Quotes and random times!
Faults are thick where love is thin! -author unknown
It seems that there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy putting someone down. They are quick to judge, easy to point out flaws and faults, will say quickly how they don’t like something. Sadly, I used to be like this, but I’m happy to say over the years I’ve managed to drag that negative piece out of me. The reason why is not only does it dishearten someone you are talking to, but it is detrimental to your own person. When you turn that around, however, then not only does it encourage the person who is working, but it can make you feel a lot better about yourself. Plus, that positive attitude rubs off on others, and as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. If you do incredibly crappy things, then that’s all you’ll get. But if you do good things, then you’ll get that in return.
I’m not saying that encourage with wild abandon. You do have to be careful. Encouraging someone’s project without giving them a tip as to make it better can have negative results. If the person fails, then that’s a horrible feeling. Often, it’s difficult to climb out of that hole that you’ve dug yourself into. Still, if you’re the person who gave the encouragement, it’s better to be there to help that person out of the hole.
People want what you have, but don’t want to be where you have been. -author unknown
We, as a species, do like things the easy way. We like to get a job without actually doing any work involved in getting a job. Even when we do have a job, it’s preferable to sit comfortably on our hind ends than to actually work and do the things we were hired for. Often, we look at someone who’s had some success and think “I wish I could be that lucky”. But that’s the real kicker, a lot of those people who’ve had great success have not been lucky but worked their butts off. Oh, there are those (who mostly reside in the 1%) who didn’t work hard, but basically had the good fortune of being born into wealth. They road that train hard and continue riding it, knowing full well their own children are also going to end up on the same train you took. And it won’t end there for that family, as generation after generation will do no work in order to get that which they were born into. And boy do they feel entitled. “I deserve this because it’s my family’s!” Your family may have earned their wealth, however, on the backs of others. But I guess, if you’d like to be entitled to blood money, be my guest.
But then there’s those who do put in an effort and it pays off. Granted, it pays off when there is a large number of other people who see the work and say “wow, this is pretty awesome, I will actually spend money to get that and enjoy it”. A good example is J. K. Rowling. Rowling lived on social assistance for a good part of her life while she was writing the first couple of books. But they took off, people loved them, there was resulting movies and such, and Rowling has become a major success.
So, I guess the point is, never give up, always work your hardest, and if you do see someone who is trying something new, whether it’s a video or a book or a story or a comic… don’t discourage them.
“There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die; hope, determination, and song.” -Miriam Makeba
While this is true, there are three things I was born with and three things I’ll die with, it’s kind of vague in a way at times. I know for a fact music throughout my life has played a very important role. From when I was a kid and my mom was getting me to take piano lessons (which I now regret dropping) to present day when I scour for new music to listen to. When I was a kid, my mom didn’t send me to piano lessons because it was the thing to do with kids. My mom taught me piano. No fees for paying a music teacher, no need to drive anywhere. The piano was in our dining room. I’d sit on it sometimes without thinking. My mom and dad still have that piano, and when I visit them, I will still sit on that bench without thinking.
But, like all kids at the young age I was, I sometimes felt I was being forced into it. It’s something I regret quitting now.
However, I’m not dead. It really shouldn’t be too late to learn.
The best preparation for tomorrow is the right use of today. -author unknown
It’s amazing how when one day slides into the next that when you have a really good day, chances are the next day might be pretty good too. When you prepare yourself for things you have to do (or things you want to do), it’s wonderful when you get the chance to actually get things done that you’ve wanted to get done. So, in closing, plan for tomorrow today, no matter what it is you do.
Today is one of those days
Maybe it’s the fact that winter around here has been unusually longer than it normally is. We’re finally getting warmer temperatures, the sun has always been getting up earlier and earlier as the days go by, but it just never felt like spring. Even now, I’m hesitant to call it spring. Oh yes, yesterday I went ahead and took out the summer shorts and wore them with pride, and consequently I ended up freezing my buttocks off because it was only 16 Celsius and windy as heck.
But that really cloudy feeling has still persisted the past few days. I’m really glad I finished the first book of Rocket Fox and it’ll be going to the editing and rewriting phase. And I’ve given myself a break from any serious writing (honestly, Star Trek Ocelot is not serious writing, it’s just stuff for fun), and I intend on doing that for the next few days. But holy cow, I am feeling really down as of late. When I’m at work I’m fine, I get excited about what I do and what I put together with the newspaper, which is a good thing. It’s good to have purpose in your job, that you enjoy it and that it gives you a great deal of satisfaction. That’s half the battle when it comes to having a job, and anyone who finds joy in what they do for a career is someone who has found that first step to bliss. But when I go home, it’s kind of a drag. I have stuff that I do, but it’s not much. I write, I clean my apartment, I do what I need to do around the house. But it feels less than fulfilling. Which means, it may be time to go house hunting.
…deep breath…
I’m 42. Almost 43 (next month, in fact). I have never gone house hunting before. By house hunting, I mean a house to buy. My house. My yard. My dwelling. It’s my place, I can do whatever I want in my house (without breaking any laws, mind you, nor would I suggest “marking territory in the backyard”, the neighbours wouldn’t like it very much). Granted, if something goes wrong in my house, I have no landlord or building manager to go running to to fix it. I have to handle all of that. Maybe that’s what’s getting me down, is that while I really want a house of my own (mostly because I want a pet that neither lives in the water nor in a cage and chirps, because apartments will allow for those animals), I’m terrified about the process of getting one. Getting a mortgage, getting monthly house payments, paying taxes on the property. It all terrifies me to no end.
It also has to do with that aspect of wanting a pet. I’d like someone (or in the case of an animal, something) to come home to, play with, enjoy time together and even do things with. A small dog (I’m leaning toward Corgi) but most likely a cat (I’m leaning toward Sphynx… ’cause they’re bald!). But I do find I am lonely at times within my own apartment.
…I also want a cool hidden library, but that’s another thing…
I guess, what I really hope is that this slight anxiety that I’ve been feeling lately manages to go away, that I settle down and things take a better turn. One thing I’d like to do, however, is offer everyone who reads this an e-hug, so to speak, because I think we could all use something to pick each other up a bit.
Also…
Sphynx kitty, ’cause I think they’re cute as hell.
And…
Corgis!
You never know, maybe I’ll get one of each when I get a house.
My 12 year old self
My 12 year old self would be really excited.
My 12 year old self would also be really impatient, because while this first series which has become a book (or, is in the process of becoming a book), it’s not done. There’s a second series coming which will go through just as much work as this first one. Well, not as much work. Most of the ground work has already been laid. In truth, while the first book started in November of 2012, the ground work started in November of 2010 when I wrote Swift Fox and the Pirates of the Jackai. That was a NaNoWriMo project, and elements of that story will see the light of day in this revamp of the series.
One could even say that the ground work was set in motion over 30 years ago, when my 12 year old self made the star system and many of the species that are encounter in Rocket Fox. At the time, mind you, the Vulpine were called Foxian. I think the change in name is much better. For the longest time, each planet and species was in the same star system, but again, that’s all changed with this new series (and the many hours watching talks on Youtube by Neil deGrasse Tyson about star systems, learning about habitable zones, reading about new interstellar discoveries and watching copious amounts of Star Trek and playing Star Trek Online).
Naturally, my 12 year old self would want pictures in the book, because while I’m an adult and read novels and wrote this as a novel, my 12 year old self was still reading some of the Wind In The Willows, Watership Down and other books that had pictures before each chapter. Which, I will be attempting. It’s been a long time since I drew anything, and to be honest, I could be lazy and just pay someone to draw different pictures before each chapter or character sketches, but part of my wants to do it all myself. Though, I’ll not say no if anyone wishes to draw them for me.
The work is not done, but at least I am safe in the knowledge that the first step was taken, and it went well. There’s still editing that needs to be done and a couple of rewrites, all the while I’ll be setting up the scenes and writing them out for series two (which will eventually become book two).
My 12 year old self would be really excited.
Achievement Unlocked
That is a damn fine uniform. It happens to be one of the really cool things you can unlock in Star Trek Online. There’s a lot of things you can unlock in the game, more than just uniforms. There’s weapons, armour, ship weapons, shields, devices to help in space and ground missions. Naturally, as you progress through the missions and episodes of the game, new missions and episodes unlock (the main story missions are called episodes, where there’s a series of missions that focus on one arc). If you collect certain weapons, shield and armour types together, they will unlock additional abilities to help you in combat.
The above uniform, I opened up while performing the duty roster missions (what I call XP while you are away from your computer, because you just set the mission and then walk away). Four ranks in Diplomacy of the duty roster missions and you unlock the uniform, plus the ability to transwarp to DS9 (at the other ranks you can transwarp to Starbase 39 and Deep Space K-7), plus you get the option to have an bridge officer from an enemy faction. I picked an Orion (I wanted a Ferasan but those are a species you have to buy in Cryptic’s C-Store… which I’ll get to in a bit).
The rankings of the Duty Roster missions.
You can also do actual missions that help to unlock ship items (weapons, shields, consoles, impulse engines and deflector) which unlock additional abilities, as well as personal shields, armour and weapons. I managed to unlock the entire M.A.C.O set of armour, shields and weapons for M’iaa (above) which gives the ability to replenish personal shields and remodulate weapons on the fly while fighting against the Borg.
That’s all great, it takes a long time to unlock this stuff and there’s a feeling of accomplishment when you do so.
However, for as much as there is this stuff you can unlock, it’s really annoying to see how much stuff you can unlock just by buying it. Cryptic has the C-Store, which uses real word dollars to buy in game currency. It is a lot of in game currency, mind you, as $20 will get you about 1500 which can buy some decent things. You can buy additional ship skins and types. For example, M’iaa’s ship is the U.S.S. Ocelot, a Defiant Class Escort ship complete with cloaking device. There is a Defiant Class ship you can unlock when you reach the captain’s level, but it doesn’t have the cloak. You can even buy playable races (like Caitian and Ferasan) and certain bridge crew species (like Caitain and Ferasan). I’ve taken advantage of that, plus I’ve taken advantage of all of the costume add ons. This I have no issue with, because it’s a quality of life aspect to the game. Customizing things so that you stand out in the game just a bit.
What really annoys me is one aspect of the game which manages to drop lock boxes. These lock boxes contain special additions for your character to use. Weapons, shields, duty rostes to complete your duty roster crew, costume pieces, and in the case of the Ferengi lock boxes, lobi crystals which can be used to buy a few other add ons. You even have a chance to open a box with a ship (Cardassian, Jem Ha’Dar, Tholian, Ferengi, Mirror Universe ships available). What picks at me is that the keys required to open the boxes require real world money to buy. And they aren’t cheap. Over 1000 in game credits to buy ten of them. Which isn’t so bad, but at the frequency of which the lock boxes drop, it can get very expensive.
These aren’t achievements you can unlock, but achievements you can buy. And even then, the chance of getting a ship is remote.
Costumes and ship skins I don’t mind paying for. It’s an added bonus to the game to help make you look unique. I do have an issue with being forced to buy keys to open boxes in order to have a chance of something really different. What I’d suggest is keep the keys in the store, but have certain missions that will offer the chance to get a key as a reward on completion of the mission. Make that drop rare enough, so when a player does manage to get one, it’s a real accomplishment. If players want to shell out cash to buy keys, so be it, be at least give players the opportunity to be awarded keys in game. Even make a key bundle of ten a reward option.
It’ll make the reward actually feel like an achievement.
Monday morning random times
I had a post. I really did. It was fully thought out and well written and long and I was almost done and Google Chrome crashed. Of course, I failed to do the one thing always thought of when on a computer; save my work. Maybe if I remember what it was, I’ll rewrite it. Maybe.
So, in lieu of that post, here’s some random stuff.
Something crappy
The crappy part really begs repeating. Having Google Chrome crash while attempting to write a long post, nearly at the end, and you become so dejected you just don’t care about writing it again.
Also crappy: the fact Microsoft’s internal spell checker still thinks Google is misspelled.
The Awesome and the not so
Something really awesome: Waking up at five in the morning and the sun is there to greet you as you get up.
Something not so awesome: You look at the temperature and see it’s only -9 Celsius outside.
You never realize how dusty your computer monitor is
Until you’re trying to read something and the light is hitting it in such a way where every dust mote is highlighted and then you suddenly get the urge to dust your entire house.
Gifs and memes
Seeing all of the gifs and memes based on different television shows like Game of Thrones, Community, Parks and Rec, Walking Dead, and others makes me realize that I may actually want to get cable television at some point.
But then I realize just how expensive it is and decide it’s just as easy to “watch” Game of Thrones by reading the books.
Another round of Rocket Fox stuff
With just two chapters left (technically, I need only write one, and in truth only half, because I’ve written about half of it already), time for some random Rocket Fox stuff.
The Rocket Fox Soundtrack
As the inevitable ending to the first series draws nearer, I complied a soundtrack of music that really helps out with the universe (star system) I created. These are out of the epic background like music of Two Steps From Hell.
So, in no particular order:
- Starships: Nicki Minaj
- Cosmic Castaway: Electrasy
- Over My Head: Lit
- It’s My Time To Fly: The Urge
- Magic Carpet Ride: Steppenwolf
That’s a short list, but it’s what I’ve listened to at times when I’ve been writing and plotting.
Rocket Fox covers
New cover designs for Rocket Fox. The first draft is almost complete.
Money can’t buy me Love
Not that money can’t buy Love, but Love needs money to avoid bankruptcy.
The postmark of Love, Saskatchewan, which features a teddy bear holding a heart.
Now, before anyone thinks I’ve gone slightly mad and am talking about Valentine’s Day again, no I’m not. I’m talking about the small community of Love, Saskatchewan. For years, people have written stamped, self addressed envelopes to the small village which sits on Highway 55 between Prince Albert and Nipawin, just to get the cancelled stamp. From wedding invitations to marriage proposals to Valentine’s Day cards, the Love Post Office has seen it all.
But that may not happen much longer.
The village is broke. The mayor of Love says they need about $50,000 in order to remain solvent. The village at this moment cannot pay their bills. The mayor and council, which is three people, have taken it upon themselves to try to make a plea to a certain person: Oprah Winfrey. Oprah featured Love, Saskatchewan on her show about 20 years ago, and Oprah is set to make an appearance in Saskatoon this Sunday as part of a major tour. The Village is hoping that a mention on her website or even a tweet will help the cash strapped village. Love is trying to raise funds, such as selling cookbooks, tee shirts, and other paraphernalia.
On the one hand, I do sympathize with their situation. Love has gained international notoriety just on its name alone. On the other hand, I hate to be a downer, but this is common among every small town in Saskatchewan. There was a time when small towns and villages in this province had an outward migration to larger centers like Saskatoon and Regina, even while those cities faced their own outward migration to Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton.
There are lots of things smaller communities can do to make themselves more attractive. They just have to find their own niche.
Ahead of schedule
When I started writing this thing called Rocket Fox back in November, I had hoped to get in 50K words for NaNoWriMo. Well, that sort of fell through, because my brain couldn’t decide if I was writing this new thing about Rocket Fox or revamping Black Mask & Pale Rider (which, I’ll still do). Over the course of the winter, I hit a lot of really deep lows, and there were several times I really felt like quitting. I had every excuse in the book to stop writing. Fortunately, one thing kept me going, and that was what I thought my 12 year old self would have thought if I just quit.
I know that kids expect things, especially when someone promises to do that thing. When that promise is broken it’s damaging to the child. So I couldn’t give up, because then I’d be breaking a promise. Even if the promise was to a part of myself that resides somewhere deep in my past.
I ended up setting a date, a deadline as it were, way back in December. I didn’t publish this date or tell anyone about this date at all, I just told myself and hoped my 12 year old self would get it as well. That date was by the end of April, the first book of Rocket Fox would see the first draft completed. I have two chapters left now. There’s over 60,000 words in the story, which isn’t a lot, but when you think of how long the Great Gatsby is, then you realize why NaNoWriMo settled on 50,000 words in a month. That’s how long the Great Gatsby is; 50,000 words. With only two chapters left in Rocket Fox, I think I might get the total around 70,000 (give or take a couple of thousand words). And then the editing can start.
There’s other things I want to do for the book, which includes my own artwork. That in and of itself is a daunting task because I haven’t sat down to drawn in over two decades. I used to draw a lot, but gave up at some point in my life. But I really feel that Rocket Fox deserves to have pictures between each chapter, something that reflects the chapter to come, and a small reminder to the reader that these characters aren’t human.
I’m hoping that sometime this weekend I’ll have finished the first draft of Rocket Fox: Flight of the Nighthawk, and be ready to get the second draft on the go.
April Fool’s Day!
Oh how I do loathe this day.
I’ll admit, I hate most jokes that are commonly associated with April Fool’s Day, because often the jokes which people say are in good fun are actually really belittling, demeaning, insulting, and in many cases really dangerous. Only once in my 42 (almost 43) trips around Ol’ Sol have I encountered an April Fool’s joke that was harmless fun. I’ll detail that one because it was pretty good.
I was, at one time, a huge (HUGE) Ottawa Senators fan. I still follow the team, but my fanatic nature has waned since there’s been several lockouts, with this season being the clincher. But at the time this joke took place, I was still firmly planted in the Sens camp. When this joke took place is also when Wayne Gretzky was still playing. There had been many rumours that Gretzky would be traded from LA at the time, and one of my co-workers at the radio station in Rosetown where I worked set this one up. In our news room we had the Broadcast News Wire Feed, which is a network that puts together stories from all around the world and allows newscasters to print off what they need to in order to fill up a news cast with national and international content. The problem is, and this may be a good thing as well, you can edit files on the BN computer and they look like real stories. Save for certain things that give it away, but if you aren’t looking for them, then you don’t notice them. Anyway, my co-worker made up a really convincing story that Gretzky had been traded to the Ottawa Senators which sent me into a tizzy. My co-worker had a good laugh.
Now that’s an April Fool’s joke done well. There was no harm, no injuries, it didn’t humiliate the target, and fortunately my co-worker managed to stop me before I went on air with the story.
But doing things like making it hard to drive your car to work in the morning, that’s not a joke that’s plain rude. Placing huge amounts of dangerous items in an office isn’t funny, it could end up being very life threatening. There have been jokes in the past which have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Is it any wonder that when I went to school, teachers reminded students that April Fool’s Day ended at 12 Noon (whereby it was reminded that the person playing the prank would become the fool).
Jokes can be in good fun, but for some it brings a high amount of anxiety. If you know that a person has a high amount of anxiety, yet still want to do a good joke “because they need to lighten up” then you need to stop. Because it’s not fun for them at all.
Interesting myth: Ouija
Some have said that the Ouija, or spirit board, has been something that’s been around for centuries. That it has the ability to speak to the dead and that it has been warned continued use would bring about a threat of demonic possession. In truth, this object has a far less ominous past.
Because originally, all the Ouija board was created as was a board game.
My turn to talk to Elvis.
That’s right, this board which has been connected to demonic possession, speaking with the dead and all things evil was nothing more than a board game. In fact, it was only created in 1890, by businessman Elijah Bond (probably no relation to a Bond who has a penchant for shaken martinis), and has been distributed by Hasbro ever since. It never even began as an object that could be used for spiritual communication until World War I when American Occultist Pearl Curran began popularising it that way. As a matter of fact, the Ouija had popular use and was second only to Monopoly as a board game until 1972, when it’s decline was rather sharp.
All thanks to the movie the Exorcist, which used a Ouija board in the movie.
But all traces of the Ouija board having some sort of connection to demonic or spiritual use is pure fabrication. Especially when one knows the history of the board, that it all began as nothing more dubious than a board game.
You shouldn’t be so mean to those who are just so evil
I was going to use a picture of the true face of evil… but this picture of Glenn Beck crying is just as fitting.
We have this thing in our society, all of society really, where we’re told that it is best to be polite and kind even when dealing with someone who may be considered less than polite. There is a problem with that, however, because it doesn’t actually make us look better. Nothing does, to be quite honest. We can get mad, and these people will accuse us of being raging and crazy. We can try to be polite and have a calm conversation, and we’re accused of being passive and timid.
These people I speak of happen to be a portion of society that really feels that some people don’t deserve the same rights as everyone else. These are the people who believe gay marriage will shred the fabric of society. These are the people who use the term “black single mothers” when describing people on welfare or social assistance (in Canada, they often replace ‘black’ with ‘Native’, at least in some parts of the country). Some of these individuals actually believe that the majority of science is a fraud, the most laughing of these examples is that they will often try to hold up 24 cases that shows global warming and climate change to be a myth, while there are over 13 thousand documents that refute, debunk and disprove all of those claims. Even more of these individuals believe that the planet Earth is only 9 to 10 thousand years old, that man lived with dinosaurs, and some even believe the Earth is a flat plate resting on four elephants, resting on a turtle (I shit you not with that last one, there are still people who believe that). These are also some of the same people who would rather regulate a woman’s uterus than guns, believing a woman making her own decisions is more dangerous than a semi automatic assault rifle in the hands of a lunatic.
Personally, I’m done being polite and nice to these people. They’re idiots, and they should treated like idiots. With absolute contempt. People like Pat Roberts, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter aren’t just morons, however (because, they really, really are). They’re evil. They’re manipulative. All they care about is increasing their own wealth. Now in some cases they aren’t manipulating the public, in some cases they truly are idiots and we get to see just how stupid they. Like O’Reilly’s comment about tides and no one knowing how that works. He must not have been present that day in Grade 6 Earth Science, because that was most likely when it was covered. The majority of the well educated populace (and even some of the not so well educated populace) know that tides have everything to do with the gravitational forces of the Sun, Moon and the Earth. Even doing a quick Google search would find that out. But that’s just something small in the vast three ring circus that is the far right in (not only) America (but all of North America).
While there are those who are willfully stupid, like O’Reilly, there are others who are oppressive bigots. Like Pat Roberts. He, just like members of the Westboro Baptist Church (which has no affiliation to actual Baptist churches in the United States), are lying and manipulative. I hate to use Godwin’s Law, but really, if herding people into concentrations camps to be gassed was politically correct, they’d probably be all on board for that. These are people who if given the chance would deem anyone not white, Christian (and even then, only certain brands of Christian), and male as not human and could be treated no better than cattle. These people are evil, so let’s call them what they are. But don’t just say it on Internet forums, say it to their faces. Lying, manipulative, evil… all of it.
I just have one warning for these kinds of people.
Over a thousand years ago, the height of culture, education, philosophy and science was in a place called Baghdad. That’s right, the current city of Iraq and much of the surrounding areas of the Middle East, were the cultural mecca of the world. They had libraries, they had incredible mathematicians, they made huge discoveries in medicine, astronomy, physics, and even gave us things like Algebra, algorithm, and named two thirds of the stars in the night sky. Belletrix, for example, is an Arabic word, and happens to be the name of a star.
About 400 years into this cultural and philosophical renaissance, an Imam decided that he needed to be more vocal about his disdain of all things scientific. Much like the political pundits of today, he said mathematics was evil. Oh, it had been said before, but no one really paid much attention. But this one had a little more power and influence. It changed the shape of the Middle East for a while. The current situation in the Middle East isn’t indicative of that decision, much of that can be blamed on foreign policy of the United States and other NATO Nations. However, it is something that is presently going on in North America. Politicians, evangelical ministers, pundits and more on the right side of the political spectrum are doing everything in their power to rewrite history, demonize science and force actual junk science (like dinosaurs living at the exact same time as man) into classrooms. That’s not the only factor that saw the fall of this philosophical age in the Middle East, but it was one of many that helped. That doesn’t even cover the treatment of women, the segregation of different ethnic groups (as is happening in Israel and Palestine), nor does it include the outside interference of other nations from the West into the political lives of these different nations. Pakistan, for example, is the target of a huge number of drone strikes conducted by the United States government.
All of the “moral values” of the Christian Right Wing in the West is actually the most evil, vile, bigoted and manipulative kinds of values one could think of. If it continues, there will be no progress made. If it continues, then true evil will win out. It’s time to call out these people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Pat Roberts for what they are. Evil.
People don’t like new things
They’re becoming more common in circulation now, but our money has two windows. They’re also made of polymer not paper. Everyone complains they stick together, forgetting that the other twenties would also just stick together. They complain about what happens if you forget them in the wash, forgetting that the other twenties would also become rather wrecked if they went through a good washing.
In other words, when someone does something new, people just like to complain about it. Which sort of brings me to a conversation about new stuff.
When we develop something, it’s to help with a chore that we used to do, which took longer. Shovelling snow, for instance. Back breaking work, unless you’ve got a really short walk. So snow blowers were invented to make the job easier. Fuel efficient vehicles with better safety regulations. Communication devices such as cellphones, smartphones, and so on. Reading tablets like the iPad, Kindle, Nook and so on. But still with all of that stuff, people still complain.
“Oh, whatever happened to books,” people will often moan. They still make books, but it’s a whole lot cheaper to buy a digital copy of a book than something you can stick on your shelf. Books are just huge dust collectors. Whereas a Kindle or iPad can contain a huge number of books on them. Consider this; while I’d need an entire room of bookshelves to house a few thousand books (seriously, that would still be awesome) my 6″ Kindle can hold the same amount. This cuts down on things like picking a book to take with me when I travel. That’s a hard choice, because I often think, what if I finish the book and my travelling hasn’t ended yet. What do I do then, buy another book somewhere? With my Kindle, I’ve got them all, right there. And even if I do want to buy another book, I can do that with my Kindle.
We live in a society where we like to complain about new things, always saying “back in my day” and then detailing a long list of hardships as though it made you a better person. Well, some people who went through those hardships stopped for a moment and though “waitaminute! This is bollocks! There’s got to be an easier way to do this”. And so, innovation was born, and that thing we did became that much easier.
I swear, we’ll eventually move onto a time when all you need is your debit card, and currency of any physical kind will become obsolete. And at that point, people will still find something to complain about. Same thing with phones. Those who complain about smartphones often say that we’re more in touch but we’ve forgotten how to communicate, often pointing out that we’ve developed a whole text language and that the English language is on it’s last legs. Not to say anything about any other language. But that’s how language evolves. We don’t talk like they did in Shakespearean times, and in a few hundred more years, the words we use now will most likely be considered dead. But all of this complaining and worry is absolutely pointless.
It’s like Stephen Fry said once: Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.
Hope Springs Eternal
I talk about the weather a lot, I know. It may come from my old days as a broadcast journalist (fancy title for “I used to work in a radio station newsroom” and before that “I used to be a disc jockey”). One thing we always draw ourselves toward is one of two comments:
- It’s a nice day out today
- It’s awfully miserable today
Our mood seems to be fixated on those two points about the day. Now, for each person a nice day might mean a really awful day for someone else. I personally hate snow, but like hoarfrost, whereas someone else may love snow (i’m look at you, you goddamned snowmobile enthusiasts) and enjoy frolicking in it.
By now, we’ve all come to that time of year when anticipation is highest; most of us, myself included, have had it up to here with the snow and cold and we’re all just thinking “get on with it already”. We are, after all, only three weeks away from the first official day of spring. At least in most parts of the world. Now we simply need to sit back and let Jack Frost and Old Man Winter out the door and usher in spring to dance her way around the place and pretty it all up (you know, because Jack and the Old Man have a nasty habit of making a mess of things).
Spring is like this awesome super lady who will come in, make things nice, and eventually give way to Summer. Even Autumn’s not that bad, with the exception that Jack Frost and Old Man Winter aren’t too far away to make an absolute mess of things.
To be honest, I haven’t just recently been getting tired of winter. Oh sure, I like the sight of a crisp winter morning, taking pictures of hoarfrost and sunrises, but there’s that gloom that comes with waking up on a winter morning. It’s dark, really dark. The sun is at least an hour or two away from getting up by the time I get out of bed. Which is usually around 5:30 am. Never used to be that way, me waking up at such an hour, but that’s a story for a different time.
Now, I long for spring, and that saying of hope springs eternal. Well, I just wish it were a hopefully eternal spring.
Love
Today happens to be a perfect day to go over this. Seeing how it’s Valentine’s Day and all. Let me warn you, there will be moments of cheesy love songs. Like this one (you may press play, or merely skip down to the next paragraph, your choice).
When we think of love, we often think of fairy tale romances, like Cinderella meeting her Prince Charming. Or how the awkward, nerdy boy manages to capture the heart of the lovely girl (which is complete bullshit, I might add, and a trope that only gives credence to that awful Nice Guy™ Syndrome). In those stories, love is always in the air.
It kind of bothers me, really, that we have these stories about love being equated to a physical attraction. That’s just some glossed over Hollywood mumbo jumbo, which is no better than taking the main character from Hunger Games and making her white in the movies (here’s a clue; in the books she’s not actually white). That latter is called whitewashing, naturally. The other could be a form of a bland Taylor Swift song where the only way you can find love is if you are virtuous and pure. Not whorish and clingy. Which is odd, because really, even if a person is whorish, that’s not anybody’s business.
Love goes a lot deeper than a physical attraction, but media (Hollywood, books, television and so on) wants us all to think that the only love that matters is the kind of love that is not only a physical attraction, but one that ends up with sex. It’s a lot more than that, one thing that I want to try to convey with Black Mask & Pale Rider (yeah, I draw this out, but it’s my book, dammit). Shani and Pania, two women, are going to start off rather stand offish with each other at first, but toward the end of the story they will be close friends. One could even go so far as to say they love each other very deeply. Of course, there’s a large number who would think that Shani has suddenly and spontaneously a lesbian. She’ll still be as “straight as an arrow”, as she would say. But there’s nothing to say that she loves Pania.
Love can mean more than just “an intimate relationship”. It can be a very close friendship with someone (who may or may not be of the same sex), wherein the two people share secrets and rely on each other for specific things. Sex, physical attractions, none of that need apply here. You don’t need to be in a physical or sexual relationship to love someone, nor do you need to be in a sexual or physical relationship to hug someone. So on this day, when you think of someone that makes you smile, that makes you laugh or even remembers little things, let them know how much you appreciate them.
That is the best kind of love to give.
Tuesday morning random times
You know you live in Saskatchewan when…
When you see a truck drive by while you’re standing outside in -5 Celsius weather and a light breeze and the driver has the window rolled down and is blasting Hank Snow on the radio.
Conservatism
Often, conservatives will tout themselves as the “moral right”, as though that had any real meaning. There is no moral right, save for not being a dick to people. Conservatives will tout their faith as the backbone of their reasoning.
Which is odd, considering most conservatives, the most vocal at any rate, will site passages from Leviticus or some such book of the Old Testament, to push forward reasons why they are against marriage equality. Completely ignoring the fact that Christ died on the cross to nullify all of those old and outdated laws (even by Christ’s time, they were thought of as old and out dated). Let the veil be lifted and let the old ways be no more. Something Christ said (though, not an exact translation from the language he probably used, which wasn’t English).
Conservatives also ignore the real meaning of conservative. That aspect of fiscal safety, not taking huge risks so there is little harm done in the future. Thrifty spending. Yet, conservatives are like a dude in an electronics shop on Black Friday. Buying all of the crap they can get their hands on without actually considering the need for things that count. ”I gotta pay rent, but I really need this big screen TV.”
Conservatives, the ones who spew their verbal diarrhea, that toxic verbage which makes no sense and makes them seem that much more ludacris, should stop calling themselves conservative.
Random thoughts on random things
The power of NO
I’ve been reading a lot about this, lately. Coming from all sorts of areas. For example, did you know, that the word NO is also a complete sentence? Just by saying “no” you convey exactly what you are feeling. A simple two letter word, quite easy to use, and very easily one of the first words a person learns in their lives.
I’ve been saying it a few times myself, especially in this age when telemarketers seem to be gaining a larger representation. From actual people making calls, to robo calls where your phone rings and then rings a telemarketer up once you’ve answered, to recorded messages. I hate those things, and each time I have to say no. And each time, the person on the other end tries to convince me otherwise. My mind is never changed. Why try? The same can be said of people that I talk to face to face who try to get me involved in something. I’ll invariably say no, they’ll continue to try and convince me how awesome it is. I’ll say no again. The only downside to this type of conversation isn’t so much that I don’t like being told I have to try something even after saying no once or twice. The downside is I can’t hang up on this type of conversation like I can a telemarketer.
I’ve been caught in this myself in the past, but I’ve learned that if a person says no to something, that’s usually the end of the discussion and we move on.
For myself, whenever I have to answer with a no, I always feel like I’m being put on the spot when I’m asked again, with the hope from an individual if I’ll change my mind. That puts a lot of pressure on a person, and often I’ll feel like I’m being a jerk for saying no. In truth, the person asking the question is being a jerk, because the word no is pretty straight forward. Try saying no to people like this from now on, maybe it’ll get through better.
This leads into something else but is a completely different topic.
XKCD has the best advice.
I like it here in my blanket fort
I’m an introvert. Not many know it, but I like spending time alone. I like being alone, I like watching television alone, I like reading alone (which, normally should be the case, but I’ve had opportunity in the past to read to someone else). I like doing all sorts of stuff alone. So I guess I have to explain that to people when they try to push me to join some function or organization or go out and meet people.
I’ll be honest, I’ve had 42 years of meeting people, and about 23 of that working in three different career tracks. Quite frankly, people are assholes. I’d like to stay as fuckin’ far away from them as I can. People can be nosey, stupid, intrusive, uncaring, rude, and all manner of crass. Why the hell would I wanna associate with that kind of shit? It just seems that the more social a person is, the more of a jerk they become.
No thanks, I’ll stay in my blanket and read my book this weekend. And to be honest, I prefer my people as a digital representation through a form of social media. That way I can weed out the ones I don’t want to associate with, without having to explain to them why I think they’re douchebags (quick note: I haven’t done that very often).
This thinking stuff is really making my writing hard
Thanks to having the brain I have that can’t stop thinking when I’m doing menial things, I end of thinking of the things that I write, and the stuff I put my characters into. But I’m also thinking about the kinds of characters that will get fleshed out and their backgrounds. For example, I’ve decided to base a couple of my characters (who are showing up in the rewrite of Black Mask & Pale Rider) as Native American. Waien Argith and his younger sister Villith will essentially become First Nation elves. Shani, along with her brother Sywyn and younger sister Wren, will be of Metis background. In otherwords, half First Nation (I’m thinking Mohawk, Iroquois or Algonquin), half European decent (either French or Scottish). Pania and her brother Mandrel and younger sister Pylia will all be of Irish decent. Because really, elves can be any colour at all, as I’ve discovered the concept of spirit folk, pixies, fae, elves and so on, is not limited to Scottish, Irish or even Welsh folklore. First Nations people had versions of elves, as did Scandinavians, as did Arabic people. This is one I’m holding onto quite tightly, because I think we need to have fantasy characters that are all encompassing. Especially when the characters mirror the person reading the book.
And anyone who wishes to say that there can’t be Native American elves need only look at this.
Dubious quote is dubious
There was no graphic which fit with this topic, so have some exoplanets!
The other day, this quote or inspirational drivel came across my desk:
The secret of good living is not to do what one likes, but to like what one has to do. ~James M. Barrie
Really? Like what I have to do? Sometimes I have to do laundry. I don’t necessarily like it, but I also don’t hate it. It’s just something that has to be done. Same with doing the dishes or vacuuming. I don’t necessarily like doing those things, but I have to do it in order to keep a neat and tidy place.
Liking what you do is half the battle to having a good and successful life. If you do what you like, if you manage to be one of those lucky or privileged enough to get a job in a field you really like, then you’re full steam ahead. But if you’ve got a crumby job, and you have to do it, there’s no amount of philosophical bullshit that will make you like it. Especially if it’s a crappy job, if the manager is sort of a bully, if your co-workers are all boring and listless. None of that will help you with liking your job. And that doesn’t even cover pay wage. Poor, minimum wages don’t make one feel empowered. “Wow! I work at a minimum job, and I feel empowered to make the $10.00 an hour in order to just get by.” That’s what the minimum around here is. It gets even worse in places that are lower, or, as I’ve seen in many places, no minimum wage at all.
I’m not gonna turn my life into some Disney Princess film (though, I’m pretty confident I could pass as a decent Disney Princess, beard and all) and sing every time I have to do a load of laundry or clean my bathroom. There’s no fucking birds landing on my balcony as I dust my living room. And even if there were, my only response would be to shoo them all away before they shit on my balcony. Funny how birds don’t take into consideration that they’d be more accepted if they didn’t shit all over everything.
But really, I’m sorry to the original author who tried in vain to make a philosophical, and inspirational comment, and have it fall flat. Because as far as I’m concerned I’d rather do what I like than like what I have to do. I’d rather write and have all my creative ideas flow onto paper (both physical and digital). As it is, the things I often have to do are completely draining on me at times. So no offense, dubious inspirational quote, but I’m going to call bullshit on you.
And to end off this topic, here’s a picture of a smiling Arctic Fox.
If they build it, you support it
The familiar image of a ghost town is very apropos for today’s topic.
That old saying which was featured in the movie Field of Dreams is quite nice. If you build it, they will come. It’s a fluffy, heartfelt comment meant to bring a tear to the eye and long for nostalgic things.
Unfortunately, that’s all it is.
I know that in the film it was meant more for the ghosts of baseball players to show up at a baseball diamond in the middle of a corn field, but it has been used to describe so many real life things. Here’s the kicker; if you build it, the public has no obligation to come. Stark reality for those who want to produce something, or create something. People do put in a lot of hard work for their endeavours and it’s great when people come forward and appreciate the things created. But if there isn’t any support, or very much at all, then it often begs the question “is it even worth it”.
This can be seen in many aspects of a community; the local hockey team, the local theatre company, the local movie house, a small diner, a book store, a new novelty shop. The list goes on and on and on. And, let’s be honest, people like it when their community has stuff. By stuff, I mean the local hockey team, the local theatre troupe, the local baseball team, the local bowling alley. But in order to keep that stuff, it needs to be supported. I’ve lived in communities where I’ve gone to the theatre with a couple of friends and we’re the only ones in the seats. I’ve been in diners where I’m the only one having a quick bite to eat, and that wasn’t at some obscure time of the day, that was during the lunch hour.
Organizations, businesses, community clubs, theatres, sport teams, none of those can continue without some support from the community. If a hockey team hardly has any support, chances are the team will fold due to lack of funds and lack of fan turnout. When that happens, there’s always someone who cries out in anguish “somebody should have done something to make sure the team survived”. Well, often that somebody happens to be the one who didn’t go to a hockey game. Ever. They like their stuff in their community, they just don’t really support it.
More support makes those who are directly involved with the effort feel a lot better. The hockey players and coaches, the theatre group actors and stage hands, the business owner who runs the movie house, or the owner who runs the diner. It may not be the greatest thing in the world, but when there’s genuine support for something, it makes those who work hard to produce it feel better and care a lot more about their own craft. If those teams, businesses, groups and organizations don’t get a lot of support, then it might not be very long before they just fade away altogether, which is a sad thing. Because without things like hockey teams, baseball teams, theatre troupes, movie houses, diners and more, a community feels less than a community.
Oh winter, how I hate thee
The standard gear for walking in -31 Celsius weather.
I really hate it when the world seems to be against me. Not people, persay, but situations. Where everything lines up correctly to give me a big kick in the nards.
Yesterday, the temperature dropped considerably during the day, and by the time I was ready to go home from work, it’s was -24 Celsius. And my car wouldn’t start. I had no other choice but to walk home. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly dressed for it. And thank goodness that long hair can actually help keep your ears warm, though a toque would have been really nice.
So this morning, knowing I’d have to walk again, I got ready. Parka, scarf, toque, heavy gloves, the whole bit. Of course, not having walked much in winter, my nasal passages were accosted by the odor which I at first thought was burning. Fortunately, reason kicked in and reminded myself that no it is in fact exhaust fumes. They rather stink.
My plan was to get my car boosted, drive home and pick up the extension cord, plug it in while I’m getting the newspaper mail out ready, giving it a start to get her warmed up. That plan has also involved going to get the front tire filled because it’s flat. Guess I’ll need new tires soon. And that on top of the fact I need to look into getting a new computer for myself.
I suppose that all goes hand in hand with being an adult and having to pay for things. Something I should have actually realized several years ago. And to top everything off, I’ve also been looking at buying a home. I think it’s mostly because I want a companion, and while I’m not looking for a roommate, nor am I currently having any amorous affections toward anyone, I’d very much like to have a cat.
I guess just one step at a time until that happens. Maybe I’ll finish writing Rocket Fox just for the sole purpose of getting my car fixed.
Oh the tragedy! …not really, though.
One of many ladies who has a great deal of style and grace.
So, I guess a large number of people who like to get offended at things became offended by something during President Obama’s Inauguration. It was that Beyonce actually lip synced the Star Spangled Banner, and didn’t actually sing it.
First of all, really? This is a thing now? This is what we have to complain about in this world? This is the trivial type of thing that warrants attention when we have things like Idle No More, drones dropping bombs in populated areas of Pakistan just to kill one target, people losing their homes, legislation which makes women no better than cattle, and this is the thing we all decide needs our attention and needs to be addressed. Really?
To be honest, who cares.
In the worlds of Anderson Cooper of CNN, I defy anyone to get up in front of a crowd like there was during the Inauguration, outside, in 0 to +3 weather, which was obviously windy, and try to sing. Her conditions were not perfect for singing, and had she performed live and screwed it up, it wouldn’t be about how she recorded it the night before and lip synced the next day, it would be about how she screwed up the Star Spangled Banner.
Even if she would have made a perfect performance, those who pointed out this ‘horrifying error’ about Beyonce lip syncing, then they would have found something else. Because those who complain about the smallest of things will find anything to complain about.
Beyonce is a professional. I assume this because, unlike me, Beyonce has a large number of albums to her name and has gone on various tours which include singing, dancing and other variety of entertainment that one would expect from a professional singer. I have not done such a thing, nor could I. However, I understand that Beyonce would be more aware of what conditions make for good singing, and that cold temperatures and wind, as it was in Washington D.C. that Inauguration day, do not make for good singing weather. She obviously wanted to save her voice. Unlike a skill that a writer might have, which is being able to write on paper or word processor, a singer that comes down with a cold or throat infection is down and out for the duration of the infection. Colds, flu and infections can have long lasting effects on a person’s ability to sing as well, and I’m certain Beyonce was aware of this and took every precaution to protect her throat.
But no, there are those in the public who will find this to be the absolute worst thing on the planet. Ever. That Beyonce was no better than Milli Vanilli. As Anderson Cooper of CNN pointed out in his program, there’s a big difference here. Beyonce recorded the Star Spangled Banner and then may have lip synced it during the Inauguration. Milli Vanilli just lip synced. They didn’t sing. Ever. But those that would decry Beyonce for her ‘grievous error’ possibly lead very shallow lives and don’t watch the news very often. Oh sure, Fox News, but then again, that’s not news, that’s propaganda.
In these cases, we, and by we I mean the royal we, because we all have some trivial thing that we complain about, have to sort out our priorities. If Beyonce lip syncing the Star Spangled Banner is something which you feel needs to be complained about, then it’s time to re-evaluate your life.
An Open-source fantasy world
I had this idea kicking around my head the other day. What if you created an original world, whether it’s filled with Arthurian Knights, but instead of swords they carry pistols, or World War I was fought with steampunk airships and trench warfare was virtually unheard of, or even gunslingers of the wild west who instead of shooting bullets, had their high noon showdowns with magic and blasts of fire balls. Mixing and matching isn’t a bad thing, after all, some of the most interesting and creative works have come from mixing one form with another. MeLin Miranda’s Scryer’s Gultch, for example. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Even Girl Genius.
The current map of the fantasy world for Black Mask & Pale Rider. The name of the planet was changed from Terra-Kal to nullam tellus.
Now, what if this fantasy world gained a bit of interest, readers naturally will want more. But we ourselves as individuals often can’t find the time to write, and exploring an entire world from the deepest darkest forest to the tallest mountain right down to the depths of the sea may become an absolute monumental task. Oh, some have done it in the past, but it’s very rare indeed. And we live in a world of instant, where text messages, replies over social networks and phone calls can be made from nearly every place on the planet. When you’ve got a huge team of writers for a massive production, it’s often funded through a major company or studio, so you’ve got the money, people and resources to create this grand world. But we (by we, I mean most of us who just write stuff online and maybe get something published) don’t have that luxury or privilege.
The city of Stonebridge. Forgot I made this map.
During the 70s, 80s and 90s, major computer companies clung tightly to the code which was the backbone of their operating systems and applications. It was hard to reverse engineer the software, because it was so tightly guarded. And then, along came a group which used a new word at the time. It was called open source. The background code was open for everyone to view, build, offer suggestions, help design and even help set up places for the software or operating system to be shared. Linux was a big shaker with this. For a while, many felt it was the thing that would crush the evil Tyrant that was Sir Bill of Gates, Lord of Microsoft! (sorry, had to do that) While Microsoft never took a tumble from the great wall, it’s considered now that any Unix based operating system is more a competing platform along with Windows and the Mac X OS. But that idea of open source created a lot of really good project. Office suites were made, including OpenOffice. Full photo manipulation and vector art programs were released. Even some games were made available for open source.
Crowd sourcing is the new term, but that’s something for later. This is all about Open Source. And writing. Especially fantasy writing, but could also work for any genre.
As I was saying before, not everyone who writes is able to craft the massive amounts of ideas that come into their heads. Sometimes they get ideas for including similarities to all kinds of cultures and wants to create a fantasy world that is a mirror of the world we live in. At least with the people that exist in it. Because, really, where is it written that fantasy creatures, or even people who live in fantasy worlds, can’t be as diverse and layered as the world in which we live.
There’s already a lot of very pen worthy (or word processor worthy people) who are very skilled with the twisting of a sentence or two to make a very interesting plot. They’re called fanfiction writers (we’ll, at this stage, ignore the often spoken of rather troubling aspects of the fanfiction library). They already write in someone else’s playground, the universe that someone else created. Sometimes, they create interesting new stories that have a different twist on the characters. Some stories are self satisfying, which is okay. Because even self satisfying stories find an audience.
What if you were a fanfiction writer, and someone came up to you and said “I see you really like my book series, do you want to write a portion of the world, based on the rules of the world with your own characters”? It’s not much different than all the writers that have crafted for Star Trek novels or Star Wars novels. And I don’t think it’s laziness on the part of the original author. I just think it’s the author admitting something. ”This world I’ve created is really big, and I’m gonna need some help to tell all of the possible stories of this world. I know there’s a lot of really fantastic writers out there who don’t get the recognition they deserve, but maybe together we can bring about something and get a little attention for this world.”
One of the first maps I made for the world of Black Mask & Pale Rider.
I’ve been thinking about that for a while now, possibly doing that with the world that Black Mask & Pale Rider is from. Encouraging others to write stories about that world, and invite them to play in the playground I created. This idea even takes a step further. To encourage inclusion within the borders of a fantasy world. Fantasy books are essentially mirror images of the world we live in. They are developed based on the experiences that we have gathered and that we have had. Whether that be from researching on old myth and putting a twist on it, or by taking a real life event and putting that into the context of a fantasy setting to teach people a moral lesson.
It’s a big world, and not one single person can do justice for everyone that might read something from that world.
The Way I See It: Petitions
There’s a time and a place to sign petitions, to support a cause, and to rally the troops (so to speak) and if you happen to work in a place of business like I do, there are reasons why it’s best not to sign petitions (or even voice political opinions, unless you happen to be a political pundit).
As 2012 closes
This is more just personal stuff that I’ve observed, taken note of and had an affect on me. Nothing world shattering, though the shattering events of the world does in the end have an affect on me.
New stuff as we get older
Maybe it’s the way I grew up, but at one time as I was accumulating stuff (by stuff I mean electronics) I never once imagined my parents getting into some of the same stuff. This first came about when my dad bought a digital camera and a netbook. Not a laptop, a netbook. One of those smaller computers with no CD drive, but was essentially a computer nonetheless. My dad has been taking lots of photos, including the structures of old school buildings in Saskatoon. There’s a lot with some very unique designs. He wants to do the same with many of the city’s churches, and that includes more than just protestant and catholic places of worship. Saskatoon has two mosques and a synagogue after all. It’s a good project for someone my father’s age, and it’ll keep himself busy. At some point I think I may show him flickr so he can upload his photos and have a digital backup of everything he takes pictures of.
But now my folks have stepped it up, so to speak. Because most television stations switched to HD, it forced them to get a new television. Then one day out of the blue, my mother said “we’re thinking of getting a DVD player”. That took me aback, but it kind of made me happy. I could share some of my movies with my parents. Not stuff like the Watchmen or Green Hornet (the original TV series, not the horrid movie) or V For Vendetta. But movies like Waking Ned Devine, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or A Beautiful Mind, and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. Those types of movies my folks would like. Very little swearing, no gratuitous nudity or sex. Mind you, while L.A. Confidential had a lot of swearing and violence, my dad watched it because it had a good plot premise. But since my parents bought a DVD player (which they paid $15 for at XSCargo in Saskatoon) they’ve borrowed a lot of movies from the public library. It also means I can make “mix tape” cd’s for my folks and give it to them, because they can play those on the DVD player as well. No, they don’t own a CD player. I’m thinking I may make a Patsy Cline CD for mom, she enjoyed listening to my copy when we’d play Scrabble together.
It’s A Wonderful Time Of Year, mostly because I have so many days off
The past two weeks will be weird. I say will be, because I’m including the days up to the third of January. On December 20th, it was our first day of closure at the office for the Christmas season. I had to go in to deliver newspapers, but after that, I went back home and crawled under a warm blanket again. Partly because I was tired, but also because it was freakin’ cold outside. Friday past without the end of the world, along with the arrival of my Kindle, and the only rushed day was Christmas as I drove to the city to visit my parents. On the 27th it was back to work for two days, putting together a newspaper for the third. Which we did in two days. A 16 page newspaper, with two pages of it being a year in review. We were running out of copy, so I sat down and wrote an editorial on new years resolutions (which I’ll share with everyone at a later date here). I don’t often write articles, unless it happens to be an Outlook Ice Hawks’ Hockey game. Because I volunteer to do the public address announcements, so I may as well take photos and jot down notes to have a report for the paper as well. But these two weeks feel weird because there’s been constant days off separated by two days of work in the middle of it. As of this writing, it’s Saturday morning, and I won’t have to go back into work until Wednesday. That’s a four day long weekend.
Rocket Fox, the story that became a monster
I sometimes wonder if I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew by resurrecting this thing I started when I was 12, updating it and adding to it and expanding it. The world of Rocket Fox has gone from a single species of fox like humanoids on a planet over 50 thousand light years from Earth, to a planet with three individual and unique species (still 50 thousand light years from Earth). Now there’s the Vulpine (fox like humanoids), the Felanus (lesser cat like humanoids), and the Procylon (raccoon like humanoids). All of them stand no taller than 4 feet, but they are all of varying degrees of intelligence, have their own skills, their own cultures (which, admittedly, mirror Earth’s because I only have Earth as a reference), sports and religion and science. I’m half way through the first part of this series, but I’m contemplating doing some more world building before I go on. Even drawing up uniform designs, clothing designs, culture of different races and so on. After all, the Vulpine will vary in their cultures, there are different races of Vulpine, Felanus and Procylon. Foxes themselves have different species within the genus and species; the common red fox, the arctic fox, the swift fox, the kit fox, and the fennec fox. There will be examples of each in the story. Same with lesser cats; ocelots, caracals, cervals, lynx, sand cats, and even cheetahs and cougars (though, due to size, I’m considering leaving cougars out of the mix, while making a cheetah like humanoid slightly taller than most Vulpine, Felanus and Procylon). For the most part, my research of the raccoon has shown there aren’t many different breeds such as lesser cats and foxes. As far as lesser cats go, I’ll just be dealing with wild varieties of lesser cats, not domesticated cats, which are also lesser cats.
One might ask “where did this entire idea come about of using different species of foxes and lesser cats”. That’s easy. I’ve always had an interest in space exploration and science fiction, and some ideas I’ve gotten in the past came from covers of supermarket tabloids. Like the time I was 11 and saw a cover story about scientists believing that dinosaurs very likely would have evolved. That’s how this entire idea came about. But it went further than that. Earth, for example, has thousands of species on it, including humans. What if, somewhere in the galaxy, on another habitable planet, the evolutionary chain affected another species. Not primate like, but something else. What if it was wolves, or tigers, or lions who were given the evolutionary advantages to become the dominant species on a planet. What if it was one of the smaller species, like foxes, lesser cats or raccoons. It sort of ballooned from there, and during my 12th year on this planet, the idea came about and I wrote stuff down. It sat in a box for almost 20 years, until I dug it out, dusted it off and decided to take another stab at it. But it has grown a great deal since I was 12. There’s a lot more that can be explored.
One of those ways of exploration of the society of Vulpinia Prime was given to me as a suggestion by a friend. She said instead of writing history as the story is told, have sections of that history in an appendix at the back of the book. Good idea, so I’ll do just that. From slang terms, to different species, to histories of the planet, and even some maps and pictures.
Oh, I’ve also been asked where I came up with the names for the three species. Vulpine comes from vulpes vulpes, the genus and species of the fox. Felanus comes from Felidae, which is the family of all lesser cats. It grows more complicated with each species, such as Ocelots being Felidae Leopardus L. pardalis, and lynx being Felidae Lynx lynx. The name for the raccoon like humanoids comes from the genus of raccoons, Procyon. I just added the ‘l’ in there on my own.
Star Trekking across the universe…
I think it should be obvious to most, I am pretty much a Trekkie (or Trekker, whichever one prefers). I’ve watched every series (including the animated series), and was pretty pissed when Enterprise was cancelled. Mostly because there was word they were going to explore the Catians, the feline race of the Star Trek universe, in season five. But I noticed a major difference between the different series and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. While it’s entertaining and fun to watch, there’s something with the new Star Trek that’s missing. Something those four different series had in common. That something missing is hope. The common underlying factor in every series, from the original to Enterprise was there was a tone of hope. Star Trek was actually a series that allowed Gene Roddenberry the chance to explore societal issues in the present day without having to explain things to the censors. Basically, he snuck issues of race relations, wage disparity and gender politics past the censors in 1966 and continued to do so with Next Generation. Rick Berman picked it up from there, and it even allowed people like Avery Brooks to explore some of that as well (Brooks not only played Sisko, but he directed several episodes of Deep Space Nine including the groundbreaking episode Far Beyond The Stars).
The original series broke ground having not just a black woman on the show, but also a Japanese American at the helm. There are a lot of stories about Nichelle Nichols treatment while working on that original show, and how she was hired as day labour. Nichols went onto assist NASA in the recruitment of women and people of colour to add to NASA’s ability to explore and study space. George Takei has gone on to become a huge proponent of gay rights and has been very outspoken of Japanese American history, especially touching on his own experiences from internment camps for Japanese during World War II.
This continued on throughout the other television series, as Next Generation explored things like torture, touching on gender and even transgender in an episode or two. Deep Space Nine took another step by having a black man as the first commanding officer in the television series. It often goes unsaid, but Avery Brooks wasn’t the only person of colour, as along with Michael Dorn who played Worf, Alexander Siddig played the role of Dr. Julian Bashir, chief medical officer for the space station. Voyager continued this tradition by having predominantly female crew members in positions of authority, as Kate Mulgrew played the role of Captain Kathryn Janeway, and Roxann Dawson played B’Elanna Torres, chief engineer of Voyager. Dawson herself had a lot of say in the development of the character, and the episode Extreme Risk, Torres continually pushes herself in dangerous holodeck simulations that almost kill her, was praised by fans as being one that tackled the issues of depression and inner conflict that many deal with daily.
Even Enterprise stepped up its game, as it explored what the history of Starfleet was, and how it went about meeting those new civilizations. Using humanity as a backdrop in meeting new cultures and how it has to deal with those new cultures and with its own survival in this new frontier. It would have been interesting to see how the series would have played out had it gone to seven full seasons like Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager had.
But the reboot, I don’t see any of that hope that the series provided. Entertaining, yes, definitely. There might be a glimmer of hope, in that the characters have that hope of coming together in a way we’re all familiar. But not in the same way that hope is mirrored in reality.
Gaining some perspective
Hey everyone. I felt the need to put some things in perspective because the word “murder” has been tossed around in reference to things people eat. It seems to come from this place of “self righteousness” that people who don’t eat meat think everyone should not eat meat (I’m glaring at you PETA).
So…
Here’s me.
One fine mutherfucker.
It’s 9:00 in the a.m., but I am currently contemplating the sexiness of consuming a bacon, lettuce and tomato, toasted, with a side order of fries and gravy. Just for shits and giggles, here’s a sample of what that thing of beauty would look like.
This is quite possibly the best thing ever made.
This is only a representation.
Now, here’s a mutherfuckin’ tiger.
RAWR! I’m a tiger!
This tiger (panthera tigris) has a lot in common with me. Because, he’s probably contemplating a nice, juicy chunk of meat. Quite possibly from one of the many animals he happens to be chilling out around.
The main difference between us (aside from the obvious) is that he’s gonna kill his meal with his paws, claws and teeth. He’ll use superior body strength and keen hunting abilities to kill his prey. And then eat it. Like a badass.
Just like this.
Excuse me! Do I watch you while you eat?
Tigers’ diets consist of animals like moose or deer, and sometimes they will take down a crocodile (because they’re badass!). Tigers are carnivores. They need meat to survive. How do they get their veggies? Well, they eat things that eat grass, grains, berries and other plant like material.
But we humans are not 100% carnivores. We aren’t even herbivores (which are the things that tigers eat). We’re known as omnivores. Omnivores will supplement their diets with a combination of meat, veggies and fruit, thereby getting all of the nutrients, proteins and carbohydrates we need to keep our bodies going.
You know who else is an omnivore?
These badasses!
I am grace and beauty combined with badassery.
Foxes (vulpes vulpes) are a member of the canine family. they’re distantly related to domesticated dogs, wolves and coyotes. They have sharp, needle like teeth for chewing and grabbing prey. But they don’t just stop at field mice or badgers (yes, foxes will take on mutherfuckin’ badgers for food, thus, why they are badasses!), during seasons when prey is scarce, they will forage for food. Meaning, they will eat fruit, nuts, berries, root vegetables and even grasses to sustain their diet.
So the next time you call a human a “murderer” just for eating meat, think of those badasses, the tiger and the fox, and how they kill in order to eat.
The thing is, a diet is a diet. How we as humans choose to eat is our own choice, not anyone else. If you wish to be vegan, be vegan. But do it for your own health and dietary needs, not because you believe that you are on some self righteous crusade to save animals. There are other things which do a greater deal of harm to the natural environments of creatures such as the tiger and the fox. Eating meat isn’t bad. Over hunting is bad. Inhuman domestication practices are bad. Campaign to end certain farming practices, and attempt to find ways to change the way domesticated livestock are kept and handled. Don’t campaign to have people change their diets. That has economic problems, especially for those who live in poorer areas and cannot or do not have access to a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
If you’re thinking that just killing an animal in order to eat it is “murder” then you’re wrong. Because based on that very narrow minded view, tigers and foxes are also committing murder when they hunt.
