Wall.E...Un'Review'd

Bananas. Bread. Whatever vege is on my list. Canned stuff. Packaged stuff. Efficient as a robot through the sections. Never backtracking. Done in minutes. Dairy and meat, if meat, the very last, logically. Before that, on to my favourite ten to fifteen minutes of getting groceries early Saturday morning at my friendly neighbourhood Great Canadian Superstore. Electronics and DVDs!

Wall.E, the latest Pixar treat recently released to DVD and that BlueRay, on the playbill, playing from 14 inches through 42, across all those nifty display teevees. A couple sets set to closed caption, for the hard of hearing, and...me. I'll pop up CC just so I won't miss something in some mumbler movie.

I wouldn't presume to review Wall.E. Didn't buy Wall.E, though I will, sometime. And didn't properly watch it, as such. No couch. No munchies. Not catching it from the start. Only stood there, in the electronics department at Superstore, likely longer than my ten to fifteen, taking it in, between the dry goods and going for milk and meat...or eggs. I'm a flexible, even opportunistic, omnivore. A proper review may pop up here, sometime, for I could do with the writing exercise. But for now then, only proper to leave that to the proper reviewers.

Nooo, mine only in passing like a review. Really, only jottings how I felt about the bits I saw, which had an immediate effect on me. Even though I didn't catch Wall.E from the start, I got it. Immediately. Hit me, just the same as Silent Running hit me as a kid the first time I saw it.

Wall.E's humankind have messed up as badly. Used up the good Earth. Our very last hope germinating in an old boot... .

Now, Wall.E...not the little robot, Wall.E, who's the hero in every way here...but the movie, the movie as idea that is Wall.E, is just this side of eco-heavy-handed. If Silent Running was Bruce Dern's flower power fist held high, Wall.E is the cartoon hand slap across the face. But it's the same message. Can't help myself: I'm wired to like messages along with my pop culture. And Pixar's delivered again, in that wonderful way of theirs, the right dose of lightness and humour, blended with wow'ing technical beauty, that makes it easy to swallow the spoonful of preaching message:

Know where the OFF button is...

Get plenty of exercise...so we aren't outlived by the cockroaches, and the things we've left on when we go.

Love Among the Imported Produce

She invited me to step out, brave only that little, which was a lot, dance some even…take a chance…as if Busby Berkeley really made the world.

Saw her beaming at me from the banana table, far from her Guatemalan plantation life. She didn’t say her name, of course. But it had to be…Carmen…or, Miranda. Miranda…that fun-loving party gal on the Chiquita banana sticker.

I’d felt something missing before Miranda. Needed that little extra jazz. And Miranda only ever easy-going, expecting only my commitment to the sunnier side of life.

My Saturday night on the town…Miranda.

And, home, Sunday morning…the Land O’Lakes girl, though she still won’t tell me her name…for before her I’m simply content to kneel.

Saturday, Nov 15 '08...What to Rant About...hmmm?

About eighty pounds…That’s all it is. Felt more like…eighty-four. Just tapped the numbers through the calculator here at work. Saturday groceries hauled home in back of the pick-up. Two boxes’ full. Groceries in boxes, rather than twenty pounds of potatoes, and the rest, tumbling about the back of the truck. Also easier then simply carrying in a couple boxes.

Nothin’ there, not really, to rant about.

Grey November morning over Vancouver. Raining round the edges. Mild enough that after hefting in a couple boxes I feel it refreshing running round in a t-shirt.

No rant there…Nope.

Of course, I could work up a full head of steam over my hair-raising adventures bicycle commuting…but I don’t wanna go to the dark side. Not today. It’ll leave me surly as a sith, and I want my head light…comedic, even…because I have my bit for Mage Hunting to edit, tonight, or Sunday, and some plotting to plot; and…possibly even satirical I’d like to plot that plot.

It’s the bike, Monday through Friday. The pick-up on weekends: for the picking-up of things, and gadding about the greater distances. Just gadded the short stretch in to work. A bit of work I want cleared. Blew kisses at the lane-swervers who clearly feel fifteen K over the posted speed limit’s still unbearably slow.

Oooh…careful…almost a rant there. I want to rant, y’see. Only not so I burst a blood vessel.

I did my civic duty this morning – Yesss!

After hefting in potatoes and milk, and whatever I’m having for dinner tonight. Usually, I’ll study the great political issues, listen to the…um, dignified debates. Usually, prepare my list of names: voting for a version of Vancouver’s city council balanced, left and right. But, not this election. A small, hushed-up matter of public money for bailing out a 2010 Olympics developer. So, I voted as only I could…marked the names of every opposition candidate.

As if that should make all the difference...

There. A…rant.

Still Learning

Haven’t updated before now, obviously. Not for having nothing to post. Got the projects going well enuf…maybe too many, all at once…my own fault that. No, haven’t posted because I hadn’t a clue how to post it. Might’ve noticed I’d resorted to listing fave books, movies, games – cutesy, empty…whatever. Better, then, simply to stop.

I’m so new at this bloggin’, and clumsy, clueless…however am reading blogs that feel right …some of them, writers’ blogs. They’re the thing I’m interested in.

Point is: Figured out some basic, obvious truths about author blogs – the blogs posted up by writers either professional, paying the bills and feeding themselves on the sales of their words, or those near enough there.

When either Pro is between projects, perhaps taking a deserved break after sweating out four hundred pages, or say exploring the next buncha ideas, that blog sees constant, usually fascinating updatings – “Outlined first 3 chapters last night…" – “Neighour X, who I hate, will make the ABSOLUTE BEST villain – Here’s why…” – and so on.

But. Inevitably comes the day the blogs go silent. The glimpses inside his or her writing process stop. Perhaps a terse posting – “Will be busy the next 6 mos”. Naturally – when actual writing needs doing, all the talk about writing should stop.

Yes. So. A dawning. The Pro’s scribble over their blogs – use the thing as a mental notepad – as should I.

And if a mess…what of it? I’m working out details. Valid use of any blog. And not the What I Had for Breakie kinda empty thing I’ve sworn never to do and dreaded this becoming.

Of course – use it for working out the next thing I’m thinking about. And…this something I want lighter than a complaint letter, tho that exactly what it’ll be, in fiction form – me griping about my hellish commute…which will perhaps set off chuckles in folks facing truly hellish commutes.

Less than 3 miles each way…and I had, ‘til recently, preferred my…velocipede.

Doing my bit as...Citizen

Figuring I might do my bit, my bit as…er’um [clearing throat, a mite embarrassed, perhaps really just wondering how close to Fool I’m nearing]…doing my bit as citizen: I signed-up to have my email box visited by surveys from Our Regional Transit Authority. Y’see, part o’me, naïve me maybe, still wants so to believe that an unelected authority beyond all expectation cares, and public input might make all the difference…

However…cynical me understands enough and distrusts enough. Just the same as some dark dark satire, all that conscientious public input – for all anyone might know of it – filed away under Public Relations Exercise. We do live in these more interesting times…as another However. Never before as simple to speak and possibly be heard, thanks to this new-fangled thingy called bloggin’ on the worldwide web.

Perhaps my posting this here leaves no more ripple than I’ve said it twice. I’m satisfied then this at least is once more than an ignored statement filed away under No.

Today I answered to my mind one of their more relevant surveys: it actually cared to ask would I ever ride the thing – and the why’s or why nots…dot dot dot:

I’ve lived in Marpole almost 30 years.
Worked at YVR almost 30 years.
Waited for light rail, or whatever the thing would eventually be named: and cheap round-the-clock service logical in any ‘world class city that never sleeps’.

Imagine – no more standing one hour in rain and cold, because I had to work late and it’s no longer rush hour on transit’s clock.

I have used the 100 Bus to and from work: bus stop one block over from my home.

Considering how crime seems to love riding the trains, it’s probably just as well that Canada Line is over one mile out of my way.

Canada Line goes where I work, kinda – Doesn’t go where I live. And your ‘Airport Surcharge’ adds insult to the already absurd fare – because some genius drew a fare zone line in the Middle Arm of the mighty Fraser.

Yesss – some PR starting up that airport workers won’t have to pay that surcharge. Logistically, that implies permits, or ID: oh, cripe, enforcement, more infrastructure, and more cost – again.

I stay with this Translink Listens – still input my two-bits’ worth – because I want transit to work.

But I will only ever use transit as my very last resort – because it costs me too much to travel hardly any distance at all.

I know I’m not the only commuter to say so.
I know – inexplicably – Translink cannot seem to grasp this.

So…I bike to and from YVR. And on those days when I’ve lost my nerve, because of…construction, or YVR tree-planting, or free-range taxis, then I drive my pick-up [a utilitarian vehicle much loved in North America] – because that’s cheaper than paying two-zones on transit.


Currently re-reading bits of:

The Prince,
by Niccolo Machiavelli


Current diversion(s):

Age of Empires, Age of Kings (Nintendo DS)

Archers + High ground = Victory!


Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (PC - PC's basic, so it's this FS version, or I'm grounded)

Virtually flying around the world, because it says I can, and in a small Cessna, because it’ll be very interesting ocean crossing in my little Cessna. Wanting to post screen captures from my flights, but have still to check that publishing such pix doesn't constitute some definition of theft as far as Microsoft cares.

Meanwhile, just my log, minus all those numbers, course headings, and time notations, that make navigation such fun:

Um…only time enuf for plotting out gps way-points.
Too tired. And I don’t fly on auto-pilot.
Chaco Canyon is the next where!
And northwest to Shiprock.


An Admission

[The following section appears in my author profile on Protagonize. It's my content, I like it, and don't wanna change a word: just right that I say where first posted]

…I contracted Chronic Seriousness right after puberty. It has since shadowed my every heavy step.

Determined to remedy my sad condition, I've begun a flexible course of treatments, nothing too intense for my brittle constitution, because as with all medicines too much too soon of any good thing can be as bad…

Currently dosing with:

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett

Monday, July 14...distinctly feels that I'm repeating myself

Here I was thinking this quick-jot blogging formula should make it simpler, so easier and more fun, for actually and regularly posting my current goings on. Well, that was only ever gonna happen in another reality: one in which I have a time machine, and weekends and getting about town would make for really fascinating reading.

So…been busy…yada yada…exactly – everybody’s likewise busy…and…time to get on with this.

Figured out that before I can properly outline the bones of a smaller story I’d really like to get moving I’ll need to fully flesh out the main conflict in the world the smaller story is part of. Thematically momentous happenings in the bigger world shape the smaller ones, after all. Kinda important that I think this through now, as there are several of these smaller stories possible – yup, the makings of possible sequels – each of them happening in this world I’ve been running like a simulation in my head…oh, no small count of years.

Logic work: so it all fits nicely together.
And fun, actually, because it’s always fun playing a small-g god.

Currently re-reading bits of:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carre


Current diversion(s):

Age of Empires, Age of Kings (Nintendo DS)
I’m Attila. I’m tryin’ t’be ruthless.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (PC - PC's basic, so it's this FS version, or I'm grounded)

Virtually flying around the world, because it says I can, and in a small Cessna, because it’ll be very interesting ocean crossing in my little Cessna. Wanting to post screen captures from my flights, but have still to check that publishing such pix doesn't constitute some definition of theft as far as Microsoft cares.

Meanwhile, just my log, minus all those numbers, course headings, and time notations, that make navigation such fun:

Alamogordo, New Mexico, northwest to Trinity site.
Flew north along the San Andres Mountains. Eyeballing the many curious round bare patches dotting the desert. Also eyeballing onboard gps.

White Sands Missile Range: A-Bomb tests; captured German V2 rocket tests; ongoing ordinance testing, undoubtedly including cruise missiles. Got no permits - I could never over-fly in the real world.

Stallion airport in view. Circling. Saw that road trailing south from Hwy 380.
No one curious round bare patch stood out. No fenced enclosure, no tour buses, no ant-like tourists posing for snapshots at the Ground Zero cairn that stands 12 feet tall. And no pocketing souvenir trinitite – which the soldier-slash-tour guide will have cautioned against pocketing.

Basic computer and this older version of Flight Sim: wasn’t really expecting to see spectacular real world detail, tho would’ve been nice. Satisfied myself by gps-boxing the coordinates.
Landed at Stallion AAF.

An Admission

[The following section appears in my author profile on Protagonize. It's my content, I like it, and don't wanna change a word: just right that I say where first posted]

…I contracted Chronic Seriousness right after puberty. It has since shadowed my every heavy step.

Determined to remedy my sad condition, I've begun a flexible course of treatments, nothing too intense for my brittle constitution, because as with all medicines too much too soon of any good thing can be as bad…

Currently dosing with:

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett

…also, a short shot glass of:
My Favourite Brunette (1947) Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour

There's a time for seriousness. Not now, not here.

Got an idea from my profile page on Protagonize (Interactive Writing site where I like to go play - There's a link handy page-left). Figuring anything I might post up for a so-called bio-blurb is just gonna bore, there or here, or worse sound too much like an advert, instead I tacked up some interests, current, or recent enuf, so'z it feels pertinent: books being read, re-read, movies and websites perused. So as good as showing enough of who I am for anyone curious.

And it should be simple to keep this current, simply by editing, by posting up what I'm doing - short of the dreaded Dear Diary, Good oatmeal for breakie! - and updating the...um, date.

Here then some glimpses into the less shadowy stretches of my mind.

Currently re-reading:

The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz:

Cortez, Mexico, and Montezuma. Conquest and Adventure: the combination sold books, but the chroniclers really had ventured no farther than their writing desks. Despising these story sellers, and figuring he might as well benefit some little from the adventure he actually shared with his Cortez, Senor Diaz, retired conquistador with an attitude, sets the record straight.

Currently browsing:

Regia Anglorum (www.regia.org):

Anglo-Saxon re-enactors living the life...up to that nasty business against land-grabber William the Norman at Hastings.

Ever wonder how was it like, really like, to be a charcoal burner? And how much the smith might pay for the basketful? Or how to cut a scribe's goose feather quill, and brew up some nice dark ink, so somebody who knew his letters might record the sale in a churchman's book of vellum? Not forgetting to brew up the mead - never forgetting the mead!

An actual village, evident fun along with the experiments, and handy lifestyle articles. All fodder for the fantasy writer building a believable world.

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (www.thearma.org):

Forget Hollywood. Actual fighting techniques. Real tactics. Weapons and their use. Historic sources and modern experiments.

More world-building fodder.

Current diversion(s):

Age of Empires, Age of Kings (Nintendo DS)

Because I like her sweet French voice, playing as Joan the Zealous, trusting less in steel and more in her army of heathen-converting super battle-monks!

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (PC - PC's basic, so it's this FS version or I'm grounded)

Virtually flying around the world, because it says I can, and in a small Cessna, because ocean crossing in my little Cessna will be very interesting. Wanting to post screen captures from my flights: First, better check that publishing such pix doesn't constitute some definition of theft as far as Microsoft cares.

Meanwhile, just my log:

No-joy hunting all night for UFOs above Roswell, New Mexico, tho lotsa practice tailing air traffic coming and going. Dawn, northwest to Alamogordo, heading for Trinity, where a bomb went...(spreading hands apart rapidly to indicate a stupendously world-changing event).

An Admission

[The following section appears in my author profile on Protagonize. It's my content, I like it, and don't wanna change a word: just right that I say where first posted]

I contracted Chronic Seriousness right after puberty. It has since shadowed my every heavy step.

Determined to remedy my sad condition, I've begun a flexible course of treatments, nothing too intense for my brittle constitution, because as with all medicines too much too soon of any good thing can be as bad.

Currently dosing with:

The King of Kong

Monty Python and the Holy Grrrail! (dvd extras)

...and pawing the shiny new cover of:
Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett

Air Frame = Pressure Hull + X

Feel so...dumb. As in stupid, that I didn't see this sooner. And as in not able to communicate effectively. Only just comprehending just how dumb I've been, 'coz I've just had a Eureka! moment.

Outlining ... y'know, The Project, which because it's so big a project really should be outlined, not so inflexibly set that it allows no further step of exploration nor joy, tho enough plan for building the house on, putting the main bits where they should properly go, and the thing looking like a house when I've finished.

I was convinced I had the right POV, y'see. Only I hadn't, it wasn't, and in fact my choice of POV was not ever going to summon up a living breathing story before me. Not with one thousand years of tinkering and the synopsis dead-text-book perfect.

Because I had the entirely wrong point of view character struggling to tell the story impossible for him to tell. I might as well have tried cobbling together an aeroplane from mini-sub parts.

But. But it's my beloved project, y'see! he exclaims, as if being blinkered so long explains.

And it doesn't. First-Person voice worked in that longago when it first blazed along so very nicely: then it was all idea, a character, and getting his story down before gone forever, like a dream forgotten come waking. And not a thought about outlining, not then. But a story is like exploring an unknown land: writing it enlarges the map. Soon enough, in his effort to tell the larger story, his voice sounded less natural. Starts and stops jarred. I thought a road map, an outline, should restore story flow. Because I'd set it in motion using First-Person, and sprinting so promisingly in First-Person, then in First-Person it logically should continue. Shouldn't it?

[Cusses out self for the mistake that wasted quite a lot of time: none of which is appropriate to record here.]

No. But now I hear the best fitting voice, and it's all He, She, and They. Simple.

Once upon a time, there was this guy, and his name was Guy. And this is what happened to this guy, Guy, one fine morning when Julie Andrews, young and irresistible, invited him to picnic with her, and the pack of kids she was herding, high in a wide-angle sunny alpine meadow...

I can feel it writing itself!

Mountain Lesson Lessened

Beijing's Olympics' flame atop Mount Everest. Mountains, for some folks, are sacred places. The Olympics, for some folks, has become an affront. Maybe it's just me. Feels as if that Highest among the high dry spots today became a bit lower: lessened to little more than video filler on the morning news; a gas flame sputtering where a human usually draws air from a bottle; meaningless as an Olympics publicity stunt.

How might the I.O.C. have responded had the summit team met disaster, I wonder? The place since Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund has become a climber's cemetery.

Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World. Sagarmatha, Ocean Mother. Mount Everest, named for a surveyor from an empire half the world away. No pun intended, but while growing up it used to give me chills watching those rare climbing documentaries on tv. Eventually, other docs opened my eyes about cultures in our wondrous world, and their reverence for such places. And then we come to our current-day mindset. The un-ending train of climbing expeditions, where so many others have already been and all the routes imaginable already climbed. Elite, and Extreme, the descriptors for the adventurers: some certainly seeking something less tangible than coming away with another checkmark in a logbook. And others ... Well, there are said to be untold ways to enlightenment; so how is it any less right if they do make their career climbing every high place in succession?

Still, my way isn't any less right, either - and I can dislike a thing I dislike!

And I dislike seeing something very like this mountain lessening happening even in my pre-Olympics Vancouver. The Grouse Grind, named so for the attitude of so many who use what once was a hiking trail up Grouse Mountain: now in the main no longer experienced as a hike, that might possibly refresh the soul plodding step after step higher above everyday concerns. Instead used, like a piece of exercise equipment, like a stair climber is used, for the cardio work-out, for burning off the fat of a sedentary lifestyle; (and now I'm being snarky) -- and afterward, the adherents head off for some over-priced coffee cocktail!

Of course, their way might not be any less right, either.

Jottings on the Go

Got me this notion of writing a thing using this shiny-new mobile I'm tipping about in my hand so it catches the light just right. Sure, not a new idea: using a cell phone’s techno-nifties, creating short somethings, such as all those video bits and photo albums incessantly posted to YouTube, MySpace, blogs, and even news providers. Thought I heard someone made a movie using one of these.

And just an idea for now, this Jottings on the Go. Needs researching. The 140-character message limit certain to severely hobble things, if it's Ulysses, wandering the town. Well, maybe not a novel, then ... unless some novel kinda novel, told in one hundred and forty character installments. Hmm, right, at fifteen cents per chapter.

And then there's the language to choose. Standard English? - nyet, and not even if only the essential most concisely picked - certainly not compact enough. Nor enuf. Not even in same dialect as that shortened enuf. Not in weird, as in uncommon abbreviations, perhaps only confusing. Logically, the most must be said with less: every word where it can doing multiple duty, for the meaning and the emotion it might possibly convey. The compressed thing prob'ly best told in a compressed language, such as this Text-Chat-Shorthand ... uh,I.M. currently all the bee's knees, especially with the young’uns.

Dug out a yellowing print-up of a Chatters' Dictionary from 2001. Tho...[Hah! as in Although], quick googling has already returned a promising couple of more modern Texting and Instant Messaging info-sites. So, it's back to school for me!

Lesson: Are y'really gonna try Posting during Lunch?

Exasperated! Big mistake today -- almost -- trying to post to Protag from work, tho not after work, as I have done, when co-workers have gone and the quiet conducive to the exercise. Instead, during what should’ve been a quiet moment. Takes more than one moment to post any story!

I had sense enough to make the effort to ready my submission in advance, thru the morning fleshing it over from bits of plot and character‘s next move, but impatience got the upper hand.
I had it tapped into a Word doc. One of those workdays when lunchtime came late. Came at last the quiet moment, my lunch, and I committed.

Well. Phone calls. Warehouse calls. My post posted. Trying O’TRYING to read it thru! Checking. The very final edit. Of course it had to read right. Truck’s arrived and must be unloaded. One hour -- ONLY ONE HOUR remaining for any last edits! -- and I won’t be back any time soon.

Drakon having escaped the beargirl, in Bolsheviki’s Mage Hunting.

Hope she likes it. [He sighs].

Frustration - dot - dot - dot.

Snow over the weekend here -- latest snow on record for Vancouver, for mid-April, any-year. Yeah, sure sign of Global Warming.

Heavy wet snow bringing down green branches, and power-lines in some parts. So why shouldn't my phone-service go dead?

Frustrating, I'll admit, mainly because the dead phone-line killed for the weekend currently my only access to internet. Currently, I only have dial-up (Guess I've belly-ached that point a few times here). Ruined my weekend plans for my rather obsessive preoccupation these days with posting stories, or branches, to Protagonize.

Just the gamer in me needing -- no, wanting it (that's heathier!), my...um, session at recreational story posting.

Vancouver April 19 '08...Uhhh, Global Warming?

Um...but not Dawn

Finally it's dawned on me, tho Dawn as a blog label shouldn't this time label this, that writing in its...um, funner aspect, the fiction bits, really I should label under my gaming bent. Because writing similarly pings the same pleasure sites across my brain.

Just feels a mite pretentious of me if I fit some literary-sounding label. And still only posting posts and calling this Blogging: Don't know if it qualifies, actually -- and I may only be talking to myself.

Still. Writing exercise is the thing. And having fun at it.

Good Thing I'm About Past caring

Scribbling this up on the Saturday, but I won't be able to post this until Monday, earliest, more than likely. Dial-up woes at home. Yessss -- soooo Last Century! Fitting tho really, seeing as I'm living in a half-century old stucco walk-up. Know for a fact the cable guy's been in here once more than a decade ago. The phone company not while I've been here -- and prob'ly not since wiring the place. Used to get 50.6 kbps regularly buzzing and boinging thru the modem -- and even 52.0 -- but not recently. Crackling and popping phone line, and -- if the modem can actually establish a connection -- speeds so slow that our modern-day graphics-heavy internet basically is non-functional. Land line has even gone dead.

Land line's dead right now.

There's enuf of a stiff breeze out bending the trees. It could just be one of those winter-time things. Every time it fixed itself, either in hours, or by next morning, so I haven't griped to the phone company. Once upon a time I did try to get high-speed in here, but that happened during a nasty little labour dispute between phone company and workers, and I couldn't book off work "just whenever" to meet the pair of managers whose scribbled notes left the impression I was inconveniencing them. I prefer not to wake the dragon, if it isn't necessary. Same dread, and the busy'ness of work, holds me back from calling up the cable-tv folks and enquiring about their high-speed packages.

I've longago given-up thinking I'll write, ready the pieces, post them from home on the weekends -- because home just ain't got reliable internet access these weekends. Where I work, tho, boasts a kind of high-speed internet: chugs a bit, carrying all that network traffic, but it works. So I've been writing stuff as usual when I can: jotting down what comes during the workday on whatever paper's handy, and doing more most evenings, Monday thru Friday, and on those weekends when there's no excuse not to. Work's plenty busy enuf that I usually have at least paperwork to organize after everyone else has gone home: in this manner paying for my use of the company's machine and internet access, and assuaging my concerns of any impropriety.

Staying late and updating inventory spreadsheets was the only way I could post stories on Protagonize.

I've even come to look forward to those evenings. The stillness at the end of a busy day. Only me, and the phones quiet. Zapped cup of leftover coffee. De-compressing with Protagonize: read some, post some. Then finish clearing off my desk.

This solution, tho working, of course only a workaround. Likely, my home dial-up woes will clear up as the weather improves, and as the phone folks fix and replace whatever winter battered and broke. The very best fix I'm figuring would be to do away with all wires and cabling. And need for the guy who has to install it all. So I'm watching with some interest every scrap of news about the wireless spectrum wars. Here's hoping we're not all naive in expecting it should bode well for us, harried and over-charged bandwidth surfers!

----------------------------

Um...A postscript needed here.

Phone rang on Saturday night. My Dad left a message re Easter. I picked-up the phone immediately after -- and dial tone only held not even seconds before the line going dead again.

Sunday Morn: naturally checked, and the landline still dead. Within minutes, the phone RANG! Letting the answering machine take it, of course no voice there, no message, however, unlike Dad's call in Saturday night, when this Sunday morn caller clicked off (possibly a telemarketer, I guessed), the answering machine didn't cut-off the connection, recorded some seconds of restored dial tone -- setting me wondering might it have been the phone company just restoring the line and calling to check it's functional?

Landline's still working -- and clearly, like it's brand new. I'm seeing a conspiracy here -- such as befits that new X-Files' movie Mulder and Scully have just put in the can in this wet Pacific Northwest city!

----------------------------

Yeah. Wasn't ready to go online Sunday morn, after whoever called seemingly fixed the phone line. Sunday chores still to do: laundry to launder; bike to ready for Monday work. Right -- crackling phone line by afternoon -- dead the instant the modem tried to dial out.

Good thing I'm about past caring.

It only seems that I've forgotten this blog. Really -- the same old complaint -- Much to do and not time enuf in which to do it. I am writing, just for now not here (uh...Yeah, apart from this).

On Protagonize: branching Daybreak (Safe PigeonHouse); and three for Ah, Cubicle Life!; two for Monster Hour; and just done one for Things that Go Bump in the Night -- All in the past two weeks!

Could've all too easily posted here what I'll call craplets: sorry shorts announcing "Oh I've just done this over on Protagonize -- Go see! -- Just done that too!"

Those would've felt like cheats -- just the same as scribbling up what I had for breakfast -- and calling that a post!

I'm still not sure if I'll ever get what Blogging in the popular sense is supposed to be about. I know what I intend in mine. To explore -- and have fun doing it. And to exercise what skill I have, and better it, so that folks might wanna read me in time.

Recently dug up an article that I thought should come in handy -- NoteCarding: Plotting Under Pressure, by Holly Lisle. Using up a stack of note-cards -- and only the concise notes on them: truly an aid to plotting out a bigger story, Holly Lisle suggests, when a book's gotta be underway in a hurry (and all the bits fitting). My every day is a clockwatcher's ugly race: I'm seeing NoteCarding as a simplifying way to create order from chaos.

Almost a tips sheet rather than tutorial -- Tutorial sounds so like work --and Ms. Lisle's NoteCarding feels more fun than work -- even with estimations required re story length and number and lengths of scenes divied among the point-of-view characters (Agreed -- some work) -- however, in anyone's book, creation of a world and peopling it and thinking up their story just IS more fun than work! And apart from the mental...uh, work -- at the end of the exercise, here's an organized stack of cards, orderly notes, the bones and enuf meat on them, as useful as an outline!

And I have been fitting together the pieces of a puzzle I will be posting here. A story. Just as soon as the puzzle resembles the outline and the first chapter is born!

Holly Lisle, Writer and Tutor, can be found at http://hollylisle.com/.

Aaah - Cubicle Life!

Terran_Nytefyer just wrote Ah, Cubicle Life! on Protagonize.

Just couldn't resist posting for Message 1 Urgent!
Well, it is meant to be play.

Monster Hour Got Branched!

Yup -- Monster Hour Got Branched. I've written something that folks like enough to add branches to -- which is the whole fun point of playing at Protagonize.

It's dawned on me, tho, that spending myself as I've been doing between playtime at Protagonize and experimenting here at Burndtree -- not forgetting the day job what pays them bills! -- hasn't left me feeling much like the Energizer bunny, with energy remaining to burn doing actual works in progress. And there are a few.

No huge revelation -- nada traumatic -- only one lesson in many I expect. Time to exercise a little self-discipline. Difficult -- when I'm having so much fun.

Warning: R.O.V. No Driver

So. How far can I go, before what I say in this blog, "in public" in other words, becomes libelous? I won't be goin' cutesy, nor clever in anything I say here. I'm angry - REALLY want to ... Whoa, there now, Buddy! Seditious talk's as big a No-No (in non-fiction). They're all just politicians, and big-business types that associate with politicians. They're all just doing what comes naturally to both species. And only taking full and perfectly legal advantage of holes or provisions in legislation that generations of other politicos wracked their combined brains over, for the good of the country, and love of the citizens -- their actual employers -- who pay their salaries, and job-related expenses, and pensions.

I am being cutesy. Just the facts, then:

Translink purview (Vancouver area Transit Authority): Using an operating budget in the billions of dollars, run a transit system, plan and implement improvements and/or expansion, and raise more billions for the next operating budget, so they don't run out.

Up until the end of 2007, Translink was administered by a board of directors gleaned from public office: area mayors, city-councilors, the like. Elected … uh yeah – as in Elected to public office in whichever municipality they arose – however, the mandate for these, for the chosen, somehow grew to encompass serving on Translink. Actually, there were no plebiscites: they were appointed, by a body once known as the GVRD (now Metro Vancouver) – Woohoo! Wonder how much of their budget went to coming up with that name change?!

At the end of 2007, Victoria (our next-up rind of the government onion) dissolved the Translink board of appointees gleaned from political office, and replaced them with appointees gleaned from big business. I shall call this board "Board B", just because.

It's only logical to presume that business folk should have a good grasp of spending money wisely -- as in Getting the biggest bang for the buck. A reasonable expectation in regard to Board B. Time will tell. It has only been a bit more than one month in.

Board B already has managed to raise public ire: enough meetings held in camera, because the unwashed citizenry screaming from the floor makes it that much more time-consuming to pass edicts, and pass over the unimportant.

And now, one month in, the directors of Board B are GETTING A RAISE! -- and one to write home about, as folks used to say.

I need to check facts, but the face filling the teevee that's saying he's got no problem with this is a former Vancouver mayor -- a left-winger -- and friend of the people.

[Tick tock … Time passes].

Turns out he’s Chair of some “steering committee”, which has the blessing of our Provincial Government, et cetera. Simply: a provision in legislation essentially compels Board B to accept the raise without complaint.

Here's the kicker: New Year's 2008 saw transit fare increases!

Finding Protagonize!

I’ve edited this three times - re-written this three times - in as many days.

First time - after finding Protagonize, profiled on CBC Online’s Arts and Entertainment. A collaborative writing playground. Someone starts a story and others add to it. Sounded like so much fun - I had to join.

Second edit - after reading my member profile and taking it like a dare - that I’d written nothing, commented on no one, and had no one comment on me - so I wrote something.

Third edit. Someone liked my seed of a story. No takers on my clumsy branches, tho, or not yet. Didn’t seem right to add to one of my own branches, though I had words scribbled: Play and Collaborating being the Why’s we’re all in there (prob’ly only add my little grafting if Somebody’s Dream withers in the nursery).

Third edit had to be because it was month’s ending at work, billings to calculate and go out, six on a Friday night and all alone and needing my little break - so, munching my O’Henry bar leftover from a Christmas gift basket, savouring hot milky tea, I browsed on over again to Protagonize, and to shorten an out-of-control sentence added a branch to The Castle, by Bexter. About fifty minutes later. Kinda lost track of time there.

Right - right - the link, sorry - http://www.protagonize.com/.

Joining Protagonize takes seconds. I’ve held my breath longer. You can then fill in your author profile: add a picture, blurb about who you are and what you want to do, and link to your website, so folks can see more of you if they want.

Adding your own story is simple and easy, too. Starting with a title. Then typing in all those words(or Copy-Pasting something you‘ve prepared elsewhere on your computer). Almost done - you must add at least two possible directions the story can branch toward - for the next writer to continue. Add a tag line: some hooking phrase. Select PUBLISH.

Adding a branch essentially is the same. Select the story branch you’d like to play with. Write until done. Add your own story branches and leave it for the next person.

I did feel a bit intimidated to start: all these people writing and adding to each other’s writing - and little ol’ me presuming to join in. Haven’t played with collaborative writing like this outside of elementary school. Started reading JunkWorld, by Gaelythe. Couldn’t concentrate on it, because it was lunchtime at work. Felt queasy about trying any branches: What if I can’t get the author’s tone right? - And make a mess of it! That night, at home, stepping out of the shower - really the whole of Somebody’s Dream came to me - in the time it took for the steam to clear off the bathroom mirror. Pity that what I had didn’t fit JunkWorld at all. So I came by my first story for Protagonize.

Still don’t know if I’m doing it right. Figuring that I’ll be forgiven any clumsiness so long as I’m polite - oh, and playful.

Just imagine it - possibly THE most play filled writers’ workshop - maybe learn some new things, maybe a lot - watching how others work the magic - and, together, making worlds from our words!

7:55

7:55

-- cutting my only road

through gravel spit

-- leftside of orange roadwork

diamonds seven days in the

only bikeway on Vancouver

Airport

and I'm an engine smoking this January morning

-- dumb steel monsters cornering on my shoulder.

Cartoon cut-out flag gal looking away inside her smoking white van,
warm as in her house.

Out of the Blue

Haven't we all experienced this?

Thinking about some distant pal: suddenly distant pal phones, shows up, seemingly out of the blue. Okay -- even if looking for a loan.

Maybe we call this coincidence.

Or -- say it's one of those days -- crazily busy -- and we're hurtling through it -- cussing under our breath that we can't even catch our breath, let alone lunch -- but, at day's end, seeing the whole of the day that happened, see that only after done with Job1 did Job2 show up to be worked next. Likewise for Jobs 3 and 4. Like somewhere some unseen dispatcher was waving in each part of the day, but only exactly when I was ready for it. Only that at the time it hadn't felt like help -- all those coincidences.

Just last night, searching for longago scribbled notes perhaps for writing into something else -- some at the time interesting observations about myself while playing Fable Lost Chapters -- and having only the vaguest map in mind of where I stashed those notes, I started in on the likeliest: papers piled up three inches (which I had intended to organize sometime). After ten minutes of turning paper, glancing and skimming passages, I was ready to try the other approach: stuck in my fingers about three-quarters of the height and flipped the thing over.

Uhuh -- I kid you not! -- EXACTLY in my notes where the Fable stuff started.

Smiled. Made that little hmmph!, indicative of only mildest surprise, mixed with contentment. I've not been creeped out by this kind of happening for a long time.

Don't know where it comes from. Call it the Hand of God made manifest. Fate. Karma. Some cosmic alignment. Meaningful coincidence, or not. Maybe it is just brain wiring -- the map there all along inside that ninety percent of grey matter I don't have the key to -- and perhaps I just triggered the memory without knowing how, and so call it magical.

I won't presume to know. Perhaps it's best just to note its occurence in a little life and smile at the mystery of it -- so it doesn't turn off.

And say Thanks.

Just a Test

Thought I'd be clever and try some of this Auto-Posting I've heard about --but, of course, haven't begun to research -- even now haven't gone searching for in Blogger Help -- however, since I'm in here anyway, removing my auto-post test-post (which did not work), just figured I might as well post this for the practice.

Prob'ly delete this later. For now, and here, this is typing practice -- or better -- thinking exercise -- writing on my feet, or scribbling.

Work eats up the week: leaves me wasted most evenings. Weekends just aren't long enough: should go three days, at least. And weekends are usually when I can post, which leaves those five days following when this little place in cyberspace fades, then vanishes from the search engines. Okay, call it vanity: I've gotten fond of posting - seeing me pop up in a google search! But I don't want to post empty This is what I had for Breakfast stuff.

So - Why not try this Auto-Posting? - Schedule something already prepared that will automatically post on a particular day. Sounds a nifty and useful little tool. Figured I could suss it out just by doing, or rather trying, just like some guy trying to assemble some assembly-required furniture -- and the manual's right here -- but he's certain he doesn't need it.

So I typed the test-post -- went into the post options' sub-menu beneath the post window -- set a future date and time -- then saved the post and had a look in Edit Posts.

Saw my test-post had saved as a draft -- which set groggy me mumbling This ain't gonna work -- because, logically, a draft is a document being worked on, not ready, and not okay'd to publish.

Still, figured I'd just let it sit, let the clock tick-tock and world turn -- until it posts, or doesn't, come the hoped for moment. I had no time at the time to search out any how-to: one-a.m., Monday morn, and I had to be up at six-thirty for work. And it wasn't anything that HAD to be posted --just a test.

Xbox, The Movie

Watched my Dad rig camcorder through vcr one family Sunday, for showing his steam train side-trip in the Okanagan, and one of those cartoon light bulbs flashed above my head - My xbox is just another line-in device! - Bet I CAN record right off it - Make movies of my xbox fun, for those nights when I’m just too tired to do it well, however need that little gamer fix.

And - Yes, it worked.

Seems logical that the set-up should also work with a dvr, however I haven’t got a dvr, so cannot test it, and HDMI and the home theatre will have to wait until I win the lottery.

Have just the most basic of gaming rigs: composite audio-video ins and outs, and teevee that accepts a line-in device. These days, even the connectors and connections come colour-coded, so laying out your movie studio is easy as easy can be: xbox cable into vcr - vcr into tv - outputs to inputs - yellow to yellow - white to white - red to red.

With all cables plugged in, came time to power up the rig.

Selected LINE-IN on the tv remote. Some teevee menus call this AUX (Auxiliary), even AV.

Selected LINE-IN on the vcr remote.

Got that warm fuzzy feeling - seeing that friendly xbox menu - which showed that everything was hooked up properly.

Then readied a blank tape in the vcr. Standard Play (SP) for record speed made for cleanest video to my eye.

Started a game - and pressed RECORD on the vcr remote. Naturally, just had to pause both game and vcr: just checking that I was actually recording gameplay.

Using this method, I made mini-movies of favourite and visually nice levels in Fable Lost Chapters, and Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath.

I died too many times trying for the whole of Halflife 2: had to put the picture on hold. My stunt work was inconsistent. And couldn’t get Peter Jackson to take on the editing.

Warning All Lab Rats!

Just spotted online another Invitation to Participate in a university psych-department survey: studying motivations, et cetera, among video gamers.

Hmm. Looking for willing test subjects.

I dunno - sometimes the gamer in me is more than willing to play - but it’s Sunday night, gotta go t’work Monday, don’t wanna run a maze, and don’t need my brain fractionated!

Sorry.

Remembered I’d participated a couple years back in one such study - and just found my dusty journal entry - which explains all I’m thinking on the subject, and without cussing:

So...USC Annenberg's database is in top form. Filled out a long survey last month, conscientiously, because I think video games culture could do with some researching.
I may play violent games, occasionally, but I know what's real and not, and Right from Wrong. Figured I should give them some data from this old man.

I had to base my answers on a game of my choosing and I chose Fable Lost Chapters. If any game can play with the gamer's head about Right and Wrong and Choices, it's Fable (I never played Black and White).

At the finish of that long survey, I generated my keycode -and it was confirmed by them - for Part Two of the survey that they invited me back in two weeks to complete. Draw prize, too: sixty bucks, US, at Amazondotcom (prob'ly wanting to make sure the winning obsessed gamers buy a good healthful book).

So. Today, I'm back.

My keycode could not be retrieved from their database.

Of course, this could be part of their research, the second part of the experiment: Say there's an error and log how persistent the survey participant plays it, how many attempts, how many different combinations of the keycode the gamer may try; they can, when all is said and done, log the instances of the erroneous keycode.

Well, then, I just had to play along...for a while. Tried a few variants. All CAPS. Some CAPS.

But, smart lab rat me, seeing as I'd be getting no reward, no emotional gratification, as one of those USC lab coats may put it - no cheese - I turned tail and left. Couldn't even leave a turd on the floor of their maze!

Ehh...Friday, yet, May 19, that's right, and still '06.

Sudoku Madness

Never guessed it might happen to me. One quiet lunch hour at work. Brain idling, getting up to mischief, googled S-U-D-O-K-U: curious - only curious - wondering what all the fuss was about - and tipped headlong into the Sudoku zone.

Free online Sudoku - And here’s the link to that great website: http://www.websudoku.com/.

All the very worst temptations - Free! - graduated difficulty - simple and non-threatening interface - so even I might handle it.

Finished my first ever sudoku inside fifteen minutes - despite the usual lunch time interruptions at work.

Innocently - believing I could stop anytime - that I didn’t NEED this in an unhealthy needful sense - well, I started another.

Then work, cruel and unrelenting taskmaster, dragged me away - but I had not hit that red-X - not shut the browser - only paused my puzzle, minimized the window, hiding it on the taskbar with Outlook Express Inbox, Word, and Excel.

All the remains of that hard Thursday I stole sudoku moments - ignorant - puffing on an inviting habit. Seven sudoku under my belt by day’s end.

I couldn’t get enough - I admit it - and did not care if I presented a glazed expression and if anyone did notice it when I surfaced to meet them.

Quickly getting that I could also have my sudoku offline, by the simplest of means - not even needing a printer - I took to copying the free puzzles onto the backs of junk faxes. Then strips and scraps kept handy round my desk for phone messages. So, by these devices I got my meager supply of sudoku at home.

Online, my puzzles came timed, and graded by time completed. Annoying feature. Time trials I expected, sometimes enjoyed, say playing Project Gotham Racing, or Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher racing the clock to de-fuse bombs in the belly of a ship. Why oh why would I want to race through sudoku? My sudoku should last - be like buttery smooth caramel - one good long chew!

So, contented somewhat, digested my low-tech puzzles at home. Of course there weren’t enough of them. Seated and comfy in the littlest room, often they ran out before I felt sated. Clearly, there would never be enough.

Sure, I could copy a free batch each day for every night -and there were sudoku books, even gamer handhelds with little displays, quite reasonably priced - however I was born frugal, the kind who writes on the clean side of a junk fax, and I couldn’t be reasonable.

Found at last a peg and board sudoku while exploring my neighbourhood toonie emporium: one-buck-fifty, and taxes. Made in China. Blue plastic board perforated in the nine-by-nine sudoku grid. One-to-nine times nine yellow number pegs: all intended to be twisted free and plugged into the board grid - and only for the moment nicely readable on one flat plastic twig frame, just like the fiddly parts trees in model boat kits.

Logically, saw that I would get just the first puzzle: frustration after, because after all eighty-one number pegs completed the sudoku, I’d have left me this empty, useless, twig frame - and for any more play have to set out eighty-one number pegs, in order, across a flat surface - and a rock-steady one.

Immediately after game one, only the once toyed with the stupid idea of picking out the numbers from the plastic honey tub I’d store them in. Maddening - impossible to play - rattling through my honey-pot random number generator - hoping chance will give the peg I want!

To solve the problem: Tore me a box lid roughly to size, trimmed it, made it presentable, jotted down the nine-by-nine grid, and with a big nail punched holes through it like a crib board for all eighty-one pegs.

Mounted the pegs, one though nine across, and nine rows down. Felt in that moment ready to play, content again, though only that moment, because the reality of the package blurb hit me, swift as Monday after the weekend, that this came with only the one hundred sudoku included.

Ded. Reckoning

I have intent, though no plan here, no course set - except that I intend to write - which, sure, might be like captaining a voyage in search of new worlds without chart or compass, nor floatie twig on knotted string, no glass trickling sand, no chronometer, no sense of time, and prepared only with schoolboy science about one star bright above my home. Let’s say perhaps not even knowing that star will be lost beyond a certain latitude.

Still anyway - what’s being alive without the adventure and the trying - eh?! There may even be a thing there like chocolate for fattening the history books.

Thanks - I welcome your company.