like those that are the most lasting, as you are basing them on your true self before the world has much of a say in shaping you.

High school introduces a whole slew of factors, much of a different world than before. Here, people learn to bias themselves, stating a whole slew of dislikes and adjusting their social world accordingly. Sadly, I think this is the worst time to make friends, in that so few people can fit inside these self-formed blinders. If you do make lasting friends at this age, you may find that later in life you don't share too many things in common.

University almost hearkens back to grade school, in that honesty comes back into play again. Yet it is tempered by knowledge and the hopefully- developed ability to discern what people are about, underneath their public faces. Shared interests tempered by the desire for honesty AND the ability to see such for the truth mean that friendships formed at this stage of your life are fairly lasting, in the main.

There you have it. As I'm not well-versed on forming friendships outside of work, I won't speak on that... life after university for me was very, very challenging for me personally and so perhaps I've missed out on another stage of friendship. Yet I could be in the middle of another one, so stay tuned - life is always evolving and changing, just like you.

October 26 - Clouded Atlas?

Quite honestly, whatever else I did today didn't matter: tonight was the premier of Cloud Atlas!

Not having read the book ahead of time( on purpose ), I went into the film with an open mind. Three hours later, I walked out with mixed feelings, which is odd for seeing it on an IMAX screen.

I didn't dislike the film, let's be clear on that. But neither was I overwhelmed with it... I think a lot of other people thought it was too long or too complex, but those weren't issues for me. No, I liked the complex plotlines, the multiple characters, the widely varied settings and the twisting dialogue. All together though, it didn't add up to something that was life-changing, or even Very Impressive.

I think the best praise I can give to the film is that I will get it on DVD( or BluRay )and watch it carefully, to get ALL the subtle details I glimpsed in the theatre. Being someone who can process a lot of visual information, there's a lot buried in the film that I believe will make it a better viewing the second time around. And you don't have a pause button in the theatre, so there's something to be said for that.

October 27 - Party Time!

It was a funny day that dragged in parts and hopped by in others. I played some BL2 but had to stop as my wrists were hurting more than they should, so I took a brief break and went to Moka House that turned into a good two hours sitting on the patio. Which was great, as the glass roof and the heaters made the sunless gloom of pouring rain into an enchanting experience of watching water wash the world over the top of a steaming pot of tea. Lovely.

The evening saw me head out for a Halloween party, arriving a half-hour early so I could help with the party setup( unasked; I like to do that sort of thing ). Turns out that people didn't start showing up for another hour AFTER that, so I spent the time very pleasantly getting to know the hosts. Once people started arriving( all of us in costume )things really took off and by 9pm nearly two dozen people were packed into the stylish apartment near Oak Bay, My costume was a hit, alternately creeping people out and impressing them:

This is the least creepy photo of my costume I could find.

I billed myself as a 'World Of Warcraft Reject' which apparently went over so well that I won Funniest Costume - go figure! Other people told me that it was the scariest costume there and I had to agree; the mask disturbs me even under bright light. I do feel bad that it was essentially the same costume that I wore five years ago, but needs must: this year I've had no money to spend and quite frankly with no budget and nowhere to go to, I had no incentive to 'make' anything. But getting the invitation this week from Merrie meant I had a blast tonight; walking home in full costume was awkward but SO worth it... at least two people crossed the street when they saw me coming.

Happy Early Halloween, Victoria!

October 28 - Magic Malaise

As the people upstairs didn't bang things around until well after 1am like Saturday  I actually slept fairly well. But I still found myself slogging around for half the day with no energy, likely due to the lack of sunshine, so-so diet( I need more fruit and veggies! )and a general malaise that's set in from Not Being Employed.

It's really strange, but if you give me free time, I don't want it in more than two-week chunks. Sure, there's a lot I COULD be doing while I am 'free' from a job, but being the person I am, I feel compelled to do ALL that I can to GET back to work. I don't liken it to being lazy... it's more like that whatever I'm doing seems less important than finding work. Transferring my DVD's onto my PC or scanning my book collection into GoodReads sound like great ideas, but I get a few minutes in and I have to stop because of that feeling. I suppose it's drive, of a sort, but it's stopping me from 'enjoying my vacation from work' if you want to put it that way. Which really, when you think about it, has only been since October 14th 2012, as I was decompressing from MMart, dealing with my arm injury, moving from Langford and writing my novel( first AND second draft )since 

Feb 1st 2012 - rather busy, wouldn't you say?

So tonight, I took my friend Merrie( a former co-worker )up on her offer to head to her place, where her boyfriend and some other nice folk were having a friendly game of Magic: The Gathering. I'd given my cards all away back when I moved to BC( they were incredibly outdated and very basic anyway )so I had to try to pick up things again with a loaner deck.

Which I did with a vengeance! I won my first game through good card draws and bad ones for my opponents, which felt great. The second game I played as a member of a pair, which saw us lose to an 'undead' deck rather quickly. Spending hours and hours each week building decks was never my thing back in university and though I saw its effectiveness tonight, I'm not inclined to go out and start picking up Magic cards. I wasn't back then either; I'm much more about the social aspect of a gathering than about winning or losing. After two games, I spent the rest of the eve helping to carve a pumpkin into the likeness of Jack Skellington, which turned out great! The secret? Let someone else handle the details with a sharp knife AND light the semi-finished carving from inside with a bright light to get the final details perfect. I'll post a pic of it next week, I hope!

For some weird, unknown reason, my FireFox has stopped working - it just won't start. Seeing as I've had it customized just the way I like it, this is intensely frustrating. I'm going to have to fight with it this week and I sincerely hope that I don't have to lose all my information and customization by rein stalling it. For now, Chrome is making do... but oh, it does NOT like too many open tabs!

SIM cards, Silence and Job Searching

The word of the week is  persnickety.

October 15 - What a day…

Urk. I spent a lot of yesterday and most of today finishing critiques of five chapters of writing for my writer's group. The other three authors in my group are very talented and I feel VERY grateful to be able to meet once a month to get my own work critiqued by them. Which means I put a LOT of effort into going over their work to find things they can use to improve it, if they want to use my notes. But it meant that by the time today was over, I was very VERY tired; if yesterday was a blur, then today was just one long page of writing that had my head hitting the pillow at the end. Very simple, really.

So let's go and compare my four-month novel-writing marathon with a couple of folks with similar dedication, who built… the Batcave - out of Lego. It took Wayne and Carlyle a total of 800 hours over three months and here's what they had to say:

This project marks the first collaborative build between Carlyle and Wayne, with several more queued for future development. The features of this build include the Cave itself with what we think is the most “cave-ish” cave ever constructed. Added to that we have an operating turntable for the Batmobile, a moving costume/weapons selection wall and the BatPlane Lift. Surrounding all of this is the remarkable lighting effects that bring our BatCave to life.

The photos are incredible; have a look at them all over onFlickr, they'll blow your mind!

October 16 - Tech and Me

My sister made an astute comment the other day: tech and I don't seem to get along. After some consideration, I have to say that I think she might be onto something. Case in point: the new PVR external drive I've installed is… persnickety. I have to turn off the PVR a few times a day to keep it happy, otherwise it starts 'skipping' after live-recording a channel for too many hours in a row; weird. 

Another case: my new Samsung Galaxy III keeps 'losing' the phone part of the phone. If I don't reboot it at least once a day, people will call and go directly to my voicemail. I've tried to replicate the issue and can't, which is strange from a technical point of view. Right now I'm looking to see if perhaps a WiFi app or two might be causing the issue, which if the case means it will be fixed if I uninstall them. Having to keep checking to see if my phone's connected to Telus network is really strange and if it persists for more than a week, I'll have to bite the bullet and sit on hold with Telus support for a few hours to see if they can diagnose anything. Worst case scenario is to exchange the phone, which isn't a really great thought as I really like it. More than the Motorola RAZR HD LTE that came in the mail today.

Did I mention that? Yes indeedy: UPS buzzed at the door this morning and dropped off my prize! It's a very cool phone, almost identical in specs to the SIII but heavier and with less RAM, as well as missing a few of the 'human interface' features of the SIII. But: the back's made of freakin' KEVLAR! I'm going to think it over this week and decide if I'm going to keep it or not. The Kevlar feels like braided smooth rubber, which is easy to grip, as well as adding strength and durability to the phone. We'll see!

October 17 - The Sound Of Cylons

We did some interesting things in Grades 4,5 and 6 of my enrichment classes. Some of the projects I remember vividly, like The Hobbit study we did that I've mentioned previously. We also studied some popular songs, classics in their own right: one such was 'The Sound of Silence' by Simon & Garfunkel. At that stage of my life, music was a strange and wonderful thing for me. It was something that I couldn’t produce on my own save for the vaguest attempts on a piano and a flute, neither of which went nowhere despite the valiant efforts of my late grandmother who spent years trying to help my fingers dance on their own but to no avail.

'The Sound of Silence' stuck with me though and I've always loved the many facets of the song. The rhythm, the words and the thoughts that are associated with the melody all speak to me on many levels. That's why I enjoyed the riff on the tune below, which I think my ten-year-old self would also have liked:

I think 'sound' is a good word for today, as the people upstairs spent ALL day moving things around( and OUT, I hope! ), meaning I spent the whole day under headphones - with a headache, to boot. I did get out in the AM for a nice walk to Thrifty's for some healthy foodstuffs, before the rain set in for the rest of the day. It's been raining a LOT here for the last week, which I hope means Mama Nature's getting it out of her system and we'll see some clear, cool days fairly soon.

October 18 - Still Not Working

There's been no news on the job front.

I've applied at a few places, and heard zero back. Not a peep.

With my next few resume`s I am trying to get enough info to target the cover letters, so I can hopefully get a callback from someone. This was covered as 'just part of the process' at WorkBC, as in 'you will send out a LOT of resume`s and get FEW calls back, expect it' but it still stinks. Having a FBook account and a LinkedIn profile will help, but so far they're not paying dividends in terms of leads. Yet.

Just a couple of months to go and my EI's done, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to have ZERO callbacks in the last three months of applications - that's very hard to take.

Looking at freelance work, there's a LOT of competition for writing, with not-so-great pay and LOTS of typing. That's not a road I want to have to depend on for a living, at this stage of my life.

So for now, it's just back to searching with my ear to the ground and getting out there. Someone will bite soon, and I hope it's a keeper…

October 19 - ebay v2.0? 

I used to shop a lot on eBay, back in the day. Finding things I'd forgotten about or trying to find a deal were my two main go-to's for the site, over the years. But things change and after moving to BC, I've visited less and less, to the point where now I go there to find a few things I KNOW I can get at a better price than local shops. Like toner for my printer, or specialized cables of various kinds.

Today ebay announced that they're reinventing themselves and I'm glad to hear it, though not for the reasons you'd think. Sure, ebay wants to keep making a profit and stay in business, but I think they're on the cusp of something new: the release of ownership. Akin to such sites as FreeCycle.com, the concept of owning things becomes moot when your need for them ends, thus necessitating moving them on. This used to mean having a garage sale once a year or just throwing them out, but now sites like eBay allow people to connect with other people who have a need for the things you're no longer using. The best part is that the items aren't wasted AND the people purchasing them usually get them at a discount.

For me, the new ebay will be an interesting place to browse, but I'm no longer a regular shopper. I'm reducing what's taking up space in my home and if I do go back, it will be to sell things, not to buy.

October 20 - Handwriting? What's that?

I'll be the first to admit it: my handwriting is terrible. My letters are cramped, oddly-spaced and inconsistent from one line to the next, wobbling across the page like a drunken alphabet soup. To this day, I'm always correcting and fixing little 'oopsies' whenever I write with a pen, and it bothers me.

But does it matter in this electronic age?

Author Philip Hensher seems to think so. In his book The Missing Ink, he writes:

"Handwriting is what registers our individuality and the mark which our culture has made on us. It is the key to our souls and our innermost nature."

He makes quite a few good points and I recommend reading the full article if you're at all interested in pondering the place handwriting has in our increasingly digital age. For myself, handwriting tends to be the poor stepchild to my electronic post-its, relegated to short to-do lists or notes left on the fridge. I actually can't remember the last time I hand-wrote a letter to anyone.

This past weekend, making the notes on each of the chapters for my critique group, I was again reminded of how awkward my writing is and how much my hand aches as I press the pen like a bludgeon into the page. I have to constantly catch myself to keep the pressure light and not bend the pens as I struggle along with the letters… and I think to myself: when will this all go away? As Hensher says:

"Though it would make no sense to give up the clarity and authority of print which is available to anyone with a keyboard, to continue to diminish the place of the handwritten in our lives is to diminish, in a small but real way, our humanity."

That, I can tell you, will be a day to write about. For good or bad.

October 21 - It WAS free, but…

Yesterday I spent a little while on the phone with Telus, then Rogers. The first was to get my SIII working happily again with the network; as I'd mentioned, it would just 'lose' the ability to see Telus and thus not receive phone calls. After some diagnostics and tweaks today, it seems to be MUCH better!

The call to Rogers was about my new RAZR HD LTE phone, which was supposed to be able to simply take my SIM card from my SIII and work, according to two different Telus reps. Nope. When I put the SIM in, I found to my annoyance that my prize from Motorola is LOCKED - WTH is with that??? So on Monday I'll have to call Motorola and ask them why they send me a contest prize that is LOCKED… that's NOT cool.

While I was out and about this weekend, I had a look at Halloween costumes. Two of them caught my eye, but I wasn't impressed at the prices. Of the two shown above, the 'Dark Prince' with the shiny fake-foam armour was $60+tax and the 'Knight' was only $30… but neither of the costumes were of such materials they'd last beyond one or two nights of wear. For the price, I'd rather just roll my own… and considering that the Cobra Commander costume I desired from last year has SKYROCKETED in price to over $100 anywhere online, I won't be going down THAT nostalgic road anytime soon unless I again make my own, like this guy. He really hit it out of the park:

Maybe I'll just go as a pillowcase ghost this year… or maybe one of these:

Less than a week to go until I see Cloud Atlas at the IMAX and go to a Halloween party - stay tuned!

Submissions, Support and Special Mentions

The word of the week is submission.

October 8 - Guess what I did ALL WEEK LONG?

I'll be honest with you: I've spent the whole of this week editing my novel. Today's entry is a heads-up, as there was little that was exciting or non-novel-related went on this week. Really.

Every single day, I've been up at 7am, in my comfy couch-chair at 8am and editing until at least 10pm at night.

I begrudged myself time to eat lunch or dinner or take a 10-minute sanity break every hour or two. Those were necessary, to keep me focused and to let my brain have a 'processing break' to help the story stay in perspective. Which worked; I came back at it every time with a happy will, working to grind a fine edge onto the tale to make it as perfect as possible.

That's about it… but it's all part of reaching the goal, so read on….

October 9 - Borderlands2 Is Extra Awesome Today

I'm fairly excited to be able to get back to playing Borderlands2 later this month, once I finish editing the second draft of my novel. AND I've been able to give my aching, burning, taut-as-wires wrists a VERY thorough R-and-R period first. BL2 is all that the first Borderlands was, times ten, in my opinion. More of all that you love and lots of things you didn't know you'd love, but once you see them, you're hooked.

Also today: the Mechromancer was released, which is a fifth class for BL2. It may not seem like much, but it's a class designed for people who can't shoot straight - JUST LIKE ME! I was over the moon when I heard about it and I'm VERY excited to get to play it soon. It's a double- excitement BL2 October for me!

Borderlands2 - Gaige the Necromancer and DeathTrap

October 10 - HK from The Terminator is REAL!

I love scale models. I also love scifi. I'm no good at one, but getting better at the other. When you combine the two, I'm in heaven. Somewhere out there, someone who's also really, really good at that one thing decided to build a REAL FLYING HK from the Terminator movies! Watch the video below and be amazed… the best part is right at the end - the thing has LIGHTS!

October 11 - That cheque is for HOW much??

As some of you know, I used to spend a good part of my day cashing cheques for people as a living. I've seen a LOT of different kind of cheques, both good and bad, large and small.

However, I've NEVER heard of ANY cheque as large as the one recently received by Allen Smith, a 22-year old college student in the USA. It was a regular monthly cheque, received as assistance for his tuition costs.

The one this month was for… 690 MILLION US DOLLARS.

The best part? He returned it ASAP.

Obviously, there's no bank in the USA( or likely anywhere else )that would be able to cash that cheque. Considering the hoops I had to go through when cashing cheuqes of somewhat smaller amounts than that, I think he realized right away there was nothing he could do but take a picture of himself posing with it, then do the right thing.

However, you still have to wonder: how could something like that get PRINTED in the first place?

October 12 - Almost Tragedy Averted in 2012

A year ago today, I almost lost my mother to blood clots. And overwork, on my part.

You can have a look at my blog entry for that week - it's the day highlighted all in Red.

It was a watershed day for me, in several ways. First and by far most importantly, I realized how close( and how easily )I almost lost my mother. I'm close to all my immediate family and to have one of them taken from me due to the simple fact I wasn't close enough to get her to the hospital for a 'non-emergency' that turned out to be anything BUT… was shocking.

Second, I realized how insidious my job at MMart had become. That I was so INCREDIBLY fortunate to have my mother's emergency happen on the SINGLE day off I had in over a month showed how overworked I was. It was then that I realized I had to leave MMart, ASAP, to keep not only MYSELF healthy, but my FAMILY.

Thirdly, and I didn't realize this until earlier this year: without my mother, I wouldn't have been able to write my first novel as quickly, efficiently or as well as I did. PERIOD. If I do manage to make a career out of writing, it will because of the massive support and belief in me that she's given.

So every year, my family and I will celebrate 'MomsGiving', to celebrate and give thanks that my mother is still with us today, when all the odds then said she shouldn't have been.

Love ya, Mom. :-)

October 13 - Lucky Day! My Novel is SUBMITTED!

I finished the second draft of my novel today, at 5:05pm PST and submitted it to Harper-Voyager 30 minutes after that. Eleven days of working 12-14 hours a day culminated tonight in my relieved happiness. It's my first novel and first submission for possible publication, so while they're looking for ebooks only, it's still a start on the road to becoming a published author.

However, I'm not going in all starry-eyed: some authors have posted that the call for submissions by Harper-Voyager isn't a good idea in some ways. I'm well aware that I'm inexperienced, that I don't know the publishing business all that well. I have friends that do and I'll be sure to check with them if I do end up getting my novel accepted by this publisher, at any level. So we'll see what happens in less than three months, which is how long the published had posted that it would take to get back to people.

Though it's the size of a phone book, it's MUCH better reading!

In the meantime, here's why I think my second draft is MUCH better than the first:

- I finished it ON TIME! ( and I finished the first one EARLY! )
- I'm HAPPY with it, from prologue to ending
- I'm STILL enjoying reading it, despite being the one who WROTE it!
- It's TWICE as good a story as the first; all the bits tie tightly together now
- I spent 12-14hrs a day for 10 days editing and I enjoyed every MINUTE of it
- I submitted it to a publisher, the FIRST of my works that I can say that about!
- The characters are now so well-developed that they practically wrote themselves
- While I was editing it, ideas flowed so fast that I now have TWO MORE books sketched out!
- I added 15 pages, cut over twice that and still ended up with a smooth story flow
- I don't feel that I have to do a THIRD draft QUITE yet, as this is as good as I can make it without seeking professional help( editorial or possibly psychiatric, if I try ). ;-)

Now I'm going to take a break from writing for a while, and just job hunt.

Not excluding writing jobs, either. :-)

SPECIAL MENTION:

Immediately after I submitted my novel, I spent a few hours attending an online tournament celebrating the 2nd Anniversary of AoN with my friends. I was knocked out early, which is actually when the fun REALLY started: I spent the rest of the tourney being an Announcer Extraordinaire - I was on fire, verbally! So many witty observations came out of my keyboard that I was laughing continuously by the end and so was everyone else. I had an amazing time and I think I helped everyone else to really enjoy themselves too, which is what it's all about. Wonderful!

October 14 - Stepping out

The people upstairs woke me before 8am today( a Sunday )but I didn't mind.

It's probably the last time they'll do that. They've been thumping and crashing since Friday, the sweet sounds of boxes and furniture being moved out of the apartment. They were at it until well after 12am last night, but I didn't care… the sounds of them leaving lulled me to sleep with a smile, for a change.

Speaking of leaving, Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a balloon gondola today from the edge of space today, 39km up…. and survived without a scratch! I watched it live at around 11am today… or tried to. 

Watch that first step...

The feed from the sponsor's website never actually WENT live, so I was flipping back from the TV to my FBook news feed, which is where I heard he'd jumped… AND later on landed safely. So much for technology being able to take on history-making events live without fail. Ah well… at least I knew it was happening AS it was happening, which is something. 

Up next for Felix? Settling down and not scaring his girlfriend with any more hazards like today's. I think that’s a good plan, as it'd be hard to top the last one!

Wow, am I tired… I haven't been this worn out since, well… since I was working 60-hour weeks at MMart this time last year -there's symmetry for you, eh? I imagine I'll still be getting up at 7am for the forseeable future, as it's just too hard to sleep past that around here, regardless. But I think for the next while I'll try to take a few more naps, just to try to get some balance back in my energy levels. See you all next week!