Category: Uncategorized

Almost finished

Nanowrimo is quickly approaching its end.  And so is my novel.  The story is done, really.  I’m currently writing a completely gratuitous bar scene, where a nerdy-but-recently-famous blogger is being hit on by a beautiful-but-gold-digging girl.  It has nothing to do with advancing the plot, but it’s doing nicely to advance the word count.  I have about 2,800 words to go, and I expect to finish Thursday.  Tomorrow I’m going out, so I don’t think I can get that many words in.  But Thursday I have no plans.  Except probably watch “The Office”.  But I can do 2,800 words.

I’m debating whether to share the story when I’m done.  I was thinking of putting up a Creative Commons licensed text file and letting people do what they want.  I don’t think I’ll ever do anything more with the story. But maybe I should let the wife read it first, and make sure it’s okay to share.  I don’t think it’s very good.  It’s maybe a better story than last year’s, but not as good as 2002, 2003, or 2005.  And my 2005 story was about talking ducks and, squirrel concubines, and evil foxes.  So that may put this one in perspective.

I probably need to rethink my approach for Nano 2008.  My stories are getting worse.  I don’t think that’s really the intention.

I thought wed lose him to jail

ESPN – Redskins’ Taylor dies from injury in shooting – NFL

“I just take this job very seriously,” Taylor said in a rare group interview during training camp. “It’s almost like, you play a kid’s game for a king’s ransom. And if you don’t take it serious enough, eventually one day you’re going to say, ‘Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that.'”

I really do feel bad for his family and friends.  Who ever knows if everyone is just saying good things about him because he’s gone, but all the quotes from his teammates say he really was growing up now that he had a little girl.  All the personal fouls, the spitting on other players, the guns and DUIs, that was supposedly behind him.  I’d like to believe that. 

I’m afraid, though, that we’re going to find out that the guy came not to rob him, but intended the whole time to shoot him, and it was because of something that Taylor did.  The reports of burglary are too vague and don’t really sound plausible.  But I don’t know. 

I hope his 18-month-old daughter doesn’t remember this when she grows up.

Officially back on track

For the first time since November 7th, I am back on the Nanowrimo pace.  I just hit the 35,000 word mark, and things seem to be going well.  It’s been my experience, as a four-time Nano winner, that 40,000 is the magic number where the writing just comes out.  I want to say it all goes downhill, but I mean that in the sense of a river flowing, not the quality.  Once you hit 40,000 and your ‘words to go’ number is only four digits, it gets easier.  You can see the finish line, and it’s not that far away.  It just gets easier from there.

So I only need 5,000 more words to hit that mark, and then I might as well be done.  That’s encouraging.  The story is going sort of okay, I guess.  There are a lot of things I wanted to get into that I haven’t.  There’s one character who wasn’t important, and then she was, and now I have no idea what to do with her.  She’s stuck at her sister’s house, an invalid on the couch with a broken leg, and I haven’t the slightest clue how to get her involved in the story again.  My female main character is doing okay.  I feel that I’ve written a passable female character, believable but not very interesting.  I don’t think she’s a bad character, and I don’t think she’s a bad female character, but she isn’t very interesting.

Anyway, it feels good to be back on the pace.   Just in time to get behind again because of the holiday.

You know what, Kindle? No. Not buying you.

I really hope the Kindle is the iPod of books.  It could revolutionize the industry and open up all sorts of new business models.  But I’m not going to buy one.  My biggest problem is the restrictions put on free content.  I have a few books in PDF on my Ubuntu laptop.  I obtained these books legally, all downloaded with permission from the author.  Because the Kindle doesn’t work with Ubuntu and doesn’t read PDF, I don’t even know how I would get these books onto the Kindle.  And since reading free books I get online on something other than a computer screen is one of the primary reasons that I want an ebook reader, this is kind of a big deal.

I know the wife will be happy with this decision, because she thought I was crazy for wanting one in the first place.

I really hope that Amazon’s push in the industry brings about more competition.  Sony, as much as I loathe them, got things started with the first electronic ink ebook, and things have started to move more quickly since then.  Now that there’s another big player in the market, it seems reasonable that we’ll see big changes in the very near future.

So I hit 30,000 words

Finally.  Well, only a day late.  But I was 3,500 words behind on November 17th, which is the furthest back I’ve ever been.  This year has been tough.  I’m not sure exactly why.  The story is going slowly at the moment.  I don’t like this most recent chapter, and I may be writing myself into a corner.  But, then again, that’s what Nanowrimo is all about.

I’m currently just about a day behind.  That’s not a huge deal.  I can hopefully make that up by tomorrow or Wednesday.

The Kindle is here

So I’ve spent most of my morning reading everything I can find about the Kindle.  I mean, I’ve spent most of my morning working dilligently.  Yeah.

So, Amazon is going to charge for the books, charge for newspaper subscriptions, and charge for full-text blog feeds.  But they aren’t charging any extra for the network connection.

This is pretty cool.  There are some drawbacks.  It’s not as sexy as an iPhone, but that’s really not that big a deal for me.  It doesn’t seem to support PDF, which people had been saying it would, but it supports some ebook formats, plus Microsoft Word and HTML.  Some of the details are fuzzy.  I’m hearing that you can’t transfer your own content through the USB port, but not from anyone reliable.  I suppose you could always do it via SD card.

I think I’m going to have to buy one.

Eagerly awaiting the Kindle

Amazon is releasing the Kindle, their new ebook reader, today, according to just about everyone.  It sounds really cool.  The idea from Jeff Bezos, the guy in charge at Amazon, is that people should have access to every book ever written, all the time.  So this thing has some internet connection provided by Sprint, and you’re supposed to be able to buy a book from Amazon without using a computer in a few minutes.

Of course, the $9.99 lease payment for a new book is both a little high for something you don’t own and can’t resell, and a little low for Amazon to make any money, so I expect the pricing model to change at some point.  Artificially inflating the price of a non-scarce good doesn’t lend itself to an efficient market, but the people at Amazon have done pretty well selling things so far, so I expect they’ll figure something out.

First on my list would be real ownership of content.  If I buy an ebook, I should own it.  It should be mine.  I should be able to resell it or trade it or give it away.  I would also like to see libraries.

There are some major details missing from the news about this thing so far, such as integration with the computer.  I know you don’t need to use a computer to buy new books, but what about free ebooks released by their authors?  Can I just transfer those or download them directly to the Kindle?  A nice little library program on the computer would be cool, so I could organize my books onto SD cards or whatever this thing is using for removable storage.

Anyway, I’m very excited.  I’d love to see this thing revolutionize the book industry like the the iPod did for the music industry.  If I were a book publisher, I would be very nervous right now.  They may find themselves increasingly less relevant, just like the big music labels, if they can’t figure out how to adapt to new business models.

They couldnt have done it when he hit 754?

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Major League Baseball News

“I have yet to see the details of this indictment and while everyone in America is considered innocent until proven guilty, I take this indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely,” Selig said. “It is important that the facts regarding steroid use in baseball be known, which is why I asked Senator Mitchell to investigate the issue. I look forward to receiving his report and findings so that we can openly address any issue associated with past steroid use.”

Selig, you’re a tool. This is the same statement he gives every time they advance the case against Barry.

“I haven’t seen him inject drugs with my own eyes, but I take those allegations very seriously.” Barry’ll go to jail and Selig will say, “I haven’t seen him actually sitting in jail, but I take the word of the California Penal System very seriously.”

Anyway, it couldn’t have happened to a bigger (headed) jerk. I haven’t seen anyone mention it, but I’m wondering if he’s gotten himself eligible for a Pete Rose. That would be kind of funny in a sad sort of way if the all time hits and home run leaders were both barred from the Hall of Fame for their off-field actions.

I’m a little sad for the game of baseball, but at the same time, this can’t come as a surprise to much of anyone.  Which means that most of the damage has already been done.  I hope.

I bet ARod is mad that his smallish contract is getting overshadowed by Barry.  Jake Peavy and his Cy Young award, too.  I am a little surprised that ARod signed for only $27.5 million a year.  I mean, that’s barely more than he’s been making, and significantly lower than the $35 they had been talking about.

No more being nice

So, I’m a nice guy.  Ask anyone.  Today, I went down to get a key copied at a mall kiosk.  This may have been a bad idea, but whatever.  The woman there spent 10 minutes looking through key blanks before she told me they didn’t have the right on.  Five of those minutes were spent comparing my key to a blank that was plainly wrong.  She showed it to me.  I told her it was the wrong blank.  She showed it to the guy at the kiosk next door.  He told her it was the wrong blank.  She compared them again.  Somehow, they were still totally different keys.

Did I get angry with her?  No.  I was polite.  I left.  I am positive that other customers are not so pleasant.

So, I get back to my building.  I went through the doors to the elevators on the bottom floor.  The elevators only go up from there, and there is nowhere else to go, so anyone going through those doors is going up in the elevator.

Anyway, exiting the door as I was entering was a guy on crutches.  I stopped to hold the door for him, because that seemed like the right thing to do.  Some guy was already in the elevator lobby waiting to go up.  As I was holding the door, he got in an elevator and left.  After I held the door, I saw him through the closing elevator doors.  I didn’t have a chance to make eye contact.

Is that a total jerk move?  Would you have held the elevator for fifteen seconds so I could get in, too?  Or am I being ridiculous?  I’m inclined to think I’m not.