Journal

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A THIN LINE BETWEEN TOTAL NUT-JOB AND ECCENTRIC QUASI-TRILLIONAIRE:  If I ever become incredibly wealthy, I’m going to be like the guys of Dethklok (Metalocalypse.) Not all violent and crazy, but just some total loon that goes along with anything people say.

Nothing super crazy, but I think it would be cool to just go along with some “I Love Lucy”-esque hijinks and just roll with the situation. To meet all these strange people and be in their lives for a couple of days to just see how it is, but to always have the reassurance of being able to say “Fuck it” and just leave if you hate it. That has got to be one of the awesomest things ever.

Can you imagine going back in time to all the jobs you’ve ever had, doing them, but totally not giving two shits about anything? Would you tell your bosses exactly what you think of them? Would you ask that one chick what exactly that is on her chin? Would you chuck politeness and tell boring-talky-guy that his word vomit annoys you? Or would you go the other route and spend all your time being the crazy friend to different people, the one that always tries to help out and manages it, but only after some highly unlikely events take place?

Basically, how cool would it be to act like Van Wilder and have a ton of money to back you up? I would totally have a Taj of my own, though one that’s not so skeezy.

I think my life would be so much better if I had an assistant and a manager, though my manager would have to be like the guy from Josie and the Pussy Cats (he’s totally the same character in Royal Pains, no lie.) I would be like a real live Jeeves & Wooster if I had the money to pull it off. Plus I’d have a Swim Spa, never ending pool.

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COMIC BOOK CHATTER:  So I read this article at Cracked.com and it really got me to thinking about Mr. Freeze and about the different levels of evil. There are just some lines that people don’t want to cross, and you can pretty much see how hardcore a book really is by how far the villain is willing to go.

For cereal, why didn’t his boss let him keep his frozen wife on ice? If the guy was truly Machiavellian, he would have seen this as the perfect leverage to use against the guy — he could keep Fries as a serf for the rest of forever as long as he had the wife housed at his facility. Fries would have been happy to stay there and would have been loyal to his boss for being cool enough to let him keep his dead wife there. I mean, it wasn’t as though the guy was the one that killed her or anything; she had sucky genes. He could have been Fries’ hero, while still totally doing the bad guy giggle in the backroom. That right there was the stereotypical bad guy cutting his nose off to spite his face tactic.

And this is where it comes around to “Dune” once again. That was a movie that had The Evil Empire make a guy betray his Duke by snatching the guy’s wife and raping the guy’s mind into compliance. The dude was so traumatized, that even knowing his wife is dead, he still serves the bad guy and gets a bunch of people killed. He was so mind-raped that it was like he was Imperius’d or something; he served the bad guy just for the possibility of finding out what had happened to his wife. He could have told the Duke what was going on at any time, and the Duke probably would have helped him go after the bad guy. There had to be someone else that knew what happened to his wife.

But the bad guy had the poor guy so twisted, that he’s not even free to have his own thoughts. That’s pretty evil right there.

David Drake’s military sci-fi series “Northworld” kicks it up a notch with one guy being kept in a cage by The Evil King and forced to keep creating weapons. The Evil King killed the poor guy’s brothers (that or the brothers were killed before then, I’m not sure. I need to re-read the books, and you need to read them for the first time), crippled the guy, then even came around to hassle him and threaten torture on a semi-regular basis. That was a bit too much evil, considering the guy nutted out and broke The Evil King’s wife and kids, just shattered them mentally.

So there’s kind of an evil guy balance that needs to be maintained. Too evil and the victim becomes an unstoppable killing machine, and not evil enough and the guy becomes an unstoppable killing machine that speaks with a thick Austrian accent and wants to kill that pesky spandex wearing boy.

Hogfather at Amazon
0 comments on "Penguins can fly #LifeStory"

Okay, so sometimes my brother can be a dick. I laugh about it, but he’s always getting me with stupid stuff.

We were watching like Animal Planet or something and it was all stories about amazing animals and their feats. So during the commercial, The Girl blurts out “Penguins can fly!”

I scoffed like really loudly, “No they can’t. Whoever told you that is stupid because penguins can’t fly.” I probably sounded a little too irritated, but she’s always coming out with stupid shit to try and get as much attention as possible. She’s still trying to fit into our family because she only came to live with all of us during the summer, and now we’re staying at my Dad’s house. Three strong willed adults leaves a couple of kids that don’t really get away with a whole lot, especially the lies she likes to tell. (The most worrisome thing for me is that she actually seems to believe her lies, even the really crazy ones.)

Anyways, that whole penguins flying thing had me just snapping out as fast as possible to tell her that it wasn’t real. She kept insisting it was true, and we got into this whole deal, going rounds and rounds.

Then my brother goes, “Check this out” and turns his computer.

On the screen was like a National Geographic type show with penguins flying around. “The only penguins that are able to fly and who love to migrate to like the Bahamas.”

For a minute, my brain just stalled and I was like “It’s impossible, but it might be true.” And I was really kind of getting into the idea of it, when there was a snap and I was like “No way. I call Shenanigans! It’s like that spiders smoking weed video. FAKE!”

And my brother laughed and turned his computer to the spider video.

It was good to laugh like that, and thinking about it now, I’m still laughing.

That’s the kind of thing I get nostalgic for afterwards.

BTW, my brother just said that Hank Hill got raped by a dolphin. Seems legit.

Heroes & Villains at Amazon
0 comments on "#amwriting Or at least, I’m *trying* to write. Too bad the world keeps sucking me away :("

Bought the Blu Ray of “Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s such a great movie that I can’t believe it didn’t do any better in the theater. It must have looked truly awesome on the big screen. Beautiful scenery, an engaging story, and Orlando Bloom was incredibly hot in this movie; Liam Neeson wasn’t too bad either for an old dude ^_^; Lots of sword action and the extended edition has a whole sidestory that is pretty fascinating too.

Continue Reading #amwriting Or at least, I’m *trying* to write. Too bad the world keeps sucking me away 🙁
Hogfather at Amazon
0 comments on "Show, Don’t Tell"

I have a real problem with “show, don’t tell” when writing. I realize I do it, so I try to stop myself, but sometimes it just kind of gets away from me.

I blame Joss Whedon and what I think might have been the “Earshot” episode. That part where Buffy’s reading everyone’s mind, then she focuses on Oz and he’s just this deeper well of inner monologue. It made me laugh happily.

I’m completely enamored with the idea that someone has this entire inner world going on and all these sweeping thoughts. So while they explore every nook and cranny of an idea or feeling, when someone asks them a question, they’re just like “Yeah. I know.”

It’s kind of a flaw, but it’s kind of become my personal style too. I can already see it being polished up into a “Thing” and you can definitely see how it’s been honed with my writing. Take “Visions of Blood & and Shadow” and “Little Boy Blue,” then compare them to “Heroes & Villains” and “Echo.” There’s a definite maturation process going on, and it makes me pretty happy. I feel like a home brew–given time, I’ll become a tasty beer.

Someday I hope to be a good writer (I’m not egotistical enough to claim being a “great” one.) Sure, there’s some people that might say I’m pretty good right now, but I want to just keep getting better.

“We are all made of stars.”