Burndtree

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