Thursday, October 23, 2003

Nano Nano who?

Never let it be said, that the what one person thinks of, another person can also. In from a more memorable saying, "Great Minds Think Alike". Near the beginning of this blogging expierence, I told you the reader, that the may emphasis of this site would really be about learning how, and to write. Even if it's a short story, or an article about Elephant kidneys, it was all about writing everyday in order to train myself to write. Going back over what I have done, you could say that I've failed in the exact regard, though succeded in several key intentions. Still though, I need to write. So of course I'm zipping along on a wierd tangent and come across something that might just give me the kick in the pants to do what I trully want to do, and that's write.

It appears that a like minded group of people for the last five years has been challenging people to write, just for the sake of writing, and do what they keep saying that would do someday, just right now. Over at NaNoWriMo they are challenging people, to write 50,000 words in 30 days. In essence, if you enter the challenge, you have only from November 1st, at 12:00:01am till November 30th, at 11:59:59pm to write 50,000 words. The catch is, all you win is the satisfaction you wrote 50,000 words in 30 days and your name on their winner's list. On the upside, they don't edit or read your works, so it doesn't have to be perfect or magnificent or even sane; it just has to be 50,000 words. You could of course right the word triangle 50,000 times and win your name on the board, but what's that all about anyways? Up to this point, something like 3,000 people have won that same right in the last 4 years. So it's not about being special, it's all about doing something you said you were going to do.

Thus I, your blogger in resident, have decided to enter this challenge. I will write 50,000 in 30 days; that's 1,667 words a day. I will do so with hopefully a consistent story line, characters and such, and I will finish a novella. The catch is, while others have had nearly a year to plan a storyboard, characters, etc... I have just about 8 days at this point to collect together something from the scraps I've been writing over the last 12 years.

To recap: I'm entering a contest, with no prize another then self satisfaction, to write 50,000 words of some story in 30 days. I'm doing this on 8 days notice. I'm insane. And I'm going to go down in flames but having fun at the same time. The good news is of course my new night shift of doom, which gives me lots of freetime while restricting what I can and cannot do, thus allowing me hours of time to write something.

So do you dare to try also? Cheers

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Psychic Movie Reviewer 2003-10-16

One of the unfortunate side effects of the new hours and lapsing from my blogging, was that I missed two whole opening weekends, with enough movies to make me cheer, and equally enough to make me retch. As such, I'm just going to go over a few highlights.

First off, repeat after me... "You were right, and I was wrong". Although "The Fighting Temptations" appeared to be an aggresive opener, it quickly fell to the wayside, not even meeting the movie's budget in sales after three weeks. So I guess Friday night was an aberation, eh? Underworld still preformed admirably, making nearly double it's budget. Unfortunately, because the movie company wasn't allowed to aggressivly promote the film due to a lawsuit, it didn't quite reach buster status. Still though, expect at least one sequel. The three oscar quality films continue to keep pace, making money and showing audiences that they really are good. Unfortunately, due to current ban on Screener tapes, their chances of oscar(s) have just gotten slimmer

Meanwhile the Rock, continues to rock with "The Rundown", although I'm still betting it's score is all because of the villian that everyone loves to quote, and see dance (Christopher Walken). On the other hand, that computer game based piece of excretion, should be intombed in the "House of the Dead". Mind you, I love the computer game. I still plop quarters into it evertime I go to my favorite movie house, and usually wear my arm out, but this movie just bites. Speaking of bitting, "Intolerable Cruelty" is doing decently well for a movie I rated as poor, probably all because of the two sexy symbol stars, Zeta and Jones. I perdict a sharp drop off after this weekend. Meanwhile Denzel appears to have shrugged off of being the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland for Halloween, as his movie "Out of Time" continues to plod along like a good little film.

Now Sparky, pay attention to that number 3 spot as it appears that "Good Boy" is living up to it's name and being a good treat for dog lovers and kids of whatever age. On the opposite hand, the movie for the adult kids just doesn't seem to want to roll over as Jack Black's "School of Rock" continues to allude my own predictions of failure.

Last but not least is the hands down winner for this last weekend, as "Kill Bill Vol. 1" soars past the competition. Unfortuantely, it would have done better had it not chopped itself in half and made us wait for Vol. 2. Some movies can "hack" having a two parter, some movies just can't get the bill. I guess that's all for this week, stay tuned friday for a look at a Legal-Thriller, a Horror, and two Oscars. Cheers



Top Ten MOVIEsWKGYTD
1. Kill Bill Vol. 1$22.1M$22.1M
2. School of Rock$15.5M$39.7M
3. Good Boy$13.1M$13.1M
4. Intolerable Cruelty$12.5M$12.4M
5. Out of Time$8.6M$28.7M
6. House of the Dead$5.7M$5.7M
7. The Rundown$5.2M$40.3M
8. Under the Tuscan Sun$4.9M$28.3M
9. Secondhand Lions$3.3M$35.4M
10. Lost in Translation$2.8M$18.1M
11. Underworld$2.3M$48.8M
12. The Fighting Temptations$1.9M$27.2M

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

24 hours in a day

One O'clock and all's well! It's one am my time and for the first time in two weeks, I'm back to blogging again. Before I head off into the ponderance of life at one AM, let me at first at least try to apologize for the unremarked absence. Basically, shortly after my last post, I learned that TPTB (The Powers That Be) at my new job, had finally figured out where they were going to assign me, and the four others of my training class. It was a true red letter day, as we all could finally stop agonizing about what was to happen, and instead start the process of integrating into what we would make happen. I personally was quite baffled, as TPTB threw me a curve and assigned me to one of the hardest teams. Still though, I was happy. Then two days later I went from baffled to down right perplexed.

No, I wasn't let go, fired, put out, etc... Instead, after some last minute haggling, TPTB changed their mind and instead assigned me to a general team, on a 9 by 6 schedule. 9pm to 6am that is; Tues through Saturday. Let's set the record straight, I'm not a night owl. Yes I am a computer level techno weenie, but unlike my flatmate, and his friends, I'm not a night owl. For some reason, I've always liked the daytime, I just wish it started two hours later then it did. The closest I came to being a night owl was in college, where I sometimes stayed up for three days at a time. I've also previously worked a 12pm to 9pm shift before, still, I always was asleep by 2 or 3am, and then up inside of 6 hours.

Thus later, on the next weekend, I bit the bullet and began to adjust my sleep schedule, so that I wouldn't fall asleep at work. Now it is two weeks later and I'm pretty close to adjusted. Since Friday September 26th, I have yet to go to sleep before 7am, and by now, my body appears to have adjusted to sleeping from 8am-ish to 3pm-ish. On the downside, I was so preoccupied with becoming a vampire, that I cleanly forgot to make time for the blog. As such, I apologize.

On the upside, the new hours are so freakishly devoid of humanity, I will almost certainly be blogging more just to keep up my conversation skills. Cheers