Archive for February, 2005

The sickness arrive.. eth

2/1/2005

As sure as anything I am sick as a dog today and feel absolutely terrible. I called in sick to werk and I’m praying this is only a 24-hour bug. Guess all that preparation I did yesterday was for nothing. When my body decides to get sick, it gets sick. I would be in bed right now, but every time I lay down my nose clogs right up.. so I’m going to wait until some cold medicine kicks in before I lay down. Maybe I’ll write a few things here to pass the time.

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MT 3.15 sucks!

2/1/2005

Today turned out to be the most hell-intensified blog experience I’ve ever had with MT v3.15. I wanted something relatively simple, to have sCode and Blacklist running together. Sounds easy, right? Wrong.

I’m not going to go into the details, but I will say that I’m back to using MT v2.661. Works much better, much faster and I’m definitely sticking with it. All this “new” crap that came with 3.15 completely screwed up my blog. I won’t make that mistake again. And yeah, I know I just said recently the installation went through without a hitch. Little did I know…

And wouldn’t you know it - I got the multiple category thing to work on 2.661 by doing a reinstall (which incidentally was the whole reason I upgraded to 3.15 in the first place).

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The big 3-0

2/1/2005

This March, on the 27th to be exact, I will be turning 30. As I’ve been saying since I was 16 years old, I can’t wait to turn 30 (for real), so I’ve had this belief for a long time. Reason: I was never the “cool” guy, so being 30 gives me even a bigger excuse not to be cool. (grin)

Now that time time is drawing near, I started thinking about it. Am I afraid of turning 30? Nope. Not in the slightest. I still have my health, my hair (no grays) and I certainly don’t look like I will be 30. My life is at present in good standing. Granted, I want a lot - but all good things will come in due time, with some sooner, some later.

One thing is for certain, most of the people I know have changed radically since their twenties. A lot of them have back problems, health problems (all of them are on medication), no money, dead-end jobs and a bit of a zombie-like persona most of the time… sort of like the “Where did I go wrong?” kind of attitude thing. It’s just plain weird. I’m very glad I didn’t fall into that.

As far as my life in my thirties is concerned, I’m just getting started. I’m finding that as I get older and wiser, my opportunities are increasing in a lot of respects. Personally, fiscally and so on, they’re all increasing in a positive way. Some people say “If I only knew then what I know now…” I can say I do know now what I must do - and have the knowledge to do things wisely.

Twenty-nine seemed to be my age of reckoning. During this year I have taken many steps to better myself. There are some things I still need to take care of and I’m actively attending to them as best I can. When the 3-0 hits, I’ll be ready for it.

I’ve been ready for it. (grin)

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Sickness over, hopefully

2/2/2005

I stayed home from werk again today because I got walloped with (what is hopefully) the last of my cold. When I woke up, I had a splitting headache and my voice was gone. As a matter of fact I had to have my pop call out sick for me because I couldn’t talk.

Later in the day the voice came back, my forehead didn’t feel as hot, my eyes stopped tearing up every 30 seconds and I genuinely felt better. As I write this there is still a little tickle in my nose, but it’s going away slowly but surely.

Where did I get this cold? From werk I think. There’s this guy who sits across from me who was hacking and wheezing all day Monday. Whatever he had, I got (thanks a LOT!!) Ugh.

I did some screenplay writing today. Got some good ideas together. I think I might actually have something that will turn into a full motion picture script.

Anyway.. I will be back to werk tomorrow. Yay.

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Blog look changing again soon

2/4/2005

Even though I like this design, the rollover graphics on the top aren’t really working for me (it’s really tough to add/remove/modify links at whim).

So.. back to the drawing board again. I will probably have a different design later on tonight.

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Okay!

2/4/2005

Okay.. blog look changed slightly. I decided to stick with the existing template and move things around a bit, more or less because I really didn’t feel like fabricating a whole new template.. again. ;-)

This time this design will stick.. promise. (grin)

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Block of ages

2/5/2005

Sometimes it can be really tough living “in the boondocks” as they say. Right now I am blogging because I need some personal creative therapy, a.k.a. I have writers block at the moment. (grin) So.. I’ll basically describe what’s going on with my creative process in my life at the moment.

Screenplay follies:

Off and on I’ve talked about screenplay writing. I have successfully written a short one, but the long one is taking a while to put together. It was fairly certain in my mind that I could write a super-fabulous screenplay in record time. Boy was I wrong.

I’ve gone through what seems like countless revisions - right at the beginning, which is bad. So, I did a some reading on the ‘net concerning how get one of these darn things rolling. One thing I read in particular which seems to be working for me is called a “treatment”. Normally this is done after you’re done with the screenplay, however, writing one before you put down a single line of dialogue can help out quite a bit - and it has. The treatment is basically a short story summary that describes everything that goes on in general form. You number each scene, and when you have the whole thing done, write it out. I think I am about half-way through the treatment and it is coming along. When it’s done (and I swear I will get it done,) the dialogue will come around a whole lot easier than doing it just off the top of my head.

Music follies:

I have probably written at least a couple hundred songs in my lifetime thus far, with the vast majority being music-only because I am a terrible lyric writer (but oddly enough can write short stories… don’t ask me why) and I don’t sing. Well.. I do sing, badly.

During the years I’ve tried the “band” thing several times. Each time has failed due to one reason or another, and I’ve learned valuable lessons each time a failure has occurred. As they say, there is no success without failure.

One thing is very clear to me. I require an alternative influence to make my music shine at its best. When by myself I am way too over-critical of my own work, leading to frustration and shortly followed by “To hell with it”, so nothing ever gets done.

Believe me, I’ve tried to work with people before. The last time I tried, it was with a bass player. Unfortunately he was too involved with being a newlywed so nothing happened. I can totally understand that, but still, it sucked. He’s a great musician.

I have been debating seriously whether or not to try to work with someone again on a music project. Should I decide to give this the green light, there are going to be a few requirements. a) I will not work with anyone I worked with before, because I had a darn good reason every time I stopped working with someone in the past. b) The person has to be near my age (no kids, no old guys). c) The person must be level-headed and mellow. Exciteable people, while entertaining, are not good concerning serious music projects. d) The person must commit to the project and have some sense of responsibility. e) The person must be willing to go pro - because I’m totally past the hobby thing. I’ve been doing that far too long. f) The person must be intelligent. No stupid people, and I’ve dealt with plenty of those.

I haven’t made a decision on what I’m going to do yet concerning that. I may try to get someone else to work with or I may not. Hopefully I will be able to get someone with the requirements I lay out. I openly admit, I’m an asshole to work with. It’s not because I demand perfection, it’s because I demand courtesy, respect and professionalism. Without that there is nothing.

Pff… okay back to the treatment… here I go…

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Armpit of the State

2/7/2005

Connecticut is divided into eight counties, those being Hartford County, New Haven County, Fairfield County, New London County, Litchfield County, Middlesex County, Tolland County and…

Windham County.

I happen to reside in Windham County. Some people call this the “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut. I call it the Armpit of the State (Northeastern corner). I think I know where the “quiet” in Quiet Corner came from: No one @#*&@ knows about this area at all. It is easily classified as “The part of Connecticut you never hear about”.

As a matter of fact, even our local news stations just about completely ignore this corner of the state. For example, watch any Connecticut television channel and catch the weather report. You’ll hear something like “In Hartford, it’s 60 degrees with a slight chance of rain. Down in New London, it’s 55 and the coast is looking clear. Over in New Haven, it’s 57 and the the roads are looking good…” and you wait to hear anything about the Northeast… and… nothing. Windham County just doesn’t exist.. yet it does. I normally have to watch Rhode Island stations just to get an accurate weather report.

Just thought I’d say that. I’d also like to say I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.. whenever that happens.

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Armpit of the State part 2

2/8/2005

After thinking about what I wrote previously, I should say that Windham County CT is not all that bad, but like any place, it can get on your nerves like anything else.

The biggest perks of this place: Peace and quiet, wide open spaces, clean air, far away from everything.

The biggest knocks against this place: Nothing around here, very backwoods kind of feel, little opportunity for advancement (in the work-world), far away from everything.

You have to take the good with the bad when it comes to this area.. or any area for that matter. As far as this one is concerned, I need to be in a place where there’s more people around. Not necessarily a metro area, but at least somewhere where there’s some kind of activity.

I might actually have the opportunity to be in a place like that real soon.. there is a possibility of something happening.. stay tuned for that. (grin)

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Rain on my parade

2/10/2005

I’m up early today because I went to bed early last night, and I must say that waking up naturally without the alarm clock is very nice each time it happens.

So.. yesterday all the weathermen (because there are no weatherwomen around here) were saying “8 to 10 inches of snow is comin’, go buy bread and milk, pack up your kids in the basement, impending doom is approaching and you’re all gonna die! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

Well, they weren’t really saying that - but you get my meaning.

All this near-foot of snow crap never happened - and I knew it wasn’t going to happen either because I checked ye olde radar on Weather Underground yesterday. Trust me, when you live in New England, you do watch the weather - often. Anyway, the snow we were supposedly going to have is almost going to be 100% rain (thank God), so the weathermen were wrong, again.

Over the years I’ve found that tv weathermen are rarely correct because they sensationalize their reports. Like everyone else, I would rather hear the truth when it comes to weather. I don’t need the glitz, so I get my forecasts from the internet which are usually always correct. Radar don’t lie. Power to the people, dammit. (grin)

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