Malaise

So I'm feeling kind of down today. I don't know why. I think it's mainly just boredom. I get this way sometimes, where nothing I do seems interesting to me. Generally, it doesn't happen with all of my interests at the same time, but every couple months it all comes together in a kind of a perfect storm. It always happens on a day that I have off of work and that I have to spend alone. I don't have too many days like that, but when I do have them, they suck.

Today, for instance, I didn't get any new movies from Netflix, so I can't watch that. I'm not interested in watching any of the movies that I have at home either (although I could just break down at watch something, because I usually get into what ever I happen to put in). I'm too far along on Super Mario Galaxy to get any stars easily, and I'm not interested enough today to work at it. I'm also not that into Kingdom of Loathing today.

The saddest part is that several of the things that might have interested me have instead simply frustrated me. I tried to watch a movie instantly on Netflix, but my computer kept crashing. I also tried to play some Morrowind, but had the same problem. Sometimes my computer gets in these moods where anything too graphically intense causes problems. I found out that if we update my wife's computer to Jaguar or Leopard or whatever, then we could run Windows on it and I could probably do both of those things without so many crashes.

I'm suprised that I'm writing this much here today, but I guess that I wasn't thinking about it, I just started blogging, so I hadn't developed an expectation of boredom about it before hand. I wonder if this will even be interesting to anyone else. They say that if you're bored, you're boring. I don't know if that is true or not.

I suppose I should say something about NaNoWriMo. I did attempt to write a novel in November, but it didn't get very far. The only day that I worked on it was November 1st, and I wrote only about 1800 words, making this my least successful NaNoWriMo attempt ever. The novel was about a zombie outbreak in a small town, but had only gotten as far as introducing the main characters, including one who was in jail for killing his family, who he believed had become zombies. I hadn't even gotten threw the young man's entire story of what he did when killing his family, or what convinced him that they were in fact the undead and needed to be killed.

I would say that there is always next year, and indeed I do intend to participate in NaNoWriMo again next November. However, I think that it would do me some good to start writing some fiction before then. Therefore, I do hereby declare that I will begin writing some short stories about what ever topic catches my fancy, and with a frequency that will be determined at a later day, and when complete, some of those stories may be posted right here, on my blog, for all the world to see! How's that for a pledge?

Ain't it great?

I am writing this post on the Wii that my wife and I received as a wedding present. Wild.

NaNoWriMo ideas

Regular readers of this blog will know that I like to put some of my ideas for my NaNoWriMo novels on my blog. They will also know that one of my ideas is to use a chapter structure that causes frequent changes of setting or genre or other elements, so that I can incorporate a variety of disparate ideas that I might not be able to develop into an entire novel, even at the relatively modest 50,000 word length. That being said, here are some ideas for separate sections of this year's novel, in keeping with previously posted ideas:

Each chapter would be a parody or homage to something, but in keeping with a zombie theme, some of which would include: A Vampire Hunter D parody (I'm leaning towards either Vampire Hunter A or Vampire Hunter S, which are references to Ashe in the Evil Dead series and Shaun from Shaun of the Dead); an homage to Evil Dead, George Romero's films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead), and/or Shaun of the Dead; the use of an idea I had for a web-tune, involving a team of crime-fighting zombies (each zombie would be a different type: A Romero-esque zombie; a voodoo zombie; a revenant; a Xombie-type character; an evil curse Evil Dead-type zombie; possibly others like a teenager who is a zombie when playing video games).

My journal narrative structure could be used to bookend the sections or through out. In either case, it would work best as the narrator/protagonist travels through different locations as as the outbreak of zombies goes through various stages. I suppose this would work better if I came up with a consistent reason for people becoming zombies during the book, but I think it also would spice things up if that is never made clear, and each section hints at a different cause of zombification that is consistent with what is being parodied or homaged in that section.

Another thought is that the protagonist himself would change to be consistent with the section. That could mean multiple protagonists, or it could simple reflect his own development over the course of the story arc and his persistent encounters with zombies.

Many zombie movies and books avoid the term zombie. I will not do this, because I think that the reason that it is done is to avoid confusion between different types of zombies. Since my novel will involve many types of zombies, I will use the word because it best captures the overall category of creature that I am dealing with.

Speaking of categories, I will essentially have two types of zombies. They will be either reanimated dead or the still-living. The reanimated dead will be zombies such as in the films of George Romero and revenants. The still-living will include those controlled by voodoo, those infected with something like rage (28 Days Later) or a cell-phone signal (Cell), and those possessed by an evil curse (Evil Dead). I should note that just because they are "still-living" doesn't mean that there is some way to cure them, depending on the type. It just means that they might be easier to kill (for instance, a voodoo zombie could be cured, and could also bleed to death, while a rage-infected could not be cured, but can be killed in most conventional ways; on the other had, Romero-types must die before becoming zombies, and therefore cannot be killed in the same way that a living person could be).

If I have any more thoughts, I will try to post them, but for now I am too hungry to think about much beyond what I should have for lunch. How come I only post when I am starting to get hungry?

Bored

I have a bit of a problem. I want to write something in this crazy blog of mine, but I can't think of what to write. I could write about my ideas for NaNoWriMo, but I don't really have any that I haven't shared here before. I suppose I could talk about my upcoming wedding, but I have mentioned that too. I was just found by a friend from high school on Facebook, and that has led to me being shocked to discover that he married a girl that I also went to high school with. I knew that they knew each other but I don't remember them ever dating back then. I guess they must have gone to the same college or something. Weird.

As far as my wedding plans are going, we just finalized our program yesterday. It is pretty fun. I got to draw a picture that appears on the back cover. I'm going to try to post the image on here, but I have never done that before, so bear with me. Well, it looks like that worked. On the program, the image is called "Curt and Anna", but the actual file is names "Wedding of Loathing", but cause the idea was inspired by the character designs in Kingdom of Loathing. It didn't seem like a good idea to use that name in the program though. The old people wouldn't understand. Neither would the young people, except the ones who are familiar with KoL. As far as I know, that is just me, my soon-to-be wife, and one of my sisters. That is probably too big of an in-joke for a wedding program.

In other news, I am hoping to find a way to turn my 401k into a Roth IRA without having to pay the tax penalty out of pocket. I am meeting with my financial adviser about this this afternoon, but if any of my readers have any experience with this, I would love to hear about it. For the record, I know of two people who read this occasionally, and one person who read it once, but probably doesn't keep up with it. If there is anyone else, please please please give me some kind of feed back in a comment or something. I think the pressure to have something fresh for people to read is a good motivating force for me. If I ever finish NaNoWriMo, that is what will inspire me to edit my novel and try to publish it.

Oh no! Fiancee is home. Must. Post. Now...

Things and such

So, now I am just two-and-a-half weeks away from my wedding. I don't feel very nervous about it, and I don't know if that is good or bad. Some people have told me that it is normal to have some amount of nervousness by now, while others have indicated that if you have any second thoughts whatsoever you should call the whole thing off. I'm not planning to do that even if I do get nervous. The funny thing is that the people who have said that it is normal to get nervous are people who have been married once and never divorced, while the people who say that nervousness indicates that you are about to make a mistake are either divorced or in the process of getting divorced. There is even one woman who told me that she was nervous before her first marriage, eventually got divorced, and was not nervous about her second, which "took". I think her exact words were, "I didn't have and second thoughts about it the second time, and that one took".

In other news, I am getting excited about NaNoWriMo (I am excited about the wedding too, just not nervous). I really think that I will finish this year, and that is really important to me, because until you have successfully written a novel in NaNoWriMo, you cannot lead a local group of writers during the event. I want to be able to do that, because then I can find some place to write and encourage other people to join me. I would say things like, "yeah, I've done it, you should hang out at [place], 'cause that's where I'll be and we can goad each other along".

Well, I've got to go eat lunch now. Fare thee well.

Etiquette

So I have learned a few things about etiquette lately. For instance, if you are getting married, you should send thank yous as soon as you can after receiving a gift. That means if someone can't go to your wedding, and they send you a gift a month before the wedding, you should send the thank you then, rather than waiting until after the wedding. This is apparently so that they do not need to wonder if you received the gift.

What I am still wondering about is if you are obligated to buy something at a business that lets you use not only their wireless internet connection, but also their electricity for your computer. I think I'm going to have to wing it on that one, because I am planning to leave pretty much as soon as I finish blogging.

Also, I think that I have a good start going on my Honeymoon Mix CD. My fiancee and I decided that we are each going to make a mix CD so that we can have some fun music to listen to on our honeymoon, and I decided to use my own computer so that I could by songs myself, instead of using hers and having to have her buy them for me.

Finally, I wanted to mention that at our last meeting with the pastor before our wedding, he asked what three goals that each of us had in the next five years are, and one of mine was to finish a NaNoWriMo novel and polish it up for publication. Hopefully that will motivate me.

Argyle

First off, it bothers me that video game publishers don't provide advance copies of most games to places that review games. It really bothers me that I have to wait up to a week or longer for games I am interested in to be reviewed. Specifically, I want to read a review of Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. It seems like it would be a game that I would like, but it also seems like a game that I think that I would like but then would never play again after the first week that I had it. I think that a good review would help me figure out which it is before I buy it.

Second, I have decided that when I do NaNoWriMo this year, my main character will be named Argyle, because Argyle is my favorite color. I don't know what kind of person he will be, but I am leaning towards a silent, or at least not much spoken protagonist. This is mainly because I am terrible at writing dialog.

"Terrible at writing dialog! That's awful."

Yes, it is.

Anywho, I also think that I am better at a first person narrative than a third person one, so I might have the narrator be Argyle's friend or sidekick, or I might have the story be told through Argyle's journal. If I go with the journal, then I can avoid dialog pretty easily.

"Yeah, 'cause who writes dialog in their journal."

I don't know who you are supposed to be, but yes, that is why I could avoid the dialog with a journal.

"You do so know who I'm supposed to be."

Sorry, I really don't.

"I'm the other voice in your internal dialog."

Don't you mean monologue?

"No, because you don't have an internal monologue. Your thoughts occur to you as a conversation with yourself. That is why you mishear people so often."

That's very interesting. And thanks for explaining that. Don't worry though. No one reads this, so I don't think you creeped anyone out.

"What about that person whose comment said, 'I like meat'?"

I don't think people who say things like that get creeped out.

"Good point."

KOL

I have become mildly addicted to something called Kingdom of Loathing. It is an HTML-based MMORPG, and it is free. I really can't express how enjoyable it is. The best way to experience it is just to try it for yourself. If I did this right, the title of this post should link to it, but if it doesn't, the site is www.kingdomofloathing.com. Their logo is a stick figure holding a sword and a martini glass. The money in the Kingdom of Loathing is Meat. You can also make meat into meatpaste, and use it to combine objects. Like at one point when you have to make a meatcar. They have a store where they sell things like t-shirts and bumper stickers, and one of the bumperstickers has a meatcar on it and it reads, "my other car is made of meat".

I have to go and help hang a 16" KitchenAid Wall Rack.

I'm Back!

I don't know if there is some hardcore readership of this blog out there who have thoughts of rage and vengeance on their minds due to my long absence, but I have returned. At any rate, you can't have been too pissed, because I haven't been notified of any comments. My last post was made on the first day of my new job, now that I've moved in with my fiancee. That was more that two months ago, and since then, it's been a whirlwind of moving and showers and other crazy wedding plans. But that is not what is on my mind today. Those of you who have read my blog from the beginning know that I started it last year as a sort of prep tool for NaNoWriMo. That is what I am going to turn it into again now. So, without further ado, here are some of my thoughts on how to make this years NaNoWriMo a successful one.

First, I think that I should focus on characters and setting more than plot. I think that I could write better if I my novel was a series of vignettes about a single character or place.

Second, I should not fear incorporating the details of my life in my novel. I have taken quite a liking to Proust since last November, and I think that his style might work well for me. Which is to say that a series of roughly chronological recollections by a narrator who is quite similar to me is probably something I could do.

Third, I should write about what I know. That means that I think that I should write something with characters like me and people I know, set in a place that I am familiar with, using elements of my favorite genres. I guess that means I should write about an outbreak of zombies set in Minnesota, with about the tone of an Aaron Sorkin TV series (i.e.: The West Wing or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip).

On a related note, I think it would be awesome if Aaron Sorkin's next project was about Zombies. I wonder how one would go about suggesting such a thing?

Small Town

I haven't been able to post for a while, because I am in the process of moving in with my fiancée. I should note that I have been spelling that word with only one "e" at the end, which apparently refers to a male that one intends to marry. I think that is apparent that I myself am a male. I apologize to anyone who had been reading this and thought that I was an homosexual. It was not my intention to deceive. I think that homosexual couples deserve all of the same rights that heterosexuals have in this country, but I am not one of them. I simply have never been attracted to men.

Anywho, I have been moving my things in with my fiancée, and have not had the time to sit down and post anything. I am moving to Wadena, a small town of about 3,000 people. I am excited about it because it lacks many of the things that I am accustomed to. There is no comic book shop, the only bookstore is an used bookstore, there is no place like Best Buy, and the only places with video games are Wal-Mart and Pamida, and I don't like shopping at either of those places. Hopefully, that will allow me to stop almost all of my impulse buying of things and let me save some money. The movie theater here just expanded...they now have three screens, but that still means a limited movie selection, so I probably won't be going to as many movies the the theater as I had been either.

With any luck, I will be able to finish moving out of my old apartment in one more trip. I haven't had access to a vehicle big enough to transport things like my bed and some of the larger furniture, so hopefully I will be able to get all of that stuff moved out next week when my parents come up with their van. My lease requires 60 days notice to move out, but my landlord said that if I got everything out in time and they were able to paint and start showing the apartment then I could be out at the end of June instead of July. So that would be nice.

Discrimination?

So my computer has BOINC on it. It is a program that lets you use your spare processor time to help analyze data for things like SETI and other processing intensive science projects. I have it on my computer and it only does one project at a time. But my fiance just put it on her iMac, and it will do two projects at once. Is that sloppy programing, or am I doing something wrong? Or is something wrong with my version of BOINC?

Moving

So now I have begun moving. I brought a dresser and a big sack of laundry and my gamecube and some of my favorite movies to my fiance's apartment, which I guess I should start thinking of as my apartment. I don't know how long it will take me to get all of my things moved, but I do know that gas is expensive, and I'm not really looking forward to all the trips I'll have to make. On the plus side, moving in together means one less thing to worry about before the wedding.

As far a jobs go, I will probably end up working evenings and weekends, while Anna mainly works days. Some people probably think that would be a strain on a relationship, but since we have been living ninety miles apart for just over three years, it will be an improvement, because we will see each other at least sometime everyday, unless one of us needs to go out of town for something. But I'm excited. Anna is way more organized than me, and that means that I might get to spend more time doing things like blogging and writing, and less time sitting in squalor. Good for me, too bad for my slothiness.

Book Club

About one year ago, after graduating from college, I decided to join a book club at my local Barnes & Noble. The book was Gulliver's Travels. I had a good time, so I decided to keep going. Other books we have read include: Fahrenheit 451, The Book Thief, Davita's Harp, Four dialogs by Plato, An Anthropologist on Mars, Alan Alda's memoir, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Blink, Picture of Dorian Grey, The Alchemist, Swann's Way, and tonight The Year of Magical Thinking. Probably half of the books are ones that I never would have read if it wasn't for the book club, and most of them I enjoyed. Even the ones that I might have read eventually someday, I was glad to have the added pressure of the book club to keep me moving along. Unfortunately, since I will be moving to live with my fiance, I will probably not be able to attend the book club after tonight. I hope that in my new home, I will be able to join a book club, or to get one started if there aren't any that I can join already in operation.

Is anyone even reading this?

Hello, faithful readers! I don't know if there are any of you, but I am curious about that, so I would appreciate it if you posted a reply to this post if you happen to read it. I don't know what will happen, but I want to know. Perhaps you just want to say, "Yes, I am reading!" Maybe you will have some suggestions about what direction I should take with my blog. For now, I will just provide you with an idea of what I did today:

Got up at about 5:30 am, after an hour of hitting snooze. I ate some eggos and drank an energy drink, showered, applied wart remover to my plantar wart, brushed my teeth, dressed, and made it to work by 6:30 am. Then I was bored for about eight-and-a-half hours. Then I went home, called Anna, who didn't answer, so I called my parents, chatted with them for an hour, and tried Anna again. Still no answer, so I finished watching Pulp Fiction, which I had started watching last night, but was too tired and turned it off. During a scene in the middle of the movie, right after the line, "get the gimp," the phone rang, and it was Anna, so we chatted, and then I finished the movie. Then I watched the season finales of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad. At some point during all that I ate some Brie and crackers and a sandwich. Then I did some internet surfing, culminating in this blog entry.

Boy, my days sure are boring. Good thing I am going to be moving in with Anna soon. Maybe then I won't be so painfully alone so much. Well, I hope someone reads this.

Ow, my arm!

So I was playing some Diablo II on my computer, and now my arm hurts. I don't remember that happening back in High School when I would play Diablo for hours on end. Does that mean that I am getting old, or did I do some damage at some point in between? I don't know, but I hope it feels better soon, cause I want to play some more!

Waiting

I am sitting here in my fiance's computer room, and I am waiting, and I am bored. It is almost twelve-thirty, and she is supposed to come home for lunch, and I'm hungry. I have an interview this afternoon for a job, so that I can move here and live with her, but I'm sick of waiting for that too. I am just tired of waiting for things to happen. Why won't they just happen, already. I guess Madonna was right..."Time goes by so slowly for those who wait."

Walking

So I went for a walk this afternoon. I have a couple of routes that I follow, depending on how long of a walk I want to take, and I was in the mood for a medium-long walk. Unfortunately, nature was not on my side for that. My normal walk of that length takes me to the river, and then follows a path along it. Recent rains destroyed that plan, because the path was under water in some places. I took some city streets to try getting to the path in several different places...not because I thought I could get to it, but because I was curious about just how flooded it was.

My curiosity rewarded me, because of what I found one of the trails leading down to the one along the river. There was a barricade where the trail started going downhill to the river, and I stopped there to look at the water going by for a moment. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was a wild turkey! It was trying to make itself look extra big and scary, and it was looking right at me.

I know that turkeys can see color, and I was wearing a bright green shirt and a red Minnesota Twins cap (the "alternate" cap...in a 7 7/8ths), so I tried to remain as still as possible, so I wouldn't scare it away. I turned off my iPod to listen to it. It didn't make any sound, but I could hear rustling in the other direction. After a few moments, an hen emerged from the brush. I realized that they must be a mated pair, and he was trying to scare me off to protect her. It made me think of the way that Anna protects me. I can't wait until we get married and become a mated pair.

Thank you, Blogger

I think that I should acknowledge folks at Blogspot and blogger for having some kind of crazy like to an youtube video about zombies, with the song "Re: Your Brains", by Jonathan Coulton. As some of you might know, zombies are not only my favorite type of monster, but also my favorite film genre, and probably in my top five as far as general pop culture things go. I know that there is no such thing as a zombie in real life, but for some reason I think that they are the most interesting horror staples (the others being vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, and mummies). I think that the reason that they are so interesting to me is that they are relatively inept, but people can't seem to get along in a way that allows them to survive an outbreak of zombies. The best zombie fiction ends up with everyone dead. But the reason that everyone ends up dead in not because they couldn't fight off the zombies...it is because they couldn't band together to fight the zombies off. In Night of the Living Dead, the last man left alive in the house gets shot by a sharpshooter in the sheriff's department. In Dawn of the Dead, everything falls apart because of a selfish gang of regular people who try to raid the mall. In Day of the Dead, things go bad because the sciencey people don't get along with the militaryey ones. In Land of the Dead, things fall apart because Dennis Hopper's character is an asshole. In Shaun of the Dead, things only work out because people figure out how to put the zombies to good use without getting bitten themselves. Anyhow, the best zombie fiction is not stories about men versus monsters. It is stories about men versus men, in a time of crisis. The actual zombies are simply a backdrop of trouble that can be overcome by working together...but how many people can actually do that?

Back home, nothing to write.

I'm back home, I won't be having anymore ergonomic issues...but I can't think of anything to write. Sorry to tease you!

Free Comic Book Day

Today was the traditional holiday when one sits back with a tasty Mexican beer, and enjoys reading their free comic books. That's right, the first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day, and I got mine! I'm unfortunately at my parents house, using their computer, and it is not ergonomic. Oww, my wrists...must...stop...typing...

Spiderman 3...lame?

I saw Spiderman 3 a few hours ago, and I must admit, I thought that it was actually kind of lame. Since it just came out today, I won't put any spoilers in here...even though I don't think anyone reads this. Let me just say: Love story=lame. Villains=lame. Plot=somewhat disjointed, and also lame. As anyone who has seen the trailers knows, the main villains in this movie are Goblin Jr., Sandman, and Venom. The story keeps jumping between them, and it would have been much stronger if they had focused on just one villain. I can picture them taking the elements of the film involving either Sandman or Venom, keeping everything with the New Goblin, and making a totally workable picture of the same length, but with a much stronger plot.

I feel that I should mention that I did enjoy Spiderman 3, I just think that it wasn't as good as it could have been or as good as its predecessors. I think that the first two movies about the character were great, and revived the "Superhero film" as a genre. Unfortunately, this movie may be signifying the end of an era, which is a shame, because I really want to see good movies based on some of my favorite comic book characters: The Green Lantern, because that would be great eye candy; The Green Arrow, because he is badass and foul-mouthed; The Justice League, because that would be awesome; Powergirl, because she is stacked; The Avengers, because they deserve more than a couple of direct to DVD animated features; and Red Sonja, because the one movie about her is pretty sucky, and she deserves better.

It's fun to laugh

I am between funnies right now. After work I watched disc two of the first season of The Extras, a funny series by Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office (the British one). My favorite bit was when the Ricky Gervais character when into Patrick Stewart's trailer on the set of a movie, and tried to give him a script that he had written. I guess I should explain that the main characters are extras in movies, and each episode has an actual famous person as a guest star. So anyhow, Patrick Stewart told Rick Gervais that it is important for actors to also be writers, and he described a screenplay that he was working on, in which he would play a character similar to Professor Xavier in the X-Men movies, but he would use his powers to make women's clothes fall off. When Gervais finally gave Stewart the script, and asked him to show it to people he knew in TV, Stewart said, "I'll make it so." Gervais said he had never seen Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it was funny.

Anyhow, I said that I am between funnies. I bought the current issue of TV guide, because tonight's episode of My Name is Earl is "laugh and sniff". There is a card with several places to scratch and sniff at designated times during the episode. The I will get to see The Office (the American one), 30Rock, and Scrubs. And all of those are usually pretty funny. I sure hope so anyway.

Something...

I don't know what to write, but I feel that I should write something, so here goes.

Today, I slept in until a leisurely 9:00 am. Upon waking, I watched the movie Cool Hand Luke. I hadn't seen it before, but it was pretty good. When it was done, I puttered around on the internet for a while, and then I took a shower. After I got cleaned up for the day, I watched an episode of Malcolm in the Middle on TV, and then I went and picked up my comic books for this week. It was an exciting week in the world of comic books, because the final issue of the year long weekly series 52 came out today. Notice that the date is 5/2. Those people at DC Comics are pretty clever. Did you know that the C in DC stands for Comics? Maybe they aren't so clever after all. Anyhow, after I read 52, but before reading any of my other comics, I went for a walk. I'm not sure how far I went, but it took about an hour and forty minutes, so if I had to guess, I would say it was about six miles. Then, I went back on the internet and made a blog entry. I might write more later, but I am noticing that it is time for Jeopardy, and I feel like watching today.

Holst was lazy and prolific

So, I just saw my fiance play with a choral group that played something by Gustav Holst...and it had the same tune as part of Jupiter from the planets. Does that mean that Holst was lazy? Or was he just resourceful (gee, this is a good tune, I think I'll use it again sometime)?

Early in the morning

I know that it isn't really that early...it's after 9:00, after all. It feels early, though. That is because I have awoken before Anna, and when she was awake briefly, she was very confused and out of it. On a typical morning, she is up before me, and she is quite hyper and excited to be up, while I am groggy and confused. Not today, though. I was not hyper, but also was not groggy. I had had this strange dream, involving my old van that broke down almost five years ago, my family's lake cabin, and my parents church. The strangest part of the dream was that I was sitting in the choir loft at my parents church, except the chairs had been replaced by regular pews, and I was opening some mail that had been sent to my parent's address. The mail included about four hundred dollars in checks that various people had sent to me, and I accidentally dropped the entire stack of mail, but I couldn't find it no matter how hard I looked on the floor. Possibly the strangest part of all this was that the entire time I was in the choir loft, there was a major holiday church service going on around me, and some how it was okay for the choir to help me look for the dropped mail, as long as no one knew about all the checks that were missing.

Weird.

Why is it important to write

I think that writing is one of the most important things that a person can do. In time, almost everything that a person does disappears, except for what they write. The oldest civilizations in the world left a jumble of confusing relics, that contain mostly ambiguous meanings. Light is shed on ancient peoples to a far greater degree when they have developed a higher level of literacy. The oldest cuneiform tablets are just lists of goods traded, and shed little light on anything other than the economic lives of their writers. Eventually things like Hammurabi's code, and the Epic of Gilgamesh shed some light on the legal and mythological systems of the period.

In other civilizations, writing became more advanced, with works such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, with its detailed instructions for mummification and burial, or in the tragedies and philosophical writings of ancient Greece, as well as the works of Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides. By the time of Christ, the world was lousy with things people wrote down, and even though only a small fraction of that material still exists, we know a great deal about the ancient world because of it. As history catches up with the present, more and more writings exist, until 1453 AD, when the movable type printing press was invented, after which time, nearly anyone could publish just about whatever they wanted to, provided that they had the will and the economic means to do so.

In todays age of the interweb, that is still true, but now all that you need is a computer and an internet connection, and you can put whatever you care to share out there for anyone who cares to read it. Many people even use blogs, just like this one. The difference between most of those people and me is that they think that people actually care what they have to say. I'm just trying to practice writing and purge all the stored up crap that is preventing me from writing all the stuff in my head that I think that people might actually care about someday.

Trying to post more

So, I was watching this video on the interweb the other day. It had Ira Glass in it. I think the intended audience was aspiring film makers, but he said some things that resonated with me as well. Basically the idea was that if you want to be good at an art form, you have to do it a lot to get all the crap out of your system. I took it to mean that if I want to be a writer, I have to be more concerned with writing a lot of stuff, before I can worry about the quality of what I am writing. The idea, I think, is that practice makes perfect, and the more I write, the more practice I will have. Therefore, I am going to try to start blogging more. Then I will be getting more practice. I don't know what I will write about, but I think I will just try to write about things that I think are interesting. I suppose that could lead to being an essayist or something, right?