Sometimes, I write about the Blue Jays too

I had this idea for a post about the Blue Jays, and my first instinct was to write it here - but this isn't the right spot for it.  Instead I remembered that my brother and I sort of run a Blue Jays blog.  By 'sort of' I mean we hardly ever write anything.  But it exists, so here we are.

You can read it here:

http://bluejaysluddite.blogspot.ca/2016/05/the-bat-flipped.html

Get Creative

This is going to be part of a series of three posts about what I'm doing as of February 1st to get back on track with various things.  I wrote about it last week if you'd like to read more. 

Get Creative. 

This is the last part of my so-called life reboot.  It's not as important as the first two (Get Healthy/Get Organized), but I think it fits in with the others.  This is a pretty wide-reaching goal, but I've narrowed it down to two things.

Read more.  

I used to read all the time.  Last year I barely got anything read.  I just didn't make the time for it.  Now, I'll make some time for reading every day, even if it's only a little bit.

Write more. 

It doesn't matter whether it's non-fiction or fiction, private or public, I just need to write more.  The goal is to write a little bit each day as well.

Other minor stuff that aren't as paramount to this...
- Keep updating my podcast (Alternative Airwaves)
- Actually, that's about it.

OK, so in 2 months...I'll have an update on everything and what I'm doing to accomplish each goal.  It'll be a lot more condensed so only one post, instead of 3.

The Reset Button

Original photo by flickr user Lucky Larry, 2010

One thing a lot of people do around the start of a new year is set resolutions.  Occasionally, I will opt to pick something arbitrarily that I want to change (such as last year's goal of texting less and calling more; this did not stick).  Other years - like this one - I don't really stress about it so much.  However, I'm at a point right now where I feel very disorganized.  I recently moved, and there are papers and boxes everywhere that I haven't found places for yet.

Add to this that I've been closely following Wil Wheaton's Life Reboot posts, which began sometime in...November I want to say.  Wil set some realistic goals (SMART goals, you might say), and is keeping tabs on his progress.  I think this is the key element missing from most run-of-the-mill resolutions: follow-up.

February 1st, I'm going to push that reset button, and give myself a little Life Reboot.  I'm going against my own "rules" by not starting right away, but I want to take some time and figure out what I want to work on.  I have some basic ideas, but I want to hit the ground running - and I'd like to have some kind of a plan in place.

Next Monday, I'll have an update and a plan in place.  I think I'm going to try to narrow it down to 7 things, ala Wil Wheaton.  Also, based on the recommendation of my good friend Sarah, I will give the app HabitBull a try.  Stay tuned.

Ficly Making a Comeback + Mount Doom Status Update

"Mount Doom Status Update" sounds both ominous and awesome at the same time!  I'll keep it quick so I don't bore everyone - basically I have the project working as expected on a daily basis and runs like a charm.  I'll make a full post sometime on the weekend (when I get some time) and share the full project files and everything; I'm kind of thinking of tweaking it to tell me only when I've hit major landmarks - but more on that later.

The other day, my good Internet friend (from a considerable distance) Wil Wheaton re-posted a story he had written, at the time inspired by listening to Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars; this time, inspired by the death of David Bowie.  It's a pretty good story for 1024 characters.  I enjoyed it, and so did many others - his post inspired people to write prequels and sequels of their own in the comment section.  I haven't read through them all yet - I'm going to have to try to catch up with them and read them all later.

I posted at the end of 2015 about the ficlets that I wrote back in the day.  For reasons I won't get into right now, I had to delete my External Monologues podcast - I have all of the audio files, and I'll get around to re-posting them.  But I don't think I'm going to continue with it, at least not for the moment.  Apologies, if somehow you were following it.  Bringing things back on point, I just find it odd that some of these things that I've dug up are floating back to the surface at another completely different point on the web.

Apparently, there's a new website called Ficlatté.  I haven't browsed around it very much, but I think it's something I'd contribute to.  I expressed a desire a while back to get back into writing these, but I feel more apt to do it when there's a built-in audience already.  I think I'm going to just personally label 2016 the Year of The Ficlet.  Let's see what I can cook up in the next year.

A Matter of Perspective

This is not a review of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 episode; you can find a podcast about it over at the Mission Log podcast if you're so inclined.  But this is decidedly not a blog post about Star Trek.  Also, I'm going to try cross-posting this on Medium so please get in touch with me if you have any editing notes I should consider.

November 8, 2013: 275.2
December 4, 2014: 229.2
December 8, 2015: 238.7

Those numbers represent my weight: from when I started actually logging my numbers in 2013, to my last weigh-in at the time of this writing.  Three different numbers are represented there; 275 definitely wasn't my highest weight (I'm pretty sure I was above 300 at one point), but 229 represents the lowest I've reached.  The current number - 36.5 pounds apart from this time last year - represents frustration.

Yesterday I took a look at the spreadsheets I maintained for the first time in quite a while.  I was trying to determine what effect (if any) giving up beer for 40 days back in 2014 had on my weight loss.  It turns out that there was almost a 10 pound difference from start-to-finish, but the main take away that I got from this was the gift of perspective.

For the last year, I've hovered between 235 - 240, give or take a few pounds on either end.  As you can see from my results between 2013 and 2014, I obviously crushed my goal to lose some weight for my best friend's wedding (not to discount my overall goal of becoming healthier in the process).  In 13 months, I lost at least 46 pounds.  46!  Understandably, I felt really good about my progress.  Since then, and the hovering began, I've been incredibly frustrated.

Since December 4 2014, I obviously lost my way: I didn't get to the gym as often as I liked, I was less strict with my nutrition, and just wasn't focused on weight loss as I was before.  I think the number one reason for that is because I hit a major goal, and people were telling me they could see changes.  I could finally see physical changes.  Clearly I didn't need to work as hard as I did before - I had this, easy.

Those numbers on the scale though - they didn't need to move very much to get me feeling down about myself and generally in the mood to throw the scale out the window.  I could go from 240 to 241 and it felt like I was ballooning up to 250 or higher.  Like all my hard work was being undone.

But I mentioned the gift of perspective; yesterday after looking at how far I've come, I can see now that despite not getting any closer to my goal (I'd like to get down to 200 lbs), I haven't really put on that much weight since getting to my lowest number.  Unfortunately I don't have the data to back it up, but I bet that my numbers are pretty consistent over a 12 month period, December-to-December.

I have to be careful here though - I could easily start justifying reasons to start taking it easy.  That's not what I'm trying to do.  There are a lot of psychological traps involved with weight loss and that number on the scale.  One of them involves what I went through (and am still going through) - beating yourself up for not hitting a goal.

What I am doing by writing this out is reminding myself that it's never as bad as it seems.  As with every aspect of life, you need to step back and look at the bigger picture.  I am in charge of the number on the scale, and not the other way around.

The moment you let something as trivial as a number control your mood or your outlook on life, that's when you need to step back and re-assess your priorities, and remember that it's all a matter of perspective.

Vacation'd

I'm stealing this thread title from my podcast, because I can and who are you to stop me anyway??

Basically, as I start writing this, I have nothing productive to say; so I'm going to allow myself to just write what comes naturally.  Actually, I have some notes in a notebook that I could probably transcribe, but I think I'll do that on the weekend from the comfort of home.  So, bonus - you'll get some more stuff from me on the weekend.

Before I let my mind wander and forget to talk about it, the significance of the title is that for the last several weeks, I've been doing a combination of travelling up north to see Vanessa or her travelling to see me (if you don't know, she is working on a contract temporarily and is ~8 hours away).  As a result I haven't worried about sticking to any self-imposed schedules or doing anything creative.  I've sort of just...done things as I felt like it.  A little freeing!

Having said that, I think I'm going to not worry about my "schedule" I wrote about several weeks ago.  I think I've kind of reset my laziness and I'm not just sitting in front of the TV every night.  It doesn't feel as important to keep up with magazines, comic books, or TV shows right now.  I just want to have fun, and have fun creating things.  If there's something I want to do, and it doesn't get done...it's not a big deal (as long as it's not something actually important).

In my last podcast I released, I recorded it entirely from my cell phone.  It was pretty cool.  Which has led me to the notion of releasing a different podcast using just my cell phone.  I'm currently exploring methods of doing that; once I figure out a way that works to my satisfaction I will probably start doing that instead of writing here.  I just find it fun to do podcasts, and it comes easier than writing.

I think that's it for now.  Til the weekend!

On cashing in on personal information

For several months now I've been experimenting with a few methods of earning what's known online as "beer money".  I've tried a few things out, but so far the most success I've seen has come from the website known as SwagBucks (referral).  The concept is simple enough: watch videos, search using their special search bar, complete special offers, and fill out surveys.  In exchange for all of that, you get SwagBucks, which you can exchange for a variety of gift cards (including Paypal, which basically amounts to cash).

So to recap, you're exchanging personal information and getting paid at most $1-$2 a day.  To some, this might seem like a heck of a lot of effort for maybe $20-$30 a month.  And to that I say...you're right.  At the start, I was putting a lot of time into it, and was getting good results.  These days, I'm just putting in the amount of time I feel like giving - it's no skin off my back if I don't log in for a few days.  Where my goal used to be to reach 2,500 Swagbucks in order to cash out $25 in Paypal gift cards, it's now my goal to use it to fill time.  Currently I'm waiting on another $3 Amazon.ca gift card so that I can buy this little gadget.

When I first started collecting "SB's", there was a set of apps you could use to run videos and earn SB's.  The idea for the /r/SwagBucks community is you run the videos while you're doing something else.  You could mark short videos as favourites, and just run those as a loop until you max out your earnings for each app.  Great deal, right?

Except lately the people at SwagBucks have reduced the max amount you can earn with each app (while increasing the amount of videos you need to "watch" before earning any SB's), and removed the ability to mark videos as favourites.  Understandably, the SwagBucks community is up in arms.  What was once an easy side money earner is now "totally unusable" in the eyes of some.

Maybe the reason I'm not so upset about all of these changes is because of my attitude toward the website in the first place.  They need to make money, and the way they do that is by collecting your personal information in various forms, the biggest being surveys.  I am OK with this.  Surveys are fun!  That's how I earn the most SwagBucks (when I'm not disqualified for working in radio).

But I find it interesting how invested some of the users have become, and I'm certain it's all because SwagBucks is disguising $0.01 as 100 SwagBucks.  It's all the same as loyalty program rewards - what looks more impressive, 1 point = $1, or 1,000 points = $10?  By giving you such high point values as a reward, you feel like you're earning more when you're really trading away information that has a much higher value.  Think about it: the Reddit SwagBucks community is upset over not being able to easily earn 138 points a day anymore.  That's only $1.38 a day.  They probably spend more time earning SwagBucks than they do at work, and they're not even getting minimum wage doing it!

Whether or not they're going in the right direction, SwagBucks has definitely put their claws into people and are getting the information their clients want to buy.  Like I said - I knew up front what I was trading, and how much (or little) I was getting in return.  I'm okay with that.  If it means that I get a few Amazon gift cards and can buy neat little gadgets here and there, without spending my own money?  I'm happy.

If you want to join in on the party, feel free to use my referral link.  I would love to help you trade in your own personal information to get free stuff.

A Round-Up

Not this kind of round-up.

I thought I'd check in based on my post last week, and make Thursdays my official day for posting here.  Or maybe Fridays.  I wrote all of this on Thursday but didn't finish editing (to add links).

I guess technically Im in my second weekdoing this new plan.  I think it's going petty well!  As I write this, Im watching some episodes of ReBoot (yes, I'm re-watching the show).  My schedule was thrown for a loop this week, but that's what happens when you get a day off work in the middle of the week.

I've found the hardest day to stay intrested is Magazine Monday.  I guess I'm just not that into magazines. But I did and some new TV Shows to follow!  On Thursdays only of course.

- Dark Matter - I first leared of this show via Wil Wheaton.  The basic premise of the show is 6 people wake up from stasis to discover they know basic skills but don't remember who they are. Already that's a great premise that hooked me. The series is created by the same people behind the Stargate TV shows.

It's interesting to think of them as "auteurs" because you can certainly pick up on the Stargate-like aspects. It's hard to define, but it's definitely noticeable and can make it easier to predict plot points. Overall, I like it.  The title text makes me think of the N64 game Perfect Dark.  TIL it's based on a comic book series!

- Killjoys - It's about bounty hunters, set in the future. A killjoy is a hunter with clearance to go after kill contracts. I don't want to give too much away, because it is a great show. It's visually stunning as well.  I actually like this show better than Dark Matter.

Other things going on? We got a new camera, and I'm photographing anything and everything.

I've been a lot more productive these last two weeks as well.  I released a podcast last weekend, the second in two weeks. That's really good for me! Usually I don't get more than one done in a month.

Good start for now!

I'm Back (not to be confused with Bach)

I haven't posted in a while.  In that last post, I mentioned a few things I had on the go in 2015.  I'll address those topics shortly; first though, I had to get an idea out of my head that was generated while on my lunch time walk (which is the worst time for ideas - I can't write them down, and they compete for my attention against podcasts.  Unfair to the podcasts, because then I don't listen to them).

I have an ever-growing list of media I wish to consume, coupled with an ever-growing list of media I wish to produce.  To that end, I think I need to structure my weeks.  You see, I'm on my own for the summer (inquire further in the comments if interested in the full story), and it's been that way since May 25th.  I had all these grandiose plans to catch up on PVR recordings (movies & TV shows), get podcasts recorded, etc. etc. to fill my time between softball games.

I've watched some TV, but mostly have sucked my time with playing video games and not being very productive, aside from some household chores.  This is why I need structure.  The last couple of days, I actually accomplished some to-do list items because I actually made a to-do list and followed it.  So obviously, I need to tighten my schedule.  Here it is.

• Magazine Mondays - Something I've been meaning to start for a while.  I subscribe digitally to a bunch of magazines from the Ottawa Public Library via Zinio, and I have a backlog.
• Book Tuesdays - The alliteration stops at Mondays.  I will find time to read books outside of Tuesdays, but some weeks I find I don't read at all.  So at least once a week my evenings will be spent behind the pages (digital or analog) of a book.
• Comic Book Wednesdays - I have some comic books backlogged, plus a few older ones I wouldn't mind re-visiting.  Also, there is a specific purpose to this day - will get to that.
• Television Thursdays - Yay, alliteration is back!  Thursdays are for catching up on recorded items on my PVR, YouTube series (think: TitansGrave, RCVR, other stuff)
• Free Music Fridays - Because I needed more alliteration; specifically though I need to stay on top of Creative Commons music for Alternative Airwaves.
• The Weekend - The weekend is multi-purpose.  Record a podcast (or two), listen to music, read, whatever.

What is all of this for?  Why give titles for everything?  I'll answer the second question first: because I can.  As to what it's all for - and why the title of this post is, "I'm Back" - because I want to flex my writing muscles a bit more, and get more use out of this silly blog.  I'm going to try to get back into the swing of weekly writing over here, using any one of those days as a starting block.  Which day I'll post I haven't decided yet - but that's not important.

The other purpose is for the media I wish to produce, as I alluded to above.  I already have Alternative Airwaves to work on - hence the music listening on Fridays - but I'm trying to finish working on Star Trek: The "X" Generation and turn that into a podcast.  I recorded an "Episode 0" for it to get feedback (ask for it in the comments, if you like!), but I need to do more writing first.  It's a project where I can easily record episodes ahead of time and keep up with a consistent schedule, but if I get too far ahead recording, I won't have any material to work with anymore!

That ties in to the whole comic book Wednesdays - the new podcast idea will involve comic books as well, and I want to release it when comic books are released - Wednesdays.  I guess that's the only tie-in.  Carry on.

Alright, back to my 2015 Update post - here's where I am as of today...

- Podcasts / 2015 comeback: I'm doing...OK with this.  I've got updates coming mostly monthly.  I missed the month of April only, so that means for 2015 I've released an episode in Jan/Feb/Mar/May/June - that's much better than I thought!  Working with my friend Mike for the Futurama Podcast...we at least released a mini episode in May!

- TV Shows: I have too many shows to "catch up" with.  I think I may binge watch a bunch of things. Or I may not.

- Project 365/52/26 - I started this...and then stopped.  Not my cup of tea.

- Weight Loss - I have not yet lost 38 pounds, and in fact missed my goal for May.  But since the end of May, I've gotten back on track with things and the weight's going down.  Work in progress.

That's it!  Sorry for the length of the post, but that's my fault for not writing anything in a billion years.*

* by "a billion years" I mean 6 months.

Creative Spirit

Lately I've been thinking a lot about writing. It's all been sparked by a comment last week on a blog post I wrote last year about a "Short Story Writing Month". Strangely (or maybe not so strangely) the writing I've thought about hasn't been fiction - it's non fiction writing.

I've made the decision a long time ago that I'm not a fiction writer, and I'm okay with that. I've also come to terms with not being "popular" or we'll known; it's not a goal for me, and it's also a direct consequence of a lousy work ethic when it comes to writing.  Unfortunately, that same lousy work ethic means that I’m terrible at keeping up with something as simple as a blog.

I admire everyone out there who writes for a living (and for a hobby, too).  The people that write every day are doing something that I keep saying, “oh, I can do that, no problem!”.  I look at them and see a complete lack of fear - the fear of running out of things to write about, running out of opinions, coming off as boring.

But I also know that these people also experience that same fear.  They just bowl over that fear and they just. do. it.  No excuses, the job gets done.  Believe me, I’ve gone through all of the excuses: no time, no motivation, no ideas.  What has that got me?  A whole lot of nothing.

No time?  What kind of excuse is that?  I have plenty of time every day.  I wake up at 5:30AM, shower, and I’m usually done breakfast before 7, sometimes earlier.  Of course I have the time to spend as little as 15 minutes stringing words together.  What’s the hold-up here?  It’s that lousy work ethic again.

I even thought that I would spend 15 minutes a day listening to music for my podcast, and I haven’t done that.  I tend to put those together the day I intend to record, and the result is sometimes a not-so-well thought-out podcast.

You know, if you’re reading through this post so far you may come up with two deductions: 1) My thoughts are often scattered and not put together too well; and 2) I am a very lazy person with a terrible work ethic.

I’d say that part of both of those statements are true.  My thoughts are often scattered, though I tend to organize them better in some cases more than others.  I can have a terrible work ethic - when it comes to self-assigned duties.  I work very hard at my job, so sometimes I feel like being lazy when it comes to personal things.  I think that’s normal for most people, though.

Anyway, at this point I just wanted to write for the sake of writing.  I feel like I need to do some daily writing, so this is a good starting point - consider this day one.  I think I would like to spend 15 minutes a day working on a weekly blog post, so we’ll see how I manage with that.  I have a few ideas on the back burner so I could bring those to the forefront.

Here’s a challenge: how many idioms or mixed metaphors could I use in one blog post?

New blog idea

I've been very neglectful of this blog and my goal this year. Honestly, I feel that most of what I have to say has been said by others, and better at that.

I also feel that I would still like to write. I think a problem I have with this blog is its lack of focus; It's too vague and all over the map.

That's okay - I will still occasionally scribe something here. But I have a few other ideas floating around that I'm going to try working on.

Some of these things may or may not be ongoing projects depending on the scope of the idea. I'll find out as I go.

The first is primarily a vehicle to improve my memory skills. I have a terrible memory. So I want to write weekly about various things related to memory. I'm pretty interested in this one and have a name picked out (I'll hold on to that for a little bit).

I don't have much else beyond that but I will probably post the ideas here as I get them so I don't forget them (see what I did there).

CD Reviews - 54-40 - Dear Dear (1992)

Project 52: 2/52

In the interest of writing something every week, I picked an easy subject: album reviews.  But there's a twist; I recently spent time putting my CD collection back into their cases.

You see, several years ago when I moved to Sudbury, I had to move all of my CDs into a binder so that they were more portable.  Until just a few nights ago, they stayed that way.  Now they're back in their cases, and alphabetised.  Now I can re-visit them in alphabetical order and write about them.

First up is 54-40's 1992 album, "Dear Dear".  For the life of me I can't remember why I bought this album; was it for "She-La"?  For "Nice To Luv You"?  Probably the first one.  Either way, "Dear Dear" is a fairly bland alternative rock album that hardly kept my attention the whole way through.  Sorry, 54-40 fans.

There is one track that did work for me, though.  Strangely enough, it's not one of the official singles - which is not surprising when I think about it.  What were the singles?  The two I listed above, I think.  Prime examples of the bland, inoffensive nature of the album.

The track I enjoyed was "You Don't Get Away (That Easy)".  It has a few more layers to it and is overall much more interesting than any of the other songs on the album.

In short, if I were to downsize my collection (and that is a distinct possibility), 54-40's "Dear Dear" would be the first in the Value Village box.

Up next: Aerosmith - Honkin' On Bobo (2004); The Acorn - Tin Fist (2006); Herb Alpert - Definitive Hits (2001)

Project 52

The common yearly project upon which most people embark is what's known as a "Project 365".  If you're not familiar with the concept, the basic idea is that you do something every day of the year: take a photo, read a book (yes, I've heard of people trying this), and so forth. The other variant is "52": the same idea, but replace every day with every week.

This is the project I will be undertaking for 2013; for 52 weeks, I will write at least one thing per week. I'm not concerned with the actual content of what I write (for instance, this totally counts), just that I write minimally once per week.

I will hold myself accountable by just posting everything here. If it pertains to this blog it will be an article here; otherwise you'll get a link to the content.

I realize that we're already 5 weeks into the year, which means I will need to catch up. So there should be at least 5 weeks with double posts. Theoretically.

This project is inspired by The No Format Podcast and the great Ira Glass.

[Fun fact! I'm typing this on my Android phone using the "Hacker's Keyboard".  I mistyped "per" as "oer", which was automatically corrected to o'er. What a great phone!]

ShoStoWriMo - Week 2

Well that was a bust.  Didn't get anything done.  My goal this week is to try writing a scene as a story rather than what I traditionally call a story.  That probably makes sense to no-one but me.

Short Story Writing Month: Week 1

A while back - not sure when exactly - I pondered the idea of doing a short story writing month.  Well, I decided to do it this month, with the basic rules being that no matter what state the story is in, it gets posted in a public place immediately following the end of the week (i.e., post last week's story today).

Well, I failed spectacularly in the first week.  I started with good intentions, but things got in the way (read: the Excuse Monster came for a visit).  I did manage to write something, though:

"I winced as I watched the events unfold on the monitor to my side."

Yeah, seriously, that's it.  So, lacking an actual story, I thought I might talk about what was supposed to come out of that sentence (which, I can admit, is actually not that great on its own).

I had a few ideas; my first idea, and one I don't think I'm going to run with anymore, was going to be a superhero story told from the villain's point of view.  I don't think I had any specific direction beyond that, aside from attempting to garner sympathy for the "villain".

The next idea, when I was going to just try and finish the story in a hurry, was that of a museum security guard who encounters ghosts of some sort at night.  I'm not too great at writing "horror" or suspense, but I might have had a little fun with that.

So, back to the drawing board, as they say.  My goal this week is to at least get a coherent story written.  I'm not going to overthink it, but rather I'm going to find a writing prompt somewhere and just run wild and see what I get.  Who knows, I might like it!

ShoStoWriMo and other things

Just thought I'd make a new blog entry, since I've apparently been doing one a week or so thus far this year.  I think?  Anyway why not keep up with that trend?

An idea I thought of earlier this week was to do something I call, "ShoStoWriMo".  Now, very likely this acronym already exists on the Internet somewhere, and maybe you can guess what it stands for: Short Story Writing Month.  I'm not joining in any pre-existing challenge (again, I'm sure there is one), but rather giving one to myself.  The challenge: write 4 short stories in a month, one per week, and publish each of them regardless of quality / whether or not they're actually complete.

The idea behind this challenge is simply to get me to write a story and post it online.  I've written / started far too many things that I say I'll post but never do.  So this time, I have to - even if I don't end up finishing a story.  My target month for this is April, but I may push it back to May - we'll see.  I just wanted to throw it out there.

Other things
There's not too much - except it's All-Star weekend here in Ottawa.  I really wish I had tickets to see the game, but I will have to settle for watching it in HD at home (because I just got HD, you see, only a month after getting an HDTV).  If I can I will also record the skills competition, but that is depending on whether I can get my technology to cooperate with me (I don't have a PVR with my HD box, but I do have a DVD-R).

As a result my podcast this week will be peppered with random All-Star game trivia.  Now I have to go and research some of this trivia while also picking music.  What have I gotten myself into?

Piracy

I haven't written here in a while; so why not write about a controversial topic? I don't think anything is as controversial these days as piracy - the "scourge of the Internet". I don't know if that's an actual quote from somebody, but let's pretend that it is.

To clarify, I'm thinking of a specific branch of piracy.  I don't believe that music piracy - as rampant as it likely still is - is a hot-button issue anymore.  To put it simply, people are finding ways to legally support artists they like (something music fans have always said they are willing to do) in models that now work.  There's also a lot of music available legally for free online if you know where to look (and it's not hard to trip over all of it).  I'm not thinking of the piracy of films either - I think the movie industry has done a much "better" job locking down their content.

My target today is book piracy - specifically, e-books.  I don't think anyone can make their morning commute on the bus without seeing at least five people reading from their various e-readers.  They're everywhere, and have exploded probably a lot faster than the publishing industry ever anticipated (mostly thanks to the Amazon Kindle). Blah blah blah - this is old hat now in 2011.  Long story short: we now have the same technology that was introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation: the PADD.  Moving along...

Wait, can I back-pedal for a second and point out that this isn't going to have any kind of reference to statistics?  This is largely an anecdotal piece.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, e-book piracy.  I'm indifferent to e-book piracy - that is to say, it's a gray area for me.  Would I download an epub version of a book I don't own?  Probably not (unless we're talking books by Cory Doctorow, which are freely given away); I consider that to be piracy.  But if I get an e-reader (which I might quite soon), what if I want to read one of the books I already own on my shelf?  I really don't think I should have to buy it in another format if I already have it on my shelf.

I suppose it's the same argument as music - if you own the CD, why re-buy it as an mp3?  But the difference there is that it's really trivial to put a disc in a CD tray, and rip the music to your computer's library.  Not so easy with books, unfortunately.

And, books are one of those things that friends and family usually give to us (or lend).  If I'm given a physical book to read, is it still piracy to download an ebook format if I don't feel like lugging around a physical copy?  That's a tough one, and the answer is both yes and no.  Probably I should read the physical version.

Anyway, I really don't know where I stand on this, as you can tell from this wishy-washy post.  Originally I was going to include some statistics on book piracy but I got lazy.  So uh...hooray for e-readers?

The Wonderful World of MP3 Players

At the risk of letting you all in on my personal life from ten years ago, I am linking to a review of an MP3 player I had a few years ago: the Creative Zen 8GB MP3 Player.  I'm doing so for a small handful of reasons:
1) I thought that was a pretty darn good review of an electronic device, and I liked the way it sounded when I read it over again
2) It reminded me how much I liked the device (until it died and I switched it for an iPod Touch)
    2b) It reminded me that if I knew then that I could try importing a new "OS" onto the MP3 player, I might have an extremely useful MP3 player instead of having thrown it out in Sudbury.  Woops.

Anyway, that's not to say I don't love my iPod Touch (I do, by the way) - but it's just a reminder that there are a TON of MP3 players on the market that go several worlds beyond what the iPod is capable of.  Well, that's if you're counting only the audio/video playback, and not including the App Store.  Because in that case, Apple kind of wins quite handily.

But, it's something I should consider if/when my iPod ever dies on me and I need a new device.  I plan on getting a better Blackberry, so the whole touch screen aspect of the iPod may not be necessesary.  But then again, Apple does make some fine devices.

Oh, the wonderful world of MP3 Players...such a joy to navigate.

Thursday Musing - Using Fairy Tales to Craft New Stories

You may or may not be aware that I am an avid podcast subscriber.  More often than not, I can be found at work listening to a podcast on my iPod Touch rather than a specific album (although, I also often listen to new artists to post about over at Alternative Airwaves - but that's serving to discredit my intro here).  I listen to both music podcasts, and spoken word podcasts.  One of those spoken word programmes is Writing Excuses.

tl;dr: Writing Excuses is basically a panel of writers offering tips and advice to aspiring writers and is short and sweet and informative.  Check it out if you're at all interested.

In their most recent episode, "6.10 Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient", they use the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff as a base to provide fun examples of the M.I.C.E. Quotient.  No, I won't describe the MICE Quotient, you'll have to listen to the episode (and seriously, it's only 15 minutes, so it won't take that long to dive into).  The result was a fairly entertaining series of stories based on a simple fairy tale, and a neat writing prompt to go with it:

"Apply the M.I.C.E. quotient to Red Riding Hood, and write at least one page of story per element."

One of the elements the panel espoused about using fairy tales was that once you have your basic story established, change everything.  Maybe instead of a Wolf, we're dealing with a slimy, green, oozing mess with teeth.  The point is, you start with something familiar, and you create something unfamiliar from it.
This is not an unfamiliar process - Hollywood has done this plenty of times, using various sources of inspiration to give us things like Easy A, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She's The Man*.  Granted, those are fairly blatant adaptations and don't try to hide the source material.  What Writing Excuses suggests is not to adapt a familiar work, but to use the building blocks provided to make something new.  (I feel redundant, suddenly.)

I feel like this is a Good Idea, and something I'm willing to do, or at least try.  However, I think you can only do this so many times before somebody is going to start recognizing some similarities between your "original" stories and fairy tales.  Of course, I'm not suggesting on using this "technique" as a means of cheating your way into a creative work.  The requirement to build a comprehensive set of characters and a unique world is still there - you're just borrowing basic story structure.

I think it's worth trying out for a few stories; my specific idea in this case is to try my best to mask the original fairy tale and make a game out of it.  Can you identify the story I've used as a base?  This would be sort of a challenge to see how creative you can get to make a new story, while retaining just enough of the source material to allow readers to make an educated guess.  The goal is to fool, but give them just enough that someone paying close attention can identify the building blocks.

This is something I'll have to work on come September.

Oh, on a related note, through all of this I found a book I'd really like to read: Snow White, Blood Red.  And I really think I'm going to have to pull out all my mythology books and borrow some good old Joseph Campbell from the library.


* - I was thinking about going with O Brother, Where Art Thou? but I wasn't sure if that was really a blatant adaptation of The Odyssey - however, it does support my idea of taking a source material and drastically changing it.

The Transporter Not Starring Jason Statham

I finally did a daily prompt and actually wrote something today.  Here's the prompt:

Prompt for Monday, July 25 2011:In whatever style/genre you like, spend at least 15 minutes writing something based on the following sentence:

A team of North American scientists have announced what they claim is the biggest technological break-through of the 21st century: they have created the first teleportation device capable of transporting organic matter from one point to another.

And here's what I came up with (after the break)