TechgnosisWeb Prime

Gah!

After the torrent of blog posts all last week, it does seem a bit strange to have utter silence for so long, no? Well, I have an excuse: Work has royally fucked me up the ass all this week.

If I’ve gotten 4 hours of sleep, total, in the past 3 days, that’s a lot. Picture it: I get into the office early on Monday morning, proud of myself for not only being on time to work, for once, but actually getting there before the boss. I start setting up, going through my email backlog, bringing up all my usual work programs and windows, starting to wind myself up for the week ahead. Then, in comes the boss: you gotta go to Client X’s, their main server didn’t come up this morning. Apparently there had been some electrical outages over the weekend, and it may have gotten stuck during one of the reboots after the UPS systems gave out. No biggie, I’ve been through this on a hundred Mondays: Someone’s server is always malfunctioning on Monday morning.

I hop in the car, head out to the client’s and check the server: uh-oh. Says it can’t locate the operating system. BIOS reports that everything’s fine, and the SCSI card claims to see all the attached drives. So it looks like the main OS drive is malfunctioning. Not a problem. Just hop on in there with my Knoppix disk, connect it to the network, spin out the data over to the backup server, make sure the Lotus user data is safe in the mirrored data drive array, replace the drive, reinstall NT4, re sync the domain, and we’re good to go. A full day’s work, to be sure, but nothing I haven’t done before a dozen times or more.

I hate Mondays.

What should have been a few hours of fairly mindless work turned into nearly 40 hours of solid brain-defying hell over the past 3 days. Nothing, and I mean nothing worked the way it was supposed to. No system backups had been made in over a year. The SCSI controller card started failing, A collection of CD drives paraded through the machine I was working on, each one in worse condition than the last, making it near impossible for me to work with Knoppix, or reinstall the OS later. The new SCSi controller card hated the floppy drive, and vice versa, which made it hard to install: the drivers for the card came on a floppy, and you needed them present and readable on the floppy to install the card, but when the card was installed, the motherboard refused to recognize the floppy. If you removed the card, the floppy worked fine, but you couldn’t install the drivers without the card ready. Catch-22 all around.

Add to that a backup domain server that decided to try and organize a coup and take over the domain, which meant that if both servers were connected at the same time, no one could connect to the network at all.. But the important company files and programs were spread between the two servers, so you needed both of them up to work properly. Sprinkle in a dash of about 60 users who took turns peeking into the server room and asking me if it was ready yet. I was ready to kill all of them within the first 5 hours.

This went on for the past 3 days. I got out after 4 am yesterday, only to have to go in again this morning. Their local techie guy was fairly clueless, but he took instructions well and did help out some, to his credit. Overall, the past 3 days tested my patience, endurance, and computer knowledge pretty much as far as it has been in any time over the past 3 years with this company. I’d still be pissed off, exhausted as I am, if it hadn’t been for one thing: the techie guy. After sticking with me and my boss for the past 3 days (although he did go home much, much earlier than we did), once the servers were finally up and about 49 salespeople immediately started reading their mail, with not a word of thanks from any of the fuckers, the guy shakes my hand and actually tells me that working with me the past 3 days has been truly impressive, that he wouldn’t have believed rescuing that server would have been possible, given how fucked it was, and that he was amazed at what I managed to accomplish. Praise from random strangers is one thing. That kinda praise from a fellow techie, however, that totally made my week.

And if it wasn’t because I have a nice long 4 day weekend coming up in just 2 days, I’d call in sick to work for the rest of the week.

Googlefight: Science vs. Religion

There were some database problems with my webhosting problems, and the site was down for aocuple of days there, but looks like they fixed it. I think they might have moved the site to a new server, too, but not sure. Either way, I have a feeling that one or two of the latest postings were lost, but my memory sucks so bad that I’m not sure. Ah well… hopefuly everything’s back to normal now.

Well, Slashdot’s got an article up which says that the bill that the EFF warned us about, just passed, but with no Broadcast Flag ammendments. What does this mean? It means that the Broadcast Flag stuff was never inserted in there before it was passed.

While this is undoubtedly a good thing, it begs the question: why?

Was it because of the letter-writing, faxing, e-mailing and phone calling campaign by the EFF?
Was it because the senators actually saw that it was a horrible idea and didn’t introduce the amendment themselves?
Or was it because the whole thing was made up to begin with?

No clue, I’m just happy that we’re still Broadcast Flag free. In any case, the Slashdot comment thread here s delightfully full of nutty conspiracy theories, go check ‘em out.

Recently, the local Public Transportation Authority activated something sorely needed on this island: another method of public transportation. In this case, it was the so-called Tren Urbano, a.k.a. Urban Train. Basically a subway, except it runs above ground for the vast majority of its fairly short run.

It’s already proven quite useful to me. I normally need to take the car everywhere, to visit our clients during the week. But I noticed something a few days ago: there’s a train stop right in front of the office where I’m working. I also noticed that, at least currently, all of our clients are located within walking distance of either a bus stop or a train stop.

This means that, at least in theory, I should be able to conduct all my day to day business using the public transportation system. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it, likely it wouldn’t be the last, either. There’s only one major snag: I can’t seem to get to the first train stop from here in Dorado, without hopping in the car.

The first train stop is in Bayamon, which is the town right next to Dorado. So, conceivably, there might be some sort of public transport from here to Bayamon. The two towns are too close together for there not to be any buses running between them. Of course, I have no idea where I would have to go to get to one of those buses.. But if I did, and I could, it would actually be a possibility for me to get my everyday business done using public transportation!

Imagine that, here, in Puerto Rico, where the average two-person home has three cars, someone could conceivably operate all day using only public transportation… At least, if you live in the main Metro Area, and all the places you need to be at fall conveniently within walking distance of either a train or bus stop, like they do for me… But, hey, this is something that, even a year ago, would have been completely impossible. The last mile, the hop from the last Bayamon train stop to the Dorado bus stop in front of my urbanization, that’s the problem now. No clue on how to solve that one… Or if it will require me to wake up at 3 AM just to have a chance of getting to work by 8:30.

Not sure what’s going on, must be some .htaccess issues, I’ll look into them when I get home, but the pretty permalinks are broken, which is why some of you might have noticed you couldn’t post comments for the past day or so. and I *know* you’ve all got a lot to say about my witty and wonderful words, ’cause I rock like that.

So, I’ve temporarily disabled the permalinks option, and now everythign is working again, you can comment and the like. Links to stuf have gone from the pretty

http://www.techgnosisweb.com/archives/2005/06/20/permalinks-temporarily-broken/

to

http://www.techgnosisweb.com/?p=496

Shorter, sure, but not as pretty. Still, they work.

Oh, and this is post #476 (yeah, ignore the ‘p’ count.. the actual articles posted are 476)! Only 24 more to go until post #500!!!

I should do something special for post #500, it’s a pretty big milestone.. anyone got any suggestions? I’m thinking some sort of contest… Post them up in the comments, now that you can comment again.

UPDATE: Permalinks are working again. Not that any of you care.

We thought we’d gotten rid of the evil and dangerous Broadcast Flag: a piece of legislation that would make it illegal to own or create media devices that can record, download, or edit digital video or audio content, without Hollywood’s explicit approval. If the Broadcast Flag had existed 20 or 30 years ago, things like the VCR, the Walkman, the Xerox machine, your personal computer, or even the Internet, might never have been made, because they would all be illegal under the Broadcast Flag regulations.

Hollywood tried once already to take away your rights to fair use, and to basically take control of the electronics industry by making it so they can veto the creation of any new device that is even conceivably able to view, copy, or edit digital files. They tried to get the FCC to mandate the Broadcast Flag, but the Supreme Court smacked them down and told them the FCC doesn’t have the kind of authority to mandate something like that.

We thought we’d won.

But now the bastards in Hollywood are trying to ram the Broadcast Flag in through Congress, and they’re not telling anyone. Today, Tuesday, they will introduce the Broadcast Flag legislation as a minor, throwaway amendment to one of the huge appropriations bills that get passed every day. They’re basically trying to sneak the legislation in by hiding it inside another law, with no Congressional or public debate about it. We can’t let this happen: you may think I’m exaggerating, but the future of our creative rights hangs in the balance.

If you live in any of these states: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, then you need to hit up this page at the EFF and contact your representative by phone, fax, or email, right fucking now.

To learn more about the Broadcast Flag and just why it is so bad, and how it would basically make so many of the devices we use every day illegal, visit here: Endangered Gizmos, by the EFF.

Please, this is a sweeping federal law that would affect all of us, including me here in Puerto Rico, yet I get no vote or voice in this. If you live in any of the states above, or you have friends or family in any of the states above, contact your representative today, right now. The vote is today. There’s no time to waste if you want to save your iPod.

Someday, someone will buy me this shirt:

… and I will love that someone for ever and ever.

Well, one of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow, just put out his latest book: ‘Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town’. Here’s a quick description, taken from the site:

Plot summary, courtesy of Publishers Weekly
“It’s only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow’s fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he’s the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being–or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist’s plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who’s now resurrected and bent on revenge.”

And here’s some of the praise allready being heaped upon it:

SOMEONE COMES TO TOWN, SOMEONE LEAVES TOWN is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book you’ve ever read.
Gene Wolfe, author

I loved his two previous books, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Eastern Standard Tribe, and I’m looking forward to reading this one like you would not believe. I allready downloaded it and set it up on Glitch (he makes electronic versions available for free download through a Creative Commons license), so I’m thinking I’ll start in on it tonight: the book I’m currently reading is about 20 pages from finishing, so I’ll power through that so I can spend some time with this one.

Oh, and the good and excellent folk over at the Dragon Page (Hi Michael! Hi Evo! Hi Kickass Mystic Ninjas!) just put up their latest Cover to Cover podcast, where they interview Cory about the book. Go check that out.

And finally, for those few of you out there who are fellow residents in Second Life, Cory’s going to be doing a virtual booksigning there this Sunday. I’m so there.

—–end gush—–

Hey, Technorati guys:

Whoever designed that new box thingy that you rolled out today needs to be taken out back and shot. You’ll notice I no longer have a visible Technorati link on the page: that’s because Technorati rolled out a new site design today, and as part of it, they changed the tiny little Technorati logo box for a big honkin’ wide ad thing that totlally broke the layout on the site. I went in to see if I could reconfigure it to something smaller, but even the most minimal configuration is wider than the sidebars permit. And my sidebars are a pretty standard size: you’ll notice that both the Flickr and TextAmerica picture boxes fit perfectly into a sidebar.

So, Technorati guys, I love your service and all, but until you put out something that’s an actual reasonable size, no Technorati link on my page, sorry.

UPDATE: Technorati’s gone and fixed it and brought back the old, simple, non-fugly, non-blog breaking linky. Thanks for listening, Technorati guys.

… as they seem at first glance. Things, that is.

Just want to give my thanks to those of you who read the last BedBlog entry and contacted me on the comments or over email, or simply kept me and mine in your thoughts. I do want to put a bit of a disclaimer, late as it may be, on that last posting: I’m not telling the full story, just bitching a bit and letting off some steam. And while many of you know what my situation is, more or less, the full story is more complicated than it may seem from the outside. Suffice it to say, there is no resentment, at least on my part, to anyone about anything, just some frustratioln with the general situation,and a hope for things to get better, and for my boss to not be lying to me, because I honestly like the guy and want to beleive that things are going to get better this year.

And that’s all I’ll say about that.

In other news, I’ve been on this whole how can they possibly believe in this stuff kick, as you’ve likely noticed. And I know this puts me firmly in the minority camp. Pretty much everyone around me has supernatural beliefs in one way or another. Wether it be a passing belief in God, Goddess worship, full-on Born Again X-tian fundamentalism, Santeria, or just a general willingness to accept the existence of ghosts without questioning it too much, pretty much everyone I know is superstitious or religious to some extent or another. Even my own father, who taught me to think rationally and critically, and for whom I bought the book ‘A Skeptic’s Guide to the Supernatural’ for Father’s Day, ocassionally will lapse into a bit of sentimental religiosity.

So I know that I can’t really expect too many of you to understand me when I put forth my critical, non-religious, atheistic, Bright, naturalistic, and skeptical views. But this is my blog, and I can expound on it if I so deem. If any of you wants their own blog to rebutt me with, let me knwo and I’ll set you up the bomb, or just go to blogger.com.

Having said all this, I still feel the need to make myself a little clearer, to, if you’ll allow me to, try and help you undertsand why I’ve come to hold the worldview I now have. Ove the next few days, my BedBlog entries will be about my skeptical worldview, and how my current life experiences led me to it, as well as how I aproach life and the beliefs of those around me from this worldview. Feel free to skip them, although I’d reccomend reading them if you agree with me, and I’d reccomend reading them even more if you don’t agree with me. If you are firm in your faith, a little questioning on my part shouldn’t shake it.
So stay tuned for a week or so of debunking, critical analisys, and challenges to the ‘psychics’ in the crowd out there.
Oh, and as for the story, don’t worry too much about it, my notes for it continue to grow, and I hope to post something up before the week is over.

And, on cheerier, geek-worthy news: Guess who’s the second result on Google when you search for Katsushiro?

That’s right, yours truly.

o/~ Get busy, it’s my birfday, get busy o/~

The number one result is for some japanese artist who makes wicker baskets. Seeing as, in his case, Katsushiro is his real name, while I just use it as a nickname, I’m willing to let him have the top spot.

So, to all you other Katsushiro-as-a-nick-using mofo’s: nyah nyah nyah. Techgnosisweb for t3h win!

Man… what a day. Normally, my Saturdays are relatively stress-free, just running a few errands, hanging out with my gf, goofing off online.. well, that’s more or less what I did today, ran some errands, bought my Dad a Father’s Day present, went to the supermarket real quick, spent a good chunk of my afternoon online surfing the web, and dealing with some database issues for the site (some of you might have noticed we were down this morning. My host says they’re on the case and it won’t happen again…)

Only one problem. I live with my girlfriend and her mother, right now. Long story, suffice it to say this is not a permanent arrangement, and I’m working my ass off to get us back out and on our own soon. Problem is, gf and her mom are fighting. They’ve been sniping at each other over truly stupid things for the past few days, and it’s really stressful on me, because I’m the one who ends up catching the fallout, of course. I can handle it, no prob, but it’s not a piece of cake either.

Add to that the fact that gf has been riding low on a wave of depression for months now, and it just makes things worse, too. It’s never fun to hear the woman you love talking about wanting to go to sleep and just never wake up because there’s no point to waking up again. And the mom, of course, is not helping the situation, picking at her, being bitchy and whiny, and generally getting on gf’s last nerve over the past few days.

And, of course, there’s really nothing I can do, except grin and bear it, because when everyone around you is breaking down, someone’s gotta be the strong one and try to keep shit together.

I try not to bring up stuff like this on the blog too much, but this was one of those times where I felt the need to let things out or choke. I do work my arse off to try and change our financial situation, and hopefully my boss will come through with the raise and company car he’s been promising me for months now. Money may not cure everything, but it would go a helluva long way towards getting things on the right track again.

Wish me luck, and wish the people around me patience.

You might have noticed a couple of new additions to the BlogRoll over on the left there, and even a new mini-banner down there too. Just wanted to bring your attention to them:

First up, for you fellow podcast listeners, I want to recommend a podcast I just discovered: Skepticality. From their ‘about’ page:

Truth in Podcasting

People will believe anything. Why is that?

Here at Skepticality, we’re calling out the crap, debunking the bunks and taking a serious look at the plethora of flim flam that is clogging our history books and drowning the mainstream media in a tidal wave of hornswoggle.

Anything but orthodox, occasionally silly but always topical, Derek Colanduno is your podcasting guide to the truth. Cohort and co host Swoopy is the resident misanthrope, questioning Derek to the limits of his patience, and sometimes his sanity.

Derek says, “think of us as Coast-To-Coast AM, from the other side of the tracks!” Swoopy, she’s not so sure about those Art Bell types.

So come all you critical thinkers, skeptic loving folk, and even those of you that insist that you’ve seen your dead relatives today. Join us, listen, and jump in our discussion forum and let us know we are wrong!

I’ve been listening to their backlog of shows for the past day or two, and I’m lovin’ it. The skeptical, rational, humanist, non-religious point of view, presented in an entertaining and engaging format by smart people. RAWK.

And, from their Fun Links page, I discovered this group: The Brights. From their website:

What is a bright?

* A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview
* A Bright’s worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements
* The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview

Yup, sounds right up my alley too. Mind you, ‘naturalistic’, here, means:
naturalistic: conceiving of reality as natural (not supernatural)
and not, in fact, ‘hugs trees and eats granola’. Just thought I’d clear that up.

So, yeah, I’m a Bright. I like it.

I’ll keep this BedBlog short and sweet, since I’m about ready to pass out. Just a couple of quick updates, one for the story, and one for a new gadget.

The story is still coming along. I’ve narrowed down a few more things, but I think I’m gonna stop giving away details on the blog, since I’m working on plot and character issues now. What I did was I created a new database on PhatNotes, and assigned different categories to different areas of the story, such as plots, characters, and technologies, and I’ve been using the folding keyboard to input notes in there on each of those subjects as they come along. It works great, and I’m finding PhatNotes to be pretty damn cool for this sort of thing. I thought about using an outliner program for this instead, but I think that’s more structure than I’d know what to do with. For now, a collection of notes categorized by theme or area will more than do.

Hopefully, I’ll be posting the first couple of real paragraphs early next week. Wish me luck.

In other, gadgetty news, I got paid a day or two ago, so it was time to look around for a cheap gadget to buy. Now, as you probably have been able to figure out by now, I’m an avid listener of podcasts; I’m subscribed to approx. 33 of them. One of my favorite places to listen to them is in my car, while I’m driving to and from work. It’s a medium sized commute, about an hour each way in traffic. I’d love to hear the shows on my car’s stereo, but I have no way of interfacing Glitch with the car stereo, and while the stereo can play MP3 CD’s, I’m certain that burning a new CD full of podcasts every morning would get old quick, not to mention expensive and wasteful. So, for now, I’ve simply been driving with my headphones on. I may be wrong, but I think that’s illegal. Luckily, I haven’t been pulled over yet, but I’m sure it’s a matter of time.

So, I’ve been looking for ways to get my podcasts on my car stereo, if only to stay clear of the law. After some investigation, turns out that pretty much the only way to do it would be using an FM Blaster: a device that hooks into the earphone jack on Glitch, and transmits the sound out as FM radio signals on a specific frequency. Then, all I have to do is tune my car stereo to that station, and I can hear the podcasts on my iPaq just fine.

I’d seen one in K-mart for around $23 a couple of days ago, but I went online to see if by any chance I could get it cheaper. Turns out that they’re usually quite a bit more expensive. Also turns out that the model that K-mart was carrying was pretty good overall. ThinkGeek is selling it, although under a different brand name, for $25 before shipping. It’s the exact same one, same case, same connector, just a different brand sticker. Go see for yourself, man.

Anyway, bought it today, and it works pretty damn well. There’s a bit of hissing that happens when someone hits a long ’ssss’ sound or when the high hats kick in on some songs, but overall. The sound quality’s not too shabby at all, and it allows me to listen to my podcasts more comfortably on my car’s fairly nice stereo system, rather than depending on the headphones for that. Plus, since it works with any radio, anytime I want to share my podcast goodness with the world, I just ask them to tune their radios to my personal station, and voila.

Only disadvantage is that now getting in and out of the car is a rather slow process, since I have to shut down and unplug the FM transmitter, remove the radio’s detachable cover, put everything in its bags, and the fact that it takes me minutes to shut down and put everything away, or plug everything in, when I get into the car. Small price to pay for the geek cred alone.

Hmm.. not as quick or short as I thought…

Night night, folks!

You know what would make a really cool story? A murder mystery about a serial killer who’s M.O. is that he only kills memebers of the Jackson family, starting with Tito, and working his way upwards.

I have nothing against the Jacksons, mind you, I just think it would make a great story.

Anyway, back on the BedBlog tonight, still got my story on my mind. I’ve pretty much decided on the techno-thriller, so now comes the hard part: actually writing the damn thing. I still don’t have my characters or their names lined up, and the plot is little more than a fuzzy outline in my mind, but I’m not discouraged. You see, all day long, despite the fact that I’ve no idea who my characters are or what theyy’ll be doing, exactly, random scenes keep popping into my head. Snippets of conversation, lines that I just know one of my characters will say to another, and sometimes entire short scenes have been springing, unbidden, into the forefront of my thoughts. This, I think, is a good sign: mys subconscious is putting shit together, pulling at strands so a general shape can form. I’m feeling good about this.

In other news, I started recording a podcast this afternoon in the car on my way home from work, but for some weird reason, after I paused it around half way through, it stopped recording. It still created a full 45 minute long MP3 file, but the last 20 minutes, after the pause, are just silence. First time that’s ever happened to me.

Ah well, I’ll listen to what I did record tomorrow morning, and if it’s usable, I’ll just re-record the second half and stitch it together with Audacity later. The second half was just me talking about the story and repeating the same things I’d posted up here, so perhaps it’s for the best that it got hosed; gives me a chance to record something more interesting instead.
Gnight, all.

So, I’ve been looking around, continuing to try and gather ideas for what to write about, now that I’ve decided to undertake this project. The ideas I mentioned in my last BedBlog entry , while somewhat amusing, don’t really capture my imagination. The characters are there, but I just don’t know them well enough to really write about them. I don’t know the world of a gritty detective, or even the world of a steampunk gentleman thief, well enough to crank out a novel. And I’ve hardly the time or inclination to research either of those, or anything else for that matter. So what does that leave me with?

Write what you know…

Words of wisdom, those. What do I know, then? I know the Web. I know online worlds, from IRC chat rooms to MUDs and MU*’s to Everquest and WoW, to near-Metaverse experiments such as There and Second Life. I know computers, computer security, and some of the intrigue that goes on behind the scenes in the software and electronics worlds. I know the kinds of things hackers can do, and perhaps more importantly, the kinds of things hackers can’t do. This kind of stuff, I can write.

So I’m thinking something along the lines of a modern day, or maybe near-futre novel, taking place mostly on the Net, but with fairly serious real-world repercussions. No magic masquerading as science, no ‘a virus has infected her brain!’ type of stuff. But still a lot of action, even if much of it will take place deep in the digital dungeons of an MMORPG, or in the hidden rooms of a little-known MUD.

Still got some work to do, such as figureing out my general plotline, characters, etc., as well as making sure that the story is balanced: enough action, surprises, and intrigue to keep a non-techie entertained, but with technology beleivable enough that a geek like myself won’t be put off by unrealistic hacker tricks.

I might have to re-read some of my Neal Stephenson, and my William Gibson. Ouch.

Well, it’s another edition of the newly revived BedBlog. I gotta tell you, it’s really nice to just have the keyboard here, ready to plug in and type at any moment. Beats the hell out of trying to use the on-screen keyboards for any sort of decent writing.

Anyway, onto the subject at hand. One or two posts ago, I suggested suing the keyboard and my time in bed each night to write a serial story on the iPaq, and then post it up on the blog, at least once a week. I’d release the story under a Creative Commons license, and you could all read it here on the blog as I write it and post it up. Heck, I might even ’simulcast’ it as a podiobook of sorts, if I were to feel inspired.

Gotten some good feedback on the idea overall, so I’m gonna go ahead and try it. I actually planned to start in on the writing tonight, but I found that I didn’t even know where to start, I’ve got a couple of ideas in my head, but that’s all they are: just ideas, not full fledged stories. I don’t know the characters on any of them very well, and I don’t know how they’re gonna turn out. That’s okay, up to a certain point: we can discover where the story will go together. But on the other hand, not even knowing my character’s names is not good. So now I’m trying out all the ideas in my head, giving them a little time to simmer and mix and swill around and see which one calls out to me more, which one wants to be written.

One idea is a steampunk adventure onvel, involving a gentleman thief/inventor and his meddling in the plans of a powerful group of scientists that are bent on world domination by means of electricty. Another idea involves an old, grizzled detective who has to deal with discovering that he’s not human, that he has a 16 year old daughter he never knew about, and that if he doesn’t unravel a certain murder, his daughter will be sacrificed in a ritual intended to restore his non-human memories to him and usher in a new era of worldwide darkness. Yet another idea involves a group of happy little hamsters who discover religion, and then proceed to slaughter everyone they meet, in accordance with the teachings of the Cult of Death.

…

… I may not use that last one.

In any case, I need to pick one of these ideas, or maybe come up with yet another one, before I can really start. ANd when that’s done, I need to at least flesh out the characters a bit, pick some names, and try and see as far ahead of the story as I can. Wish me luck.

And of course, any sugestions will be greatly appreciated.

.. yeah, so, the PC version of GTA: San Andreas? Yeah, it’s got a sex mini-game. (NSFW pics inside!!!)

Now that I’ve got my spiffy lil’ hp iPaq Folding Keyboard, I’ve been thinking of ways to put it to good use. The BedBlogs are one, of course, and I’ll be getting some use out of it at work, but what else? And then it struck me: writing.

…

… yeah, yeah, I know. But hear me out. I’ve been wanting to write something, anything, past a few chapters, for a good long while. But I’m easily distracted. I try to write on my computer, and before I’m done with the first paragraph, I’m allready on Google, catching up on blog posts, or itching to fire up WoW. Writing on a typewriter might eliminate some of the distraction factor, but you couldn’t pay me enough to have to retype everything from the page onto my computer when editing time comes around.

Enter Glitch and the new keyboard. At night, once I hit the bed, it’s simplicity itself to set up my little lap table, unfold the keyboard, plug Glitch in, and start tapping away. No internet access from my bed means no distractions, and as I’ve stated before, once I hit the bed, I’m not going anywhere else till morning. I could at the very least pop out a couple of paragraphs, maybe even a couple f pages, each night. Here’s the twist, though: After I’ve typed them in, I’d like to post them up here. Most people advise against posting up unfinished work, but, frankly, without some sort of sharp stick poking me to keep writing, I quickly get distracted with some other shiny thing. So, I figure that posting the story here, bit by bit, chapter by chapter, and on a regular schedule, say, once chapter a week or so, might encourage me to continue, especially if I’ve got several people patiently awaiting the next installment. Setting up a one per X days minimum also gives me a deadline that I have to live up to, and that should help too.

So, what do you all think? Should I go ahead and try the experiment with a serial-style novel posted up here as it’s written? Will you bother to read and comment? I’ve got some ideas on how to set things up, maybe with a short little ‘out-of-novel’ intro to each posted chapter as well. I’ve been inspired by the serial audio books I’ve been listening to, like Earthcore and The Pocket and The Pendant, as well as serial blog-posted novels such as the excellent Monster Island/Monster Nation/Monster Planet zombie apocalypse novels, and I think I jus tmight be able to pull something like that off. 3 years ago I never would have thought that I could keep a random blog like this going this long, but I’m still here. Maybe I can leverage that into writing a full on novel for once.

Let me know what you think, folks. Unless I get a lot of negative reactions to the idea, I’m pretty much going ahead with this, and hoping for the best.