Life on Mars

I found this incredibly awesome TV show called Life on Mars which is an American remake of a BBC show.  It's about a cop in 2008 that gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973, which is like being on a completely different planet.  The show is bout him trying to figure out how he got there, and how to get back, all the while trying to be a cop in 1973 with his 2008 training, which isn't always what is required in that day and age.  The show is completely hilarious, but only lasted one season.  They were informed that they were cancelled before the end of the season so they were actually able to make an ending to it. It's got Harvey Keitel and Mike Imperioli in it.  It's got some really weird moments in it, but mostly it's a pretty fun show, and it has got an excellent soundtrack too.  If you've got access to netflix, can find it at the library, or have an extra ten buck lying around to pick up the DVD set it's well worth the time.  The first episode is a bit boring until about 2/3 through with all of the set up for the series going on, but if you sit it out, you won't regret it.

The Eternal Chain: Chapter 12 Draft 1

I've posted chapter 12 of the first draft of The Eternal Chain, and it can be found at the bottom of this page.

Again, this chapter is very similar to those that it is replacing in the original version of this story, but at the same time very different.  Where I played the capture of the main characters more for comedy in the original, here it's a lot darker and more serious.  People are not going to be cracking jokes while capturing the man they've been chasing for seven years because he slaughtered over two hundred of their fellow soldiers.  They're going to be openly hostile and murderous.  We're introduced to Tristam here, and he gives some subtle exposition.  I've also given you an extremely huge clue to a later plot point, but I'm not going to say what it is, or what it pertains to.

Adventures in Mail Delivery: Part whatever part we're on now...

Ok, sooo, There I was, delivering mail to my apartments.  There are 10 community boxes with about 30 mailboxes each in them, split into two areas, 7 in one and 3 in the other, each area with a single drop box for the outgoing mail.  If you've ever lived in an apartment you know what it's like.

I had just arrived and was unloading my truck.  It was a Monday so there was quite a bit of it.  We are taught to pick up the outgoing mail last of all so that any letters dropped in while we're still delivering can go out that day, instead of waiting for tomorrow.  A lady walked up to me and handed me a letter.  I instructed her politely to please put it in the outgoing mail slot around the corner at the office, it's the last thing I pick up and I really had nowhere to put it at the moment, so there would actually be a danger of losing it if I took it then.

She then proceeded to go on for about five minutes on how important that it was that the letter go out that day.  I told her that it would, and explained to her that I had nowhere to put it and if she handed it to me instead of putting it in the outgoing mail slot it was likely to get lost.  So, after more convincing than I believe should have been necessary, she walked over and dropped the mail in the slot.  I was getting impatient to start working, because it was a monday and there was a crapton of mail to be delivering.  The lady then came back, folded her arms and stared at me.  I waited for her to say something, but she didn't so I went to work.  She stood there looking over my shoulder for an entire hour while I delivered mail to over 200 apartment boxes.  Then she followed me over and watched me take the outgoing mail, placing it in one of the tubs I had emptied of mail while delivering.  Then she followed me over to the mail truck and watched me sort the outgoing mail into my different outgoing mail bins (stamped, metered, netflix, flats, packages, etc)  Then she followed me to the door of the truck and watched me through the window as I proceeded to sort through my undelivered mail.  (this includes mail for people who no longer live there, full coverage ads for vacant apartments, and stuff like that).  Honestly, by that time it was getting more than a little creepy.

I waved to her, gave her a smile that was probably more fake than genuine, and drove off to the second delivery area of the apartments.  As I was delivering the mail there, she walked over and stood looking over my shoulder as I finished up there too.  I asked her if she needed anything else, and she went on another rant about how important it was that her letter went out today, and asked me about seventeen times if it was going to be sent out that day.  I finally got sick of answering the same question repeatedly and left.

The very next day she came back out as I arrived and started screaming at me about how big a liar that I am because she called the people she sent the letter to and they didn't get it yesterday.  She made such a scene yelling at me that someone in a nearby apartment actually called the police.  All the while I kept trying to explain to her that just because a piece of mail is shipped out on one day doesn't mean it's going to be deilvered that very same day.  If she wanted it delivered on monday she would have had to send it off thursday or friday.  She wouldn't hear any of it, so I put in my headphones and ignored her while I delivered that area and moved on to the other one.  She followed me over again, and continued screaming at me about what a liar I am.  The police arrived and tried to settle her down, but she wouldn't be settled down.  She continued screaming and ranting at them about what a horrible liar I am and demanding that they arrest ME.

One of the cops pulled me aside and asked for my side of the story and I gladly gave it.  In the end the crazy lady tried to grab the pepper spray on the belt of one of the cops and was on the ground in handcuffs before I could blink.

The moral of this story?  IT DOES NOT PAY TO BE A CRAZY PERSON!!! SEEK HELP!!!

Chapters and book review

I've finished chapters 10 and 11 of the first draft of The Eternal Chain, and you can find them at the bottom of this page.

These were originally meant to be a single chapter, but there was too much to fit into one so I split it into two.  This is the end of Act 1.  In a three act structure the first act is for introducing the characters, the world, and the conflict.  I think I've done that pretty well here so far.  And I wanted the first act to end with a climactic even, showing all of the characters in action.  You will notice that I broke my pattern of changing off viewpoints here and tossed in about 12-15 viewpoint changes between these two chapters to follow the action.  This is my way of emphasizing that the pacing is speeding up for the climax of the first act, the pattern has broken down and viewpoints are changing all over the place, giving the story a more hectic feel to it than the pre-established pattern that I set up leading up to it.

Stark, one of the main villains of the story, makes her first appearance here.  This character ties in very heavily with Spires of Infinity, though I'm not going to say exactly how, because it is kind of a massive spoiler if I ever get around to writing out the next part of that story.  She is the Blessed Radiance whom the Seven serve and the Priory and their followers worship as a god.  She is very powerful, and she has been imbued with the power of Destruction, one of two Gods of this universe, but she is not actually a God herself.  She has deluded herself into believing that she is, and she is completely freaking crazy enough to believe it.  Basically, she's powerful enough that she might as well be a God, even if she isn't actually one.

I've also posted my latest book review, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi if you feel the great urge to read it.  I recommend NOT reading the books.

A Message to Mit Romney and the Republican Party.

Hello Republican party, and to you Mr. Romney. Congratulations on your nomination for president. I may not exactly be a big fan of yours, but you know money, and this country needs that a hell of a lot more than it does hope right about now. Obama can hope all he wants, but it's not doing jack to fix the financial problems of the Bush Era.

I'm what you might call an independent voter. I look at the options and vote for whomever I believe will best represent my interests in office. That is, after all, what I believe was intended by the founding fathers. Free people thinking for themselves and choosing their leaders, rather than being told by an organization which of two candidates they will vote for.  At this current time I am actually very much on the Republican side for the presidential election, for reasons previously stated in this message. It is my belief that this country cannot take four more years of Obama's floundering impotence. Mit Romney may not be the best man for the job, but he's a far cry better than that, in my humble opinion.

Now, as an independent voter, there are a few things that concern me. Foremost amongst them is idiocy. When there is an idiot in the white house, the great US of A suffers. And there have been idiots aplenty in recent memory, hell, there's an idiot in the White House right now. His name is Joe Biden and it scares the hell out of me that he's just one traffic accident away from being sworn in as President of the United States. But, you see, the thing is, Joe Biden for president scares me infinitely less than Sarah Palin for president. It is my opinion that Sarah Palin single-handedly handed the presidency to Obama on a silver platter simply by being chosen as John McCain's running mate. Good god, can you imagine that retard as President of the United States? She doesn't even know where freaking Russia is and it's the biggest country on earth. Kind of hard to miss on a map. You know, a map that would clearly show that there is far too much distance between Russia and Palin's back door for her to see it? Guess what missy, what you're seeing out your back door... yeah, THAT'S JUST MORE ALASKA YOU TWIT!!!

Anyway, as much as I believe that Obama is not the right man to sit in the Oval office, I would rather vote for him, than Romney if Sarah Palin's name is attached to his as vice president. The woman is a CANCER to any political campaign, and to the integrity of the USA.  One need but look at the things she has said and done in the last 4 years to know that putting her in a position of authority is practically INVITING the end of the freaking world.  She is complete moron who is not even smart enough to realize how much she is being mocked. To allow her to be chosen as Romney's running mate would be a travesty which would, once again, hand the election to Obama. Do EVERYONE a favor and do EVERYTHING you can to keep that dumbass from EVER running for public office again, ESPECIALLY anything that would put her in the White House.

This is a woman who resigned as Governor of Alaska because she wanted to start a reality TV show. Seriously people? And this is the person people are pressuring Romney to choose as his running mate? A quitter who is too stupid to tie her own shoes?

So there it is, Republican Party, my plea to you. Put some freaking duct tape over Sarah Palin's mouth, and keep her the hell away from politics, because we independents, yeah, none of us are voting for her... EVER. Resist the push, Mit, do not give in to peer pressure. This country can't take four more years of Obama and that's exactly what it will get if you listen to your advisers and slap that idiot's name on the ballot next to yours.

The Eternal Chain: Chapter 9 - Draft 1

I've posted chapter 9 of The Eternal Chain and it can be found at the bottom of This page.

This is a looooooooong chapter, and honestly I didn't mean it to be this long, but when I started writing, there were so many opportunities to showcase who Kriss is as a character that I couldn't pass them up. Also, this is the chapter where a lot of what the characters are facing in this story is revealed. Also with this chapter I've hit the 50,000 word mark, which is 1/3 of my target with this book. I think I'm pretty close to being on track for not going much over that, which is good. I do tend to have a problem with writing stories of a reasonable length.

This story follows a basic three act structure, and the end of the first act is the next chapter, so I'm doing pretty good on my word count goal.

I've been told that I am not very good that the psychological side of tormenting my characters. Hopefully I've improved upon that lack, because this chapter has quite a bit of that sort of thing in it.

Mistborn Movie

A small company bought the rights to make a Mistborn movie based on the books by Brandon Sanderson. They've basically gone as far as they can go on preproduction work and are now looking for a larger producer to basically pay for everything and get the whole thing going. One of the things that this smaller company has done is made a trailer for the movie made up of clips from other movies to use while trying to sell the movie and get it made. This basically shows people what they can expect out of the movie once it has actually moved into production, giving producers an idea as to what they'll be getting into. They are looking for hits on the video on youtube to show larger companies how popular the series is and how much money that they would make on the movie if they were to make it. More hits = more people excited about the movie etc. If you'd like to help out watch the video below, it's pretty cool.



If the framing of my blog cuts off the edges of the video just move your cursor over the picture and click on the text "Mistborn Trailer" at the top left and it'll link to the youtube source page.

Also, if you haven't already, check out Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy. It was a pretty fun series of books that is normally overshadowed by his other, more popular, works. Which is a shame, because they were my favorites of his books before The Way of Kings came out.

Book Review: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

I've posted my my Review of Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.

Smokers

Sooooo, a message to Smokers.

I don't know about anyone else, but in my opinion, smoking is one of the more repulsive things someone can do in this world. Do you realize how annoying your disgusting habit is to those of us who do not smoke? At all? Any clue whatsoever? Do you have any idea whatsoever how far the stench of your one little cigarette carries? Do you realize how easily it passes through walls? Do you have any clue how quickly it can completely permeate the are inside of an enclosed space? And that is completely leaving out the whole secondhand smoke cancer that you could be giving all of the rest of us, or the fact that you're killing yourself, making yourself perpetually smell bad, and staining your teeth a lovely shade of brown. But that's your problem. Let's just keep to what you're forcing onto others with your lack of self control.

Even with no wind, we can smell the stench of your cigarette at well over a hundred yards. Think about that. The entire length of a football field. Your cigarette smoke can be smelled and gagged over by everyone else across the length of a freaking football field.

The stench of your cigarette can be smelled through walls. If you live in an apartment, you are forcing every single person that shares a wall, floor or ceiling with you to smell your cigarettes every time you smoke one. Any enclosed space will stink of it for WEEKS if you decide to smoke in it, cars, houses, etc. When you move out of your house/apartment/etc the stench of your cigarettes will linger FOREVER. The people who move in after you will NEVER get rid of the smell.

Think about all of that the next time you decide to light up. Think of ALL of the people whom you are forcing to smell that disgusting stench. Think of how incredibly repulsive to other people that you are making yourself. If that doesn't make you want to quit, I hope your death of lung cancer is long and painful. Enjoy it.