Monthly Archives: February 2011

Some thoughts on the Wisconsin Issues

First: Once again we have the horribly heated rhetoric in which your opponents are automatically the equivalent to Hitler and or the Nazis. This, as it was with the protest on the right, is simply absurd. While the move to break a set of public worker unions is a major political step,  one certain to generate intense feelings, it is not in any way comparable to the degenerate, racist, insane positions of the NAZI party. This is a perfect example as to why I dislike extremes in nearly all its forms, it is blinding and when you are cocooned in its comfortable black-and-white world you are unreeachable by reason or rational thought. Continue reading

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New Beds

So Ikea, that bastion of clean elegant style, delivered our new beds today. It was a very orderly and well handled process. we were giving a time frame to expect the delivery and then 10 minutes or so before the actually arrival we got a complimentary call alerting us that the truck was on its way.
The delivery men were prompt and friendly, hauling away our old queen sized mattress and box spring, leaving the new material, packed and ready for assembly, in our living-room.
As is the case with nearly everything from Ikea, assembly was easy and quick. For the beds it really was nothing more than adding the legs to the support boxes and presto instant beds.
The mattresses were more intriguing to me. They came tightly rolled-up and sealed in plastic. (‘She’s dead, wrapped in plastic.‘) Once the plastic was sliced the mattresses unrolled and inflated. They are shipped vacuumed sealed, an aspect I particularly liked given the current fear of bedbugs out in the world, and the air rushes in, audibly, plumping up the mattresses to the full depth, a process neither fast nor dramatic, but one that fascinating to watch.

My sweetie-wife has gone out now for new linens, leaving me to a raining Saturday afternoon.  I think Call Of Duty calls.

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a tough decision

Trying to figure out what movie to watch this weekend as my Sunday Night Movie  feature.

I torn between the following choices:

Blade Runner

Seabiscuit

Shock Treatment

1941

Little Shop Of Horrors (the Musical)

As you can my mood at this time is quite….unstable.

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a moderately large re-write

So it started with just a line edit to Love and Loyalty. I spotted a few sentences that were a bit on the clumsy side and decided to fix them, leading to the discovery that my sentence construction skills had advanced in the last two years and that the entire book needed a line edit. Fine, I’ve been buckling down and working my chapter by chapter on this line edit.

That lead me to discover that some chapter were incomplete, missing vital scenes I had not bothered to write, nor even think of, when I originally composed them. So I started a file listing the newt scenes to write, along with the plans for an entirely new chapter 2. The job had grown, but just a bit.

Now my list of new scenes is more than 13 scenes long, no counting the entirely new chapter 2, and while washing my hands an epiphany exploded behind my eyeballs. (Truly, it feels better than it sounds.)

Now I am going to have to move chapters around. A fairly critical even in the novel, which happened more by chance than any other agency, will now be the direct result of actions taken by Seth Jackson the protagonist of the plot. The novel is growing deeper with more points of view now required to fully explain the plot. That said, I still think this will about at most 10,000 word in total, but I could wrong. Only time and pages will tell.

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Leveling up

So last week, Tuesday in fact, after my visit to the dentist to get five crowns put into my mouth, that was an experience let me say, I came home and banged around the condo for the rest of the day. One of the things that happened due to those hours on my hand was I scanned through a flyer/brochure that had arrived a few days earlier. This one was for college lectures as CDs, DVDs, or Downloads. I was just passing the time until I saw this course Building Great Sentences. Hmm, I had felt for sometime that was weakest in my sentence level construction and this might be of some help. The catalogue advertised a price of about $40, but I felt certain that logging into their website I would discover a much higher price awaited me.

Nope. $40 if I purchased it a a download, no physical media. Well, that didn’t bother any, so, with only a little trepidation as to what the sweetie-wife might say when she learned of this purchase, I spent the money and downloaded the 24 lectures.

Of course the final judgment will rest with the opinions of others, those readers, editors, and members of my writing community if this course has impacted, for better or for ill, on my skill as a writer. However, I am very pleased with the course and feel that I have leveled up as a writer.  You can judge for yourself.

Here is the opening sentence to a new short story I am crafting.

Enkidu crossed the last measure of grass, entering the forest, his young eyes adapting quickly to the dim light barely filtering through the thick canopy of leaves, his bare feet silently crushing wet moldering leaves in his step, the sharp, sweet smell of decay filling his nose and from deeper in the forest the presence of the dead filling his thoughts with silent voices.

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Sunday Night Movie:The Count Of Monte Cristo (2002)

Last night I was in the mood for adventure, for the sort of film that pumps the blood, sets the imagination running, and is filled with heros and villains. Quickly sorting through my growing collection I settled on the 2002 version of The Count Of Monte Cristo. (I specifically did not call this a remake. A remake is where you go and use an earlier film as your source material, sometimes using the exact same script for production. A new version ignores other production in favor of the original source material)

I must admit that I have always been drawn to the ‘righteous fury’ moments in films. The particular moment in time when the hero (in general) is exacting a long due moment of justice. In Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan when the Enterprise rises up behind Reliant it always sends my heart racing.  The Count Of Monte Cristo is really just one long build to those ‘righteous fury’ moments. It is populated with wonderful characters set amid dazzling backgrounds and fascinating history.

This version stars Jim Caviezel as Edmond Dantes a good, moral, but hopelessly naive young man. Edmond has as his best friend Fernand Mondego, played by the terribly talented Guy Pierce, a weak drunkard of a man with a bitter and frustrated nature that Edmond is blind to. Between the two men is the lovely Mercedès Iguanada, played by Dagmara Dominczykv, steadyfast, loyal, and intelligent Mercedes is on love with edmond constantly rebuffing Fernand’s improper advances. The triangle would have stood unbroken save an ill-fortune voyage of Edmond’s ship that sees the captain stuck down and Edmond making an emergency landfall upon Elba. Elba prison to the exiled Napoleon. Abused edmond’s nature Napoleon uses the young man to send a message to his loyal supporter, landing edmond in a dread prison. illiterate, friendless, and with the world believing him to be an executed traitor Edmond must find a way for the justice he needs.

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Sunday Afternoon

Just a quick update on how my day has gone.

Actually in spite of the arthritis flare today has been a fairly nice day. My sweetie-wife and I went to Balboa Park and walked around for a couple of miles getting in much needed exercise for yours truly. On Sunday at Balboa park they have open houses for their international houses. These are organizations that promote their host countries. It’s really a celebration of culture and heritage. Each house will have flyers and foods from their culture and occasionally music and dancing.

The big impression I had this go around — like I said this happens every Sunday and it was not our first time there — was at the Ireland House. First they had live music and it was spunky and fun and I wanted it on a CD. Secondly I tried a new food, Colcannon. Damn, that was good! It’s a dish made from mashed potatoes. with other ingredients tossed in. It is definitely something I want more of.

Also in another section of the park the International Dance Association was hold a celebration with music and dancing all day long. We popped in long enough to see a bit of English Morris Dancing, but not much more. we did see a number of young people practicing and rehearsing for their performance on the bag pipes.

I recorded it for your amusement.

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