Sunday, October 1, 2006, 05:57 PM - Cool Stuff
Now that I have the OrigamiPC, I spent a whole lot of time yesterday and today writing more stuff for my novel, "I, Construct". I finished chapter 40 today, for a grand total of 149,800 words (for all 40 chapters combines, of course).
http://www.gaianar.com/Downloads/IC/IC%2036-39.htm
The link below shows chapters 36-40. In chapter 40, the brave adventurers get attacked by giant rats!
Open Chapters 36-40
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( 3 / 1247 )Sunday, October 1, 2006, 10:25 AM - Cool Stuff
The other reason I haven't posted often lately is that I haven't had a laptop computer for two weeks. I sold my old laptop on eBay to get cash to buy a new computer. My new machine is an origami-class computer. It's only 7" across and weighs 1.5 pounds. There's no keyboard. You just handwrite on the screen with a plastic stylus. It has the unusual resolution of 480 by 800, so it's portrait instead of landscape. The aspect ratio is perfect for word processing.
The great thing about eBay is that I effectively paid about $100 for a $1000 computer, since by the time I sold my old laptop and some DVDs, I had over $800 cashed in.
The only sour note in the deal is that the seller tried to cheat me. She refused to ship the computer until I filed a Pay Pal fraud alert. This was not a pleasure.
But I've got the computer now and it works fine!
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( 3 / 1236 )Saturday, September 30, 2006, 10:41 PM - Cool Stuff
I've been working out several days each week for the past eight months. I've lost 31 pounds and I can now jog for an hour straight! My new distance record is 6.4 miles over an hour run. My fastest 5km has been 28m 15s.[ 3 comments ] ( 16 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 3 / 1431 )Sunday, September 24, 2006, 03:47 PM
Doug and I did our annual visit to the giant Corn Maze farm near Stewartstown, PA. We've gone there for seven years straight and it just gets better each year. And, for $9 American Dollars, it's cheap thrills!
The main maze, carved out of a corn field, is just downright huge. It usually takes 2-3 hours to walk through the whole thing. This year, the maze was in the shape of a Viking dragon. You enter the maze at a toe and leave through the dragon's mouth. This maze was really difficult this year. We came pretty close to waving the distress flag (for rescue by maze employees), but we eventually got out. It was a blast.
About four years ago, they planted a bamboo maze. The shoots are really tall now, and the interior of the maze is dark and surprizingly pretty and fragrant. In this maze, you have to find five differently colored checkpoints before leaving. We spent about 45 minutes in that one too.
The other mazes are smaller, but still pretty fun. There is a fence maze that is made out of movable wooden baricades. The pattern changes every year. It also has movable bridges and ramps.
The new mazes are the tile maze (a puzzle in which you have to get to the maze center using only right turns), and a boulder maze (we didn't do that one, but it looked like one had to push giant inflatable boulders through a set of baricades.
They started building next year's maze, but it wasn't open yet. It's called an Invisible Fence maze, and it looks like one has to wear a sensor tag and navigate through an open air maze without being able to see the walls. Very cool!
So... That was our Saturday fun. Next week? More haunted houses! Yay!
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( 3 / 1315 )Sunday, September 10, 2006, 08:07 PM
I haven't had a chance to write in a while. It's been mostly DisasterVision for the past week. Here's the scoop:
-- The roof started leaking. I tried to fix it, but it's beyond fixing. When I climbed up on the roof, the insulation is squishy and the membrane is totally shot. It's been sjot for years in all likelihood, but it's only been last week that water got through the insulation and decking. It's probably going to cost $2,000 at the minumum.
-- Then the kitchen ceiling collapsed. When the water leaking through the ceiling contaminated the plaster and made it fall apart.
-- Then the cat got sick. That cost $400.
-- Then Doug's car needed some emergency repairs. The heat shield on the catalytic converter had rusted through and the car battery was on its last legs. That cost almost $400.
-- Doug's got an old crown that is almost worn through. This is a high priority medical procedure. My guess is that it will be almost $1,000.
Of course, this means that I can't afford to enroll in the ministry class I wanted to join.
Thanks to Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism", the rich have got richer and the middle class has been trampled. I make about half the income I had when Bill Clinton was in office. Gasoline prices are 225% higher now than in 2000. Good ol' Bob Erhlich just boosted the electricity rates by 76%. Property taxes are sky high because of the phony "housing boom" and that has inflated our mortgage from $605 to $730.
It's just been a disaster and I am so damned poor.
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( 3.1 / 1342 )Thursday, August 31, 2006, 09:57 PM - nightmares
I had this unpleasant dream in which a coven of satanists wanted to take a hot poker and burn my eyes out. They also wanted to pour sand into the sockets once they did this to me. I somehow ran away from them but ended up in a room with no escape and they were in the process of battering the door down.
The room was some sort of storage room with shelves of various supplies and was lit by a single bare bulb. There was a utility table in the middle of the room, which I pushed against the door to brace it.I knew the reinforcement wouldn't last forever. I really didn't want my eyes burned out by a hot poker.
Somehow, my awareness heightened and I was able to move along a dimensional line that brought me through different versions of the current reality. I didn't actually appear to physically move, and yet I had the sensation of a fundamental alteration in my position in absolute space (the 9-dimensional superspace, not the 3-dimenisnional normal space).
After 15 seconds of concentration, I stopped the dimensional travel and opened the door to see what resided on the other side. It was a business that involved itself in drafting.
I tried to apply for a job, but the business owner wouldn't hire me because I didn't have any references handy. In this new version of reality, references were of paramount importance. I later found out that the local version of myself used to be a solder and recently died in some foreign war (hence why I had no references -- the government thought I was dead.)
Money was apparently took the form of blue discs called "chips". I woke up before I got into a jam that would have required money.
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( 3 / 2016 )Saturday, August 26, 2006, 12:08 PM - Dumb Happenings
There are few things that bother me more than being in a restaraunt and hearing some ill-mannered brats screech at the top of their lungs the entire time I'm sharing a meal with my partner. For the most part, I loathe children. They are generally greedy, selfish little monsters that have a high probability of becoming criminals when they mature.
I had the idea that the parents of the screaming rug rats need to be penalized for the behavior of their offspring. In a restaraunt situation, I think the following fees should be imposed:
-- $1 per shrill, goblet-shattering scream.
-- $5 per incident of a toddler running loose in a restaraunt.
-- $10 per incident of a toddler or other child running loose and coming to another patron's table.
-- $20 per incident of a child throwing something from a table and having said object land on another patron's table.
Fees like that would discourage these SUV-driving, white-trash breeder families from hauling their ill-behaved monsters out into public.
Me being a rogue, made the comment while paying for the meal, "The food was great, the screaming was not." The mother of these ceratures said, "Why don't you get a life and shut your mouth!" I replied, "Why don't you control your kids!"
Well, I can see where the kids get their manners from. There's nothing like cheap, white, breeder trash.
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( 2.9 / 1484 )Sunday, August 20, 2006, 03:55 PM
I had an odd dream last night. I found myself in a higher plane of existence where different rules applied. The environment appeared to be a calm sea that stretched to the horizon in all directions. The horizon line was incredibly flat, so I think this world was very large. The sky was bright and blue-white. There was no sun in the sky, and yet the sky was lit in a strange directionless light.
Things protruded from the sea. I think what I was looking at were parts of other people's dreams and thoughts. I saw incomplete chunks of houses rising out of the water. I saw girders and sidewalks. I saw staircases that didn't neccessarily go anywhere. I found it all fascenating. Nothing looked like "ruins", but everything was half-finished. I guess that's how most people's actual thoughts and dreams are.
I was able to float above the surface of the calm sea and move from place to place just be willing it to be. I guess each little island of *stuff* represented one person in real life. I could not be sure. But it was neat seeing clusters of various objects float on the surface of the ocean for no apparent reason.
I became aware that there were other explorers in this higher realm. I knew that I could eventually find them, but I woke up before I made contact.
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( 3 / 1405 )Saturday, August 19, 2006, 10:57 PM
So... I've had an obsession with the Honda Fit. I also had the idea that I could lower my car payment if I traded my Civic for the Fit (about $116/month). I got my credit checked and it came out in the second best tier (cool!) The dealer said he had two Fits in stock, one black and one silver. I asked the dealer to hold one for me.
Well... I called last night to confirm that I was going to pick the silver Fit. The dealer sold them BOTH. That pissed me off. I asked to order one (blue). The dealer said that was OK.
A few hours later, I got a call back that the manager told the dealer that there was now a $500 ordering fee. Yeah, right. I didn't go for THAT!
Oh well... This incident temporarily quashed my desire for a new car. It's a shame when salesmen get greedy.
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( 3 / 1291 )Sunday, August 13, 2006, 12:33 PM - Random Thoughts
It looks like I got tagged with another LIST! This one is a book list from Doug's site. So, without further ado....
1. One book you have read more than once: There are plenty of books I've read more than once. One in particular is "Doctor's Orders", a Star Trek novel.
2. One book you would want on a desert island: I'd probably want a book on survival skills.
3. One book that made you laugh: My friend Dana's story, called "School for the Gifted and Telented". It featured a sadistic, telekinetic killer named Larauna. Favorite line (after the mnain character sees Laurana use her powers to mow down 20 or 30 people in a dark alley: "He had never seen such a gruesome, wanton slaughter of human life. But he new something else now about Laurana: He loved her."
4. One book that made you cry: The Sleep of Stone. It featured a shape changer who was the last of her kind. She fell in love with a nobleman. But he loved another. So she turned the guy's fiancee to stone and took her place. When she was found out, it was discovered that the only way to undo the spell was for her to turn to stone instead. It was pretty sad.
5. One book you wish you had written: I wish I had written "The Missionary": better than I had. Yeah, it got published, but it's got more rough edges than I would have liked. It is a flawed product.
6. One book you wish had never been written: any book by the crazed, lying hate-monger Anne Coulter. Conservatives lap up her swill, even though it's absolute trash.
7. One book you are currently reading: Surak's Soul (yes, another Star Trek novel)
8. One book you have been meaning to read: More Agatha Christie.
9. One Book That Changed Your Life: The Gunslinger saga by Stephen King. Roland, as the Gunslinger, is a magnificent character that progresses from being a cold emblem of Law into a fully functioning and fully realized human being.
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