Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I think I'm so clever

Sometimes when I read I want to write. I will even have a notion of what I'd like to say or perhaps a story to tell. It ends there, generally. I've got the big ideas, the big emotions but I'm sadly lacking in the virtues. Namely, words to string together to lay it all down. You'd imagine maybe, perhaps, I'd have picked up something from the books I've read over the years. Unfortunately writing, good writing, you can't get by reading good writing, you actually have to do it. That is not to say you can't learn good writing from reading good writing but you just on occasion have to actually put something down on paper, or pixels.  

Maybe this blog is my attempt to do that.  To srcibble down the frantic, fleeting growth inside my head I'd call a story.  I think I'll give it more of a try, in the very least you all can amuse yourselves at my expense, I have no problem with that.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Considerations

Starting a blog post or a paper or almost anything I'm writing that will be seen by others, except a journal entry, can take me hours to do. Even though I know I'm going to go back and edit, and more than likely it will be placed at the end of the work, I need to start off in the right tone, the right punch. The idea that you only get one chance to get someone's attention always preys on my mind. Of the countless things to read and take in this person is foregoing all of that to read what I've written. Its intimidating. Its comical. Especially considering the readership of this blog is nonesxistent. But if someone's going to see it possibly, even if its a theif in the night, I have to try and get it juuuust right. Its directly related to being my mothers son. Only instead of made beds we're dealing with ideas and concepts encapsulated (what a great word) in sentences. Plus you have to slave away to write something funny or amusing because you don't have comedic timing to take advantage of like you do when you're in real time. Instead you end up doing this a lot.......punchline. Its hackish but effective. At least I'm not up here wearing a pair of rainbow suspenders shouting, "Who's ready to LAUGH!"

People tell me to blog, that they'd like to read what I've got to say.  You poor simpering fools, how I have you fooled(hence why you're fools).  Is it good manners to call your readership (is that a word?) fools?  If you're still reading....well, enough said.  On a completely unrelated note, I've added Elle Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to my Jack Johnson station on Pandora....its effing epically good.  A little Jack a little Ella, some Nat King Cole its like drinking from a fountain of smooth poetic dreams.  Just kind of courses through your brain, down through your toes and makes you feel like the most romatic sonofabitch alive.  I recommend it.  Ok time to publish this thing.


Thursday, April 03, 2008

I've got a lot problems with you people and now you're going to hear about them

Contrary to the title of this post its not going to be a tirade. Please ignore my gaping absense on the net. I've been busy, and well, disinterested in blogging. I just realized I often put commas in sentences where I should put elipses(sp?). Ah well, it is what it is.....I don't like that phrase(a comma would have been much better there, dang it!). I hear it all the time at work, as well as "all things being equal". That's just a way to say, "you need to disregarding anything that might prove or imply that I'm wrong in order for me to be right so that you're actually wrong." I guess, "all things being equal" is at least succinct.



So I've been reading lately. Reading a lot actually. You see I don't have a TV anymore. In fact since you last heard from me I moved into a place by myself. It's remarkable. Initially the lack of a television was disconcerting. Now its comforting. As I said, I read a lot. Not even good (by the educational world's standards or maybe even Church standards) books really. Its great. I dont have to read "the classics" or some popular book I can just read whatever stumbles, or shambles (we mustn't forget shambling books) across my path. I've picked up a few of John Scalzi's novels and they're fantastic. What could be more fun then old people, in space, fighting wars with aliens? I'm not sure either. I mean you know my disdain for the elderly. I think it's a great idea. Once they reach the age of 75 we can shoot them off into space and let the cosmos deal with their slow, dangerous driving, their tyranical diatribes about youth, and their death(pun intended) grip on healthcare. I don't care if you did fight the Kaiser you're going into space where we'll let the relativistic problems of FTL travel deal with you. In the very least I'll be dead by the time you get back this way. (For those of you who don't have a clue, FTL is faster than light, and the relativistic problems have to do with the principle that as you approach the speed of light the passage of time slows down so theoretically you could age a year and everyone else would age 10, though that ratio isn't even close to being correct from a mathematical stand point) At any rate, Scalzi's a good author, he's agnostic, maybe atheistic, but who isn't from time to time?



I also just finished a great book by David Sheff, called Beautiful Boy. It's about his family's life, before and during his oldest son's addiction to drugs. It was a sad book, but inspiring and hopeful as well. Alright, I'm hungry and since I'm not traveling anywhere close to the speed of light its still early enough to get a panini from Corner Bakery. What I'd really like is an improbability drive. Basically its this; a subatomic particle is most likely to be in a particular place, such as near the nucleus of an atom, but there is also a small probability of it being found very far from its point of origin (for example close to a distant star). Thus, a body could travel from place to place without passing through the intervening space (or hyperspace, for that matter), if you had sufficient control of probability. Basically you could pop from place to place, it'd be fantastic.

Finally, I've found two new online comics that are a lot of fun. I'll post about em later.