Children of Men

Went out to see the movie tonight. It is really, really good. Like, really good. It's the perfect mix of dystopian nightmare sci-fi with...I dunno. Believable characters? It doesn't beat you over the head with the allegory, but it's there (the easiest way to see this is the prison camp scene. Choosing the phrase Homeland Security was no mistake either). I can't even describe it, other than very upsettingly real. And that's what made it so good.

It got me thinking on my story idea. I've changed it around a bit, but am still juggling it in my head. I'll write something down soon.

Sideways

I did something today that I have not done in a while. That is, I read a book cover to cover in one day. Today, the book was Sideways, by Rex Pickett. Now, this book was made into a movie, one I had seen quite some time ago when it first came out. Normally, I have a fairly rigid rule against reading the book after seeing the movie, because, while the book is indeed always better, the movie usually ruins your unique ability to see the reality written within a book.
Here, though I had the usual problem as seeing the protagonist as Paul Giamatti, there was no doubt that the book affected me in a way the movie couldn't. In the movie, you were given insight into the essential angst of the protagonist's existence. While reading the book, there were passages where it tugged at your stomach as if you were taking the Xanax.
Maybe this is incredibly angsty of me, but there was something very primal in the empathy I felt. I guess it's the feeling of not knowing your next turn, especially with your love life. But in retrospect, feeling that in college has a degree of normalcy, whereas in middle age, it can be devastatingly depressing. But the empathy does indeed make the book that much more alive to me. Personally, I believe those sorts of feelings of confusion and forked roads are fairly universal. Therefore, the ability to relate to and enjoy this book should be similarly universal.

They know me so well

existentialism is love
brought to you by the isLove Generator

Oy, this is my high school

A little bit of context for everybody

Neither of those guys were my teachers, but I did have Mr. "Ebony in the Birchwood" Zellner and Mr. "Commie Smack" Joseph.

Oh, the memories.

Back from Utah

I returned from Utah yesterday.
Let me say the skiing was, from my perspective, great, though apparently the snow conditions were crappy for there.
Powder skiing is tough, but also a lot of fun.
Now, I have two weeks at home, and I doubt I'll do much.

If you're in Massachusetts, give me a call! I'm bored already.

Utah: Day One

Today was our first day in Utah. We have not yet hit the slopes, but we rented skis and visited Alta and Snowbird, which both look fantastic. There are a few things that make Utah a little...different.

A six-pack of Polygamy Porter? Ah, multiply refreshing.
The supermarket sells Dry Ice for 60 cents a pound. Crazy.
And then, the just interesting things, like my brother:

Me: Man, there's a new Transformers movie coming out!
Brother: Yeah, and Optimus Prime transforms into a fondue pot.

Somethings I'll never understand.

A ski update later.

Me, update? Nah...

These are getting more and more sporadic, both because I'm neither writing nor running an RP right now, and because up until Tuesday, I was in the death throes of fall semester. But now, I am prepared for greatness.

That's right. I'm leaving this podunk East Coast to go to Utah, for skiing!
It'll be ridiculous. A week of skiing in better conditions than I could imagine in the East.

Oh man. So good.

In the meanwhile, I'm looking for a good project to carry into next semester. I'm stuck about it, and want ideas. Hmmm...give me ideas. I like writing, and just so you know, by project I imply something to write. Just throw ideas out there. Because of course so many people read this...ah well.

The penultimate Driving Mix

1. Motorhead - Ace of Spades
2. Deep Purple - Highway Star
3. Asian Dub Foundation - Fortress Europe
4. Rob Zombie - Superbeast
5. Clutch - Pure Rock Fury
6. Mad Caddies - Shaving Your Life
7. Dog Fashion Disco - Moonlight City Drive
8. Black Sabbath - Paranoid
9. The Dead Kennedys - Winnebago Warrior
10. Deep Purple - Speed King

Indeed.

Writer's Block like whoa

So I had some cool ideas for a campaign...and they were cool. And they're still written down somewhere. But my desire to actually flesh them out is dwindling. I've been trying to figure out why I would actually have fun in this world, and reasons are escaping me. I'm just too reality-oriented right now. That, and thanks to Luther, I want to go back to Cyberpunk in some way. His campaign is crazy, and I finally feel like I'm playing a character with some depth.
I think in my next campaign, I want to return to GURPS, but make it a setting that's unique enough to warrant not using Interlock. This will require some major thinking and idea treading, but I think I can do it, given enough time. My last setting was interesting, but the setting itself was not that inherently creative, it merely had some flourishes to make it seem individual. It may be a good idea to play up the tech aspect of this world I have in planning...it still could be great, I'm just stuck at a high level of top-down writing, where I'm not doing the meaty stuff I really like.

Also, I go home on Wednesday. All I can think of is downhill skiing and driving El Celica (Celica comes from Spanish roots, look it up, you philistine). Very narrowminded right now.

Last week of the semester means CRAZY

I'm having my sanity sucked from me by repeatedly taking exams and projects and other things.
I have a great campaign setting I want to write, but I'm going to wait until break to wax irreparable on it. In the meanwhile, for integer values of n, a is the integral of f(x) times the cosine of n times pi times x over L. Ah, Fourier can bite me.