“Is that the guy from the hive thing?”
“‘Every sci fi show has a hive of some kind. Â Can you narrow that down for me?”
Overheard on a recent visit to friends, Silicon Valley geek edition
November 18, 2009 by
“You know, as we were driving up to your house, we almost couldn’t find your exit?”
“Really?”
“Yeah – it’s 404.”
…
…
groan.
In case there was any doubt…
October 25, 2009 by
…yes, I may be officially crazy.
Because, in addition to my commitments at school, work, and home, I seem to have helped craft a new writing project idea for November. Â You may have heard of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Â The idea behind this is kind of crazy, kind of compelling: write a novel-length piece of prose in the 30 days of November. Â Conceptually, I can see how this might get me past my, “I want to write a novel-length piece of prose, but what if it’s crap?” problem. Â Because the idea isn’t to write a good novel, just something that is that long. Â Once convinced of your idea that yes, you can string that many words together about one story, perhaps then you can get out of your own way and proceed crafting something of a decent quality.
It may work, it may not – but I do have one friend who turned the concept into a book contract. Â There are probably others.
But procrastinating about writing is more than a common occurrence – it’s a cliche. Â So many of us who like to write, like stories, like to read, and want to tell our own stories end up putting it off indefinitely. Â Thus it is so that I have about a zillion pieces of ideas around a novel-length piece of prose and have only committed a few of them to pixels. Â The rest of those ideas keep rolling around in my head like laundry on an endless tumble-dry, going nowhere. Â Perhaps shrinking. Â Perhaps I’m letting this metaphor get out of hand.
Enter an idea that sort of bounced around among Rana of Frogs and Ravens, Amanda of Household Opera, and me: NoNaShoStoWriMo, or Not-National Short Story Writing Month. Â Instead of committing to a 50,000 words in the next month, we’re shooting for the more modest, achievable goal of about 7,500 words. Â I’ve decided to use the ideas/concepts that have been doing the tumbling and spinning and see where I get with it – perhaps that will get me enough of a start so I can use it as a springboard to an actual long-format work.
Anyone with us?
ETA:
And yes, the name does sound like something in Judoon, for all you Doctor Who fans…
Oh, for crying out loud
October 23, 2009 by
Color me cautiously intrigued
October 21, 2009 by
I was pretty jazzed about the Kindle when it first came out. Â Sitting here as a Metro commuter at the halfway point in my second graduate degree, just the idea of not having to lug a bunch of textbooks is enough to get me at least mildly excited about the prospects of e-readers. Â However, then there was a bit of disillusionment with how the device’s accounts were handled. And then more with how content was handled, add that to the fact that there’s no native PDF support (a lot of my reading these days is pdf downloads of journal articles), a few other irritations, and… no thanks.
So I’m mildly intrigued by the prospects of Barnes and Noble’s “Nook:”
- Multi-format support? Â Check
- Native PDF support? Â Yep.
- Ability to lend to other e-reader owners? Â Uh-huh.
- WiFi downloads? Â Yessir.
- Touch-sensitive navigation? Â I do love my iPhone.
- Ability to peruse entire volumes (inside a B&N store, but still)? Â Interesting.
All in all, this has me thinking, “Well – sometimes people give me B&N gift certificates for Christmas…” Â Because it looks like B&N is actually looking at the behavior of real readers and designing a product that has a lot more potential to accommodate the way they think and behave.
He’s a magic man…
October 18, 2009 by
I got a Wii console for my 40th birthday – because though I may be 40, inside I am 12. Â I generally use it to work out (EA Sports Fitness – though occasionally glitchy – is surprisingly intense), though I did get sucked into “World of Goo” on a friend’s recommendation. Â Other than that, we only have the sports game that came with the console. Â We had a party recently for my school colleagues, and the Wii was the hit of the party. Â There is something about the game that seems to bring out the positive, encouraging side of people. Â Miss a hit in baseball? Â Nobody jeers. Â Instead, cries of “You wuz ROBBED!” ring out, even from the opposing side.
As someone who really hates what my mother calls the “nyah nyahs,” I have been surprised to witness this sort of behavior. Â Life has taught me more often that games where there are winners and losers are just… well, nasty.
Even John, who doesn’t really like video games, likes to play Wii. Â Well, he likes to play Wii Bowling. Â Since we are both New England kids, I usually respond to his, “Wanna bowl?” with, “Yeah – ya gonna take me bowlin’ an’ buy me a beah?” Â We’re pretty well matched and the usual score is close. Â But I found out today that John, well… he’s a magical Wii bowler. Â He ran upstairs to do something when I was playing my turn, and his turn came before he had returned. Â Suddenly, his figure went live, and I watched his Mii bowl a perfect strike. Â Moments later, he ran downstairs and said, “How’d I do?” Â He had brought his controller upstairs with him and heard it “ding.” Â So he played his turn blind. Â From upstairs.
Magic, I tell you.
(He smoked me that game by over 30 points.)
“I’m not dead yet.”
October 12, 2009 by
Just tired and uncreative at the moment. Â I’ve had no odd or awkward encounters on Metro, no epiphanies, no humorous anecdotes about life with the librarian and our zoo. Â Just a lot of head-down, straight ahead life stuff.
Sorry. Â More later. Â Promise. Â I haven’t given up on blogging, but right now the work/school/life thing is kind of kicking my ass.
“Name some towns in New Jersey quick!”
October 3, 2009 by
Little did I know when I wrote “The Third Bird Carnival” that John had never read any Thurber. Â I promised him this morning that I would attempt to rectify that, since Thurber makes perfect reading-aloud material. Â We used to read aloud during dinner preparation when I was growing up. Â Humorists like James Thurber and Patrick McManus are both perfect and hazardous for such endeavors. Â Perfect in that they are short, dramatic, and engaging. Â Hazardous in that they are funny enough to render the reader mute with laughter, leaving the listener stranded waiting for whatever made the reader paralyzed.
Having read “The Night the Bed Fell” and “More Alarms at Night” to John as he wrestled with a chicken, we may now have a new or recycled household habit. Â Not to mention, a new catchphrase: “Name some towns in New Jersey quick!”
Is it just me?
September 14, 2009 by
Or is there an entire Ph.D. thesis to be wrested from the use of possessives in Season 2 of True Blood?