Author Archives: Bob Evans

We got lucky

As you may have seen on the news winter storms swept through souther California this week. San Diego is not set-up for storm and never deals well with rain.

On the worst day of the storm we had winds gusting to nearly sixty miles per hour and heavy rainfall. Our freeways were congested and power was failing all over the county. Trees also fell with alarming regularity.  Below is a photo of just how lucky my sweetie-wife and I got on Thursday.

tThe building beyond the fallen tree is our condo building and our unit it just out of frame to the right.  thursday night I walked up th steps on the right side of the frame, turned and went inside and totally failed on my spot roll in that I did not notice the tree. (It was night, but still that’s a pretty massive spot fail don’t you think?

Here’s a close up of the roots of this tree.

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War On Terror Rant

I am annoyed at the current state of thing in this ‘war on terror.’
First off I have never liked the idea of a war on a common noun. You can’t win that kind of war because the common noun will always be around. The wars on poverty and drugs are wonderful examples of that sort of stupidity. I am all for war on a named enemy, say Al Qaeda and it’s allies. You know when you’ve won that war. With they give up or cease to exit.
Besides that point I’m really fed-up with the stupid and pointless political crap that gotten in the way of pursuing our enemies.    The current state of affairs seems to be that on one side of argument you have to be for torture and going all Jack Bauer on their stupid medieval skulls, and the only other option is go full court ACLU with Miranda and layers of lawyers.
Continue reading →

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A movie I am salivating to see.

Now the trailer embedded below is for a german language film that was made in 2008, but I found the trailer first over at the Apple web site just last week. This is giving me hope that there is going to be an American release of the movie to theaters.
I really hope so, this is one film I would not miss.
Now I understand that film and history usually part ways and I expect the same here, but still this looks wicked cool.

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Why I write with an outline

There is a saying in Hollywood, “Paper is cheaper than film.” That means it is always easier to experiment and work out story issues in the script before you start trying to film the movie. I find a similar thing is true of writing novels.

Outlines are faster than novels.

When I write I use an outline for anything larger than a short story. I find it is an essential part of my tool-kit in learning what my story really is and how to make it work to the best possible advantage. In the outline I can experiment with plot developments and twists. I can have a characters captured, killed, or ignored and see how that affects the overall plot and the other characters. If something doesn’t work, I have not wasted dozens of pages, perhaps thousands of words and who knows how many hours chasing down the wring path.

I understand not all writers can use the outline method. When I go to convention sometimes I feel like I am the token outline using author there and everyone else in the world simply fires up their favorite word-processors and the characters take off on adventures. I cannot do that. I have to know how my story is going to end. To get to that ending I have to have an outline. It’s like a map. I may go off the trail here and there exploring things as they pop-up, but the map lets me know which way is out.

I have had a major breakthrough in my understand of my next novel, ‘Cawdor.’ Because I am still in the outline stage it is easy for me to go back and incorporate all the new ideas and ramifications in the story without having to tear down and re-write most of a novel.

I cannot comprehend writing any other way.

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A new short story

Okay I knew a few posts ago I said I was walking away form short stories, but this little diddy came to mind and I just had to write it.

It’s a zombie-apocalypse story and very small. Just over a thousand words. I’m going to had it over to my sweetie-wife tomorrow for her eagle eye in copy-editing. After that I don’t know. I didn’t write it with a market in mind. It was really just an exploration of one idea of atmospheric idea. I may never send it out, but I am happy I wrote it.

I also got use a one of my favorite words in it….moonglade.

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Tomorrow’s Special Election

Tomorrow voters go to the polls to elect a senator to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy and currently filled by an interim appointed Senator.

This is I think a critical election. The Democrats currently hold 60 seats and by the current pansy-assed rules for filibusters need all 60 to get their legislation through. (Filibusters have not been non-stop dramatic speeches on the floor of the Senate as seen in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington for years and years. They are now gentlemen’s’ agreements to require 60 votes, something very different.)

If the Democrats lose this 60th vote Health Care Reform is almost certainly dead.

Frankly if I was forced to place a bet tonight it would be that the Democrats will lose this election. The wind is at the Republicans’ back and even in this bluest of blue states victory is within their grasp. Unlike the special election in NY which was primary a local election, this is state-wide and with broad and clear national implications. A defeat here is a defeat for the liberal agenda and could possibly herald a voter wave that might crash against the party in power in November. (Though November is a long way off electorially speaking.)  Maybe even with enough anger and luck the Republicans can take control of the House of Representatives again.

If that happened it would not be the end of the world and the Republicans would have a chance to show that perhaps they have learned some lessons. (I harbor doubts on that front but would be delighted to be wrong.)

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My Sweetie’s back

My sweetie-wife returned home on Friday after spending a week helping take care fo issues surrounding the passing of her mother.

Yesterday we went whale watching. I’ve lived here in San Diego nearly thirty years and  I’ve never  gone whale watching. It was fun. I had forgotten just how peaceful I find sea travel. Not the same for my honey. She is prone to motion-sickeness so it was not the best of times for her.

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Color me surprised

So after diner tonight and a long day at work I decided to unwind with a bit of a zombie flick. I put in my blu-ray of the 1979 Dawn Of The Dead. (In my opinion Romero’s best Zombie film.) Anyway since this film was shot in 1979 the soundtrack on the original is a mono-sooundtrack. On the blu-ray they have upgraded it with a re-mastered 5.1 surround soundtrack in lossless PCM output. Well I had my shiny new sound system and subwoofer so I played around watching the film switching back and forth between the various sound sources.

There’s a scene where on of the characters — Stephen — is along and in the bowels of the Mall. He fires at shadows and the rounds go bouncing off into the darkness. Listening to the scene with the 5.1 surround was great. I heard the bullets ricochet completely around my seat. I was really surprised that a re-mastered soundtrack performed so well.

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A General Update

So my sweetie-wife has headed out to her where her mother lived to wrap up affairs there and I am on my own for about the next week. The condo seems much larger and more empty with her here.

At work they have offered more overtime as we are behind on our paperwork. (The bad economy has hammered people hard and that makes them turn to us in greater numbers.) Without anyone to rush home to I am doing the overtime at work. I did two hours tonight and I am likely to do two more tomorrow night.

At home tonight I just watched TV and made my own dinner.

The only bright spot today was that I scored ticket for the next taping of the TV show “The Big Bang Theory.” I’m not much for sit-coms, but I like this one. Of course being a geek really helps and that the fact that the shows isn’t mocking of geeks, but rather it really seems to get geeks and geek culture. I scored a few tickets for friends and one for my sweetie-wife, though she is unlikely to attend, but if she changes her mind I am ready. I am looking forward to next month when we go to LA and watch the show live.

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The Day Arrived.

In the we early morning hours this morning, my sweetie-wife’s mother passed away in her sleep. We knew we were dealing with end-of-life issues and now it has come to pass.

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