Friday, December 31, 2010

Here comes a New Year with 750 words

Today is New Years Eve! Yay!
The only good thing about the last year is that I moved to Los Angeles, California. Everything else sucked. I now have a couple of friends, if odd friends, but then again, what good are friends if they aren't odd. I'm currently living somewhere free of charge and fighting a winning battle against roaches. Christmas sucked a bit because I was alone, but I dealt with it by reading A Christmas Carol and watching A Muppet Christmas Carol. Yes, I am geeky when it comes to Christmas literature.

Yesterday, I finished the revision of my 2010 Screnzy and I will be allowing people to read it as soon as I can print it out. I'd feel bad about using my friend's printer because it'll be about five hundred fifty pages for all the people I want to read it. That's a little over a ream of paper. Not to even start on how much it is of ink (eek).

Since, I have that done I now get to reread my National Novel Writing Month Novel from this past November. The most difficult part will be not doing anything to it during the first read through. I know I need to add more description because I hate description. I still love my story (which I was saying about my script at this point too, not anymore) and I have many ideas on how to expand on it. My story is something of a prelude/origin story any I don't know how well it shows off my characters or the world. Most people have been looking at my synopsis on the Nano website and gasping at how long and detailed my concept is and you don't really get any of that in the novel I've written.

I started drawing again and I shall continue to draw into the new year. I am planning on pulling my art box out of storage and messing around with it. Technically, I should be going around and looking for a job and a permanent place to live, but what fun it that? What I would really like to do is play with jewelry making some more. I have some left overs from my class but a couple of important tools that make metalworking easy, like a blow torch. I like the blow torch.

God I want to weld. And I hate welding. It really sucks after the first couple of minutes. I probably just want to do theatre. What would be really nice is to go get a job doing the stuff I know and then I get to feel all superior on my first couple of days at least. Yeah, that would be good. I think I might have too many plans for this coming year.  I want to write 750 words everyday, I want to complete a script and a novel. That doesn't count participating and completing Script Frenzy 2011 and National Novel Writing Month 2011. Maybe even become a Municipal Liaison this year. I'm not committed to that last one, I am just toying with the idea.

Be the leader of something would be fun too. I like organizing people and making them do stuff. I find it too exciting. Particularly when events go well, which in my history they don't (not entirely my fault... actually so far it hasn't been my fault).

Lot of movies are coming out this year too and I need to get a job so that I can afford to see them. The ones produced by Disney I can go see for free, but that is a small number of them out of the year.

If you're wondering why this is possible the longest blog post I have ever written it's because I am writing this for the 750words.com website which gives you points for writing a lot without stopping. I can't even stop to think about what I am writing. I've written on the site most days this month, but this is the first time I have tried to write a blog post on it. A seven hundred and fifty word blog post. They honestly don't care if you put the same word down seven hundred and fifty times.

Yes, I have to write out 'seven hundred and fifty' each time. It adds more words and makes it so I don't have to add more content. I'm kind of getting tired and my back is hurting from the position I am sitting in right now. Hey look I made it to 750. Joy to me and you.

Happy New Year!
-X

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Circles are bad

I've resisted talking about my troubles finding a place to live for several posts now, but I really have to say that I am tired of running around in circles.

When I was looking for studio apartments I got aggravated because the leasing agents always seemed shocked when I wanted to see the property and then continued to be shocked if I asked for an application. One place promised to email it to me but never did. Suddenly, I did not want to lease with them.

So I took advice from a friend I met out here and started looking at two bedroom roommate situations and even more terrifying, Craigslist. Most of the people on Craigslist don't seem to understand that I cannot see them and require more than "I got room, r u interested? call xxx-xxx-xxxx." I have a medium sized, but detailed post, least you can do is give me some information about yourself.

The people I have contacted have either been creepy or have just sent me running in a different circle. The last one was completely shocked that I called him back after three days after he said he would call me. After a bout stuttering nonsense he asked for references, which I am pretty sure he has not called. If he didn't want me as a roommate he could have just told me so and saved me some time.

What part of I am living in a hotel do these people not understand? Every day you waste of mine you waste a lot of money immediately, much more if you look at interest.

Okay, rant over... I don't feel any better.
-X

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Poor Use of Physical Education

You never know what conversation will come up when you are with family. For some reason we mentioned the Presidential Fitness Awards from elementary school, possibly from watching my nephew shoving his feet into his mouth.

For those of you who didn’t have a school participating in this program let me give you a run down. Every spring and fall everyone in school was tested in a variety of activities that supposedly demonstrated your fitness in particular areas. There were tests for pull-ups, sit-ups (curl ups now), spiriting, flexibility, and the mile run. If you did all of them at or above the supposed fit level you got a certificate saying so. There was also  National Fitness Awards which were a little bit easier to get.

No one in my family ever got one. My eldest brother was the most athletic of us all and he could never get past the flexibility test for even the National Award. The test was called the v-sit reach and involved sitting on the floor with you feet against a template about a foot and a half apart (probably two feet for an adult) and you had to reach past you feet. National needed only one or two inches but no one in my family could get past their feet.

These tests were the most hated part of the year for just about everyone. Even the kids that could do it didn’t particularly enjoy it. Sure, they got everyone congratulating them on a good job but there were al lot of more fun things that we could be spending time doing.

What really strikes me now as I attempt to better my physical fitness is how poorly they tried to prepare us for the test. It wasn’t like they tested you in the fall and tried to better your scores over the year so that you did better during the spring test. Particularly as you got older you just did the test occasionally and that was that, I mean we continued doing it as we got into middle and high school, only noticeable because one and a while you would be forced to run a mile out of the blue, the only warning coming in winter when they would tell you to remember your sweatshirt the next day.

How hard would it have been to encourage us to actually attempt to exercise in between times? They did send us workout sheet occasionally so we would work out at home, but they never connected it to a reward, never attempted to make it a friendly competition. Maybe it was people scared to upset the children, but I think that they might have gotten me to play along if they had pointed out that I could get a better fitness score.

Maybe this is why we are such an obese nation, instead of trying to make us physically fit they had us play basketball endlessly.
-X

Monday, November 29, 2010

This is required


I have to post simply to say that I once again completed National Novel Writing Month. Also to say that I once again plan on editing the novel in a month, just like I claimed last year. Hopefully this year I will not reread it and declare it the worst thing since Twilight.

Now instead of saying how I need to prepare for Nanowrimo I'll  be saying how I need to prepare for Script Frenzy in April. I'm thinking about doing the sequel to my previous work, but it is still four months away, anything can happen between now and then.

I got to see my family for Thanksgiving. My brothers brought me a ticket to Michigan, which begs the question, why go to Michigan in November when you're in Los Angeles? No one on the plane could answer the question.

On the topic of airplanes I really need to start flying during daylight hours. Flying at night is so boring. Everyone on the plane is usually asleep or if they aren't you still can't see out the windows. I like looking out the windows no matter what, even if all I can see is the top of clouds, and I can't sleep in a moving veicle. I've sort of done it a couple of times, but it not real sleep. Its closer to dozing.

I'll end with saying that LAX is not nearly as bad an airport that everyone was telling me. There were no lines or delays outside of my airline and it was the day before Thanksgiving.

Now we get too look forward to Thanksgiving and figuring out what you get a nine month old.
-X

Sunday, November 14, 2010

I'm a wordcount rockstar

I have the highest wordcount of the people that attend the write-ins that I go to. Which makes me inordinately proud. I suck at writing more then ten words in a row (if you can't tell from this blog). Not only that, but I have stayed on top for an entire week (not to mention it was the dreaded Week 2) with little trouble and I'm still on track for my Overachieving goal.

My story still interests me, though my 'outline' is used up now and the rest of it will be made entirely by the seat of my pants. I am well beyond the halfway point and aiming for the finish line.

This is really a fasinating experience the second time around. So many people on the forums I want to smack because they overreact to things like the website crashing or their plot changing. I never even thought of questioning these people last year, but this year they just seem like whiners.

Well, not much else on my mind,
-X

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Why must everyone steal my name?

Last April I learned that there is an Australian scriptwriter that goes by the name "Xander Bennett" whose twitter account is @xanderbennett and email is xanderbennett at gmail.com. You might be wondering why I care since my name seems to be 'X', but is isn't. The title of this blog is Thoughts from Xander, I just sign with an 'X'.

Now I had maybe wanted to have that twitter account, but no I had to use my alias @artofcheatery and my email is bennett.xander@gmail.com - that's right, he gets all of my improperly addressed emails. Now I got over this because if I ever got published I would use my full name (which I've previously disclosed).

Then I found this kid @ABennettBooks, you see that? That's my name with 'books' on the end! He has a Blogspot with a horrible misspelling of my name too, I assume because some loser already took the correct spelling and abandoned it (that monster). My point is that people need to stop stealing my name!

Okay, I'm done. I need to write a bunch, because unlike my name thief I am not way ahead. (I also haven't done those other things I need to do. You know what I am talking about.)

Monday, November 1, 2010

It begins...

Nanowrimo started today. I attended a midnight write in and didn't write very much. Got to get my grove back, which is starting to happen as I continued to write throughout the day and I made my goal easily - even with distractions.

I even got some responses from my craigslist ad that didn't sound like axe murderers. Super extra special feeling now. My brother and sister-in-law are trying to transport me to Michigan for Thanksgiving and I'm meeting lots of cool people through Nano Write-ins.

I'm feeling good. I'm writing a blog post soon after the previous post (!) and I think a third of all my tweets on twitter have happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Things are good and getting better,
-X

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Elusive Apartments

What is it about deciding "I'm doing 'X'," that  makes it so hard to do 'X'?

I decided again that I'm going to get an apartment by the end of the month and it is being a very elusive target. Yeah, this sounds like a lot of my posts. But I'm not sick, and I fear this hotel room like the plague, because I think it might contain the plague.

Meanwhile, NaNoWriMo starts in only days. I'd say I feel like I'm not ready, but no one is ever ready for Nano. It would be better if people were just randomly informed of Nano on the day it started, so it wouldn't have the opportunity to terrify us.

But really, I am ready. I was ready when I came up with a plot a month ago. I actually planned a lot more than I thought I would. I should plan more. I should also research more because it occurs in the near future and I need near future tech. I asked on the forums and I got the most half-assed answers. Maybe that's the wrong word, I don't really care. They were bad, and vague, suggestions.

Okay, instead of hanging around here, I'm heading off to plan a little more.
-X

Friday, October 15, 2010

Tips for NaNoWriMo

I participated in National Novel Writing Month 2009 and won. As with all winners I have to give my advice on how to win.

Leave the story open ended. 
When you start, don't block your story down to a day, or a week. If you do, suddenly your characters will decide that they all want to go to mexico for a week, or decide to take a nap and miss an important event. Or you will find yourself nearing the end with 30,000 words left. I did this last year and had to add extra characters just to have something else happen in the twenty four hour period. That was after spending hours panicking about what to write to waste words.

That part you think will be really cool? It won't be.
By the time you get to that part the story will have altered it to the point that it won't work out the way you thought it would. Luckily, the part right afterward, which you thought would suck, will end up being pretty awesome.

Write out your problems
Start by writing out your problem and possible solutions to it, even the weird ones that would never work, mostly just to get them out of your system. You may come up with something you never expected, or you combine the odd ones with a more realistic one. (This is actually how I was taught to design sets)

Take a nap
If you can't figure something out, try coming up with a solution while falling asleep. I find doing this gets you to think outside the box. Even when you think you are consciously thinking out of the box you probably aren't, being sleepy you forget the earlier events in your story which allows to to rewrite them (not literally). You also tend to lose those logical boundaries that we work with while awake. Think of it as writing while dreaming.

Break the rules and reread the beginning
Everyone at the Office of Letters and Light says not to read any part of your story until one month after NaNoWriMo is over. The reasoning is that you will read it and decide it sucks and stop writing, or you will try to rewrite it and waste time that could be used adding more words. But you could suddenly remember about a character you had in the beginning that could be used in the current scene or maybe you added an extra character in chapter ten and you realize she could make an appearance in chapter two. Couple lines of added foreshadowing lessen the total amount you need to write.

Keep track of how much you "need" to write each day
This threw me last year. Nanowrimo.org has the progress report tool that will tell you how much you are suppose to write, but it was broken for the first two weeks of November 2009. If this happens again calculate it as ((50,000-WordsWritten)/(31-DayofNovember)). Do this on a regular basis to remind you that just because you had a really good day and wrote twice as much doesn't mean you get to take a break and not write for a day, it means you get to write maybe one hundred fewer words for teh rest of the month. Your goal should be to write at least thirty words beyond what you "have" to write, this way you "have" to write one less word the next day.

Break up your writing
Write in the morning, write in the evening, write during lunch. You might not get much written in the morning, but it will be three sentences that you won't have to write during lunch. It also helps keep the story in your mind during the day. And 500 words during three sessions is a lot easier to think about than 1666.67 words a day

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The possibilities are endless

What should I post about today?

I could post about how the new forum notifications at Nanowrimo suck and they took away the autosubscribe feature, but I won't because I'll get over it.

I could post about how I don't have a job or an apartment,  but I don't really have anyone to blame for that other than myself.

I could post about how my new laptop barely runs Mass Effect (which I got myself for my birthday) and that the new Sims 3 patch makes it impossible to use custom content, but I suspected that would happen when I bought it.

What I will post about is Scribophile.com. I was suggested the site by someone at Nano because I mentioned that I have too much time on my hands. It's a critiquing site, post your work, people read it and give feedback. This sounds pretty awesome and it would mean that people would actually read what I write. 

Now the site has a feature built in to make sure that people are actually critiquing. If you want to post, you need "karma" points. To get karma you need to read and rate/critique other works. Rating gets you .02 karma, critiquing gets you more based on the length of the work, the length of your critique, and how recent the work was published.

First month I didn't really do any of this. I tried to write something to have something published on it but that didn't turn out very well (never finished the work, mostly because it changed from a short story to a novel) then I thought I could just start sticking my Nano on as I write it. Almost unedited, but it would be something and if I note that it is for Nano and that plot advice is most important (even during Nano I'm good about my grammar). The problem shows up that I only have the 2 karma points you get for joining and I you can't even post with that.

So the last couple of days I've been looking for stuff to read and critique but everything is something like "Feminine Hygiene Issues - Chapter 28" in which case I'd have to read the previous twenty-seven chapters first and it doesn't sound very interesting. Everything I do find interesting is either past the preferred critiquing time or for some past the any critiquing time. So all I've done is rate a couple short works and I now have 2.2 karma... and I need five to post anything and I have to pay ten dollars to post more than two pieces a month.

Maybe over use is a bad idea. At least until I get a job. When I won't have time to write.

You know what? I'm tried of this. Going to go write something instead.
-X

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

23 is number one

Last year for my birthday I did a multipart post going on about myself. Not doing that again.

This year I'm too busy doing nothing. Really, I have done nothing. Still don't have a job, don't have an apartment. I've been playing video games, watching TV, over sleeping.

Oh and prepping for NaNoWriMo. Forum wipe is in two days. Two long arduous days.

I'm bored and don't know what to do with myself.
-X

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Maybe not perfect

Of course a couple weeks after I post about how I feel so much better living in LA, I get the stomach flu and can honestly say that I think I lost some weight.

This is the almost the worst possible time for me to get sick. Worse would be after I had a job or on a day I needed to move into a new apartment. Still being unable to get out of bed means that I haven't looked for an apartment or job in three days.

Whatever. Being too sick to move makes you realize you need to slow down at time whether you want to or not.

Meanwhile I've been working on my Script Frenzy screenplay. It might have something to do with being in Los Angeles or maybe I just like the story enough that I actually want to see it through. I'm reading Essentials of Screenwriting and it is somewhat depression to discover that even if you sell a screenplay, it doesn't mean a studio will produce it, or if they do, that they will release it. Meh. This whole concept is a bit of a leap from theatrical design, but I'm slowing finding overlap, particularly in revision. I was going to have the revision done by the end of August, but losing that one day and the fact I feel like I should be sleeping right now instead of writing this put a slight crimp on that.

It's also two months before National Novel Writing Month begins. I will complete it for the second time this year and hopefully it won't suck like last year's did. The event founder writes in his book that you should avoid trying to write a 'good' book and try to write a 'not horrible' book. I'm going for that this year. We will see what happens as I argue with my plot.
-X

Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television WritingNo Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Leasing agents suck

I wish I could say that I'm happily in a new apartment but that isn't the case. Part of the problem is the leasing agents. They don't seem to understand that their job it to sell these apartments. They're impossible to get a hold of, know little about the property, and don't offer to answer questions or even applications for the apartments.

So I would really like to have a place by the end of the week if reality doesn't fight against it. Find a place, convince the leasing agent to actually give me the proper paperwork for it.

Why does this need to be so complicated?

Need a job still too, but that doesn't cost me $400 for every week I don't have it. For some reason I keep being optimistic about the job thing. There will be one next week, winter season is starting, I can find one close to where I get an apartment, etc.

I still won't take just anything. You have to have limits on what you'll take, and maybe what I need is an employer that understands that.
-X

Monday, August 16, 2010

Bad week was bad.

How bad can a week get?

Last week I had an interview, or I thought I did. It was a pre-interview. All I discovered is that they don't pay enough to live in Los Angeles. Before my interview I was looking at apartments. Some of the people there gave me odd looks for wearing a suit - there goes that place.

I looked at another the day after and it was not as advertised. I understand the concept of a studio apartment, but how can you live without at least a stove? Every day or so I look at rooms for rent, but they usually cost the same for an entire apartment. They must be amazing rooms.

So no work and no home... still. How is this any worse than every other week?

I also finally broke my laptop. $800 dollars later I have a new laptop, but it was a lot of stress that I didn't need right now. Also my computer can now actually play games. That's bad.

After that I kind of decided the week was just fucked. Didn't even try for the rest of it. What I did do was work on my screenplay from Script Frenzy. I even I bought a book to help me. Do I get extra points for distractions?
-X

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Perfect Health

Everyone wants perfect health, right? I've been "trying" to lose weight  for over a year now with little success. I think I'm doing better in California, but I don't actually have a scale here. Every day I'm stretching. I started during the trip and I can attest that it helped prevent cramps while driving. The muscles in my right leg still hurt for a couple days after but I was driving a lot that week.

You know, I'm trying to write something, so that this blog doesn't get tossed to the wayside, but I don't seem to have anything to say.

I'm happy right now. I can't actually remember being more happy in a long time. The only downer I have is that I don't have the money to do and see some of the attractions here. Of course just being here and seeing what there is too see is enough to tide me over for the time being. The only thing I'm really lacking is someone to talk to.

Hopefully that will change soon.
-X
Regal Entertainment Group Gift Card

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Los Angeles

I am in Los Angeles now. I drove the entire way.
Not much to say about that. It was surprisingly peaceful and there was good scenery when I had the chance to look. My car attempted to spill oil the entire way and it hated the Rocky Mountains.
Now I'm trying to learn my way around the city and figure out where to live and work. I rested the first day and a half I was here. Technically writing this is "resting" too, I just felt like I needed to write another post. No one likes a dead blog.
And since I haven't said it yet, I really like this area. I like the weather, I like the neighborhoods, I like the people. It just seems like everything about it better than I could have hoped.
-X

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

We need a floating city

You can get ideas from anything. I need to work this one out.

On NBC Nightly News today they referred to the fleet of ships working on the Gulf Oil spill as a "floating city" or something like that. First, I thought "Stupid MSM, overusing phrases," then I thought, "wait, why not?".

Follow me here. This is now officially the worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (why yes, there have been others) and we know that it's effects will be felt throughout the region for at least the next decade. So why not build a city on top of it?

It would start off as a water cleaning facility. They keep talking about machines that can clean the oil out of the water if you just get the water out of the ocean and to the machine, so instead of moving the oil-water to the machine, build a large capacity machine on, or near, the site of the old Deepwater Horizon.

But we don't stop there. We add in living space for all of the workers and a small airport to get supplies in. Expand it to include permanent houses. It's far enough south that they have sunshine almost 24/7 year round so the entire thing could be solar or wind powered, and if that doesn't work out, there is a shit-ton of oil there. Add some entertainment venues, then a hotel. Put a casino in the hotel since I don't think it's in a state, which means no regulation (or sales tax).

Once the water is cleaned they can open a underwater aquarium, where you can see the wild fish wandering around. Hell, have apartments underwater. It could be the first large scale experiment in the field. Obama doesn't want to go into space? Well, the only place we know less about is under the sea.

I don't know exactly how it would be done, but it would be cool. It would make one of the worst, if not the worst, natural disaster an opportunity for a major scientific achievement.

And if we build it with 1950's decor and we can call it Rapture.
BioShock for PS3
BioShock for Xbox
BioShock for PC

Monday, June 21, 2010

Crazy Plan revealed

So I mentioned a couple times that I've lost my mind and was going to do something completely insane. Well here it is.

In less than a month I'm going to move out of my parent's house and move to Los Angeles, California. I do not have a job lined up, I have almost no money, and I have no where to live when I get there. I'm going by car, driving for five days straight, cross-country with whatever I can fit into said vehicle.

This might sound like an idea I had about a year ago. The difference between now and then is I have less money and I am going to do it. Read my last several posts if you want to know why. I have not gotten a full-time job in over a year mostly because I want a job in my field, the field I spent $24,000 getting a degree in. Los Angeles has more jobs in my field than any other city short of maybe Chicago and New York and most importantly it will be a change of pace and will be something for me to look forward to and force me to get some kind of job immediately.

One of the major reason I'm moving to Los Angeles is that I expect to be able to work a normal job and do some theatre on the side if I need to. I can't do that here.

Anyway, I'm seriously considering doing video blogs of my trip. More on that soon.
-X

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Interesting

So the madness is still going full steam ahead, for the moment at least.

Part of the plan creates a feasible chance that this blog will become know to people, so I should check my archives to see if I insulted anyone. Sadly, this is a really big task and I feel like if I find any posts that should be removed they will be my better posts.

First off, I declare the current plan, "Plan C". The 'C' is for crazy. Secondly I see that I'm repeating myself.

Everything I have said recently I said before. I don't feel comfortable here. I feel like I'm being judged, and those doing it are very rude about it. I'm not sure what to do about it, and the possible options seem crazy. All I can say for certain is that the current situation is unhealthy for me and it needs to stop immediately.

But will my parents listen...
-X

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Still crazy

I mentioned a crazy plan the other day. It's still too crazy to talk about, but I'm becoming more comfortable about it. I call it a "crazy plan" because, well, no one in their right mind would even think of doing it. The thing is that it's a decision I can make. The more I think about it the more I realize that I have to make this decision.

I can't remember the last time I've made a decision. I make little ones, like what I'm going to eat, but even those are under pressure right now. That's part of the crazy - this isn't a little decision, this will change the course of my life.

If you have read any of my posts, you know that I know care much for my current life. It needs a course change. Some people forget that on the road of life you are the driver and you can always change course. Right now I know exactly where I'm headed, and many people would just live with it and say that's how things have to be.

I can't. I honestly can't. I've been stressing out so much about how I can't get a job I was having trouble sleeping. Now that's I've resolved to make this decision I'm... serene. I have a purpose.

You don't know how amazing it feels to wake up in the morning and have something to do, something that doesn't involve staring at your computer hoping that it's going to tell you that the perfect job is available to reject you.

When you've been unemployed as long as I have been you have trouble getting to sleep, then can't wake up. You feel guilty because you are failing at a simple task in life. You can't remember the days of the week and each time a Friday comes around you look back and realize that you did nothing last week. Okay, you sent out that one resume, that no one will look at, that no one will consider. You tell yourself that you need to check the boards again, because it's Friday and you haven't checked since Tuesday. One new posting. You don't qualify, It's not even in your area of interest really, but you wish you could apply, just to make you feel better. You check other job boards, ones that rarely have updates. They don't have anything either. You Google search and you've clicked all of the links already. You try again with the same result.

Then you cry yourself to sleep, if you're lucky. If you aren't you start to look at your future and where it's headed, a dead end. You can't get to sleep and you start to think "I would do anything just to be able to sleep" and if you're lucky, you scare yourself and you change your course. Veer around and turn in the middle of the road. It doesn't matter if you disturb others - this is about you. This is about the cliff you're dangerously near, it's about the dead end you see in sight.

I'm desperate. I have to do this.
-X

Friday, June 4, 2010

Food tastes good

I'm trying to eat better. I haven't been succeeding that much on the weight loss side of things so I was just trying to learn to eat right.

Some things are surprising me. For example, most fruits don't taste nearly as strong as I've been lead to believe. I've so used to candies that are fruit flavored that I had a idea of what some fruits tasted like. Sure candy isn't the best place to learn favors from, but there is that or actually eating the fruit and if I had tried to eat fruit I would have felt under pressure to like it not matter what it was.

As a kid I didn't feel like was allowed much of a choice in what I ate. I am technically a picky eater, but that was because if I tried to eat something my mother made it was a direct insult to her if I didn't like it. And I am sure that I will never like casserole or meatloaf, or anything drenched in tomato sauce, or really any other sauce for that matter.

But getting back to the fruit. It opens up a great number of things for me to eat now that I, well, don't give a crap about what other people thing about my eating habits. 

New difficulty has arisen though. My mother likes to cook dinner. Now if it was just me, I could have control over what I ate. I could have something small if I had a large lunch, or just fill in with snacks, such as some popcorn and fruit, or maybe a sandwich. Instead I have to eat whatever my mother decides to make which is always very complex. We can't just have meat, it has to be prepared a certain way, we can't have leg of lamb, crappy tiny lamb chops are fancier. Now, whenever we have chicken she has to chop out the back to that it lies flat on the pan. The other day she complained about top round of beef, saying that they were too "chewy". 

Really? We can't get the "good" cuts because their too expensive, but the "bad" cuts that we have been buying for the last fifteen years are suddenly too "chewy"? Luckily we've been getting around that with sirloin roasts. They are amazing. Cheap, and they taste really good. He had a sirloin steak the other day - it could have converted a vegan.

So that's my story for this week. Not that I did very well today... too many cheese sticks...
-X

Thursday, June 3, 2010

What?

So I was just thinking that I should write a post about something, and I was like "I'll write a post about that!". So I opened Blogger and promptly forgot what I was going to write about.

Figures.

Today I placed a bunch of old paperbacks in my recycling bin. I haven't read them in ages and I don't plan on reading them again. Most were also in terrible condition and most charities don't like books. That I can recycle them is one of the things I like about our service here.

Throwing them out brought up a concern though. Should I throw more away? I think I will. I have three more boxes of books out in my garage that I haven't read in years and if I don't recycle them I doubt that anyone else will. I discovered that selling paperbacks on the internet is not worth it. You have to sell so low you can't even make back the shipping cost.

I spend a lot of money on books. I'm going to cut back. Mostly because I'm at the end of the serieses that I am reading. I'm also doing it just to cut back.

I made myself a goal, one so crazy that I'm not even writing about it on here unless it starts to get less crazy as I get closer. Part of that goal to spend the minimum amount of money on myself. Part of it came from seeing the interest capitalize on my student loans (another $800! Yay!).

Seriously, when I think about this GOAL, I begin to think I've lost my mind...

...but I don't have trouble sleeping now...
-X

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Was that bad?

I added more advertisements to my websites. I feel a little dirty about it. I don't get that many hits but I feel like I should attempt to get whatever I can from what I have. Some people happen to come to this site, and more to AoC Design, and I try to get something off of their visits. I'm sure that at some point someone will accidentally purchase something through my referrer links and I'll get a commission. I'm sure that I will be shocked when it happens.

And I do complain a lot about not having money on this blog so why not try to make a buck or two off of it. It would of course help if I wrote more entries on it or wrote about things that I could create links to. When I complain about lack of money I don't have any obvious items to link to, that's why a couple of posts have links to nonsense.

I suppose I could just add links to whatever I happen to be reading or listening to, but that won't make sense in most posts.
-X

Moonshine (Cal Leandros, Book 2)(Just started along with a dozen other books I'm reading right now.)
Hot Mess(Sadly, I'm a nice guy. Sometimes I wish I wasn't.)

Friday, May 14, 2010

Caught up in academics

Once again I'm caught up in looking at academics. My grades aren't quite good enough for grad school, about 2.7, you really want 3.0. Of course for every year of experience you can consider you GPA to be a .1 higher. Sadly I have no extra experience.

So when I say this is academic I'm really meaning it. I browse over the colleges near where I want to live to see if they have programs I might be interested in. Not many do, most are vague on what they are looking for and what they teach, or they claim to be generic and appear to lean a bit towards performance.

I look over them and really really want to start doing the things they describe, no matter how vague they are. I haven't done anything remotely theatre related for the last year. I haven't drawn, I haven't built, I haven't painted. I haven't had a problem that needed solving that I could just go an fix. I feel more than a little bit helpless right now.

I made a list and on it is drawing. I really want to draw, and I hate to sound trite, but I don't have inspiration here. I've lived here for twenty-two years, it all seems very dull after twenty-two years.

I feel like I shouldn't post deary crap, but as long as I keep in mind that I'm unhappy here, maybe I'll be able to leave.
-X

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Questionable time usage.

I spent the better part of the last three days reading Questionable Content and before that I was reading Sorcery 101. There are so many things I should have been doing instead.

I have a list on my desktop now. It's very distracting if I ever close the internet browser. Actually I'm really annoyed at myself because I made the list three days ago and I had to put really stupid stuff on it to be able to check things off. As it is I'm not putting "Read shit-ton of books you brought" because I'll do that without being reminded, though they are taking up a lot of space around my bed.

Yeah, I've been lazy.

My list mostly has real things on it, like "Look for a job" implying local retail type deal, but as I check I have flashbacks to a couple of months ago when I was testing the waters - it sucked then too. I thought I was in a little unemployment bubble that I created myself, little did I know that it really is this bad of a job market. Maybe a year ago I could have found some part-time thing, but today I'm suddenly not very sure. Not that I've tried very hard.

Just thinking about it makes me realize that what I've feared has come true. I'm comfortable. You would fucking laugh you you saw my room and heard my say that I'm comfortable.

Actually I'm very uncomfortable. I'm stuck in the worst situation you can imagine. Trapped without money or anyway to escape my parent's house. I haven't even had twelve hours truly alone for the last ten months. I was updating the countdowns on my other site and saw that it only four and a half months until my birthday. First I was like "cool, it's almost my birthday," then I was like "Shit I just wasted an entire fucking year!"

I'm stuck in a rut and I feel like well meaning people have let me sink deeper. I feel like part of it is my fault, but I'm getting less sure of myself as the days go by.
-X

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Bad anniversary

One year ago yesterday I graduated. I'm still unemployed and living at home. To say that I'm not comfortable with this situation is an understatement. I've not lost significant weight, though I have started exercising and my wrist is as fixed as it's going to get.

I'm trying to not get depressed.

I have a plan prepared for this eventuality even though I don't like it. In fact I hate it. Go back to retail.

When I think of going back to retail I think of a friend of mine that I worked with a few summers ago. She graduated in December, when theatre are not really hiring. She couldn't go to the theatre conventions because she didn't have the money, so she ended up waitressing for a year and a half after getting her degree. She was comfortable and was making decent money after working that long.

I've said it before, I don't want that. But even as I say that I have gotten comfortable, especially during the winter when no one wants to go outside. My life for the past year has been easy, too easy. I run through books like nobodies business, I go to movies often, I eat free food. I travel to several places for free (none of the places I'd like to go and look for jobs, god forbid I get to go there!), but in the end there is guilt. I'm not giving back to society and I looks at my long term goals and I find myself lagging far behind.

I look back now and think that I should have gotten a job months ago, but it's looking back. I call it optimism. I refused to believe that I was going to be unemployed after looking for three months. I refused to believe that I would still be living in my parent's house for more than three months. I keep hoping that the resume I sent out last week will be the one that lands me a job. I couldn't commit to another job, because another job, closer to my dream job might be out there. I think my parent's are more understanding now then they were, but the one thing that really cheers me up is when I talk to someone my age having the same trouble. I don't have any friends, it stopped hurting to say that years ago, so I don't have someone to talk to about this, or even someone I can talk to. I hid in my room for days because I can't take the conversations my parent's have. I written some of them before, same conversation a dozen times to people who have already heard it.

I cheer myself up though. There are things that I've done that I couldn't have done if I had been working. Last November I wrote the first draft of a novel. It needs heavy editing, but I wrote over 50,000 words. Did I mention that I failed high school writing? I wrote a second one, a longer one, the beginning of this year and in April I wrote a screenplay. I want to write another and I want to edit my first. I never thought I would actually want to edit my first novel, it's just so bad at points.

It proved to me that I can do things that I set my mind to and I've set my mind to something and I will get it. I still believe that my parents are being over protective of me. I debate talking about it to them, but will they answer differently now?
-X

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

May

During April and November I don't think of NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy as taking up a lot of time, but in both cases there were significant decreases in my blogging. I do this mostly when I'm bored and don't have to sleep for work. Luckily, I still am without a job. Fingers still crossed, sometime this week. Affirmations for me.

Anyway, my nephew was born two days early so we flew out to see him. He's doing what newborns do. Sleep, eat, poop. Something I noticed was that he got cuter after a couple of days, as he was able to grow into his skin. the first pictures he looked like kind of squashy. Three days old, he looked like a baby. A really big one, 8lb 15oz, or as the nurse told my sister-in-law, "you can say he was nine pounds,".

We drove. It sucked. We drove because it's insanely expensive to fly last minute and we would need a car when we got there. At least we wouldn't in an Escalade (or was it a Expedition?) this time. It was a gigantic vehicle that my father rented "just in case we needed to transport people". We didn't.

So, we drove and I had to sit in the back seat of a Tacoma for eight hours. My brother got to be there too because he wimped out on driving himself. We get annoyed with my parents on these trips because at some point they are frozen by a decision. 'Where are we going to eat?', 'What are we going to do for the next couple of hours?'. The eating one always pisses me off because they then get mad at me for stating that we should go to place 'A' or 'B'. We only went to 'the Diner' once this time after I pointed out that we ate there five times the last trip. Meanwhile my mother started to come up with a dozen different interesting restaurants yet she would have happy eating at the 'Diner' multiple times again. She fell in love with the place last year when they were open at midnight, but I think I get sick off of their food (which is why I don't name them).

Where was I going with this anyway? Oh right. I discovered that my abs don't like being squashed. My knees in the Tacoma are about my belly button if I sit straight. Instead I have to tilt out both of my legs, for HOURS. It's like getting into an uncomfortable position for a couple of minutes, for like a picture or something and having to maintain it forever. Whenever we stopped, getting out didn't just feel good, it felt like my legs were getting blood again. They only seat in that car is my father's and he doesn't understand the pain the rest of us go through.

Now I wrote this on Tuesday and completely forgot about it to post so let's hit it now.
-X

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Now for a happy post

My last several posts were a bit sad. I need to do something happier.

I won Script Frenzy. I'm at 103 pages. Okay 102, the extra is my title page and I need to get an ending. Technically, I don't need that to end the month, but it's a little cooler to say that I finished a script, not that I wrote one hundred pages of a one hundred ten page script.

The job that I applied for nearly a month and a half ago informed all applicants that we would hear from them by the first week of May instead of the third week of April. So instead of my hopes being dashed, I'm being strung along for a couple more weeks. I'm really apathetic about it right now, I don't know if that will change as the deadline gets closer. This job is the last opportunity I will have to get into theatre for at least a year, unless I do really well in the retail sector.

My expenses are at the teetering edge of dangerous, I have enough money for my next month of credit card payments, in which I'm paying one hundred dollars for twelve months during promotional APR, but after that I'll have about enough for one last month and I'll have to do some kind of work in that time. Even if I get the job I really will need to move out there immediately and try to get some expenses taken care of with some type of job. The six hundred left on my one credit card isn't much of a problem, the greater problems are my car which takes sixty dollars to fill up, if I'm lucky, not to mention repairs which it occasionally needs, being an almost twenty year old car. My computer is funky. It's not dead, but it's a computer and they rarely warn you when they are planning on heading out. I would love to get on top of that and order a new one (desktop for easy repairs) and keep a functioning laptop as a spare. So yeah, some money would be nice. We won't even get into the discretionary spending I would like to be doing.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself for not spending that much money that last couple of months. I wasn't perfect, I bought some clothes and books with my own money (silly me). The clothes are silly because they don't fit me. I want them for when they do. It will be am instant reward. Or it's crap to be stuck in my closet forever.

Okay now for randomness.
-X

Levi's Slim Straight 514 Jeans 34x32
Chocolate Bar Variety Pack - 30 ct
Dell Alienware Aurora Desktop
The Complete Book of Scriptwriting

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

I'm getting depressed.

I still haven't heard back from that theatre and every day it becomes less likely that they will call me for an interview. I don't really know why. I admit I'm not the best at what I do, but you're not going to get the best for most of these jobs.

I'm thinking back to my previous post and really wishing that I could get my chance. I want to fuck up. I'm so tired of being unemployed, and it's getting to the point where I might not be able to find part-time work. Did you know that unemployment is actually nearing Great Depression era levels? Not the number you hear on the news, the real number, which is calculated differently. Like whether or not you count part-time workers.

My student loans can be deferred as long as my employment isn't full-time. That's defined as 30 hours a week, for three months. Most jobs won't offer you that immediately. I remember in December how my paychecks kept being so low, it felt like all of my work was for nothing, but what it really was, was that my schedule was screwed up a couple of times. I got one "full" paycheck. It was awesome to have some money. I'm almost out of it.

The first thing I spent it on was Christmas presents. Yeah, I only had money coming in for that month, and I bought presents for people. I'm silly like that. I'm looking at my online banking right now, and 20% of my expenses this month is my $10 donation to Screnzy. I'm overly generous.

So as I type this I'm trying to put together a traditional resume. I don't like traditional resumes because theatre experience doesn't translate well into it. I have a decent theatre resume (available upon request) that fills a page out nicely, but you can't really count everything separately on a traditional resume. I was having a discussion with my aunt and uncle about this last year. They didn't believe me when I said how you format a theatre resume.

You don't have an objective on a theatre resume. You don't have a summary. I was looking for examples last year after that discussion and my favorite was one that listed at least one hundred shows in size 8 font and had the USA829 stamp on it, because that was it needed. It said "I've done many shows and I'm in the union. I'm qualified". I have to be a bit more specific, but all theatre resumes follow that tone.

I'm just so tired of worrying about if I can find a job. It saps my strength and it ruins my enjoyment of other things.

My eyes hurt. I should sleep.

Are they allergies?

Or tears...

Sunday, April 11, 2010

I'm also a liar.

So you know how I ended the last post by saying that I would get to sleep at the right time and get up at a decent hour. That was a bunch of lies.

For some reason I have been having a terrible time getting to sleep. I might be thinking to much when I'm trying to fall asleep. Instead of normal fantasies, I now seem to require a beginning, a middle, and an end. The good part is in the middle and I draw out the end forever. Guess there is a downside to NaNo.

Today, after I finally woke up, I got this idea that I should start playing with my camera more often. I think this a lot. I got the idea by watching Shane Dawson TV last night instead of sleeping and thinking that any idiot with a camera could do that. Difficulty - I'm not anywhere as good looking as Shane Dawson (who I should mention is one of the people younger than me who are much more successful). Also that fucks with the anonymous dealie that I'm working with.

So that is delayed until I lose fifty pounds and regrow my hair. Which might actually happen one day.

Until then I'm going to try working on pseudo-public speaking. Maybe I'll podcast. some of the cool kids are doing that, right? If nothing else I want to get use to hearing my own voice. Just messing around today I felt like I need to speak more so that I start speaking clearly.

I rarely talk. If you let me start, I never shut up, but it's actually fairly rare that I start talking in the first place. And that inability to continue speaking for more than two minutes is the reason I will never win American Idol.

I would normally say that I'd never actually do this, but I also never thought I would blog for a year, or write a novel, or write a script, or...

No, that's it.
-X

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Better.

Hey, look! I fixed the logo so that it doesn't look stupid. Now the ads stand out too much. Shit.

I've been busy, surprisingly. I haven't even been doing anything. It's kind of cool, in a sad way, that you can do that. I'm waiting anxiously for a response from one of the places that I applied to. I really, really, really want that job. I've already decided that if I don't get it (and to leave myself an out "there are no similar opportunities available") I'm going to take some dinky retail job. I don't want to, I might not even be able to, but I have a great need of money. Couple months and I'll be able to move out, whether or not that is a good or bad thing.

Outside of that, I'm driving for pleasure, because it's better than being cooped up in the house all day long and considering how much time I spend in my house it's amazing that I haven't gone mad. I have that spring urge to go outside and I succumb to that urge at least every other day. Plenty of things I need to do on my computer or in my room, but I don't feel like it. Also, I broke down and did some of it last night.

I'm still exercising, but I'm taking a break from two hundred sit-ups. My body isn't able to repair and/or expand that fast, and I'm not sure how healthy the program really is. At some point you just start hurting yourself through over exercise.

Also going strong on Screnzy. It seems easier than novelling, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I do miss description a bit.

I'm going to sleep proper like tonight.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

That's kind of depressing

I am exercising right now. I believe in breaks in between sets. Long breaks, or at least long enough to let my muscle stop bitching. Anyway I set up my computer to tell me what I needed to do today and started with my sit ups and it was stupid hard. I knew I was behind, but this was too hard. So I check the date for my last time - Friday - that means I completely skipped a workout without a thought. Which means today is going to really hurt.

I don't know what it is about two days that makes it the perfect amount of time to wait for your muscles to get better, or why waiting any time over that makes you want to kill yourself. It just does.

What's really bugging me is that I thought I was still on track because I was still sore from the last round, which was a repeat because I had difficultly on the previous round. I really meant to stretch yesterday but now it is too late. This program seems to have a severe difficulty curve. My body us having trouble adjusting to the change in demands. I still shake with the first sit ups, they steady after I warm up, but everyone is extremely difficult. Wasn't it suppose to get easier as you went on?

Last night, I was looking up how to massage myself. I was hoping for suggestions like directional motions, or tips for certain muscles, but all I could find were several very obvious "how to" articles. They literally said things like, "oil hands and rub body". That is not useful. Clearly it's a conspiracy from the masseur union.

Well, I lived through it. Pray for my muscles.
-X

Monday, March 29, 2010

I'm an ADD idiot

So you might have noticed that the pretty layout that I used to have is kind of gone.

You see I use Blogger "In Draft" so that I have a spellcheck on my posts and so I can have pages. The other day that opened up customizable layouts, for those of us who don't want to learn the ins and outs of programming for Blogger. I was really excited and started playing with it because the old layout didn't have big enough sidebars for anything, they were just an odd size.

So after playing for awhile I saved. Then I remembered that I had to add the Analytics code again, and soon I have fix the title image. Too much f-ing trouble. I'm busy with finishing my current writing project, starting Screnzy, hopefully having interviews that require a great deal of traveling, my niece/nephew being born, and I'm sure more shit will pop up.

So long March, you sucked. April, show March how it's done.
-X

(I've been listening to music again...)
All I Ever WantedCool Is Just A NumberWho We Are

Friday, March 26, 2010

I feel better

I feel much better.

The first day is always the worst and I always forget that I have to take Allegra, not Zyrtec.

So I have applications in and nearly have a heart attack every time I check my email, because I expect to see a response. Otherwise though I have been very bad. I've been playing games and writing and, finally, my mother is starting to get her 'tude again.

I looked over local jobs again, because if I don't get what I want I will have to go to retail temporarily, but there wasn't much. At this point I just want out of my parents house more than anything. I know I've bitched about living here before, but I'm going to add some things. One day back in either December, when I was working at a toy store and had to get up early, or January, when I was having some doctors appointments, I woke up and went downstairs and started to make myself something to eat before I left.

I pace, including when I'm trying to make food, and it gets worst the hungrier I am, but there are two things that prevent me from pacing. People cause me to pace less, and having somewhere to go makes me stop completely. If I'm not busy, I can draw out a meal for an hour and a half. If there is someone in the kitchen and I have to be somewhere, I'm done preparing and eating in ten minutes. My mother doesn't like people disrupting her routine in the morning, and apparently I was a disruption - because I needed to walk pass her to get the mayonnaise out of the refrigerator.

This just proved to me that I shouldn't get up before she leaves, because she be bitching about me being in the way, whether or not I am. Can I be blamed for not feeling welcome around here.

Oh, I think I'll also mention that I am not the stupidest person in the world. My brother actually dared to say something about our parent's smoking. They occasionally say things like "don't ever start", but they are without remorse about any effect their smoke has on other people and I thought that we all knew that they were very sensitive about the subject. Hell, they actually talked about it afterward, they never do that.

Well, I meant to publish this last night so... oh well.
-X

Saturday, March 20, 2010

I hate spring in NoVa

I hate spring in Northern Virginia. Only because it hates me.

For the first time in four years I am "home" during the beginning of spring and I want to kill myself. I have bad allergies to something here. Mold, trees, I don't fucking know. When I was in high school I would have a couple of days of agony until it dissipated or my allergy medication could kick in.

Now lets just get this straight, I don't bitch about my health that often in real life because the fact is that no one fucking cares. They don't care because some people cry about getting a cold or stubbing their toe. I don't do that. I deal with being sick and I get over it and most people never know that I'm not feeling well.

Well, I'm bitching about this in real life.

This isn't like dog allergies or cat allergies. I can't leave the building and get better, I can't take a shower and wash it off. All I can do is OD on drugs and pray that something begins to work. My face is sore from blowing my nose, not my nose, my face. And under my eyes are sore from wiping away tears.I don't remember how I had the patience to live through this.

Fuck.
-X

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Not the One Year Post I was expecting

One year ago today I wrote my first post on this blog. I was much happier and more optimistic last year. I was about to go to the second of two conferences and get a job. I was about to graduate. Everything was going to be great.

I didn't get a job. I had several posts where I muttered about the amount I paid to go and the fact that there were no jobs. Then I got the flu and missed out on the rest of that conference. I'm still paying my credit card bill for that week.

I'm now filling out applications I could have filled out last year, but did not because I thought I wouldn't need to. I had my plan, which was rejected by my parents. My just talked with my brother and he gave me a bit of an inspirational speech about following your dreams. He said that the first step is scary, but it's worth it in the end. My parents wouldn't let me take that step. I've always thought that if I was to win an award, I would not thank my parents.

My parents aren't the type of parents that cause their children to win awards. They are the definition of parents. They will love us, no matter what, even if they can't say it, even if they can't look at us right now, they love us. Too many people, don't get that, and I am thankful for that, but to make your child win an award you need to do more than that. For them to be thanked, they need to be someone that steadies you as you get closer. They need to be the people who tell you that you can do anything you set your mind to and they have to make sacrifices, just as you do to, to help you get that award.

Child actors in film need to have a parent present for everything they do. Every filming, screening, photo shoot, the parent needs to be there to make sure that the child is being properly cared for. My parents would not do that. They did convince my elementary school that I wasn't retarded, but looking back on that, even they admit that being in that school wasn't the best place for me. They could have done more - it would have been a stretch, but they could have done more.


My parents never suggested that I learn an instrument. They never encouraged me to take up karate. They never made me do swim team. They never taught me to ride a bike (one of my brothers taught himself - they said that we didn't want to be taught and that we would "yell at them").

I know that my plan was missing a little something, but sometimes you really need to fuck up to figure yourself out. Look up the wikipedia entry for People Born in 1987. These people are my age and most of them, if not all had parents who went above and beyond the call of parenthood. You can't wake up one day and become an Olympian, or a good actor, or a famous musician, you only get the chance if your parents believe in you and are willing to take the time, and possibly the expense of letting you try new things.

Maybe this year I'll fuck up.
-X

Monday, March 8, 2010

A number of things

So I am starting to write down what I eat in a "food diary". I don't know how long it will be until I get bored of it. For one, I'm doing on the computer, so it won't be nearby for me to write in right after I eat, but it's just a way to make more of my bad days good day in the weight loss game.

Now if I was really nice I would be giving reviews of Shutter Island and Alice in Wonderland, but I don't feel like it. This post seems too important to put in things like that in it. I'm not sure why I think it's important but it is. I just know. In less than one week I will have continued this blog through thick and thin for an entire year. I deserve a cookie, but then I would have to log it in my food diary.

What I would like more than a cookie would be to play all of those awesome videos that keep coming out. I feel very sorry for myself for not getting to play them. And did you know their aren't any emulators for GameCube? Okay I did find some but I couldn't find any games for them, not that I tried very hard. (If you don't know what I talking about it's probably a good thing. Think Napster for video games). Several weeks ago I was walking through the video game section of Walmart and I felt like I was walking up to a drug dealer and asking "Can I just see what you have?". I have a problem. I can switch it on and off, unlike many people who have been known to ruin their lives with gaming.

Now I should be off to do all of the thing I should be doing. How was that for a one hundredth post?
-X

Alice In Wonderland

Friday, March 5, 2010

I shouldn't be wasting time right now

I really shouldn't be wasting time right now.

I just paid a bill. I don't have many of those, but it did make me look at my finances. I really haven't been thinking about any of this crap for a while. Just kind of living the dream, writing a novel, reading, watching movies.

But this week the weather has been all nice, like winter is over or something. That means that all the fucking crap I had to do last year I'll have to do again. Yeah, I'm talking about yard work. I'm not a fan, particularly when people don't ask me nicely. So I have to get out of this house this summer.

I remembered something on my loan deferment about March. For some reason the six month deferment ends in March. I'm going to call them and make sure what date I have to list on it to extend it. Anyway it says that I have to make at least six attempts to find full-time employment (that's important, unemployment deferment for student loans is based on lack of full-time employment. My mother pointed out that she doesn't work full-time by their definition.) and that I can count only four, and one of them could be construed as a college application, not employment.

So off to my job boards I go.

Now this is sad, I looked at a job that requires twenty hours a week and will only pay $150 plus housing and I'm going to apply for it. I'm getting pretty desperate. I know, you are thinking "about time" aren't you? Need I point out that you cannot live on that much a week? I think they feed me some, but I worked at a place that paid some people that much and did not feed them.

So I already am committed to three more applications to send out, and wait there is more! I need to finish my novel by the end of the month and prepare for Script Frenzy. I haven't even written today yet, which is why I shouldn't be writing this.

If I do find some time, or just want to procrastinate, I'll write a review of Shutter Island. If I don't, just go see it.
-X

No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 DaysStorm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)Pleasantville (New Line Platinum Series)

Friday, February 26, 2010

Writing and Exercises

I haven't been posting in week or so because I've suddenly been back logged. It's really weird how it happens, but it seems like time just escapes from your grasp.

I suddenly realized that the first deadline for applications was coming up on Monday and I needed to get the recommendation letters for it and once I had confirmation of them I needed to send in the application itself. That was fun.

As I mentioned before I started to do the two hundred sit ups again and I'm keeping up by giving myself two days of rest instead of one for the first week. Tonight more exercising. I also started playing with free weights. I used one of my physical therapy exercises as an excuse to buy a 5 lb free weight and I started using it to rebuild my arm muscles. I do the same exercises with my left arm as a sort of constant, and my right arm is just really bad and I hope to have improvement when I do it today.

I hope that it is because of that that I haven't reached my goal of 200 lb by the end of February. I started to make some progress, then fell back. I was overeating again too. I do consider maintaining weight a positive note during this. How bad would I be if I wasn't paying attention? Anyway, I have notice a shift in my fat, the muscle aches are lessening, and my pants are fitting better.

Lastly my writing has been going great. I'm still behind, but I have a plan to catch up and have been having great story ideas. Reading Percy Jackson and the Dresden Files most likely helped.

Just a short update because I haven't been around.
-X

Perseus is a really cool name

I saw Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lighting Thief yesterday, but before I write about that I need to give bonus points to the movie theatre.

I always go to Regal Cinemas. I have their loyalty card so for every $100 I spend on movies and concessions I get a free movie ticket. This isn't the only reason. They are also always clean and the staff is always courteous and helpful. I have been to a couple non-chain movie theaters that were great, but if you are heading to a chain, Regal is in my opinion the best.

I actually saw Percy Jackson for a couple reasons:

  1. I thought the previews looked cool.
  2. I finally found a copy of the book in mass-market paperback (and therefore cheaper) and enjoyed it immensely
  3. I had a loyalty ticket and I needed a movie that allowed the use of free passes (the first week or so of a new movie),
So I get to the theater not as early as usual, get free popcorn (because of my loyalty card again), and proceed to sit in an empty theatre, because it's a children's movie and I'm there at the 1:50 pm showing. I end up not being the only one there. Just before 1:50 a family with a really little kid came in and an older man that I assume was there to pre-watch it for his own kids or grandkids. As soon as 1:50 rolls around the manager comes in and informs us that there is a problem with the projectors and that the movie will start a few minutes late.

Isn't that nice? They actually told us right off the bat that something was wrong, instead of letting us think that they just forgot to turn the movie on. Several minutes go by, the manager had estimated "two or three minute" delay and that was clearly wrong. So the manager returns and give us all passes to another movie to use whenever we like. Suddenly none of us mind waiting the half-hour to forty-five minutes it took for them to fix the problem. What really sucks is that it sounded like it was a really stupid problem that you would not think would take that long to fix, but anyway I got to see a movie for free and got another free movie ticket.

Now back to the movie itself.

I really liked the book, when I ignored the whole ten-year-old-can-do-shit-grown-men-can't-do crap. They got around this by shifting him up a couple years and making him a teenager. That helped a lot because if you go back and watch the first Harry Potter movie you really see how ridiculous it is to have a child that hasn't even hit puberty yet. Of course, I'm not sure how old Logan Lerman, who plays Percy, was at the time of filming but I think he's one of those people who is destined to play teenagers forever. He looks really short, then again 5' 8" is shorter than me, therefore he is.

Now, I said I liked the book. You know what is coming next. I will say this in the most diplomatic way: in relationship to the books I absolutely hated the movie, in respect to the movie itself, I didn't mind it. The major problems with the movie is that it simplified the story and whereas the book avoided many pitfalls that you might come across when writing stories like this, the movie jumps into them. They switch villains to make the story work for only one movie better, they make that gods more dickish and over obsessed over Greek culture (in the book none of the gods are dressed in traditional clothing, Poseidon is dressed more like Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men) and just to be nit picky, the walls on Olympus were not painted and there is proof that they should be.

What is really annoying is that they fell into the Hades is evil hole. Hades liked his job for the most part and in the book doesn't want war anymore than anyone else. In fact the entire point of Poseidon not being in Percy's life was because he, Zeus and Hades were all forbidden from having children after World War II (Zeus, of course, was the first to f that up).

So see the movie, but don't expect it to be anywhere nearly as awesome as the book. Oh and Perseus is an awesome name and sounds much more masculine than Percy, don't you agree?
-X

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)
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