A fuliginous and tempestuous crepuscule

Quick Update

2009-06-28T18:48:00.001-07:00

Don't have much time. They're close. Must stay in hiding. Just stopped by to drop this off:

http://everydayweirdness.com/e/20090618/

Third published story.

Quick Update

2009-06-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

Don't have much time. They're close. Must stay in hiding. Just stopped by to drop this off:

http://everydayweirdness.com/e/20090618/

Third published story.

Twit

2009-06-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

I started a Twitter, uh, thing. Because sometimes I think something, but it's too short for a blog.

It's zlee1976

Concern

2009-05-07T09:00:00.001-07:00

I would be of limited value in a post-apocalyptic scenario, since I've had a vasectomy. I'll probably be one of the guys sent out to scavenge and fight zombies while everyone else tries to repopulate the planet.

Filling his belly with the sweet flesh of the innocent

2009-05-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what we forgive in a person as long as the script labels them as the hero. We just got done watching a fairly well-known movie in which the hero is a remorseless mass-murderer. He is responsible for robbing and killing thousands of innocent people, a fact he talks about in the same way people talk about mowing their lawn. He gains control of a gang of criminals after killing their leader and uses them to kidnap his ex-girlfriend on the night of her wedding. At the end of the movie he finds a kindred spirit just as blood-thirsty and amoral as him and offers to teach him the trade.

I am, of course, referring to The Princess Bride.

It follows for other well loved fictional heroes as well.

Grandiose sense of self-worth
Superficial charm
Criminal versatility
Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others
Inability to tolerate boredom
Pathological narcissism
Shallow affect
Deceitfulness/manipulativeness
Aggressive or violent tendencies, repeated physical fights or assaults on others
Lack of empathy
Lack of remorse, indifferent to or rationalizes having hurt or mistreated others
A sense of extreme entitlement
Lack of or diminished levels of anxiety/nervousness and other emotions
Promiscuous sexual behavior, sexually deviant lifestyle

The above is a list of the characteristics of a psychopath. They also describe James Bond and every character that was poured into the same mold. I think I could safely define a modern Hollywood hero as: A person who most people would like to be, but would not like to sit next to on a bus.

Everything has wheat in it. Seriously.

2009-04-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later, every non-fatal syndrome that a body can have makes it into my DNA. Neurological, dermatological, gastronomical; if it is mildly severe and mostly just annoying, I have it. I am to genetic disorders what Aquaman is to superpowers.

I can't eat gluten. It destroys my intestinal lining, which brings a lot of unpleasantness to what should be an enjoyable and refreshing activity.

*Ahem*

It also causes tiny painful blisters to spring up all my hands and feet, and gives me intense migraines.

So, here's the thing about gluten, and I mean darn near its defining characteristic. Almost nobody knows what it is. Tell someone you're lactose intolerant, no problem. They know what that means: no milk, no cheese, not Satan. Tell someone you are gluten intolerant, and unless they are a chef, the response is something along the lines of, "Oh, right... so... what are you a vegetarian or something?"

Your next step is to explain that you can't eat wheat. You would think that this would be a sufficient explanation. Unless you have had any experience explaining things to people before. It particularly becomes an issue when they cater lunch at work and well meaning managers try to make sure that those with special dietary requirements are not forgotten. Allow me to give you a sampling of some of the things you hear when those without understanding try to be understanding.

"Instead of pizza we got you spaghetti with no meat in it."
Some variation of this happens quite a bit. Some people believe that all food allergies and intolerances can be summed up as vegetarianism.

"We know you can't have wheat, so we got you white bread instead of wheat bread."
One assumes that somewhere there is a farmer harvesting a vast field of white.

"So, why did you decide to stop eating wheat?"
I have a moral objection to sitting on the toilet for an hour and then having to crawl out of the bathroom on all fours because my legs fell asleep.

Of course, people are becoming more aware of gluten intolerance. I've noticed grocery stores going out of their way to stock gluten free foods. Just the other day I was shopping and found quite a few products clearly labeled as gluten free. Chocolate. Honey. Strawberries. Peanut Butter. All are now gluten free. Of course, all of them have always been gluten free, on account of them not being made of wheat.

1. Lists 2. Indexes 3. Catalogues 4. Tables 5. Enumerations

2009-04-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

I like lists. One might have noticed that many of my blog entries are written in the form of lists. Lists are wonderful, because you can sift through the information without having to deal with personality. It has been said that my love of lists is a symptom of the fact that I am merely an automaton who's life goal is to understand emotion in order to truly become "human." In response to that I say:

01010111.01101000.01100101.01101110.00100000.01001001.00100000.
01100111.01100001.01101001.01101110.00100000.01110011.01100101.
01101110.01110100.01101001.01100101.01101110.01100011.01100101.
00100000.01001001.00100000.01110111.01101001.01101100.01101100.
00100000.01100100.01100101.01110011.01110100.01110010.01101111.
01111001.00100000.01111001.01101111.01110101.00100000.01100001.
01101100.01101100.00100001.

So anyway, one of my favorite browsing sites when I'm bored or should be working or both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists

Today I'm looking at lists of phobias. It's for a story I'm working on. As I go through the list I have to wonder about some of these. It would seem to me that there are cases where the exclusion of a particular phobia would be reason to doubt a person's sanity. Let me put it another way.

Here are some proper phobias:

Arachibutyrophobia- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia- fear of long words.
Nomophobia - fear of being out of mobile phone contact.

Irrational. Debilitating. If we are being simultaneously honest and callous: really kind of stupid. That is what we, as Americans raised to believe that our uneducated opinions are somehow valid, have come to expect from phobias. It gets a little iffier* when you have phobias like

Algophobia — fear of pain.

July 22, 1973 - Have tested subject by exposing to multiple stimuli including electrical current, angry bees, combination of sandpaper and lemon juice, etc. In all cases, response has been the same - "Please stop hurting me! what is wrong with you people!" We have concluded that the subject appears to be afraid of pain. Fascinating.

Agraphobia - fear of sexual abuse

I can only imagine this one was thought up by a newly graduated psychiatrist who spent most of his college career studying "brewski's" and calling other guys "bra."

Tomophobia - fear or anxiety of surgeries/surgical operations

Also known as fear of being sliced open by a complete stranger. It's an offshoot of another phobia that was very common in the middle ages, particularly among soldiers. For more information, see Braveheart.

Radiophobia - fear of radioactivity or X-rays.

Again, not so much a phobia as a survival skill. Presumably, Madame Curie was being totally rational when she soaked herself in radiation till it killed her.

One final note:

Phobophobia — fear of having a phobia.

Not sure if this one fits into either of the above categories. However, we have been told time and time again** that this one is actually admirable to have, so I think it's inclusion in a list of phobias is somewhat unfair.

(Discovered in the course of writing this post

I like to think of this page as the shortest essay ever written on the subject of modern society.)

*Spellcheck agrees that this is in fact a word. Though it does not seem to think that "spellcheck" is.

** Both Franklin Roosevelt and Professor Lupin say so.

Small Disasters

2009-04-06T08:00:00.001-07:00

- Slamming her face into a piano bench
- Falling out of a chair
- Closing her head in a car door

These are the ways our youngest daughter says good morning. She's like a loud bruise with a sunny disposition and an Oxford English Dictionary that constantly leaks out of her mouth. She has yet to develop career aspirations, but were I to wager on them I'd guess auctioneer, crash-test dummy, or fire alarm.

Like all 2 year olds, the boy possesses a supernatural affinity for stickiness. He can actually spontaneously generate it. Wash him, put clean jammies on him, and put him to bed in a clean crib, and in the morning he will wake up covered in corn syrup and coffee grounds. He loves wearing helmets, which is lucky really, because he also loves climbing up bookshelves and standing on kitchen tables. Other interests include the sound of wooden spoons on furniture, the tinkle of breaking glass, and urinating in baskets of clean laundry. When he gets older he'll be an insurance nightmare.

Same nurture, different nature

2009-04-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is my oldest daughter. She says she wants to be a nurse and missionary when she grows up. She regularly takes charge of the household and makes sure that none of her siblings do anything that she deems inappropriate. She is a born manager.

This is my middle daughter. She says that when she grows up she wants to be a passport. She regularly asks questions like, "How do I know if I'm really awake or dreaming?" and "How old was I before I was born?" She is really good with animals and smaller children.

It's interesting. Especially since the first two children so closely mirror my brother and I. Before our third daughter was born I could already see how the older was just like my older brother, and the younger was just like me. I was very curious about how the third daughter would turn out, because both poles were already covered. I still haven't worked out who she will be. The boy will grow up to be Tarzan. He likes to swing on doorknobs, naked.

Universal Moral lessons in Cartoons

2009-03-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

TV is a medium of repetition. Sitcoms are based on using slight variations of the same handful of jokes every episode. Different unrelated sitcoms use the same characters with different names. Any British show that enjoys a small amount of success is translated into a poorly done American show that fails after one season (with a few notable exceptions.) Cartoons are a particularly recidivistic offender (Two words: Scooby Doo.) "Educational" cartoons tend to make flailing swipes at moral lessons, and there seems to be a common pool from which these lessons are drawn. I have collected some of these, listed below.

Moral Lessons you will find in any educational cartoon series:

- You don't need luck. You just need to believe in yourself.

Plot: A character has to do something that they are afraid of doing. This will most likely involve some sort of performance. They believe that in order to succeed that must carry a lucky object with them. Before the event begins, they lose the object, only to have one of their friends turn up with it at the last minute. They perform perfectly, afterwards they find out that their friend pulled a trick on them, and what they thought was their lucky object was an ordinary impostor. They didn't need their lucky maguffin after all! All they needed was confidence!

What the moral should be: Confidence is, without talent and ability, just as useless as luck. If you want to succeed, work hard and practice. Also, don't stake your identity on your success at a given task, because you may just be naturally bad at it.

- Bullies aren't really bad people. They just need to be loved.

Plot: A character is being picked on by a big bully. They envision all kinds of ways to get back at this bully, but have second thoughts when they find out that the bully is in some sort of trouble and needs help. The character helps the bully, and as a result of their kindness the bully sees the error of his/her ways, and becomes good friends with the character.

What the moral should have been: Kindness certainly is the right way treat any person. However, a bully is not hurting you because he needs a friend. Chances are he has at least two friends. They're the guys holding you down while he pummels you. The bully is hurting you because he enjoys it, and has never had to consider the consequences of his actions. Just try to avoid him. If he is ever in trouble and needs your help, then help him out of kindness in a well lit and public area, and then continue trying to avoid him.

- Be kind to others, even if they are (______), because later on you'll need to call in a favor.

Plot: The protagonist encounters a character who appears to be in someway unsavory. They might be of a economic or racial background that the media informs us is universally disliked. They might be really scary looking. They might behave oddly, or be really old. Whatever the quality, the protagonist overcomes their prejudices and helps them. Later, the protagonist is in trouble, and the character they helped earlier comes to their rescue. The protagonists expresses how happy they are that they decided to help the other person in spite of their misgivings about them.

What the moral should have been: Be kind to others, understanding that the reward may never be realized in this life.

- Accidental positive results excuse bad behavior.

Plot: The main character spends most of the show interfering in others business, getting into things that he shouldn't be getting into, and generally acting as a force of chaos and anarchy. Entirely by coincidence, their actions result in a positive outcome ranging anywhere from teaching an old curmudgeon to enjoy his life to discovering a long lost treasure. In the end, everyone is glad the main character behaved that way, and what was originally considered bad behavior is retconned to be good behavior.

What the moral should have been: Unless there is a dated and notarized letter explaining that you knew for a fact that your actions would result in this outcome prior to these events, you're grounded.

Learned Behaviors

2009-02-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

In order to avoid writing a full post when I feel like poo (flu) I will pose a question, or rather an unfinished sentence, and see how people answer it:

Because of horror movies...

I'll start off with a few examples.

... I always look in the backseat when I open my car at night.

... when I go for walks I unconsciously scout the area for zombie/werewolf proof escape routes. Rooftops are good.

... I never repeat anything in front of a mirror.

In Honor of the premiere episode of "Dollhouse," AFATC presents: Joss Whedon Pitches a TV Show.

2009-02-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

Joss: Ok, so here's the story. There's this girl, who grows up fairly normal. But then one day she's given these amazing powers and uses them to fight evil, though she really just wants to be a normal girl and have a normal life.

Exec: Have you developed any other characters?

Joss: I was thinking there would be this kind of dorky but lovable guy whose always joking around. He'll get a lot of the good lines. And there be another girl whose cute but kind of mousy who'll be her friend. And then maybe an older guy who's kind of a scholar and will be the voice of reason and the conscience for the other characters. Oh, and there'll be this one guy who appears at first to be the antagonist, but who ends up being a good guy. She'll have some sort of close relationship with him.

Exec: And these character's will what? fight crime or something?

Joss: Well, sort of. They basically do good, but they kind of operate under the radar because if the authorities knew what they were doing they'd get in big trouble. Oh, and one last thing. We need to make sure that only like, 25% of the actors have careers after the show is cancelled.

Exec: Consider it done.

And do we want him to stop? Of course not. The man's a genius with a formula. Nobody said to Michelangelo, "Hey, instead of all the Madonna's and naked flying babies, why don't you paint a volcano erupting, or a rocket powered bear or something?" No, because they didn't have rockets. Or bears I think. But nobody would have said that anyway, and Michael N' Jello wouldn't have listened if they had, because he knew he had a good thing going.

These kind of things don't happen in real life.

2009-02-12T19:54:00.000-08:00

So, the other day the girls went outside to play and accidentally let the dog out. He immediately took off down the street, and when Lindsay went after him he ran into a neighbor's house. They had left the front door open. The husband was doing yard work out front. Unfortunately, he didn't speak English. He was able to indicate with many gestures and foreign phrases that she should just go inside and get the dog. Inside the house, the wife was washing dishes and completely ignoring the dog playing in the kitchen with their goat. They had a house goat. Jack and the goat were playing in the kitchen, while this woman was washing dishes and ignoring some stranger who came into her kitchen to catch a dog who was playing with a goat. What I'm trying to get across here was that my dog ran into someone else's house and found a goat, and Lindsay (the only one who knew what was going on) was the only one who didn't just shrug the whole thing off. I really don''t have anywhere to go with this.

Glimm Frairy Tares

2009-01-30T21:19:00.000-08:00

At Barnes and Noble tonight I picked up a book of Grimm's Fairy Tales done as newspaper style comics. These were the original tales, mind you, the ones where Cinderella's evil stepsisters cut their toes and heels off with a knife in order to fit in the shoes, and where Red Riding Hood got eaten by the wolf along with Granny. Some of those stories are so random that I can only imagine them being told by a slurring drunkard. Take, for instance, the story of One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes, presented here as it was no doubt originally told:

Ok, ok, ok. So... ok. So there's this girl. No! There's this three girls an' they've got eyes, right? Only see, they... um... ok, so one of the girls has one eye... and not another one... and one of the girls has two eyes, and oneofthegirlshasthreeeyes. *Burp* Ok, ok, so... right... so the girl with two eyes is made fun of because she's got two eyes, and not one or three. And... um... they don't feed her. Or they feed her scraps. Right, they feed her scraps. And um... OH! There's a GOAT! And there's an old lady... and when the girl sings to the goat... it... um... makes... food. Anhersistersdonlikeit. So... um... they kill it. The goat. They kill the goat, right? Only she buries the heart. The girl. The one with the two eyes. She buries the goats heart. The old lady told her to, and um... it turns into... a tree. A goat tree. NO! A GOLD tree! *Hic* Only the tree don't like the sisters. Cuz they been mean an killedthegoat. An... OH! A Knight says, I want a stick from the tree... an if someone gives me one I'll marry them. If it's a girl. If a girl gives me a stick I'll marry her. An she'll be my... um... girl knight. Right. An she does, an they get married, and she flips the sisters the V.

The various Princes and Knights and Kings and such in these stories crack me up. Marriage is just something they offer up to anyone that does them a favor, or even happens to be sprawled unconscious in their path. They must have rooms full of wives.

"I'll marry you if you give me a golden apple."
"I'll marry you if you wear this shoe I found in the gutter."
"Are you going to finish that waffle? I'll marry you if you give me half."

When did girls get the idea that marrying a prince was something to aspire to. As far as I can tell, you don't need charm and grace and beauty. You need something shiny and maybe a piece of candy.

Fwah

2009-01-25T06:37:00.000-08:00

My house is a house of plague this week. Disease and runny bottoms stalk the house like stinky, drippy lions. The boy was particularly affected this morning. When he is sick his diapers have a... quality to them. It's almost non-biological, like he's been drinking too much paint stripper. It is an odor Lovecraftian in character. It makes me want to use words like,"eldritch." Like, a lot. Practically in every sentence, till it begins to mean nothing. (I did not actually say "eldritch" while changing him, though at one point I did say "gorf.")

Ok, see, here's the thing about Lovecraft. He did present a lot of horrifying and disturbing ideas in his works. The universe is a chaotic meaningless mess of energies, and concepts such as morality, order, and even logic are drivel. That one bothers me. Or that God (or gods) are so alien that they would tear apart the universe; not because they are malevolent, but simply because they don't know any better. That one is disturbing. A lot of writers have Mr. Hewlett-Packard as a major influence on their work, because he had a good grasp of not just what was horrifying, but what was disturbing on a fundamental lever.

However,

The guy was not a good storyteller. With a few exceptions, his stories are actually much better if you have someone else tell them to you. I think he had an overinflated sense of his own mysteriousness. Or perhaps he underestimated his audience's ability to put one and one together to make two. Here is an outline of a typical offering:

The protagonist was always a little strange (He looks/acts like an ape/frog)
The protagonist uncovers information that brings to light strange and disturbing information about his ancestors (They were half ape/frog)
The protagonist travels to the town of his birth to discover more about his family (The half ape/frog side of his family.)
Everyone in the town shows similar strange traits (being that they are all half ape/frog)
Protagonist has strange encounter with indescribable otherworldly being. (Described as being indescribable. Probably has tentacles. Ape/frog people are in attendance)
Protagonist uncovers further clues (ape/frog related)
Protagonist begins to suspect the truth, but refuses to believe it. (by "it", I mean that he's half ape/frog)
After final encounter with amorphous otherworldly being (whose name is revealed to be Aqltrypbnghs) protagonist discovers the awful truth (the whole ape/frogman thing) The revelation drives him insane and he kills himself.

The real problem with the story is that the reader worked out everything that would happen within the first 10 sentences. The suspense and horror you should be feeling is replaced by impatience. You can't help but wonder why the protagonist still isn't putting the pieces together. It might have to do with the fact that he's a half ape/frog, but he seems fairly intelligent in every other way. Plus, lovecraftian monstrosities are always completely indescribable (unless they are octopoid). To make up for the fact that he cannot describe them without contradicting himself, he resorts to over-using uncommon overly-erudite words which basically mean things like "strange" and "wibbly" and "just kind of, you know, odd." In order to truly be horrifying, a monster needs a better description than "thingy."

Anyway, I had to give him a bath because the wipes weren't up to the task.

Third place

2009-01-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

Here

I think the biggest edge the other stories had over mine was that they were polished. It's a thing I need to work on. I tend not to sand and polish my work after I finish it. The story is out of my head, and that's me finished. In this case, there wasn't even a second draft. Definitely something I need to work on.

Also, they changed the formatting. The original manuscript was set up to make it obvious when the scene was changing. That formatting got lost, so it's a bit more confusing. Oh well.

Huzzah!

2009-01-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

The Shine Journal

If you click the above link, you will notice that the site mentions a contest called "Let's See Your Shorts," and lists the three winning stories. Who has two thumbs and wrote one of those stories? This guy!

'Cept you can't see my thumbs. Or me either.

I meant me. I wrote one of them. "In the Empty Ward." I guess they'll be publishing them later this month.

Huzzah!

Yeast and Caffeine

2009-01-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

To the left is a picture of USP grade "Anhydrous" caffeine. According to Wikipedia, "it may be synthesized from dimethyl urea and malonic acid."

UREA.

There are 3 achievements that every culture on the planet acquired so early in their development that one might be tempted to think that they are the prerequisites for civilization. They are Caffeine, Ethanol, and Bread (with an emphasis on sandwiches.)

Historical accounts and academic speculation suggests that ancient man woke up every morning, bleary-eyed and confused, and wandered around the campsite chewing on the landscaping in hopes that something would wake them up.

According to one popular Chinese legend, the Emperor of China Shennong , reputed to have reigned in about 3000 BC, accidentally discovered that when some leaves fell into boiling water, a fragrant and restorative drink resulted.

It is not revealed in the story why he was boiling water under a rapidly balding tree, but the British are certainly happy that he did.

An Ethiopian guy named Kaldi discovered that when goats ate coffee berries they got hyper. Most ancient culinary discoveries started with the phrase, "What are those goats eating?"

The west Africans gnawed on Kola nuts. Mayans had chocolate, which was probably the greatest reason for declaring war on them and taking all their stuff. North American Aboriginal Native American Indians boiled the leaves of a species of holly to make something they referred to as "The Black Drink." Awesome.

On to ethanol, the active ingredient in booze. Archaeologists have discovered evidence that quaffing was occurring as far back as 9000 years ago. This is not surprising, since it's just juice that's gone off. Really, all that was required for the discovery of alcohol was one really thirsty guy and a lack of options. Man, but once it was discovered, people pursued it.

Step 1: Try this on every other form of fruit juice.
Step 2: We ran out of fruit (note: get more grapes) Let's try um... how about grass seeds?
Step 3: Ok, now what? Think people! Um, potatoes? Cactus? Pine trees?!

Practically every form of food has had the, "It's good, but it doesn't make me loopy," test applied to it, and has come out the other side as an adult beverage. Mankind has yet to produce a true meat-based fermented beverage yet, but we are trying.

Bread, Tortilla, Naan, Pita, Matza, Roti, Bing (snrk).
Sandwiches, Burritos, Moo shu, Gyro, Shawarma.

Bread comes in many forms, all of them consisting primarily of ground seeds, liquid, and fat. Yeast was added early on, probably as a result of the above 3 step plan. (It's good, but did you try leaving it out for several days uncovered? It worked for the grape juice.)

And then the pinnacle of Lunch-science research (cue Also sprach Zarathustra) humanity across all continents considered moving the meat from beside the bread to inside the bread. The Sandwich was born, and was subsequently named after the guy who was probably the last person to think of it. Some guy in tights and breeches proclaims "I just thought about putting meat in bread!" while some middle eastern shepherds are wrapping drippy chunks of lamb in flatbread and saying, "yeah, way to be ahead of the curve there, Einstein."

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that I'm nearly done with story #1 of my 52 story New Year Resolution, except that it's actually a single chapter of a larger story. I decided to expand my definition to include chapters. Just so long as it is a complete chapter. No reason to get sloppy or lazy just because you can change the rules.

Something Yellow

2009-01-06T15:44:00.003-08:00

Well the day went OK, apparently. According to Dear Wife, both teachers are about 12, but with cutbacks and budgeting concerns etc... and of course we're talking kindergarten and second grade. I'm sure by middle school the teachers are 18 or 19. Oldest Daughter made 3 friends whose names she listed off for me, and she somehow organized a play date for tomorrow.

Middle Daughter played with some kids.

Still, that's better than I expected. I hope that by the summer she will know their names and have some friends that are just hers.

She just reported to me that Youngest Daughter threw a thing at something yellow. I will fill in the blanks as my imagination sees fit.

I suppose it beats the textile factory.

2009-01-06T05:51:00.000-08:00

The two oldest girls are starting school today. They are both very excited. It's a perfect real world example of the "ignorance is bliss" principle. Did you ever watch Firefly? Remember the Reavers? In my experience, kids in school are just like that, but without the cannibalism and psychotic murder. The teachers were at least attentive enough to disallow those. Of course, the kids I went to middle school with were notorious for being the biggest bunch of proto-felons to ever walk the halls. The teacher's were actually afraid of many of them. So were the students, and presumably their parents. I suspect that today their parole officers are a bit nervous around them too. I think the oldest will be fine. She's a lot like my brother, who never had trouble making friends. The younger one takes after me, however. People tended to raise one eyebrow at me, as a sort of standard greeting. I used to talk to my hand. My younger oldest daughter walks around in a cocoon of her own imagination, just like I did, and it is certainly not conducive to making friends. Or listening to teachers. I shall cross my fingers and hope that her experience is better than mine. Or at least that she's good at building character.

Low Resolution

2008-12-31T10:09:00.000-08:00

I ought to resolve to write one story a week this year, but then I might feel obligated to do it. Sigh. I really should. I need the practice. Also, I need someone with a roasting fork standing behind me telling me to write. Most essays written by writers about writing agree on two things:

- There will be a gap of between 7 to 10 years from the time you begin writing and the time you begin writing stuff that people will pay to read

- Practically everything that writers write in essays about writing is crap.

The problem is, I figure if I don't spend those 7 to 10 years actually writing, they don't count.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not forcing myself to do something I hate to do. Writing is not like cleaning the toilet. Well, actually it sort of is. I love telling stories. Writing, however, is not telling stories. Writing is the work you do to tell a story. I like having a clean toilet, but cleaning the toilet is not having a clean toilet. It is the work you do to have a clean toilet.

Ok. Here goes. One short story a week. I should have 52 by this time next year.

Interestingly Evil

2008-12-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

What makes a villain interesting? I can give you several good examples of interesting villains, or at least villains that I find fun to read:

Walter from the Gunslinger Heptalogy.

Zabulon (or Zavulon if you drink your vodka neat) from the Night Watch Tetralogy. (They're not words you get to use everyday, ok) Jubal Early from Firefly.

There are other villains who are just as, or even more famous, who are missing something that these guys have. For instance:

Sauron (need I even say from where?) Emperor Palpatine (some movie or another)

The one thing I see that each of the first three characters have in common is that they are all likable in some way. Walter is carefree and full of laughs, even if those laughs can drive a man to madness. Zabulon comes across like a kindly grandfather who just wants you to have a nice time and not worry so much about how the world is falling apart. Jubal Early is a dry comedian, who had the best lines in the entire tragically short lived show. They each have a certain charisma. We wouldn't want to be the victim of their evil intents, but it might be fun to have a drink with them.

The other two: just not nice at all. They are just plain evil and nasty and unpleasant.

So, why do we like the first three more. I don't just mean, why do we like the kind of person they are portrayed as. That's obvious. But why do they read better? This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm puzzling it out as I write. Any of those top three could carry a story by himself. The bottom two are simply a foil to the heroes. Is it just that they are more interesting? Ok, but what makes them interesting? Perhaps the contrast between characteristics. Charismatic and jolly combined with cold-hearted and evil is certainly an odd combination. Or is their a deeper psychological reason for our preference for this kind of character. Perhaps we like to see evil portrayed in a light-hearted manner. As Ralph the Creepy Lift Operator would say, Evil is mostly ok! That says something not so nice about the way my mind works, which lends it a bit of validity.

Then there's the other side of the coin. We like our heroes a bit Anti-Hero. Whose cooler, Han Solo or Obi-wan Kenobi? You might say Obi-wan, but what if Han Solo could open a beer with his mind? See? Just as we like our villains with a smile and a bounce in their step, we like our heroes full of angst, pouty frowns, and cruelty. Or at least harmlessly wicked.

Batman(DC)/Punisher(Marvel)
Captain Jack Sparrow
Riddick
Max Rockatansky, Mad

Is it because we relate better to heroes who aren't perfect? Is it because we think good is boring? Both?

Have I ruined your favorite book for you? I hope not.

My Air Has a Flavr

2008-12-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm still on the topic of dogs. When beginning any relationship, there are things you get to know about each other, and issues are uncovered. My dog has issues, some more serious than the others. Currently the most serious issue is comprised of aspects auditory, olfactory, and infernal.
It is late at night. My wife and I are quietly typing and/or reading and enjoying the peace, and Jack is asleep on the other side of the room, launching an assault on that peace. The sound is like 20 dinner guests eating jello out of champagne flutes. The smell is pungent and vigorous. It changes its character slightly with each iteration so that there is never any hope of acclimation. I fear he might be seriously ill, or possibly dead. I'm going to go poke him. Be right back

He's alive. He's also out of my bedroom. This is a move I support wholeheartedly.

Old Yeller should have pled insanity

2008-12-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

At some point in history, men began the process of domesticating wolves. It is one of a long list of things that we are grateful for even though we haven't the foggiest idea what possessed him to do it in the first place. It's like Jello. Jello is great, but it started out something like this:

Researcher #1: When we boil all these cow hides and bones we get this wobbly clear goo.

Researcher #2: Yes, but can we eat it?

I can only imagine a similarly bizarre conversation at the opening of the canine domestication project.

Man: Hey, you know those big, hairy, toothy things that travel around in packs and kill just about anything they come across?

Woman: You mean the ones that ate my brother Carl?

Man: Yeah, those. How would you like one in our tent?

Somehow though, it worked. We gave the wolf floppy ears and a waggly tail and shame, and it gave us a pile of poo at the foot of our bed every morning, and unconditional devotion. We also made it absolutely puddle-drooling, pants-eating, nose-licking insane. Perhaps there is some fundamental rule at work: The closer a wild creature comes to being civilized, the higher the probability it will fall off its rocker.

My dog ate a plum tree this morning. We don't know why. I don't know if the dog knows why. If it could speak we might ask it why. I suspect the answer would be something like, "Bugs! Covered in Bugs!" or perhaps, "When is it time for pudding, nurse?"

The dog of my teenage years liked to eat rocks. The dog my wife had in college had obsessive compulsive disorder and was addicted to things that went "squeak." Attempting carnal acts on legs or pieces of furniture has become so common among dogs that we accept it as normal, without ever once asking why it would be normal. I have seen a lot of nature shows and Animal Planet specials, but have never once seen a video of a timber wolf romancing a tree stump.

Perhaps they were doomed from the beginning. I mean, it's got to be hard to catch a wolf and try to tame it. Perhaps these ancient geneticists were forced to work with the materials they were able to gather.

Wolf Breeder 1: So, which one do we grab?

Wolf Breeder 2: Well, that one looks pretty mean. I just saw him rip the throat out of a mountain lion. Those two over there all covered in scars and snarling; I wouldn't want to mess with them.

Wolf Breeder 1: Hey, that one just ate 5 pine cones and then shagged a porcupine.

Wolf Breeder 2: Grab him.

Nom Nom Nom

2008-11-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how much fiction revolves around food? Well, science fiction and fantasy do quite a bit. The Chronicles of Narnia are packed full of descriptions of what the characters are eating. Particularly which foods are preferred by which species. Trees eat dirt (described in detail), beavers eat fish, dwarves eat sausages. Pages of this stuff in each book. Remember the Hobbit? Mutton, and honey, and cakes, and beer, and mushrooms. Whole banquets described. In the Night Watch series, the characters are constantly in possession of cognac, vodka, salami, and pickled eggs. Horror, not so much, though Stephen King's Dark Tower series talks quite a bit about beef jerky and deer meat. Then, of course, science fiction is all about food OF THE FUTURE! Sometimes reconstituted and vat-grown, often alien, periodically trying to eat you back, but always, well, nearly always delicious. There are some genres that I (much to my shame) have not really cracked open, but I wonder about them. Westerns? I bet there's a lot of ink devoted to chili. Apparently Jane Austen puts enough food in her books to inspire a cookbook. Probably all puddings and things on toothpicks. I am a firm believer in the principle that a reader will be less likely to notice the quality of poor writing if they are thinking, "Man that sounds good."

No Blog Today: A Study in Contradiction.

2008-11-20T08:48:00.001-08:00

The explanation as to why there is no blog today (I assume you are not actually reading this):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma

In the meantime, and in keeping with the theme:

Clown-face

2008-11-19T06:10:00.001-08:00

As I see it, telling a story is in many ways like putting on make-up (Not that I wear make-up). If you look like you're wearing make-up (so I hear) you're doing it wrong. If the person hearing the story, or watching the movie, or listening to the song, can see you telling the story, you're doing it wrong. You see this when characters act unnaturally in order to advance the story or to explain points of the plot. If you've ever watched a horror story and have found yourself shouting at the screen "Don't go in there!" you've seen this in action. Why is the character acting so stupid? Because if they didn't, the story wouldn't advance.

I remember my wife complaining about a scene in the version of "Pride and Prejudice" with Keira Knightly. The scene involves one character explaining "entailment" (The rules by which property is inherited according to stodgy old English law) to another character. It is set up fairly poorly, and seems awkward to anyone who knows Jane Austen, because anyone back then would be very familiar with the concept of entailment. It is like having a scene where one character explains to another how a can-opener works, just in case someone in the audience has never seen one. Of course, many people who watched that movie didn't know what entailment is or how it works, so the filmmakers may have been justified in their attempt to fit an explanation into the story. Perhaps there is a better example.

How about "The Mist?" (Movie Version). In case you haven't seen it:

SPOILER ALERT.

But don't worry. The end pretty much spoiled the story already. Have overcome various dangers and horrors, the Hero and his followers have run out of gas in the middle of the road, presumably with monsters all around. Seeing no way out of their predicament, and not wishing that the others suffer, the hero pulls out a gun and shoots them all.

Ok, stop.

The man who never gave up hope no matter what is undone by an empty tank of gas? It is completely contradictory to his actions up to this point. I would expect him to perhaps sit in the car (where they are completely safe, btw) and ponder his options maybe. Or give the gun to one of his companions and set off on his own to look for help. I would not expect this from him though. This is starting to smell like "because it's in the script"

Continuing on. Having used up all his bullets on the others, the man jump out of the car hoping some monster will finish the job on him. He hears a loud rumbling and suddenly out pops the military, somehow blowing away the mist with leaf blowers or something. Everything is ok, nothing to see here folks, this guy's has just killed his child and friends for no reason. At this point, Stephen King and the Director both pop out from behind a tree, point at the hero, and shout "Hah, Gotcha! In your face!"

I mean, seriously.

It's almost as if there was a subtitle on the screen right before the end that said, "Wouldn't it suck if this happened?" It's senseless, it's doesn't improve the story in anyway, and it was obviously put in there to shock the audience. Your storyteller is showing, Mr. Movie, and it's not pretty.

Modern Christmas songs, and country songs all year long, are also prone to this. In particular, the shameful "Shoe Song," which is what inspired me to write this in the first place. The songs basic story:

"Hello, I am a poor little boy whose family cannot afford food or clothes and I am using all of my Christmas money to buy my mommy a pair of shoes because she loves shoes so much. I love my mommy so much and even though she can't walk I know she'll love these shoes, only I have to get them quickly because she is dying and I want to make her happy before she dies and then my daddy and I will go back to the cardboard box we live in behind the 7-11 and likely starve to death but we will be happy because we have each other and because we made mommy happy by getting her new shoes. Aren't I pitiful."

Bleah.

It would be incredibly sad if the songwriter HADN'T MADE THE WHOLE STORY UP JUST TO MAKE US FEEL BAD! What is the point of that? It is so ridiculously over the top in its attempt to be pathetic that it becomes a joke. It is one thing to write a story or song that is meant to evoke emotion in the reader/listener. In fact, a good story or song should evoke emotion. It doesn't quite work when you write across the whole thing in big red letters "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL SAD NOW. PLEASE PROCEED"

WooHoo

2008-11-17T19:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.fearandtremblingmag.com/item.php?sub_id=4362

All Right Dudes

2008-11-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

Today I am in Geek-babel mode. I have a theory about artificial intelligence, based primarily on my own musings while staring at the inside of my windshield while barrelling down 380 between McKinney and Denton. It goes something like this:

The processing power of a mind is inversely proportionate to the amount of "personality" that mind possesses.

Within the human range of minds, the two extremes could be represented by Raymond Babbitt on one end, and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel on the other end.

Raymond Babbitt is a powerful number cruncher, able to count toothpicks instantly, counting cards in Las Vegas, and remembering every case ever to appear before Wapner. He also has no personality whatsoever.

Cletus is a goldmine of personality. You might even say he has it in excess. He also can't count to 11.

The idea is that as a computer is made more human in personality, it will begin to lose processing power, till it reaches the point where an A+ Turring-tested A.I. would spend it's time, not using its vast intellect to solve extremely complicated global issues, but making "pull my finger" jokes. And not understanding why that joke isn't funny when you don't have a finger. Anyway, it's a thought.

I really miss having people to talk to. I think I'm going peculiar.

Big Kids

2008-11-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

God speaks to me frequently through my daughter. Not that she realizes it, I'm sure.

[obvious]Children can be incredibly frustrating.[/obvious]

Over and over, in the times when I am at my wits end with them, it seems I can feel God looking over my shoulder, nodding, and saying, "Yeah, I know exactly how you feel."
He then clears His throat and looks at me pointedly, and I say, "Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry about that."

I haven't figured out whether it is chance, divine intervention, or some underlying natural law beyond my understanding, but I find over and over that my children's bad behavior mirrors my own bad behavior. On the one hand, it helps me in my dealing with them, because I can empathize with them, and on the other it makes me very thankful that God loves children of every age, and that He's a lot more patient than I am.

2008-11-14T06:07:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw Revenge of the Sith for the first time. My daughter really wanted to see it, and I needed to preview it to determine if slowly burning alive and mass slaughter of jedilets is something I want my daughters to watch. Whenever I watch any Star Wars movie it gets me thinking about really bad dialogue.

There is a certain species of phrase that we constantly hear from action heroes and chisel-jawed adventures. These are phrases that we are all familiar with because we hear them all the time, and yet, we probably have never heard a real person say them. In fact, if we imagine ourselves in a similar situation, we realize that we can't even imagine ourselves saying them. This is because nobody talks that way.

I think the problem is that in real life, people do not dialogue. They talk. If I am having a conversation with you, I am not concerned about whether or not a bystander understands the back story or how the two of us are related. I'm not going to try to feign confusion in order to give myself a chance at further exposition. I'm not going to think out loud when I'm by myself.

Consider the following:

It's so crazy it just might work!

These two statements are rarely ever simultaneously true. Furthermore, nobody is going to trust their life to a plan that they consider to be crazy. Even a crazy person is not going to trust their life to a plan they think is crazy. They will simply consider fewer things to actually be crazy.

For Example:

The outlaws are trapped in a saloon while a lynch mob is waiting outside for them.

Outlaw 1: Let's just run out there, guns blazing, and take 'em.
Outlaw 2: It's so crazy it just might work!

In this case it's desperate but not in any way irrational. If you charge, you'll surprise them and cause confusion, and maybe one of you will escape.

Outlaw 1: Let's stuff tinker toys up our noses and pretend to be robot monkeys!
Outlaw 2: It's so crazy it just might work!

This really is crazy, but it won't work.

Basically, if you have to tell a reader that an idea is crazy, it's not crazy enough. If you have to tell them that others in the group feel that the idea is crazy, there are more elegant ways than having one of them point a finger like Donald Sutherland and shout "That's Crazy!"

What are you saying...

This phrase is usually used rhetorically, to show that what the speaker suggested sounds unbelievable, but really is true. It also allows for the speaker to continue on with his or her original thought and elaborate. It also sounds dumb.

Example:

Hero: The giant alien killer ants are trying to break through the door!
Heroine: What are you saying? We're about to be eaten?

Listen, kitten. If you are going to survive this, you need to develop at least a small amount of critical thinking. If we're confronted by a ravenous man-eater, I don't want you stopping to wonder whether you run toward or away from.

We've got to try!

The hero is desperate to save whoever it is he is saving. Things look bleak, everyone is telling the hero that it's never going to work and that they are all going to die. The hero gives them a steely eyed stare. Maybe he snatches his glasses off of his face Horatio Caine style. Maybe, if he's particularly feisty, he pounds his fist into his hand. He growls, "We've got to try!"

No, see, here's the thing. Nobody is impressed or inspired by this. It sounds like you're saying, "I agree. We've got a snowball's chance in hell of getting out of this, but lets have some action anyway. Besides, I'm bored."

A more likely response when stuck with a bunch of whiners who have no survival instinct: "Fine, you guys stay here while I escape. I'll probably send some sort of rescue... helicopter, or something. Say, while I'm running away, you don't suppose you could scream and jump up and down and, oh I don't know, look tasty? That'd be great."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

*snrk*
If you should ever find yourself experiencing unbearable grief, don't react in a way that makes those around you laugh. This is not the reaction of someone gripped by a powerful emotion. This is a 3 year-old who was told to go to bed. Actually it was exactly the sort of thing I would have expected from Pouty Vader, but it would have been better if he had thrown himself on the floor and done a full kicking and pounding his fists tantrum

There was this one time...

2008-11-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

Some people have hundreds of great stories to tell, and others seem to live lives in which nothing happens. The story tellers, if given a chance to utter the words, "There was this one time," will talk your ear off until they are shushed. I have actually heard people of the other type claim that nothing interesting has ever happened to them.

I don't buy that.

I think the difference has to do with what you find interesting yourself. This morning my son took off his diaper, climbed into the dishwasher, and pooped in it. To another person this might simply be the kind of annoyance you put up with as a parent. To me, it's a funny and interesting story (and after all, cleanup was a breeze. I just threw some detergent in and started it up.) It might be a great start of a scene in a novel or a short story, or just something to make a scene more interesting. Take for instance, the story of Faust. The devil comes to see this guy to make an offer on his soul. Ok, a potentially interesting scene. What if, when the devil shows up, Faust was on his hands and knees trying to fish a turd out of the dishwasher? How might the conversation go? It seems like my more successful attempts at writing have made use of my own experiences. The only story I've been able to sell so far was almost entirely made up of my own memories. Nothing is ever as strange as real life.

The Road Heavily Trafficked

2008-11-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

Every blog must have a first post. Let this, therefore, be that post.

I used to blog, and then I didn't.

I realized today that I kind of liked blogging when I did it, so I should do that again. This page before you is the result of that immomentous decision. It will not necessarily be funny, but it may be more frequent, so you get more content with less motivation to read.

I need something to make me think about writing everyday. Otherwise I get lazy. So this blog is going to be at least partly about writing. I expect this will be part-time ranting and part-time throwing out ideas I have to see if they are interesting.