| (no subject) |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|04:43 pm] |
Well, this was an eventful weekend for me. Not that I did anything particularly out of the ordinary, but it's like the many small things I've been doing have finally built up to the point where I have achieved something.
The first, and probably most momentous, of these events was not even something I did myself. My son is crawling now! It's pretty awesome to watch him tooling around everywhere, having a grand old time chewing on power cables and licking walls and waving his head near every pointy object in the house. So yay, he's moving, but now we have to actually keep an eye on him. I still think I should invent an entire jumpsuit made of velcro, so that I can just stick the little guy to a special mat where he's unable to move. Or would that be construed as child abuse?
Secondly, I have finally finished playing Might & Magic VI after... six months? Honestly, this is a big game, and playing for an average of half an hour every day really drags it out. As RPGs go it does a lot of things I like. It's very open-ended for a start - you can go wherever you like, and it's more than likely that you'll go somewhere and get your ass kicked for not being strong enough. But in many ways it's too open-ended. For a good 90% of the game I just felt like I was wandering around undertaking random missions without much of a purpose. It got a bit more interesting once I'd found the Oracle, and the sci-fi stuff got mixed with the fantasy, but it's Might & Magic - that's the whole premise of the series, so it's not a surprise to find out that the enemy are aliens in a crashed spaceship. Still, there are a lot of cool dungeons, and it's by no means a bad game. It kept me occupied for a long while, but in the end it was nothing outstanding.
Lastly, I finally, finally completed the first draft of Jack Manley vs. the Warlord of Infinity. Which is, like, the first time I've ever finished anything significant in my life. It did feel a little anti-climactic, to be honest. I typed the final sentence, then I sat back and sort of wondered whether I should feel excited or not. Maybe it's just that the book sucks at the moment - I wrote much of it without a great deal of thought. There are scenes to rearrange, plot holes to patch up, characters whose names change halfway through... I have scenes to delete, characters to scrap, and other characters who have to be merged into one. It needs a pretty hefty salvage operation, but I'm confident that it will be worth it once I'm done.
And because I don't have anywhere else to blog about it, I've been watching some old Doctor Who episodes - specifically The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis, in which Tom Baker's Doctor dies and is replaced by Peter Davison.
First up, the Keeper of Traken. This one I don't mind - the Doctor shows up in Traken, which is an empire founded on people being terribly nice to each other, and held together by the immense power of the Keeper. The Keeper's near death, so Traken is in a state of minor turmoil, and the Master is in the background waiting to take that power for himself. It's an average Tom Baker story with a nice fairy-tale atmosphere, made slightly more important since it marks the Master's return from rotting corpse to gentleman villain.
No, the problem I have is with Logopolis, Tom Baker's final story. Now the basic idea is great - a bunch of guys chanting mathematical formulae are keeping the universe from disintegrating, and the Master decides to turn that to his advantage. But god, the nonsense that surrounds it. First you have the assembly of the worst TARDIS crew in the show's history. Not only do we get an implausible method of bringing back Nyssa (who was in the last story), but we have to deal with the introduction of Tegan. She's so irritating, with her overblown Australian accent and her bossy attitude and her unconvincing acting. It doesn't help that her Aunt gets killed by the Master, and she's blown it off 30 seconds later. Say what you will about the new series, but it gives that emotional stuff the weight it deserves.
And speaking of the Master killing people, he does a lot of it here. But the method is pretty obscured if you haven't seen his introduction from 9 years earlier. He walks around a bit, and occasionally you see a crumpled little doll behind him. Now anyone who's seen Terror of the Autons in 1971 knows that he's zapping them with his Tissue Decompression Eliminator, but Logopolis is from 1980. I think it needs at least a line of dialogue to deal with it.
And finally, the death of Tom Baker. He served the longest in the role, and to my mind has only two or three rivals for best ever. In any case, he's the iconic Doctor. And they had the right idea about how to send him off - saving the universe. But honestly, he does it by climbing across a gantry and pulling a plug, then falling off. Any bastard could pull a plug. And it looked as though he could have quite easily climbed back up. It was a weak death, and it didn't help that he was surrounded by rubbish characters that he'd known for about five minutes. God, i was angry the first time I watched it, and it still pisses me off.
Logopolis isn't all bad, but in many ways to me it exemplifies where Doctor Who went wrong in the 80s. It looked rubbish, it had bad actors in the lead roles, and it gave the events no emotional punch. It's a damn shame that Baker went out with such a bad story. |
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| Internet, huzzah! |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|06:34 pm] |
So I've been away from work for a month, which means no internet. It has finally dawned on me over this last period that I have something of an addiction. But that doesn't matter now, because I'm back! Like all addictions, this one is best treated by getting more of what I need.
So anyway, the holidays weren't bad, if exceedingly hot. Some of you overseas (and I assume the Aussies among you) will have seen news of the bushfires here - the reason for those is that it got to FRIGGIN' 46 DEGREES CENTIGRADE over here. I realise it's petty of me to complain about that when people's lives have been devastated out there, but you know what? It was really hot, and looking after a baby at the time didn't help.
In baby news, young Lucas is doing well. He just reached the six month mark, and he's sitting up and eating real food and turning into a real person. Staying at home with him for the last few weeks has me much more comfortable with the whole fatherhood thing, whereas before I was in a perpetual lament for the misspent years of my youth. I guess you could call it a quarter-life crisis of sorts.
In terms of writing, I progress gradually as always. My New Year's Resolution was to crank out at least 500 words a day, every day - but that only lasted a couple of weeks before I went into an 'I suck' phase. I think the problem was that I'd reached the conclusion of my novel, and the various confrontations I'd had planned in my head for a while. As is the way with such things, what goes on the page is never as good as what's in my head. It didn't help that I have a whole bunch of subplots that just kind of spiral away into oblivion. But in the last few days I've picked it up again, and now I only have one chapter to go. Okay, one chapter and extensive rewrites. But 'Jack Manley vs. the Warlord of Infinity' is going to be done before 2009 is out.
One other thing I have to mention? Chris Claremont is going back to the X-Men, picking up from 1991 as though he had never left. Now, I realise that objectively this is not likely to be good. Chris Claremont is a good 15 years past his prime. But you know what? I'm going to love every page of it. I enjoyed the hell out of his first return to the X-Men, I loved X-Treme X-men, I loved his second return to Uncanny. History says I will adore this too, even if it sucks. Plus, Tom Grummett on art will be awesome. It's the book I've been asking for for 15 years, and at the moment I just want to lapse into a coma and wake up when it's released. |
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| Writing Update - 27-11-08 |
[Nov. 27th, 2008|05:46 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Suffragette City - David Bowie | ] |
I have very little to report this week, except that I have been very slack. After giving up on Nano I haven't written a word on my novel - but that will change. Last night I attended a retirement send-off for one of my all-time favourite teachers, Barry Carozzi, who was the heart and soul of the Professional Writing course that I attended a from 2000 to 2004.
Barry was never a paticularly big influence on my style of writing, but I've never met anyone who's so enthusiastic about being a writer. Just hanging out with the guy makes me want to write, so I have the bug again. At 1,000 words a day, a couple of weeks should see me with a complete first draft.
*
In other news, my friend Tim's wedding has come and gone. I read the piece that I was banging on about some weeks ago, and it went down very well. I think I fooled some people there into thinking that I am deep, but that's beside the point. I might post that piece up here soon, but I'd like to get my friend's permission first. It's a bit overblown and full of wedding day nonsense, but I'm still pretty happy with the result and glad they liked it. |
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| Writing Update - 20-11-08 |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|04:13 pm] |
Ah, NanNoWriMo - it was good while it lasted.
As is my modus operandi, I have given up - one weekend lost to a bucks' party, another lost to a trip home to see my Mum and Dad, and next weekend lost to a wedding and BBQ. There's no way I could catch up. And since I was already semi-cheating by using a novel I had already half-written, it doesn't feel so bad. The project did what I intended it to do, and that was to jump-start my novel and get me somewhere close to the end.
Compared to the last few weeks, this has been a slow one. Going home to Ararat, the land where no computer may tread, was always going to throw me off. But I've just been feeling lazy in general. I've still been keeping the word count ticking over, but a lot of the spark I was feeling last week has drained away. The end of the book isn't coming together as easily as I hoped it would - I've got loose plot strands I don't know how to tie up, and I feel like I'm getting a bit repetitive. If anything, this has taught me that Jack Manley is not a character to centre a long novel around. After this is done I think I'll restrict him to short stories for a while, where his excesses won't get quite so out of hand as I try to top myself. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2008|04:12 pm] |
Ah, writing - the victim of my fickle muse. My NaNoWriMo week has been an interrupted one, with three days in a row where I got absolutely nothing done. Saturday was my friend Tim's bucks party, which left little time for scholarly pursuits (unless you count drinking). Sunday was a day of rest, and recovery from a mild hangover. And Monday saw the onset of one of my semi-regular bouts of Existential Angst, where in I wonder what the point of it all is and whether life is worth living. (The answer I usually come up with is this: there is no point, life isn't worth a tin shit, but hey there sure are a lot of good books I haven't read yet...)
On the plus side, I am actually nearing the end of Draft 1 on "Jack Manley vs. the Warlord of Infinity". I think I have three or four chapters to go, and maybe about 20,000 words. It's a pretty awesome feeling, especially as I start writing scenes and confrontations that I have had in my head for a couple of years. I am aware that finishing the first draft is by no means the end, but I'm stoked nonetheless.
*
I was going to talk about the bucks night, but I've run out of time, so I leave you with this dubious estimation of my abilities:
24Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Sites |
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| Obama and other miscellania |
[Nov. 7th, 2008|01:48 pm] |
So Obama has won the US Election, he's the first blackj president, sunshine and rainbows yada yada yada. There's only one thing I have to say about the whole thing.
Calm down, for christ's sake!
I mean, honestly, he's just a dude. This isn't Superman we're talking about here. He won't be flying backwards around the Earth or dragging Osama out of a cave or throwing nuclear missiles into the sun any time soon. He's just a normal guy, with a normal guy'sl imitations.
Admittedly, he is pretty impressive. A quick look into his background indicates that he's genuinely interested in improving America - certainly that country is going to a much more pleasant place to livein the next few years, unless you happen to live next door to maniacal inbred hillbillies or something.
But it's yet to be seen what Obama is going to achieve. Give him a few years in the job before you proclaim him as the second coming of JC.
*
While the US had it's most significant event of the year this week, so did Melbourne - as it was Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday.
Yeah, horse racing. I don't give a shit either, to be honest, but there's no denying that in Australia, and Melbourne in particular, it's an Event. Lots of people betting and getting dressed up, and about a billion people who don't care a whit about the races suddenly paying attention for a day. It's a combination of high-class fashion and embarassing drunks, which is always good for a laugh.
I'm not immune to it, alas. I used to enjoy it for the public holiday - but at my new job I work it, so that's gone. We do get together at lunchtime for a BBQ and some champagne, which is cool, as I'm always up for a drink at work. I even pay attention to the race, the one time a year I take an interest. I think it is the whole event mentality which drives the thing - everyone else is talking about it, so I have to watch or I'll be out of every conversation for the next month.
*
Of much more significance for me is that I saw Jim Lee on the weekend. I was an X-Men obsessive back in 1991-92, so I was in fanboy paradise - I worshipped the guy back when I was 13, and I don't think that sort of thing ever quite wears off.
The good thing was that he comes across as a genuinely nice guy. There was no superstar ego happening; he was friendly and ready to answer questions and chat and just generally hang out with his fans. He was a bit hardline on signatures and sketches, though - once he hit his quota that was it, and if you missed out then bad luck. Can't say I blame the guy, really - it would get pretty tiresome. I didn't even bother lining up for an autograph, so no skin off my nose.
I did get a bit pissed off with people in the Q&A session, though. One guy kept asking questions about Lee's time in medical school, which was a total friggin' waste of time when you've got a Superstar Comic Artist up on stage. The number of stock questions that got asked drobve me up the wall - what were your influences, how did you break in, blah, blah. Go read an issue of Wizard, you inbreds! I was getting pissed off with it, and I can only imagine Jim Lee's internal response - he's probably answered the exact same questions eighty qiuntillion times. I dunno, maybe the inbreds were pissed at all of the cross-hatching gags my friend Aaron and I were busting out in line before the show. Don't they understand that we kid because we love?
I asked him what the craziest thing he remembers from the early 90s was, and he actually had to stop and think about the answer. After that he launched into stories about the Beatle-mania style signings he had back then, and Image meetings with high-execs where Todd McFarlane wasn't wearing a shirt, and how much crack cocaine there was around in those days. (I think that last bit was tongue-in-cheek, before The Jim's lawyers set upon me.) For about ten minutes there it got really interesting, and I'm taking all the credit.
One last gripe - I think we got ripped off for time. The Q&A was supposed to run for an hour, but some cheeseball from Stargate: Atlanta or something ran overtime. You'd think then that we would run overtime, but no. Stopped at 2:00. Thanks a lot, guy. I had about five more questions I could have asked, each one nerdier than the last.
But yeah, I saw Jim Lee. I breathed Jim Lee's air, man! It was like my early 90s childhood all over again, and there's only one way to describe that - totally radical dude!
*
I just finished reading WHITE GOLD WIELDER, which is book 3 of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenent.
I've already raved here about Book 2, but I didn't enjoy Book 3 quite as much. It's still brilliantly written, and a very fitting conclusion to the series, but something was missing. A lot of really emotional and climactic stuff was going on towards the end, but I wasn't feeling it. I didn't have any sort of genuine connection to any of the characters.
So yeah. Great series, fitting conclusion. But none of the characters are particularly likable. |
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| NaNoWriMo Update: Week 1 |
[Nov. 6th, 2008|04:21 pm] |
So I started this thing on Saturday, which according to my rudimentary grasp of mathematical science means I've been at it for 5 days, not including today.
So far, so good. The word-count of 1,600 a day is fairly doable - consider that I have been working full-time, looking after a baby, and writing a fair chunk of D&D material as well as reading novels and playing computer games. It's no wonder that I crashed out like a grandpa on Tuesday night, I've been flat-knacker balls-to-the-wall.
So five days in, and I've cranked out close to 7,000 words. Keep in mind that I slept through my writing time on Tuesday night (post Melbourne Cup syndrome?). I should have achieved 7,500 words so far, so I'm roughly on target.
For me this is miraculous. I haven't had a sustained period of writing like this in years, and it's pretty invigorating. I'm finding that my quality has improved as well. Doing 200 words a day, as I was before, ended up being not too successful. I was ticking the novel over, but nothing I wrote was of much quality and I never got the chance to get a flow going. With the larger word-count I'm really chugging along and the end looks like it's in sight, even though I keep throwing in gratuitous battles with Manticores that may or may not make the second draft.
One consequence of writing like this is that I'm finding I don't have time to deliberate over character names. I had to introduce a whole squad of soldiers in my last chapter, and every one ended up being named after a prominent writer of early D&D supplements. Do I keep it as an homage, or revise it as superfluous crap when the time comes? I dunno, Private Kuntz has a certain ring to it... |
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| Writing Update 30-10-08 |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|06:13 pm] |
I've been quite productive over the last few weeks (at least by my standards), and so I've decided to really put myself to the test - I'm trying my hand at NaNoWriMo this year.
For those who don't know, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, though National doesn't really cover the scope anymore. It's designed to get as many people as possible to write and complete a novel in one month, the target being 50,000 words.
I attempted this in 2006 - funnily enough, by beginning the Jack Manley novel that I posted an excerpt from last week and am still working on. In blatant disregard for the rules, I'm going use it again. I'm already at 30,000 words, and I reckon another 50,000 should do it pretty easily. If all goes to plan, I ought to have a first draft completed by November 30.
I anticipate finishing that draft before November 30 hits, and in that event I have another idea waiting in the recesses of my brain. But I'll save that idea for later - when I want to put the pieces together and collect my thought, then I'll write about.
So wish me luck with NaNo - if my usual work ethic wins out I don't have a hope. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|03:46 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Eight Days a Week - The Beatles | ] |
Another uneventful week for me, but I did have a glorious weekend with nothing to do - those have been all too rare these days.
So, for your amusement, I present this:
There were a lot more of these, but the account has been mysteriously suspended, alas. |
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| Writing Update 23/10/08 |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|05:49 pm] |
Having again increased my writing output this week (to a grand old 1,000 words), I am declaring my Book of Goals an unqualified success. Three cheers for mediocrity!
And as promised, here is an excerpt from Jack Manley vs. the Warlord of Infinity - the prologue, to be precise. I'm thinking it's a touch topical, and it certainly needs an update regarding the President. But it does give a pretty good approximation of what Jack Manley himself is like.
( Read more... ) |
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| Another week, another superfluous post |
[Oct. 17th, 2008|02:08 pm] |
When I decided to update this blog with my doings every Friday, I figured "Hey, I must do enough stuffin a week for this tobe interesting." Alas, it seems that pretty much all I do is work, look after my baby boy, read and write. I'll try to wring as much excitement out of it as I can.
*
I did have a pretty busy weekend though, now that I think of it. Dora and I took Lucas to see his grandparents (that's my Mum and Dad) at my sister's place in Glen Iris. It was fun, and now that I have a job it's great that I don't have to dread meeting up with my parents any more.
Sunday was a quick trip to visit my friend Tim and his fiancee Michelle. I really wanted to show them the poem I wrote for their wedding ceremony, but they decided to keep it a surprise. Ah well, that bit about the Giant Monkey Cyborg is really going to throw them off on the day.
*
During the week I watched THE KING OF KONG, which is a documentary about Steve Wiebe and his quest to claim the world record score in Donkey Kong. You wouldn't expect this to be particularly interesting, but it's actually a quite fascinating story about the competitive gaming culture and its various heroes and villains. Billy Mitchell, the man with the record that Wiebe is trying to attain, may be the most punchable man in the world. Sure, the doco goes out of its way to depict the guy as an arsehole, but his own conniving actions don't paint him in the best light. I defy anyone to watch it and not hate him. If you've got any interest in the history of games, or appreciate a good underdog story, THE KING OF KONG is pretty awesome.
*
I also finished THE ONE TREE, which is the Book 2 of Stephen Donaldson's Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I know there are a few fantasy fans out there reading this - this series and the trilogy before it are absolute must-reads. Donaldson's imaginitive power is staggering, and his grasp of the human psyche and ability to weave it into a compelling narrative are equally impressive. The story of the series is of Thomas Covenant, a leper from Earth who gets transported to The Land, which is under threat from the evil Lord Foul. It sounds pretty simplistic the way I describe it, but I haven't read many fantasy books with sa much complexity or genuine literary merit.
THE ONE TREE follows Covenant's quest for the eponymous One Tree, which he believes will help him save The Land. It feels a little detached from the rest of the series, as it's the only book not set in The Land itself, and many of the characters and situations have much bearing on past and future events beyond their immediate effect on the characters. In a way I felt that this made the book a bit more enjoyable. Book 1 of this trilogy I had found a bit of a slog, but Book 2 has a greater variety of settings and more surprises, and is a little less depressing.
The fantasy fans out there ought to check it out - this is a seminal work of the genre, and though it can get a bit grim at times it's always quality.
*
Also, Facebook says that I have an IQ of 142. So suck it morons, I'm a near-genius. |
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| Writing Update 15-10-08 |
[Oct. 16th, 2008|01:18 am] |
With the introduction of my little notebook of goals, my output is finally on the increase. "Jack Manley vs. The Warlord of Infinity" has surged ahead by 450 words, which sounds like very little but is a miracle given my utter lack of both time and work ethic.
I want to digress a little bit at the moment and talk a little bit about the style that I'm writing my Manley stories in. I've never been a particularly descriptive writer, and I've never delved all that deeply into the thought processes of my characters. I'm generally more concerned with what they are doing rather than what they see or what they think.
With Manley I've taken that to the extreme. Every descriptive detail that's extraneous to the plot has been excised, and only the barest of nods is given to the thought processes of the characters. It's resulted in a book that barrels along at a pretty fast clip, with quick scenes and a lot of action. The style wouldn't work for everything, but for an over-the-top neo-pulp adventure I like how it reads so far. I might post an excerpt in coming weeks.
The decision to write like this didn't come from nowhere, though. It came from, of all places, an intervierw with Roy Thomas, comic writer extraordinaire. When launching the first Conan comic in the early 70s, he made the conscious decision not to give Conan thought balloons - the character in R.E. Howard's stories is a creature of supreme instinct and action, so this worked well. At the time every lead character in comics was constantly running an internal monologue via thought balloons, so it was a pretty bold move. Jack Manley probably won't have the same cultural impact, but he has punched Islamic Godzilla, and that must count for something. |
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| Combined Update due to Yesterday's Laziness |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|04:12 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | jack manley, ohs, poetry, writing | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | productive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I'm Yours - Jason Mraz (yeah I know, I've gone totally mainstream) | ] |
Writing: I have increased my output by an infinite multiplication this week by writing an amazing 300 words of Jack Manley. At this rate it will be finished some time in 2012. It does include a bomb made from matter mined from beyond the end of time though, so I'm upholding the book's nonsense quotient very well.
As for the poem for Tim and Michelle's wedding, I'm almost theeeere (to quote Red Leader). I've got one line that's being stubborn and rebellious. I'm resisting the urge to take it out back to the firing squad - this rebel will be brainwashed to do my Evil Poet-Lord bidding.
LIFE: I've done very little besides work and look after the little guy, I'm afraid. Babies are time consuming, who'd ever have guessed it? We need to bring back the 50s, when guys were expected to ignore their children except to teach them how to throw balls and stuff.
It may shock you all that I've taken on some actual responsibilities at work - not only am I undergoing Occ Health & Safety training, I've been put in charge of the alarms and whatnot. SO everyone's safety is in my hands, which as many of you know is a potential disaster in the making. Expect pamphlets to be issued by WorkSafe in the future specifically about avoiding the dangers of Me.
Lastly, I've started keeping a mini-journal where I note down a whole lot of minor goals to accomplish during the day. Nothing too trivial! Being generally sick of accomplishing nothing with my life, I've figured that if do a whole lot of little stuff it will add up eventually. So far it's a minor success. 300 words, baby! |
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| Grand Final and other Miscellanea |
[Oct. 4th, 2008|04:39 pm] |
First things first - more photos of Nathan Jr:
That's that out of the way then.
*
So the Hawks won the Grand Final. I could see it coming from the opening bounce - Hawthorn looked pumped, and Geelong looked they couldn't have been arsed to even be there. It was the desirable result all round, I feel.
I spent the day at my friend Aaron's, generally getting pissed and catching up on a lot of nerd stuff - the type of conversation I hyave desperately missed since being housebound. Afterwards we cranked up Rock Band, which is like Guitar Hero but with added drums and vocals. I have discovered that I am apparently 93% as good a singer as Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, and a staggering 98% as good as David Bowie. Come on folks, you can't argue with statistics!
*
In other news I have, after questing within its depths for 20 years, finally completed Bard's Tale III. At last, the rest of life can progress. |
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| Writing Update 04/10/08 |
[Oct. 4th, 2008|04:31 pm] |
The whole purpose of beginning a weekly writing update on this livejournal was to spur me into actually writing things. Naturally, in the week since I started doing this, I have accomplished absolutely nothing. On the upside, I feel terribly guilty about it all, so at least one goal here is working.
At the moment I'm sitting in an Internet cafe, far away from baby-shaped distractions (and also Might-and-Magic-VI-shaped distractions), trying to hash out a poem to read out at my friend Tim's wedding. As I said last week, I have a phrase to build it around (and incidentally, I stole that phrase from a Spider-Man trade paperback). I have little else, and given that I can't work a sword-fight into this thing it's not exactly working to my strengths. Still, I'm struggling as manfully as I can with a love poem, and plan to have at least something done by Monday. Stay tuned. |
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| I CREATED A MONSTER! A MONSTER I TELL YOU! |
[Sep. 26th, 2008|04:49 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | baby, lucas, star wars | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ronnie James Dio - Stand Up And Shout | ] |
I promised several months ago that I'd be getting some pictures of Lucas up in the Internets, for those of you who have yet to see him in the flesh. Given that I am lazy and generally a good five years behind the technology curve, I have but one photo to share.
Cute little guy, isn't he. Takes after his old man, I think.
(Also: Named after Luke Skywalker) |
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| Writing Update |
[Sep. 25th, 2008|01:42 pm] |
With a wee young lad screaming for food every couple of hours, and my job about to go full time, I haven't had much time for writing. More to the point I've had plenty of time to do things while Lucas is asleep, but genuine writing requires me to be relaxed and concentrated, and that ain't happening. I've done quite a lot of bullshit writing (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons), but that stuff isn't furthering my career - especially now that I have no intention of playing the latest edition. Nevertheless, here's a round-up of the things I've been working on.
JACK MANLEY vs. THE WARLORD OF INFINITY: For those who don't know Jack Manley is my attempt to create a pulp action/sci-fi hero. Imagine if Kurt Russell was cast as Doctor Who and proceeded to play him like his character from Big Trouble in Little China - that gives you a pretty good indication of what Manley stories are like. This one sees him facing off against the Warlord and his interdimensional army, as they conquer alternate Earth after alternate Earth in the Warlord's mad quest to slay every alternate universe version of Jack Manley in existence. I was tearing through this a few months ago, but that was when I got to write scenes with Manley punching hordes of monkeys with TASER-sticks instead of teeth - I've reached some quieter chapters setting up the finale, and I'm stuck with what needs to happen next. As usual, I know where I'm going, but I haven't worked out how to get their yet.
FIGHTING FANTASY PROJECT: I'm currently on a major Fighting Fantasy kick, and obsessions for me usually result in ridiculous time-wasting projects. The first of these is converting The Warlock of Firetop Mountain into an RPG adventure module. The second, and far more expansive, is a free-roaming gamebook set in Allansia that links a whole lot of FF gamebooks into one long campaign. The player will choose where he goes and what order he tackles the books in, but I'll be throwing in a few surprises of my own. For example, at the end of Citadel of Chapos, if you don't have a Levitation spell to escape it says you'll have to fight your way out of the Citadel - I'll be writing that up as Escape from the Citadel of Chaos. Similarly, when you beat The Warlock of Firetop Mountain it's hinted that your player might like to remain as the master of Firetop Mountain - I have ideas for that as well. I'm having great fun with it, but gamebooks are REALLY HARD to write.
TIM'S WEDDING: Lastly, and most importantly, I have to write something to read out at my friend Tim's wedding ceremony. This is pretty heavy stuff, and I've been having trouble with it. I want to do something in the realm of poetry, but when I force poetry it comes out as very, very bad. Usually my poems come out of a single line or phrase that pops into my head and resonates with me. I have to kick it around for a while and play with some ideas before it takes shape. The invitations went out a couple of days ago, so I'm running out of time. Luckily I do my best work under pressure, and even more luckily, I have that all important phrase that I can build the rest of it around. All I need is an afternoon without interruptions... But don't worry dude, I'm workin' on it! |
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[Jul. 14th, 2008|05:59 pm] |
Rightio, I know that I haven't posted here in a while. I've had minimal internet access for the last couple of months.
Anyway, Dora and I couldn't find a place to rent when our lease finished up, so I'm living with my in-laws. Which hasn't been as god-awful as I had expected, due to lack of a) having to pay rent and b) having to do housework. If anyone out there wants my new address, they ought to shoot me an e-amil, because it's not going up here.
Also, Dora is due to give birth on the 21st of July - one week away. We know it's a boy, but nothing else has been confirmed. Stay tuned, there may be photographic evidence of my ability to reproduce.
Anyway, apologies to those I haven't contacted for a while. Me am lazy bastard. |
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[Feb. 19th, 2008|07:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  listless | ] |
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| | They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul | ] |
I've never been one to actually enjoy work of any kind. It's no secret - I am a lazy man. My perfect life involves generally being left alone to read, watch movies and play games.
But now I am enjoying my job. And why is that, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you why. Just keep reading.
It is because I have mastered the art of Working Without Working.
Most of my time at work is spent in an underground storeroom scanning books into a tracking system on a laptop. It's repetitive work with no brain power required and minimal human contact - the perfect environment for me, I must say. So I was poking around the inner workings of said laptop, and I noticed that it has DVD-playing software. So that's my entire day. I stand around scanning books and watching movies. It's not quite getting up at 4 in the afternoon to read Superman comics all day, but it'll do.
Also, I work on Dungeons & Dragons stuff on the computer during my many breaks. Life is good.
*
While I'm on the subject of work, the coke machine there is MY BITCH. Every time I go to use it spits out two extra cans at me. No-one else. Just me. It's a small thing, but man it makes me feel like the fucking Fonz every time.
*
So I've been watching movies as I said. here's the rundown.
STARDUST
This was a fun adventure flick, though perhaps a little bit too bright and breezy for my tastes. But everything in it works, except for Robert Deniro. I don't know what it is about the guy, but I don't buy him unless he's portraying a gangster or a killer. Gay captain of a flying ship is a little bit out of his natural range. And that's why I often feel that Deniro is highly overrated as an actor. He's brilliant at portraying certain kinds of people - gangsters and killers, as I said, just generally violent bastards. He works well in comedies as a straight man. But put him in any other kind of role, and he's terribly unconvincing.
PATHFINDER
Vikings vs. Injuns.
Look at the above sentence. Sounds exciting doesn't it? It's not quite ninjas vs. pirates, but it still sounds like an awesome movie. But then you watch a few minutes and spot the name 'Karl Urban' in the credits, and confidence dims...
Urban started well by portraying Eomer in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it's been downhill ever since, with a string of B-Grade genre films. Chronicles of Riddick: Crap. Doom: Crap. And now Pathfinder: Crap.
I think a problem with modern action movies is that they're trying too hard to be substantial. They all have themes just busting out right in front of you. I'd like to sit some filmmakers down in front of Die Hard, or Predator, and ask them afterwards - "Was the theme bleedingly obvious and sledgehammery in execution?" No, because back then the movies just got on with the action and let whatever themes there were develop as a byproduct. (Note - previous paragraph based purely on conjecture. I could conceivably be full of shit here.)
So instead of an awesome battle movie where Vikings fight Injuns - TO THE DEATH-AH! - we get a movie where Evil Vikings slaughter Helpless Native Americans, until Karl Urban gets his shit together and takes all the Vikings out, first with swords (unsuccessfully) and then with The Power Of Nature (successfully).
Also, the whole thing was in that washed-out 'everything is blue' look that movies have these days. Christ, I hate it. Bring back colours!
LADYHAWKE
I remembered this one fondly, but I hadn't seen it for a decade or so. The basic gist is that Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer are in love, but an evil priest cursed them - he's a wolf by night and she's a hawk by day, and so they can never be together. It's a really good concept. Eventually they team up with Matthew Broderick, kill the priest, and blah blah ever after. Standard stuff. I still enjoyed it, but I'd forgotten one thing about it - the music is abysmal! It was composed by some guy from the Alan Parsons Project, so as you'd expect it has a lot of noodling about on a synthesizer. Yep, in a film set in Medieval Europe. Honestly, men wielding synthesizers shouldn't be let within 1,000 miles of the set of a fantasy film, unless that film is Hawk the Slayer. |
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| SCREAM FOR ME MELBOURNE!!! |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|04:11 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Metal | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Iron Maiden - The Trooper | ] |
It's time for a diversion from trifling events, such as the upcoming birth of Invincible Mahney (the baby's current working title). It's time to focus on the most important thing in my life at the moment. You know what that means, don't you?
IRON MAIDEN!!!
I went to the Iron Maiden concert on Wednesday, and it was an utterly amazing experience. I'd never been to a metal gig before this show, and the atmosphere was different from every other concert I've been to. NO-ONE loves their favourite bands like a metal fan. I'm a fairly casual metal fan, and I felt a little out of place - I was wearing my only black t-shirt (with a Decepticon logo on it) and literally every single other person in the arena was in official Maiden regalia. And the greatest thing is that it's an obviously mutual love. The sense I got was that the band love their fans as much as vice versa. I never got that from seeing U2 or Jamiroquai, although Brian May had it as well.
The set list was great, and totally focussed on the classic 80s material. (Note: From this point I'm going to be rattling off song titles that non-Maiden fans won't recognise.) They opened with Aces High, which set the tone perfectly and let everyone know instantly - this concert will be FUCKING KILLER. Brice Dickinson was pretty much forced to shut up and let the crowd sing in a few bits, because he was being drowned out anyway. This was followed by Two Minutes to Midnight, for a nice Powerslave album double.
From there it went into Revelations, which I wasn't quite as familiar with, and then into The Trooper. Dickinson did his classic bit for The Trooper, waving the British Flag about in what was just about the best song of the night. Next up was Wasted Years, which I'd never heard before, but even that bit of unfamiliarity couldn't douse my spirits. I was down there in the crowd singing along and throwing up the devil horns with abandon.
And then they busted out the tracks that everyone knew was coming. Number of the Beast had everyone rocking, and the roar when the classic Vincent Price voiceover started was massive. Run to the Hills followed, and was predictably awesome.
That's when it came - the moment that I'd been waiting for - Rime of the Ancient Mariner! Now, generally metal songs based on classical poetry end up as pretentious twaddle, but this song is the complete opposite. Rime of the Ancient Mariner may just have been the most fulfilling ten minutes of my entire life. And yes, they played the whole ten minutes of it. I could have gone home right then and got my money's worth.
But, you know, Powerslave was next so why would I? The next few songs I wasn't all that familiar with - Heaven Can Wait, Can I Play With Madness, and Fear of the Dark. It was welcome, actually - I needed a rest after the manic hysteria of the Rime. The main setlist finished with the song Iron Maiden, the only track from the non-Dickinson albums, accompanied by a guy in a huge cyborg-Eddie costume (it was totally bad-awesome).
The obligatory encore was a bit strange. I didn't really know Moonchild or the Clairvoyant. Hallowed Be Thy Name made up for that. It was always going to be the last track as far as I was concerned, and a fitting closer.
So they hit most of the songs I wanted to hear. The Prisoner was a glaring omission, and I also missed the presence of The Flight of Icarus. Otherwise? Brilliant. |
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