Platform 327

Today I got a copy of The Fiction Writer’s Workshop and started on the exercises, just to knock some rust off the ol’ gears.

At the moment, I’m not convinced that there even are gears under the rust. The exercises are things that I would have rolled my eyes over being forced to do in college, whipped them off in 5 minutes, then headed to the student lounge to play Terminator 2 Pinball. Now it’s a struggle just to come up with an opening sentence for a one-paragraph exercise. Suck.

Can determination and practice reverse the effects of a brain rotted by decades of television and booze? Stay tuned, true believers.

… that there was a gun club in Union Station? I sure as hell didn’t. Nor did I know there was a CNRA.

Weird, weird, weird.

Do you have endless construction happening at your house? Road crews got you down? Condo builders across the street jackhammering into your brain?

May I suggest picking up a copy of Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm (yes, Cyn, I know you hate that word CD. It’s amazing how the tribal percussion of this album weaves its way into the downtown cacophony to create a sublime aural experience.

Either that, or I’ve finally lost it.

I’m writing this about 3 minutes after getting back from seeing A Scanner Darkly. My, but it’s so convenient having a movie theatre in the lobby of your apartment building.

Actually this isn’t going to be much of a review. The film is such a brain fuck that I’m afraid of giving too much away. Also, I think I need to see it 2 or 3 more times before it all completely sinks in.

I will say that if you’ve been avoiding this film because it looks “animated,” you’re missing out. The rotoscoping technique they use throughout the film not only gives it a unique look, but allows reality to be tweaked out just a little bit — effective when the subject matter of the film is drug addiction.

Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say for now. Like I said, this movie is going to take a while to sink in. I may have go get this one on DVD.

On trying to use my Air Miles for any semi-major purchases, that is. I’ve been saving for years to get a digital camera. I came within 400 points of getting it, so I decided to see how much it would cost me to top up my points with cash to get it.

Turns out it would have cost more to do that than just to go to the damn store to buy a digital camera.

I now have a couple hundred bucks in free groceries coming my way. I was thinking of getting CDs, and then realized that I’ve got a whole pile of crappy DVDs from work that I can trade in at Sonic Boom for CDs. That’s more fun.

So I feel like I want to get into writing again. I haven’t done much of anything for a while. Hell, I’ve hardly even made LJ entries, let alone have anything published.

I got to thinking about it when I saw an ad looking for writers for a music magazine. I briefly thought that I could do that again, but it felt like I’d just be taking a big step back. I also don’t want take the route I was on before: interviewing idiots and writing about crap that I don’t give a shit about. No, I don’t care about Mike Bullard’s dental veneers. No, I don’t care about a new non-invasive liposuction technique. Oh, and being a man, there’s very little prospect of me having an abortion so I don’t really have much of an opinion on the issue. Fuck you and all your crappy magazines.

I’m looking at giving fiction a more serious go. I had fun writing 1.75 NaNoWriMo projects. Those could use rewrites, for sure. Maybe it’s time to dig out my old college textbooks and flex the fictional muscles again.

I need to do something. Life’s feelin’ kinda flat these days. Bored, bored, bored.

On another note, I got a bunch of CDs I ordered from CD Baby in. Looking forward to cranking my copy of the Def Leppard tribute album. It’s all good songs, none of that crap from when the band started to sound like Bryan Adams.

Watch this video and tell me the oil companies are playing fair. It also proves that, unlike what we’ve been told recently, you don’t “need” nuclear power to create hydrogen.

On Mythbusters this week, they also proved an engine could run with hydrogen hosed directly into the carburetor. Well, it worked perfeclty the first time. They, of course, didn’t secure the hose properly when they were testing it and got a little bit of flame in the wrong place. Still, someone who knew what they were doing could seemingly easily convert a car to hydrogen. Oh, they also got a diesel engine running on used cooking oil. There was no way I thought that was going to work.

Still, I think I’ll wait for my Twike.

I may have mentioned, to some of you anyway, that I’m going to have to give up drinking unless I want my gout attacks to become more frequent and severe. What I don’t think I mentioned is that caffeine is also off the menu.

Believe it or not, I can do without the booze. I quit completely for over a year not too long ago and was actually feeling better than I had in a long time. The caffeine thing is kicking my ass. Instead of a coffee or two to get myself over the mid-day brick wall, I smack face-first into the wall and slide right down it. Bleh.

This is going to take some getting used to. Either that, or I’m going to have to learn how to take naps at work without anyone noticing.

Last few days at work have been crap. Hurts to sit for long periods of time. Hurts to walk around in order to alleviate pain of sitting.

And during this, my first week back on night shifts, there’s a letter taped to my door. It’s from the property management. Beginning next week, there’s going to be construction work happening in the underground garage generating “varying degrees of noise” from 6 am to 7 pm until the end of October.

Fucking great.

Well, I’ve been waiting for things to go to shit for a while. Things are pretty shit. Guess all that’s left now is to see what I’m left with after the dust settles.