Inky Horizons

I'm gonna write some stories and continue to be an opinionated bastard.

No sense in posting any other resolutions cuz I know I won't keep 'em, haha. These two I will always keep, though.  Funny how they go hand in hand!   :P

..................

Next Monday I gotta go to the dentist. Yuck. They are replacing two fillings. Nice way to start the New Year, huh? But next week I'll start on the Haxan novel. Actually, I've already "started" on it in a sense. I've been thinking about its structure and the Arc of Plot. Stuff like that. It's slowly taking shape in my mind like a big jigsaw. It's the first Haxan story expanded into novel length. I'm getting some workable ideas. We'll see.

Dreading Monday, though.

Patrick: "Hey, Dad. Since I got older I can't make that (substitute irritating tongue-throat-bubble sound) anymore."

Me: "Oh. I'm sorry."  (Inside I'm celebrating)

Patrick: "I guess that's what growing up is. You forget how to be a kid."

Well, that last part I have to make sure doesn't happen. That's what Dads are for, right?

But the irritating tongue-throat-bubble sound? Good riddance!  :P

I haven't played WoW in three days. And I've got a stack of comics that need reading. That's how badly this cold has been kicking my tail.  Mostly sinuses and stuff. Can't get comfortable. Eyes scratchy.  Ugh.

Many of my LJ friends are listing the movies they've watched this year.

I read this and I feel like I've under achieved in some necessary social dynamic which I don't quite grasp. I'm actually in awe of them. I haven't seen one movie this year in the theaters. Not one. I mean, there had to have been something good that I missed. Something that would have enlightened me or made me a better person or expanded my artistic horizons in some way.

(I know. I'm trying to hold back the chortles of laughter myself. C'mon. It's Hollywood. Still.)

And the even crazier thing is...I'm okay with this. I mean, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything relevant. Then again, how would I know since I haven't watched the movies? Why didn't I watch Star Trek? I love that original series. Why wouldn't I go watch this even if it was a reboot?

The older I get the more I feel this way. All fuddy duddy and stuff. And since I'm always getting older...well, you see my problem. 

It kind of worries me to be honest with you.

Maybe I should try to watch more movies next year. As in, you know, like one. But you know what? Even typing that sentence I know it's never gonna happen. I mean, it may happen, but I'm not going to make an agenda out of it. I did try watching more television this year. I should get credit for that. Except that didn't work out well. I watched about twenty minutes of Dollhouse, guffawed, and turned the TV off. Maybe two and a half episodes of Mad Men before I started feeling cranky (Well, crankier) at the banality of its own self-importance. But then I did watch the remake of The Prisoner and actually liked that and blogged about it and an episode or two of some comedy show my writing buddy told me about on Hulu. A show I can't even remember the name of anymore even though it was funny. 

I know. I'm a mess. It's like this stuff doesn't capture my attention at all. That doesn't seem right.

I have to face facts. TV just isn't for me. That was pretty much the extent of my television watching this year. About eight hours' worth, give or take a commercial break. Man. That's pathetic.

I did watch a lot of old films on TV, however, and sports. But that's not watching TV and the sports were mostly background noise while I wrote. And, of course, I could never even pretend to watch what passes for staple television like Survivor or American Idol or whatever those other shows are. I don't grok that shit at all and never have. Bones. I don't even know what that is. And all I know about CSI is there is more than one show.Or at least I think there is. I may be wrong about that.

Isn't that kinda sad? I seriously do not know what's going on.

I know I'm probably missing out on something relevant and important. I just don't care. It doesn't impact my life in any way that I can perceive. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. All I can say is when people start talking about what they saw on TV all I do is stand there like a big dumb-ass cuz I don't know what they're talking about. And when I do ask they have to bring out like pictograms and stuff to dumb it down for me. Cuz I don't grok that shit at all and if they know me they know that.

I don't understand it. But I do envy them, believe it or not, because I think they're tapping into something that totally escapes me. But I honestly don't blame them for my own lack of understanding.

Trust me. It's not you.

It's me.

Can we still be friends?

I've been getting over a cold these last couple of days so haven't blogged much. I feel better today.

Everyone is all up in arms over the movie Avatar. People either love it or hate it which is pretty much what you can say about most things in life. I must say I have no interest in watching it. Hollywood bores me for the most part. I don't like being talked down to or patronized, and that's what Hollywood does best. Anyway, it's James Cameron, people. You were expecting something more from this guy? C'mon. Film is dead. Just enjoy the visuals and stop trying to think. Hollywood doesn't want you to think. Not anymore. And you should have known that before going in.

Plus, I've read a LOT of SF. I know all the plots and there weren't that many to begin with. (The same argument can be made for any genre.) Science fiction isn't a very wide pool, but from a literary perspective it's fairly deep. Even so you can read through and exhaust the field within a decade or so, and I've been reading this stuff (both classics and hackery) since I was eleven. So. Yeah. I've seen it all.   Okay. Hollywood made some good SF films that were ground-breaking. Metropolis, 2001 and Gattaca come to mind. Not much else, I'm afraid. Nothing pops out.

On to more important news. I had a good Christmas. It snowed! I got The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, a new electric shaver, and some DVD movies from Santa. I also ate some turkey and ham over the holidays. But now I'm turkeyed and hammed out so tonight I'll just have frozen pizza, haha. My life is simple. I prefer it that way.

I thought about posting a Year in Review thingy. Lots of other writers are doing it. But that's not me. It's not something I would do, listing all the stories I wrote and sold and placed during the year There were almost a dozen or so. I had a good year, writing-wise. I made some contacts and made some progress in the field. Can't complain about that. I'm satisfied. That's always been my writing goal. So long as I make progress.

I made a decision about the Haxan novel over the weekend. I'm going to write it. Dunno what shape it will take, trad western, full-blown fantasy or something in between. But I am going to write this novel. That much I've decided.

That's all for now. Hope to have other stuff for you when I get over this cold. See ya soon.  :)

Okay, so I started playing this game about two weeks ago because I figured it could run all right on my laptop (the system requirements are pretty low) and it does and looks great. I started off with a free trial and when that lapsed I got a six-month subscription. I haven't done any of the expansion packs yet. I'm just level 24 (I don't play alla time like some people.)

I'm enjoying it. I see the attraction. I like exploring and am fascinated by the user-based economy. It's fun, but I see how it can get to the point where it eats your life away. But December is a down month for me writing-wise so I don't mind playing around on this.

I'm on Norgannon server. I have a female undead warrior named Acheronix. I just solo PvE and do the quests, I don't join groups or anything. Well, that's not completely true. This one Tauren hunter was also trying to get slithid eggs and invited me to help because they were hard to fight so I did that. It was fine. I just don't want to get into any of those raiding parties or anything and I don't do PvP at all. I'm also leery of joining a guild because they seem driven to leveling up and I'm having fun. So that really doesn't interest me at all. If there were people I actually knew it might be different.

I knew about this game for years, of course, just never thought I wanted to get into it. But one of my friends on my Flist blogged months ago about how they just liked to explore and mess around and I thought that sounded pretty good, too.

I have to admit I am enjoying it so far.

Just been busy with things lately, that's all. Not much time left over for blogging and stuff. And I rarely check Facebook anymore. Don't even miss it. I'm sick and tired of the open, shrieking racism that runs rampant there anyway.

If I knew some of my so-called "friends" were like this, people I haven't talked to in twenty or more years, I wouldn't have friended them back in the first place. I don't need this. Life's too short for that malarkey.

Anyhoo, I do have some things to blog about in the near future when I can catch a breath.

Today I met my writing buddy at the coffee shop. Neither one of us was doing much writing. Well, I think she wanted to but I was talking a lot because I'm between projects. Eventually, she got so bored with my company she said she was going home to clean out her refrigerator.

Yes. I can bore people that much. I have that talent.

It's all mine.

I'm going to have to stop drinking coffee. It upsets my stomach too much. I guess it's too acidic. But I don't want to feel sick or nauseous, either, and that's how I feel now after I drink it.

So that's it. I'm off coffee.

Eh. I can live with it. I don't like it all that much anyway. I never drank it at all until I got hooked on the flavored coffees. I cut out Diet drinks months ago and don't miss them. Now I only have one when I go out to eat at a restaurant, and that's rare.

I'm pretty much down to water now. I'm happy with that. I actually like drinking water.

I know. My life is exciting.

Time to start "Thanksgiving" a little early....

I'm sitting propped up on the bed, writing. I can look out the window and see them running through the backyard, the wind rippling their shirts, the gold maple leaves falling on their upturned faces.

Chester runs with them. Ears and red tongue flapping. He stops to bark at the blue sky.

Not bad so far. They need to move on with the story. A little of that paranoia garbage goes a long way. But I like the look and directorial shock of the show, the main characters are good, the Village is sufficiently creepy (especially at night when hit has a garish Nighthawks quality) and there's sufficient mystery and nods to the old series to hold (and pique) my interest.

And those big F'ing Rovers are awesome. One sucked a guy down into the water!

So far so good, but I'm picky because this is television. So. Yeah. Anyway, I know you're astonished because this is me we're talking about and I'm actually watching television.

Another episode comes on tomorrow night. I'll give it a peek, too.

They've hit the ground running. It remains to be seen if they can keep up the pace and hold my interest.

I'm just, well, I'm worried this is going to turn into some never-ending Lost bullshit, is all. But, we'll see how it all shakes out.

"Be seeing you!"

Here are some pics, others behind the cut. It was spookier at night with the dim lights, fog machine, scary sounds and pumpkins glittering in the dark, but this gives you some idea. Anyway, everyone had a good time, even the kids we scared, haha.






( More spooky stuff... )
We added more to the entranceway after this picture was taken: candles, more pumpkins, skulls, scary pics on the door, etc. The effect was really nice especially with the fog blowing out and getting trapped in the corners and rolling down the driveway at night.  We had bats and ghouls and more spiderwebs hanging from the garage. To the left all the bushes and trees were webbed, but the sun was against me so I didn't take a picture of that. 

The fog would rise and hang above the house giving an eerie, unexpected effect. People said they could see it from the next street over!  Also, you can't see it but the entire entranceway was webbed up, arching over the door and kids had to reach through webs to ring the doorbell.  Some didn't want to do it, haha.

Halloween went really well. We gave out a lot of candy. Many of the adults and older kids said our house was the scariest. No Wacky Witches or Goofy Ghosts here. We do Halloween the way it's meant to be done. We scare the shit out of you.

Once during the night I looked out the window and there were five or six little goblins milling around the end of the driveway trying to suck it up and find enough courage to to come ring the doorbell. We had the fog machine going and scary sounds playing on a CD.  Sometimes, after the very tiny ones got their candy, I would start the animatronic  headless lady near the doorway. Some would freeze right there like a deer in the headlights, others would start running for their lives -- after they grabbed their candy, of course, haha. It was an interesting sociological experiment. Darwinism in operation. Does the predator chase the running prey or go for those who freeze up? Would that I had time to take notes and plot those data points....

I took some pics that afternoon after we set everything up. I'll try and post them later.

I rode my bike around the neighborhood today. There aren't very many Halloween decorations out. 

:(

Okay. It's not like I'm a fanatic about scary Halloween. I mean, given the choice, this will do quite nicely, thank you very much....



(See? I'm flexible. *nods*)

So there's like these TV shows on Hulu.com.  By what strange and arcane magic does this occur? I don't understand. Why would you watch TV if you can watch the shows on Hulu.com?  And how is it that it's free to watch with no commercials? I don't get it. Things like this confuse me.

I also hear tell of something called a horseless carriage, but I'm not buying that story, either....

Well, there's always Vampirella.

Thank God there are pretzels.