Saturday, October 4, 2008
Late night incoherant rambling
I title this post "late night" even though it's before midnight. Crazy, crazy. I don't regularly go to bed too much before midnight, either, but it always feels so late. It's tough being a night person in a world that values getting up early. I blame Benjamin Franklin and his early to bed early to rise crap. We need two kinds of schools. The kind that we currently has that starts early and is done by or around 3, for those who want to do after school activities. And then we need the other kind for people like me who don't really wake until afternoon gets going. And the other teacher who ready this blog might not be night people, but you know the kids who are. They function better in the afternoon. They are more alert. And I can tell you from experience that it's not always that they're just staying up late. Some of us just don't fall asleep until well after midnight. I can wake up at six every morning for months in a row. Last year I did just that. I disciplined myself to get my butt out of bed on the weekends. I always read about the consistency being the key. It didn't do much. Sleep was still hard to come by. So that's just one of the school changes I make when I have the power to totally wipe out the entire educational system and start from scratch. And that shouldn't just be some silly blog - we need to do just that.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Why I'm right and you're wrong - reason #742.
I figure that while I sit here in the bar waiting for teachers to show up (since teachers are the biggest drinkers - you already knew that, though), I might as well fulfill some blogging duties.
I want to clarify a couple things about me politically while still leaving things vague (mostly so that I still have things to complain about). I don't think this first statement is a shocker if you have read anything of mine: I'm not a Republican. I'll let you collect your jaws from the ground. But I'm also not a Democrat. I pretty much subscribe to the theory that it's corporatations and the military-industrial complex that are running the country. I am, however, currently registered as a Democrat so that I could vote in the primary. I have been registered as a Republican before just so that I could vote in that primary, too.
A lot of where I'm coming from in my comments about this election aren't because I'm a Democrat. It's that I dislike the Republicans much more than the Democrats. There are three reasons to be a Republican. 1 - you're rich. This is the best reason to be a Republican. And by rich, I'm going to define that not with a dollar amount but owning more than one house or having the means to do so. In that case, you should be a Republican if you are more concerned with your money than anything else. If your fiscal concerns outweigh your social concerns AND you are rich, you should be a Republican. 2 - you think you're going to be rich. Guess what? Lots of people think that. Lame. 3 - you hate people. For any reason, whether it is gender, race, orientation, poverty level. With my logic here, I should be a Republican since I dislike the Republicans.
But seriously, though, if you agree with me and yet you think the Democrats are going to save the day, you can't be too bright. Obama isn't going to change very much. There's only one or two decisions he can make that really matter and that's in appointing a Supreme Court justice or two. Beyond that? Not so much. But that doesn't mean I don't support him or will or won't vote for him. But that's a different blog, different day...
I want to clarify a couple things about me politically while still leaving things vague (mostly so that I still have things to complain about). I don't think this first statement is a shocker if you have read anything of mine: I'm not a Republican. I'll let you collect your jaws from the ground. But I'm also not a Democrat. I pretty much subscribe to the theory that it's corporatations and the military-industrial complex that are running the country. I am, however, currently registered as a Democrat so that I could vote in the primary. I have been registered as a Republican before just so that I could vote in that primary, too.
A lot of where I'm coming from in my comments about this election aren't because I'm a Democrat. It's that I dislike the Republicans much more than the Democrats. There are three reasons to be a Republican. 1 - you're rich. This is the best reason to be a Republican. And by rich, I'm going to define that not with a dollar amount but owning more than one house or having the means to do so. In that case, you should be a Republican if you are more concerned with your money than anything else. If your fiscal concerns outweigh your social concerns AND you are rich, you should be a Republican. 2 - you think you're going to be rich. Guess what? Lots of people think that. Lame. 3 - you hate people. For any reason, whether it is gender, race, orientation, poverty level. With my logic here, I should be a Republican since I dislike the Republicans.
But seriously, though, if you agree with me and yet you think the Democrats are going to save the day, you can't be too bright. Obama isn't going to change very much. There's only one or two decisions he can make that really matter and that's in appointing a Supreme Court justice or two. Beyond that? Not so much. But that doesn't mean I don't support him or will or won't vote for him. But that's a different blog, different day...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The VP debates. Who cares?
I was prepared to do a "follow the debate" type blog tonight, but I didn't get home until 6:30. I did catch a bit at the bowling alley and on the radio on the way home, so I've seen most of it. I seriously need to keep myself from jamming a pencil deeply into my ear.
Palin seemed to be holding her own for the first hour, but the debate might have been too long for her. Biden's brief choke up clearly threw off Palin. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Her next couple sentences were thrown off. And since all of her answers are one long sentence, that means her next few responses. It took her off script for a bit, though she did jump back a little at the end. She is probably going to look ok simply because of low expectations.
But while I thought she stumbled at that point, it won't matter. Remember back to the VP debate of 1988. In that was the "You're no Jack Kennedy" line delivered to Dan Quayle. Didn't matter that Quayle looked like an idiot - Bush the elder still won pretty easily. The VP debates really don't matter. I don't think the VP decision in general matters too much either. The only thing that might make this different is the historical potential for a female VP. The deciding factor is going to be Obama v McCain. So nice diversion, but the real debates will be back next week. I did enjoy her "[John McCain's] the man we need to leave" gaff. Good times.
Palin seemed to be holding her own for the first hour, but the debate might have been too long for her. Biden's brief choke up clearly threw off Palin. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Her next couple sentences were thrown off. And since all of her answers are one long sentence, that means her next few responses. It took her off script for a bit, though she did jump back a little at the end. She is probably going to look ok simply because of low expectations.
But while I thought she stumbled at that point, it won't matter. Remember back to the VP debate of 1988. In that was the "You're no Jack Kennedy" line delivered to Dan Quayle. Didn't matter that Quayle looked like an idiot - Bush the elder still won pretty easily. The VP debates really don't matter. I don't think the VP decision in general matters too much either. The only thing that might make this different is the historical potential for a female VP. The deciding factor is going to be Obama v McCain. So nice diversion, but the real debates will be back next week. I did enjoy her "[John McCain's] the man we need to leave" gaff. Good times.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Known Blog-a-dayers
The following people have reported that they intend to or might just become blog-a-dayers:
Lance Christian Johnson
Kirsti
Brian C
Mr. Haley
Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy
ktbby
The Kizzlar"
Me.
Let me know if your name should be added to the list.
And for those just starting, there are rules. You don't actually have to follow them but here they are just in case:
Blog with the rules
Lance Christian Johnson
Kirsti
Brian C
Mr. Haley
Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy
ktbby
The Kizzlar"
Me.
Let me know if your name should be added to the list.
And for those just starting, there are rules. You don't actually have to follow them but here they are just in case:
Blog with the rules
Blog-a-day, DAY 1!
So I had a fight with a vampire.
Allow me back up a bit.
I tell ya, there's nothing better to ease getting pissed by something than to switch to something else and to get pissed even more at that. I decided to take a quick blogging break and instead grade history notebook. The first was a 90. Out of 200. And then next three got lower, until the fourth was 25. Again, out of 200. Good times! I'm back to blog.
A couple weeks ago I finally went ahead and picked up an Xbox 360. I spent 25 minutes earlier typing up the long history behind this purchase. I typed Part I of this tale, with Part II set to come this weekend. For now, this is what was meant to be Part III, so someday perhaps I'll go back and retype the prequel.
As I CLEARLY explained in Part II, I only own a few games at this point. You now TOTALLY know why. One of the games is Oblivion. Several years ago, I picked up Morrowind for the PC. Morrowind was the game in the Elder Scrolls series before Oblivion. I had trouble getting into the game, but I appreciated it. Looking back after playing Oblivion, I think I now know why. There were some things that I must have missed which diminished how I enjoyed the game. So when Oblivion came out for the PC, I still gave it a try (in highly illegal torrent form). And I liked it, but things got busy and I forgot the game. So when I got the 360, I purchased it. (See? The torrent process works! I never would have bought it if I hadn't bought it! Suck on that, Metallica!)
Oblivion is a fantasy world type role player game. Think World of Warcraft but single player. Or if you have no clue what WoW is, think Orcs and Elves and swords and Nerds. It's a pretty involved game. There are tons and tons of quests, and nothing that is too impossible that you'll get stuck somewhere in the game. Or so I thought. Back to that in a moment.
What was it that started this sexification of Vampires? Was it Inteview With a Vampire? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Or something earlier that I don't even know about? It seems like those blood suckers went from horrible monster to sexy beast. While I had an appreciation for Buffy and watched many episodes, I never caught on, or even understood, this Vampire lust thing. i tried out a couple episodes of the new HBO show about Vampires because of the Alan Ball & Six Feet Under connection. It didn't stick.
But this love of vampires trickled into Oblivion. Some designer thought that he or she or they would put vampires into the game. I can get behind that. There's even the possibility that your character can turn into a vampire. OK, still cool. But this sucked. Sucked ASS.
So I had a fight with a vampire. Of course, I kicked its ass, because I rule. But apparently I was bit during the battle. It flashed some message about how I might be infected. I checked my stats, and no sign of any problems. So I continued on my questing way. After saving and coming back to the game a few days later, I had forgotten about said message. There was another clue or two about the bite, but it didn't really register with me that my character was, in fact, turning into a vampire. once it got to the last part, though, where it actually became obvious, I ignored it. "Cool. I'll be a vampire for awhile." As it turns out, it sucks. And not just literally.
The designers of this game decided to throw their full vampire lust into the game. Obviously, you can't go outside at night. Slightly inconvenient. Even worse, the people won't talk to you since you're a vampire. Those two things mean that you can't really keep playing the normal game anymore until you're cured. The problem is that the cure quest is extremely long and tedious. And since you can't go outside at night or talk to people, nearly impossible.
Here's how frustrating it is. I had a save point from when I pretty much started that day many hours earlier. I played as a vampire for three hours, and the save point was three hours before that. I decided that it would be MORE FUN to go back to the save point from six hours ago and replay many of the quests INSTEAD of continuing and trying to finish the cure quest. Does that seem like good game design? Since the game auto-saves regularly, I don't even set save points that often, so I was lucky to have the point I did. Lousy game design. Should I protest and stop playing? No. Parts I and II clearly state why I won't, don't you think?
Allow me back up a bit.
I tell ya, there's nothing better to ease getting pissed by something than to switch to something else and to get pissed even more at that. I decided to take a quick blogging break and instead grade history notebook. The first was a 90. Out of 200. And then next three got lower, until the fourth was 25. Again, out of 200. Good times! I'm back to blog.
A couple weeks ago I finally went ahead and picked up an Xbox 360. I spent 25 minutes earlier typing up the long history behind this purchase. I typed Part I of this tale, with Part II set to come this weekend. For now, this is what was meant to be Part III, so someday perhaps I'll go back and retype the prequel.
As I CLEARLY explained in Part II, I only own a few games at this point. You now TOTALLY know why. One of the games is Oblivion. Several years ago, I picked up Morrowind for the PC. Morrowind was the game in the Elder Scrolls series before Oblivion. I had trouble getting into the game, but I appreciated it. Looking back after playing Oblivion, I think I now know why. There were some things that I must have missed which diminished how I enjoyed the game. So when Oblivion came out for the PC, I still gave it a try (in highly illegal torrent form). And I liked it, but things got busy and I forgot the game. So when I got the 360, I purchased it. (See? The torrent process works! I never would have bought it if I hadn't bought it! Suck on that, Metallica!)
Oblivion is a fantasy world type role player game. Think World of Warcraft but single player. Or if you have no clue what WoW is, think Orcs and Elves and swords and Nerds. It's a pretty involved game. There are tons and tons of quests, and nothing that is too impossible that you'll get stuck somewhere in the game. Or so I thought. Back to that in a moment.
What was it that started this sexification of Vampires? Was it Inteview With a Vampire? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Or something earlier that I don't even know about? It seems like those blood suckers went from horrible monster to sexy beast. While I had an appreciation for Buffy and watched many episodes, I never caught on, or even understood, this Vampire lust thing. i tried out a couple episodes of the new HBO show about Vampires because of the Alan Ball & Six Feet Under connection. It didn't stick.
But this love of vampires trickled into Oblivion. Some designer thought that he or she or they would put vampires into the game. I can get behind that. There's even the possibility that your character can turn into a vampire. OK, still cool. But this sucked. Sucked ASS.
So I had a fight with a vampire. Of course, I kicked its ass, because I rule. But apparently I was bit during the battle. It flashed some message about how I might be infected. I checked my stats, and no sign of any problems. So I continued on my questing way. After saving and coming back to the game a few days later, I had forgotten about said message. There was another clue or two about the bite, but it didn't really register with me that my character was, in fact, turning into a vampire. once it got to the last part, though, where it actually became obvious, I ignored it. "Cool. I'll be a vampire for awhile." As it turns out, it sucks. And not just literally.
The designers of this game decided to throw their full vampire lust into the game. Obviously, you can't go outside at night. Slightly inconvenient. Even worse, the people won't talk to you since you're a vampire. Those two things mean that you can't really keep playing the normal game anymore until you're cured. The problem is that the cure quest is extremely long and tedious. And since you can't go outside at night or talk to people, nearly impossible.
Here's how frustrating it is. I had a save point from when I pretty much started that day many hours earlier. I played as a vampire for three hours, and the save point was three hours before that. I decided that it would be MORE FUN to go back to the save point from six hours ago and replay many of the quests INSTEAD of continuing and trying to finish the cure quest. Does that seem like good game design? Since the game auto-saves regularly, I don't even set save points that often, so I was lucky to have the point I did. Lousy game design. Should I protest and stop playing? No. Parts I and II clearly state why I won't, don't you think?
Harris promises to discuss his current hatred of Vampires.
Here's the deal. I just spent the last 25 minutes typing out my first Blog-a-day entry and then when I went to search for a nice picture to put inside, I missed and clicked the back arrow. Shitty Myspace blog entry poster shit doesn't save anything in the window. so now I'm pissed and don't want to type anymore right now. I will be back before midnight to fullfill my blog-a-day duties, but i'm only typing in the blogger window from now on because it saves stuff. Fuck shit on a pissing stick. But it saves the subject. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Blog-a-day month!
It's blog-a-day month! I hope you have either submitted your first blog already or that something is brewing in your head. If you aren't planning to participate in the festivities because you think it might be too hard, then consider this: life is hard. Deal with it and blog-a-day, for crying out loud. It does get tough, especially twenty days in when you realize that your brilliant mind has blogged all that there is to blog. But how are you going to feel at the end of October if you don't? First of all, Johnson is going to be declaring victory. And those of us who DO blog-a-day will look at him and his blog and think, "But 25 of those days were complaints about the same thing," and you'll say to him, "Good job, Lance, you are victorious," but you'll know in your heart that everyone who tries to get through it is just as victorious. And you who didn't try at all? You'll know that the only people who weren't victorious were those that didn't try. So yeah. Don't be a loser. Blog-a-day. It's the right thing to do. Next year I'm making bumper stickers, posters, and banners.
Tonight I'll officially start with my blog about why I'm angry with vampires. Those bastards.
Tonight I'll officially start with my blog about why I'm angry with vampires. Those bastards.
Monday, September 8, 2008
October is coming...
October is the 2nd annual BLOG-A-DAY month.
Can you handle the challenge?
You can find the rules here:
http://blog. myspace. com/index. cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&FriendID=5256632&blogMonth=9&blogDay=24&blogYear=2007
Can you handl
You can find the rules
http:
Monday, September 1, 2008
Blockhead
I taught creative writing for three years. (OK, so the last year I totally phoned it in. For those of you who were in that class, sorry about that. Let's call it two and a half.) I taught a few methods to fight writer's block. One of them being, of course, that it really doesn't exist. So I should know how to deal with it.
For the past year now, I've pulled out a pad of paper, opened Word in my computer, or started notepad in my Blackberry probably 50 or more times. Yeah, it's every few days, once a week or more. Nothing comes out.
I even found something that I typed up almost 10 years ago that was an outline to a novel type idea. I really liked it. It dealt with cults, time travel, and supernatural beings. I have three or four other full-length ideas, and a few more that would make nice short stories. Still, nothing comes out.
While I drove around this summer (all together, I topped 5000 miles easily), I thought of new ideas. Even new scenes. Some things that would be kinda cool to write, even if they don't even turn into a short story. Still, nothing comes out.
I think that just about the only times that I get out more than a sentence or two is when I blog (and you see how often that is) or when I'm creating some sort of lesson plan.
About a month ago, I had a dream (not just that once. I've had many, many dreams. But the dream starts this point). Some of you might have experienced this: I woke up and realized that it would make a totally cool story, so I wanted to get back to sleep to continue the dream. I hit snooze, and drifted back near the point of being asleep, snoozed again, drifted, and continued until the dream was a long distant thought. I barely had the slightest hint of what it was out after a few snooze shots. So I placed a notepad and a pen by my bed so that I could write down ideas when I woke up. It's still blank.
I do remember last night's dream. Well, the basic idea, at least. I was living in a world where people had super powers; a Marvel or DC type of universe. I wasn't me. I was a character living in this world. And I, too, had a power. I had to power to know when people received mail that they didn't want. I'll wait here a second while you reread that. That was my super creative inner mind at work. Oh, I didn't just know when people received mail with bad news. Not just bills, either. I knew when they received mail that was addressed to a previous occupant about something irrelevant to the current occupant. I knew when they received junk mail. Yep, that's what I dreamed. I do remember that email started to become part of the dream, but it was more of a question mark and less of an absolute.
I wonder if that dream is why I can't write anything. Because I have lame dreams. Actually, I think there might be a short story in there somewhere. What if in this place, people have all sorts of random powers but they just can't use them? How about the power to know when a TV show named "Shark Fighters" is on TV, but the show doesn't exist? That person would never even know about that power. By the way, "Shark Fighters" might also make a good story. Maybe I'll try that one, too. These days, I'd be pretty happy with anything longer than a sentence.
For the past year now, I've pulled out a pad of paper, opened Word in my computer, or started notepad in my Blackberry probably 50 or more times. Yeah, it's every few days, once a week or more. Nothing comes out.
I even found something that I typed up almost 10 years ago that was an outline to a novel type idea. I really liked it. It dealt with cults, time travel, and supernatural beings. I have three or four other full-length ideas, and a few more that would make nice short stories. Still, nothing comes out.
While I drove around this summer (all together, I topped 5000 miles easily), I thought of new ideas. Even new scenes. Some things that would be kinda cool to write, even if they don't even turn into a short story. Still, nothing comes out.
I think that just about the only times that I get out more than a sentence or two is when I blog (and you see how often that is) or when I'm creating some sort of lesson plan.
About a month ago, I had a dream (not just that once. I've had many, many dreams. But the dream starts this point). Some of you might have experienced this: I woke up and realized that it would make a totally cool story, so I wanted to get back to sleep to continue the dream. I hit snooze, and drifted back near the point of being asleep, snoozed again, drifted, and continued until the dream was a long distant thought. I barely had the slightest hint of what it was out after a few snooze shots. So I placed a notepad and a pen by my bed so that I could write down ideas when I woke up. It's still blank.
I do remember last night's dream. Well, the basic idea, at least. I was living in a world where people had super powers; a Marvel or DC type of universe. I wasn't me. I was a character living in this world. And I, too, had a power. I had to power to know when people received mail that they didn't want. I'll wait here a second while you reread that. That was my super creative inner mind at work. Oh, I didn't just know when people received mail with bad news. Not just bills, either. I knew when they received mail that was addressed to a previous occupant about something irrelevant to the current occupant. I knew when they received junk mail. Yep, that's what I dreamed. I do remember that email started to become part of the dream, but it was more of a question mark and less of an absolute.
I wonder if that dream is why I can't write anything. Because I have lame dreams. Actually, I think there might be a short story in there somewhere. What if in this place, people have all sorts of random powers but they just can't use them? How about the power to know when a TV show named "Shark Fighters" is on TV, but the show doesn't exist? That person would never even know about that power. By the way, "Shark Fighters" might also make a good story. Maybe I'll try that one, too. These days, I'd be pretty happy with anything longer than a sentence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)