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November 11, 2016

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Life, politics

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You might be a hypocrite…

I’ve been annoyed and pissed at the sanctimonious postings and comments by my friends who are Trump supporters and who voted for him in the election, and who are now making as if they were never the foaming-at-the-mouth troglodytes they were when they were bitching pretty much incessantly about Obama and posting horrible memes on Facebook for the past eight years and, of course, about Hillary during the recent presidential campaign.

Thinking that the Trumpster has a ‘mandate to rule’ while conveniently ignoring the fact that less than 25% of all adults of voting age actually voted for him (barely 50% of the electorate turned out and only half of them voted for ol’ Donny-boy, so do the math) AND that he actually lost the popular vote, the amount of hypocrisy in their posts and comments is staggering to say the least.

I’ve come up with a few examples of that hypocrisy and have posted them below. I’m sure many, many more can be found. But for now, here’s what I’ve come up with, on the spur of the moment and while I’m downing a nice pineapple and coconut margarita.

My thanks (and apologies) to Jeff Foxworthy.

You Might Be a Hypocrite

If you bought into the lie that the Clinton Foundation was a conflict of interests while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, but are perfectly fine with Donald Trump setting up a fake blind trust to manage his businesses while he’s president…you might be a hypocrite.

If you are calling for everyone to just accept the results of the election and quit being divisive and give ol’ Donny-boy a chance, but were hollering back when Obama was elected (both times) about how he was not your president and it would be a cold day in hell before you’d agree with anyone who supported him…you might be a hypocrite.

If you’re complaining about the “whiny crybabies” protesting Trump’s election and how they should ‘shut the fuck up and go home’, when you were saying right before the election that there would be a bloody armed uprising if Trump didn’t win…you might be a hypocrite.

If you’re still calling for Hillary to be arrested and thrown in jail over a bunch of supposedly incriminating emails but are completely overlooking all the shady dealings Trump has done, including a very questionable relationship with Russia, not to mention all the lawsuits filed against him, some of which he may actually have to go to court for…you might be a hypocrite.

If you think Trump will turn the economy around and run things more like a business because, hey! He’s a businessman and he’s ‘good at it’, but are ignoring the multiple bankruptcies and enormous billion+ dollar losses he’s had over the years, not to mention stiffing the people who did work for him by not paying them….ok, you’re not a hypocrite, just an idiot.

If you think you can beat up minorities, yell at them to ‘go back where they came from’, spit on them, take away their rights, even kill them, all because it’s ‘ok’ now that Trump has basically condoned doing these things in his own words…you’re a racist and an asshole. Own it.

Ok, I lost the hypocrite track. Let’s get back to that…

If you think we should be nice and respectful to Trump’s wife and you are getting mad because some are calling her out on the things she’s done in the past, you’re right, that’s not cool. But we remember you making comments about Michelle Obama and comparing her to Bigfoot, among other extremely racist things. That makes you a hypocrite. And an asshole. Oh, and a racist. Let’s not forget that. Very important.

I can’t think of any more right now and I’ve run out of tequila, so I’m leaving it here. If you can think of any more hypocritical things about ol’ Donny-boy and his followers, please add them in the comments.

Much obliged.

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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 10, 2015

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Life, politics

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Absolutely black and white

What strikes me the most when I see people talking politics on Facebook and elsewhere is how polarized everyone seems to be. I say seems, because we often put things online that are less nuanced than what we might say directly to our friends in person. We post memes and the like that tend to be fairly black and white in what they express, when the reality is most issues are quite gray.

Take gun control, for instance. The clear answer, in my opinion, is not utter and complete unregulated freedom to purchase and use any kind of weapon at all, nor is it to ban them completely. I support the second amendment of the constitution here in the US, but not without some regulation.

In fact, I support quite a bit of regulation. It should be as difficult to get a license to own a gun (and ownership should be licensed everywhere, no exceptions) as it is to get a license to own a car, which, granted, is not really that difficult, but you should be required to undergo training, background checks, obtain insurance and then re-up, so to speak, every couple of years, in order to keep that license, just like you have to do to keep driving (except for the background checks, of course). Also, if you commit a violent crime with a gun, you can never own one legally again and will be severely punished if caught in possession of one.

It would not be burdensome, at least, no more so than keeping a driver’s license and I don’t hear anyone complaining about that. Nor about having to have insurance in order to register the car. Guns should be exactly the same. It will cut down on ownership overall, which can only be a good thing, because guess where the bad guys get their guns? They’re probably not getting them from Mexico, that’s for sure.

Most stolen guns obtained by criminals were stolen from legal gun owners right here in this country. Which makes you wonder why they have the gun in the first place, since the idea is that owning a gun is supposed to deter crime, right? Having that gun in your house is supposed to make the criminal think twice, right? Except it doesn’t. It’s just one more thing for them to steal.

Then there’s the idea that a “bad guy with a gun can only be stopped by a good guy with a gun” which is technically true, if the good guy is a fully trained police officer. When you think about it, especially about open carry, how do you tell a good guy practicing legal open carry from a bad guy practicing legal open carry? Guess what? You can’t. At least, not until the bad guy opens fire. And then it’s too late. Even if he’s gunned down by a good guy, chances are he’ll have hurt or killed someone before that point, so then the good guy failed. Good guys with guns can’t stop bad guys before they know they’re bad guys, and by the time they do know they’re bad guys, it’s too late.

So all of this I just talked about is just to illustrate that my position is not absolute, although it’s definitely more on the progressive side of things in terms of gun control. But I’m still not advocating a complete ban of all guns. You’d never know that, though, if I posted this on Facebook and watched the response from my more conservative friends. They’d say I was all for completely banning gun ownership, even though clearly I’m not.

It’s the nature of the debate now-a-days, as you can see. Pretty much no matter the issue, it’s framed as absolutely black and white, when it’s really gray. I wish there was a way to get people to see that, and to realize that compromising when it comes to finding solutions to the craziness that seems to happen more and more often is not a bad thing.

But that’s a discussion for a future post.

 

 

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December 9, 2015

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Life, Work

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Work work work!

I’ve just finished a training session for a new job, something that may be exactly the right fit for me in regards to generating enough income to live on while not sucking away every hour of my waking time to do it. In fact, it’s basically part-time, and I don’t anticipate it will be more than about twenty hours a week. Yet it will pay enough to cover over 90% of my expenses each month.

A dream come true for a wanna-be novelist, leaving me enough time to write while also not having to severely pinch every penny. I think I’ll still have to dip into my savings each month to close the gap, but that gap will be tiny now. My savings will last for years and years at this rate, assuming I have the job that long.

No reason to think I won’t, either. It’s an interesting business, providing a needed service that I only see demand growing for. If anything, I will have to be careful not to get sucked too far in, maybe. You know how it goes. Part-time for now, then suddenly business growth happens and you’re working more and more hours. I certainly could do worse, though.

I can’t say anything about what I do, except that being a virtual personal assistant led to it. Oh, and did I mention it’s a work from home deal? That’s right, I go to work in my pajamas, and it takes me about fifteen steps to get there. Gotta love it.

I hadn’t realized how much pressure I was feeling in regards to making ends meet until this new job came along. A lot of self-doubt about my writing ability, first and foremost, and whether I could make enough to make a living at it. To be honest, I probably can’t. And then I’d have to find a full-time job and work so much that writing would be commensurately more difficult for me to accomplish. Now, perhaps, a better balance and the best of both worlds.

For a while, anyhow.

Wish me luck.

 
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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 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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December 1, 2015

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A challenge!

So, here’s the thing. I’ve gone nearly half a year without posting, when I said I would be posting regularly. Turns out I was full of it. As usual.

Now in an effort to change this bad, bad habit of procrastinating basically forever, I am challenging myself, based on an example set by a friend of mine who himself was challenged to write 365 blog posts in one year, that is, one every day. Surely I can do a post a day! I don’t think there’s a minimum number of words as such, but I won’t cheat by writing too little. I hope.

Anyhow, tonight is the first post, number 1 of 365 daily posts, that will likely be mostly boring, mundane reports on my life, what I’m doing, et cetera. (My spelling checker doesn’t know what ‘et cetera’ is? Interesting.)

I figure this will be a good way to improve my writing skills, if nothing else. Writing and writing and writing is the best practice to get better at it. It also won’t hurt my typing skills to be practicing so much either! Then again, I just participated in NaNoWriMo for the third time (and won for the third time!) so you’d think my skills in both departments would be adequate, at the very least.

So for now, once again, here is my first post mostly about nothing. I am confident that my future postings will be more entertaining/informative/educational/slightlylessboring…. Well, I’ll do my best, at least!

Until next time… (tomorrow!!)

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May 12, 2015

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Seriously, just too busy

I know, I know, I was supposed to be writing here regularly and well….I have no excuse.

At least I have been working on my novels, as well as taking a stab at writing a few short stories. Nothing of any great import, but fun, and good exercise.

I also got involved in a major film production here in my little town, and that has proven to be a major time-suck. But a gloriously fabulous time-suck. So much fun, and I’m learning about a whole new kind of writing. I ended up being the point guy for expanding the production’s social media presence, and as a result, I know more about Twitter and building a follower list than I ever expected to. But it means that I now have the skills to do the same for my own Twitter account as I build an audience for my writing.

I’ve also become the webmaster for a couple of websites, and I may have a bee-line on some decent income doing writing and research as a free-lance assistant. That will definitely help stretch the savings a great deal. HUGE deal!

Then there’s the busyness of day-to-day life and the fact that it’s gardening season again and I’m spending time in the back yard hacking away at the soil and destroying weeds. But I love doing that almost as much as my writing.

And then there’s Star Trek Online. Enough said there, I think.

I won’t make a promise that I’ll write more here, but I want to.  So I will. Just that. No promises, just doing. But I’m going to write about more than just writing. Be warned. I’m very opinionated.

Oh, and the film production is in the middle of its Kickstarter campaign. Please consider supporting it. It’s going to be a scary good time! It’s right here: Witch Child Kickstarter.

Laters.