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December 20, 2015

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fun, Life, Science Fiction, Star Wars

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Oh, yes, I finally saw it!

I’m talking about the new Star Wars movie, of course.

I bought a pair of tickets, one for me, one for my dad, and off we went! I had to drive down to Phoenix and pick him up, then we went to a local theater.

He was waiting for me, inside the house, down at the end of a dark hallway. I couldn’t quite see what he was up to until he lit up his lightsaber.

He was dressed like a Sith Lord! Keep in mind, this is a man who turns 70 next year! He had gone to the trouble of buying a toy lightsaber and renting Jedi robes from a local costume shop, just to surprise me. That’s my dad!

I had been planning for months to take him to see Star Wars, totally excited to be doing it, as he was excited way back when he took me and my brother to see the original Star Wars in 1977. I was 9 years old and my brother was 8. We were hooked from that moment on to the Star Wars universe. He had seen the movie before he took us and was absolutely stoked to be taking us to see it. He knew we would love it.

I was so excited to take my dad to see this new one. And it turned out to be such a great movie. I plan to write a more detailed review about it later. I had two hours driving back home to chew it over thoroughly, and my (limited) experience in film-making as well as my more robust experience in story telling may offer some insight into the story and how I think it will progress as the next two movies come out.

So, watch for that, but beware! It will be fairly spoiler-y, but nothing huge. I will discuss some of the revealed relationships and speculate on a few that weren’t revealed but expect will be true and how I think J.J. Abrams has a better handle on this than everyone thinks. Some of the reviews I’ve seen have been brutal, and I think a fair number of them miss the mark completely on just what Abrams was trying to do with this first installment of the new trilogy.

Anyhow, when we got back, I was talking with my dad about our experience together (he told me how misty-eyed he got at several scenes) and I remarked, “Since I’ve taken you to see a new Star Wars movie, the circle is now complete.”

I think he got misty-eyed again.

 

 

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December 14, 2015

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fun, Life, Writing

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I got nothin’

I don’t have any idea of what to write about tonight.

I mean, I do have ideas. I want to write about writing. I also have a ton of very opinionated ideas about how the world should work, how things should be run, how our lives should be better. I just can’t articulate any of them right now. Not one, even though I’ve thought about many of my ideas over and over again. I know them well, and yet the words won’t come tonight.

That’s ok.

No, really, it’s ok. There’s nothing wrong with not having an idea. I can just spend the evening doing something completely pointless, or at least, less productive.

Like playing my current favorite video game.

Or catching up on the latest episodes of my favorite TV shows. (I’ve been really into The Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lately.)

Or even better, reading! I’ve gotten pulled back into two classic series that I read years and years ago.

One is the Shannara series. Mostly because I started reading the Elfstones of Shannara in anticipation of the new mini-series MTV is broadcasting in a few weeks.

The other is the Well World saga, and that’s because I recently discovered I somehow missed three books from that particular series and now I’m reading them.

So, short post, but I got some writing done today, at least.

Move along.

Nothing to see here.

😉

 

 

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December 12, 2015

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fun, Life, music

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Making music on PVC pipes

So last night was this thing called Acker Musical Showcase, or Acker Night, as they say, and it’s a really neat festival that happens the first or second Friday of December in which nearly every single business – shop, restaurant, art gallery, etc. – in downtown Prescott all host a musical act or two. You can wander from place to place, enjoying hot chocolate and cookies, while listening to all kinds of different musical performances.

Flute quartets or quintets, some guy on a keyboard singing, small band ensembles, choral ensembles, a jug band, steel drum band, all kinds of tribute bands, jazz bands and choral groups, barbershop quartets, the list goes on and on.

Then there’s my band – we play something that we call a tubulum. It’s a musical instrument made out of PVC pipes. Here’s a picture:

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They have a really neat sound, and you can google for a video or three of different ones in action. It sounds like a synthesizer, but is completely analog, simply a vibrating column of air tuned by the pipe. We used paddles made from cut up flip-flops, of all things.

The instrument itself was inspired by a similar one used by the Blue Man Group, although I think ours is a bit more sophisticated. We can play just about anything on it, and we’re constantly coming up with new arrangements.

If you ever find yourself in Prescott, AZ during Acker Night, you can find us playing there. Make sure you grab a program as you’re wandering around and look for Twisted Tubes!

 

 

 

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December 6, 2015

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fun, Gaming, Life

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Party time!

So, you may have noticed that I’ve already missed a day in my daily writing commitment. I’m not one to get hung up on things like that, though. It won’t be the last time this will happen, so why worry, right? I’ll just do two posts today to make up for it!

Anyhow, my reason for missing it is a good one. I’ve recently gotten back into a pastime I used to enjoy years and years ago: LAN parties!

In case you don’t know what that is, a LAN party is when a bunch of normally introverted PC gamers drag most of their computer setups across town to set up in the same room so that we can all play games together on them with each other. It sounds silly on the surface of it, since now-a-days it’s absurdly easy to just connect over the internet, but there’s something extra added to the gaming mix when you’re all in the same room.

It’s actually a big thing, too. There are huge LAN party tournaments many times a year throughout the country. Hundreds of gamers will get together and compete, playing all kinds of games. It’s even spawned a professional league of gamers.

I’m certainly no professional gamer, but I do have a lot of fun at these things. I hadn’t realized how much fun they could be until I joined a local group. There’s five or six of us that show up every month now, and we play all kinds of games, from zombie-blasting shooters to creative games like Minecraft. Good times!

 

 

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December 3, 2015

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Atompunk

I’ve really gotten into a new game on my PC called Fallout 4. It’s a hoot! I’m very much into story-driven games, and Fallout 4 delivers that fairly well. It’s been getting panned, however, because it’s not as much of a role-playing game as its previous incarnations were. It’s more of a first-person shooter with branching story elements, than anything else.

The story is pretty much set on rails that you have to follow, and although you can take several paths to get to the end, it’s basically the same no matter what you do. This is what has many fans expressing disappointment in the game. They expected a much more customizable experience and story than what they got, namely, an action movie where they get to participate in the action and that’s pretty much it.

I can overlook that for a really good story, however, even though I am very much in the RPG camp. This one has a terrific world that it’s set in, and that’s the part I really enjoy. Being a world-builder myself, like the worlds I’ve created for my novels, makes me appreciate it all the more when it’s done well by someone else, or in different media.

This one is what they call atompunk. It’s a world where the 1950’s-imagined future of nuclear-powered everything came true, with huge finned cars filling up on nuclear coolant instead of gas at the corner station, nuclear-powered monorails soaring overhead and even nuclear fusion powered robots serving mankind. Then a huge war happens and you find yourself in that world 200 years afterwards, the sole survivor of a cryogenics facility that froze you right before everything went to hell.

fallout-4-screenshot.png

All in all, it’s a fun game and a fun world to explore, as the developers put in plenty of details and references to other fantasy worlds and even things in our world, such as the bar Cheers! from the sitcom of the same name. It’s a hoot finding all those Easter eggs!

If you’re looking for something fun with a decent story and not too difficult a gameplay challenge, give it a whirl. It’s a bit pricey right now as it just came out, but give it a month or two or three and it will be cheap enough to pick up.

 

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December 2, 2015

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fun, Life, music

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Making music

I am a musician. Not professional, but maybe a little bit more than an amateur. I play several instruments, one in a very large concert band, another more eclectic sort with a few other people. It’s fun, cathartic in many ways, and it entertains others (usually). I’m lucky to have the ability and thankful beyond anything my parents made me stick to my saxophone lessons when I was younger.

I encourage people to play, especially if they learned an instrument when they were much younger, but then gave it up after high school or college. I tell them, “It’s like riding a bike!”. And it is. Your muscles never forget how to play.

I know. I stopped playing regularly for several years once I got out of college. Ok, I stopped completely. For nearly ten years. Then one day I moved to a new place, and there was my old saxophone sitting in the back of a closet. I had completely forgotten that I used to play it, and play it quite well, actually. So I decided it was time to play again.

I pulled it out, put it together, found a still-sealed box of reeds in the case, and tootled a bit on it. I was very, very rusty. I kept thinking I couldn’t play it anymore.

So back into a closet it went. But it stayed in my mind. For weeks, then months. I didn’t take it out, but I was very aware it was there. Finally, I did some digging and found a community band that didn’t need auditions, that would take anyone that wanted to play. So I signed up and went to my first rehearsal with them.

The band director gave me some music, and it looked like Greek to me. I was sitting there, holding my saxophone and trying to finger out the notes once again, but I had to think hard to remember what valves to close. One of my fellow saxophonists saw what was happening and told me not to worry.

“You’ll remember how to play the very moment the director raises his baton. Your body remembers. You’ll see! It’s like riding a bike! You never forget.”

He was absolutely right. The very moment the band started playing, my body just took over and the music came out, as if I’d never stopped.

So, if you’re someone who played a lot in high school and/or college, and really, truly enjoyed it, it’s not too late to start up again. Dig that old instrument out of the closet, put it together, find a band and go play again. You’ll remember how to play. Trust me.

It’s like riding a bike.

 

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November 3, 2014

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NaNo NaNo!

I’m showing my age again, as I remember that old Robin Williams show, the one that got him noticed, Mork & Mindy. This is not about that show, however. I’m sure you’re devastated.

If you’ve been in the writing world for a while, or even if you haven’t, you may have heard of this little thing called National Novel Writers Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It’s a yearly event, occurring every November, where you are challenged to write a novel. 50,000 words in 30 days. There are no big prizes to win or anything like that. It’s simply a brilliant way to get yourself to finally get that book out that you’ve been talking about to your friends and family for years. Get it down on paper, if you will.

I’m participating this year, as I did last year. I’m just about 5,000 words in after two days. I’ll likely add another 2,000 tonight, before I go to bed. It’s a significant challenge, to say the least. 50,000 words is a lot of writing. It works out to about 1,650 words a day. That’s the equivalent of writing a six to eight page term paper. Every night. For thirty days.

I took the challenge last year and won. I did my 50,000 words, and, to be honest, it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared it would be. I did procrastinate, but I still managed to get at least some writing done nearly every night. As it turns out, I can type around 2,000 words in about an hour to an hour-and-a-half.

I didn’t seem to suffer from writer’s block, but then I took a great deal of the ample advice on the NaNoWriMo website to heart. Whenever I felt I wasn’t able to continue what I was writing, I simply stopped there and started a different part of the story. I would do character sketches, scenery descriptions, back stories, until I felt the story line start tugging at me again. Then I’d plunge back in.

It’s a very rewarding thing to do. I still have much to write on my first novel from last year. It’s far from done. I have started a new one for this year’s NaNoWriMo, and it’s a more compelling story for me. I will finish this one first. It’s definitely going to be at least a trilogy. The story is good, the characters are turning out to be very interesting and the world I’ve created is amazing.

As soon as I figure out how to, I’m going to put a bug somewhere on this page to show my progress.

And if you’ve been thinking about that idea for a novel you’ve had bouncing around inside your head, maybe now is the time to finally get it out on paper. You never know what may happen after that.

As they say at the NaNoWriMo website – “The world needs your novel!”

http://www.nanowrimo.org

It’s not too late to start for this year! Go for it!

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October 13, 2010

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fun, science

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Science is so very cool…

Check out this video:

It shows a water droplet falling onto a carbon nanotubule surface that is perfectly hydrophobic (water resistant), so much so that the surface tension of the droplet is enough to keep it in a tight ball and allow it to bounce!  I especially like the sequence showing two droplets colliding and merging…

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October 13, 2010

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Another Symphony of Science production

I love these songs, done with the Autotune software and emphasizing science and reason using the voices of some of the brightest lights in science. This one, ‘The Poetry of Reality’, is my second favorite, after the original one done with Carl Sagan called ‘Glorious Dawn’.

You can find many more videos at the Symphony of Science website.