Tag Archives: life

general posts about my life

The Bubble in a graph

Here in a single graphic is the best illustration of what has happened the American economy over the last two years.

It also to me speaks to the folly of the wise man. Bankers, Wall Street, and Government itself had this data and yet they all continued to play in the market expecting the prices to rise without end.

There are those who want to  primarily blame the government. Both regulation and de-regualtion played a part.

There are those who want to primarily blame the banks. Certainly they sold mortgages to people who could not afford them and then  offloaded the risk on to other.

There are those who want to primarily blame the debtors, for foolishly  buying house they could not afford.

All are right and all share the blame, be we also have a cultural attitude that things can be had for free. That there is not a price to pay for things in life, and that is a culprit here as well. That is a problem we cannot fix with regulations or low taxes. I sometimes fear we will not fix it at all.

Share

A very pleasant day

Yesterday My friend, Gail Carriger, was in town to promote her third book, Blameless. (A NYT Bestseller I might add.) She had a signing event at the local speciality bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy. There was tea, biscuits, (Cookies to use Americans) and quite a crowd of fans. I and my sweetie-wife had a particularly good time listening to Gail take questions and read from her firs book in the series. (Soulless.)

Afterwards we three had dinner at Khyber Pass a local Afgan restaurant.  (My sweetie-wife and I have been there before and I adore the food.) Then we came back to our condo and taught Gail to play one of silly dice games, but I think she enjoyed it.

All in all I had a very good day yesterday.

Share

I have never been to Vegas

Since 1982 I have lived here in San Diego, but I have never taken a weekend in Las Vegas. Principally because that sport of activities that ones goes to Vegas to find do not interest me.

I have never been a gambler and I do know know the game well enough to make me anything other than a mark.

However, next month I am taking a weekend in Las Vegas. I’m going to do two things I have always wanted to do.

First, I am going to catch a show by a singer I like. (Sheena Easton. I like 80’s Pop so sue me.)

Secondly, I am going to go to a firing range and by rental, fire a machine gun. I have shot a number of different firearms over the years. (Owned two for  short while but I am not a collector and I wisely sold them off.) Living in California means I live in one of the most gun-controled states of the union so I could never get the chance to fire a fully automatic weapons here. Nevada is a different story. Frankly if for no other reason than to write about them more competently, I would do this, but  I want to do it as well.

I have made the room reservations and now I only wait to find out if a friend I asked along can go. (It’s really up to how much work he will have. I do hope he can come, such things should be more fun in groups.)

Share

Guess it’s good we moved here.

So today while my mind was less then engaged at work I kept turning over a scene I need to write for Cawdor. The scene was born out of a need to establish elements properly before they become essential later on in the story. However a scene that does nothing but establish is dull and without life. It’s better to turn it into a narrative bit, but I did not want to do that. So, I was stuck. How could I find some conflict in the nature of the two characters that furthered the plot and did not force either character into a falseness that would render the scene hollow?

Today when I got home from work my sweetie-wife and I went to the gym in our Condo complex and I got on the treadmill to start building up my endurance again. (I had been doing pretty well until the sneeze over the July 4th weekend wounded me.) So I set out to do a brisk mile on the treadmill. (Brisk walk, not a jog. Not with these arthritic knees.)

About seven minutes into my set I realized how to fix the scene. I found the conflict, I found what both characters wanted and why it was in opposition and I even found the best point of view to write it from. I turned to my sweetie-wife and proclaimed that this treadmill was the treadmill of plot, because more time than not, when I used it I solved some tricky bit of plotting.

Share

A successful night

Tonight was the third meeting of the Mysterious Galaxy Writers Support Group. We have not had a large die-off yet and I think perhaps we may not. In fact we picked up two new members tonight. (One is currently writing a collection of Orcish poetry. He read a few and we all really enjoyed them.)

For the first time ever I read out-loud a piece of my own work. I have workshopped stuff before, but I have never stood and read. Yesh I stammered and barely got through it all. (I only read five pages — we have a time limit otherwise I would be there still.)

My work was well received and I was quite happy for that. I also got some really good feedback on where it was weak, and since this is the opening of the story that is important.

Share

Monday Monday

‘Can’t stand that day.’

Seems to be an off Monday all around. I have been having one and off headaches, while my sweetie-wife has been suffering from migraines.

I have managed to edit a chapter and a half tonight. (Typing in the edits is a fairly brainless job, as the hard calls were made when I put the changes down on the manuscript with ink and paper.) I have two new scenes to write for Chapter 7, but they will have wait for my faculties to improve.

As it stands I am about a third of the way through and I haven’t burned the manuscript yet.

Share

Musing on Marriage

Continuing off from the recent court ruling on marriage I have a few questions for people who feel that the ruling was in error.

Do you feel that marriage is a fundamental albeit unenumerated right or is it a privilege of government?

If you feel it is a fundamental right, who sort of reasonable restrictions can the state place upon it before the government has overstepped its bounds and intrudes in the exercise of that fundamental right?

Can the State restrict marriage to only mixed-gender couples that are fertile? Force infertile people to substitute a civil union for their marriage?

Can the State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same political party affiliation?

Can the State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same race? (Yes, Loving vs West Virginia said no the state cannot, but you might feel that was another example of judicial tyranny.)

Can that State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same religious preferences?

For my own opinion marriage IS a fundamental right, though it is unenumerated in the US Constitution. Any of the above restrictions are infringements on the exercise of that right, as is the restriction that it can only be practiced by mixed-gender couples.

Share

Glorious Sleep

So today they came and took away the blowers and the heaters (And part of the wall and the ceiling as well.) So hopefully tonight I will be able to sleep properly.

I have had a headache of some kind or another for two days now — perhaps three it is hard to tell — and I hope that a good night’s sleep will put me back in the right.

Share

A bygone age

Last night I did not video game as late as usual because I was suffering from pulled muscles that made sitting forward uncomfortable. I ended up surfing the channels on my TV looking for something to watch while I waited to unwind and get ready for bed.
On TCM (Turner Classic Movies) I spotted something that could have been a low-budget horror film from the late 50’s or early 60’s, but alas it was what looked a murder mystery. (Turns out to have been Girls On The Loose)

For the first time in years I thought about my Saturday night as an adolescent in Ft. Pierce Florida. Every Saturday night at 11 pm the local TV station would start Creature Feature. A double bill of horror and genre films that would play into the early morning hours.

I saw many an entertaining movie late Saturday night with a bowl of popcorn by my side. It was on Creature Feature that I first saw many classic movies such as The Creature From The Black Lagoon and quite a few of the Roger Corman ‘Poe’ Movies from the sixties.

Those days are gone. Late night TV now is a collection of infomercials — one of the sins of the Reagan era — and second rate TV shows. There isn’t much in the way of a Creature Feature with classic and cheesy movies I haven’t seen before. Now I know that we have DVD, Blu-ray, Movies on Demand, and Instant View movies on Netflix and I utilize all of those in my movie watching habits, but there is a real shortfall in this aspect of home video. It only shows me movies I have asked it to show me.

I never get surprised or exposed to a new movie this way because I search out the films I want to rent, buy, or view. Oh there is the occasional that I find by surfing the sites or rarely one that is recommended to me by the software actually looks interesting, but this is a different dynamic than the Creature Feature.

Every Saturday night I would lay back on the couch, the rest of the house asleep, and I was watch a genre movie. I usually knew no more than that when the features started. It was genre and that was enough to spark an interest. Sometimes the movies would be so bad or dull I would go to be, most of the time the movies were forgettable and have now been forgotten, but occasionally the movies would leave an impression that echoed through the decades.

I remember watching Planet Of Vampires on Creature Feature, a stylistic though flawed Italian SF movie. Years later I found it on DVD and bought it for a friend. We watched the film and man the makers of Alien were clearly influenced by this movie. Sadly I did not buy a copy of the DVD for myself and it is now out of print. I never would have seen this movie had it not been for Creature Feature.

This is terribly saddens me. Young people growing up today will not get the same exposure to the classic genre films that I got. They’ll see remakes of the really big name movies, such as The Day The Earth Stood Still, and perhaps track down the original, but that random sf/horror film of the weekend is a thing of the past. Many films that are not classics are going to be rarely seen just because of the death of Creature Features across the country. While The Killer Shrews is a film with more flaws than charms I am still happy that I saw the movie and when it turned up in a 50 movies boxed set I bought I was happy to watch it again.

Perhaps this is why I am a fan of our local club, San Diego Vintage SF, though my life has made it tough to attend in months. Every month a genre film from before 1968 is shown, along with a serial and cartoon. (Frankly I could skip the serial as it was never part of my movie going experience.) However SDVSF does not make up for the Creature Feature.

It would be wonderful is TCM did a regular program dedicated to SF,Horror, and Fantasy films. They already have these movies and they play them, but not as part of a generalized programming about them with a host, introduction and such. There is a richness in the genre and it extends beyond the recognized classics. A treasure likely to be rarely seen and forgotten with the years.

Share

Sneezing injuries are less than funny

It’s strange just how much my side hurts from the freaking sneeze injury. It’s worse that every time I sneeze I seem to re-damage the damn muscle. At this rate I will never recover.

Can you herniate a muscle with a sneeze?

I sneezed twice at work and boy you should have seen every suddenly looking at me. I nearly fell out of my chair with the pain.

However on the plus side my oral surgeon says my mouth is doing well and that it looks quite good from only one week out from the extractions.

I started the work up on version 1.5 of Cawdor. I’m not getting as much done per day right now because my day job is taking up CPU cycles from my writing time, but that special project ends on Thursday and then I can dive full speed into the 1.5 edits.

I have stumbled on a great resource for writers. Kristen Nelson, literary agent to Gail Carriger and others,  has posted on her site a number of query letters from clients. These are the actual query letters that got her attention enough to ask for submissions from these writers.

Kristen goes through most of the letters and tells you point by point why it worked for her. This is really really cool. Only the internet could bring resources like this to unpublished writers. You should google Pub Rants and follow her blog.

Share