A lot of the time, a blog suffers from neglect because some small thing has distracted the writer.  In my case this time it is no small thing.  My wife has been home from the military for a few weeks.  My priorities lie with her and the family that she got the chance to rediscover.

The skies may be gray and gloomy, but I still have the memories of her visit, as do my kids.

There will be much more soon

Peace.  I’m out

Even the most fanatic workaholic needs a few good reasons to waste time now and then and I am definitely no exception. The latest in my absolutely nonproductive pursuits is a free online game of conquest and world building sort of like a cross between Civilization® and Sim City® meets Age of Empires®.  It’s a combination that could have fallen flat, but in this case it worked, and I’m hooked.

Evony has all the hallmarks of greatness.  If you’re a strategy game freak like myself, you’ll have a hard time walking away from it once you get started.  There are a lot of things to think about as you go along, with the added worry that you’ll get wiped right off the face of the map if you don’t get it done fast enough.

Game play is pretty basic.  Sign up for a free Evony account, pick a server and start following along with the quests to get your city up and running. (If you’re gunning for me, go for server 67, you’ll find me there as Lord Galen.  My wife is on the same server though, so if you’re feeling like getting frisky I have the most dedicated backup there is!) After a few minutes you should be rolling along pretty well on your way to getting a few awards and free gifts.

Like most massive multi-player games, the world of Evony is packed with players who are far more experienced than you will be when you’re starting out. If you’re a first time player, you’re in luck.  You have a one week period of safety in which to get your city in shape before the hordes of the world at large are allowed to pummel you into the ground. Be prepared to spend a lot of time with Evony on the first day.  You’ll need to get a population going and then get them to work.  Just watch the task window closely and follow along for the first day or two while you get your resources built up.  You’ll need them, trust me.  Don’t worry about trying things on your own at this point unless you’ve played Evony before, jut follow the quests related to resources, wealth and the ability to get more of each.

For the first few days your attention should be on getting your resources as high as possible and your population levels as high as you can manage, but at about day four it’s time to start worrying about your military.  Don’t forget that on day seven (or when you’ve upgraded your town hall to level 5), you’re at the mercy of other players.  You’d better make sure you’ve go a defensive force that will make them think twice about coming after you before they go after someone else or you may just find yourself in a very bad situation quickly.

I would suggest that you save any speed-ups that you get for later in this process when upgrades can take 5 hours or longer to complete. (This is experience talking, people.  I’m currently waiting for an upgrade that won’t be done until late this afternoon and I used up everything I had earlier in the game.) The plus to this is that the time-wasting factor of the game becomes less excessive as the days go on.  Things take longer to upgrade so you can get a few things rolling and then get back to more pressing tasks while you wait for projects to be completed.

So you build up, you prepare, you stockpile and your army is ready.  What happens when your 7 days of safety are gone?  Do you get owned or do you stand tall as the master of your domain?  Only you can answer that question.  In the end your strategies and alliances will determine whether you stand or fall.  That’s the beauty of a game like this.

Go sign up for an Evony account and see if you’ve got what it takes to be a king in the realms of Evony.  While you’re at it, send me a “hello”.  I’d love to see you there.

If you're a serious muxic lover like I am, I think you'll like what I have to tell you in this installment.  I'd like to take just a moment to tell you about HD Radio.  HD Radio is pure digital quality music, but not from some location ignorant satellite system.  This is radio the way it should be; local and relevant to your area.  It's broadcast by the same stations you know and love, but with benefits that no radio station has been able to offer in the past.

You can probably tell from that last statement that I'm not a huge fan of satellite radio, and I'm not.  Not only are the selections they play generally generic, but there's no local news, road condition information or alerts/  you don't even get some cool local DJ to love or hate. The only plus to satellite radio until now has been the quality vs. traditional broadcast radio.  This is no longer the case; HD radio stations broadcast in digital music quality just like satellite radio, but on a much more personal level.

Local radio stations are now broadcasting in high-quality digital audio, this kills the issue of quality, but there are other perks as well.  If you own the right HD Radio tuner, like the JVC KD-HDR20, you can also get a list of songs to download to your iPod with the click of a button from anywhere at any time.  No gimmics, no loging on to a website.  No having to remember the name of the song or band you were listening to.

This is called Song Tagging or iTunes Tagging . When you hear a song you like on the radio (assuming it's got an iPod port), just press the "tag" button to automatically add that song to a playlist called "tagged".  When you get back to your computer you can easily jump over to the iTunes store and grab a copy of the new songs you like and buy them when you're ready. Just tag it and get it later.  Simple!

I know a lot of my readers are serious about their iPods and iPhones, so I thought I'd share.  Hopefully most of you will find this as interesting as I do.

At least I hope so...

Well ladies and gents, this is it. The last day for NaNoWriMo 2007. Perhaps next year I’ll jump in and participate, but I’m honestly glad that I didn’t this year. A weeks worth of being sick would have left me with 50,000 words like “ick”,”ewww”, “sniff” and “ugh!”. When you’re feeling awful, it’s hard to keep a character in good spirits, and nobody wants to read 8,000 words of a story where the main character is down with nasty head cold!

So to those of you who have completed the challenge this year, I applaud you! You’ve done more than I ever have. but I’ll get there one day.

To those who are within 10,00 words as of this writing, I salute you! Damn the torpedoes, Full steam ahead! you can still do this!

Good luck and God Bless!

There are those actors in the history of film that make you feel the character they portray. That character may be the hero, the villain or any number of supporting characters, but the actor brings the vision of the writer, director and producer into its own. It becomes an extension of the actor, and the actor becomes the character.

I can name a few actors who have managed this task. James Stewart as George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, a movie that would have been a footnote were it not for his portrayal. Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, and believe it or not, Johnny Depp in more than one role.

Mr. Depp enthralled me in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. to be honest, it was the first time i ever took his acting seriously. the fact that the story was one of the best re-interpretations of the Beauty and the Beast tale written in modern times was just a plus. It would have died at the box office without Johnny Depp as Edward.

Of all the films he’s made, the two I find the most fascinating are Sleepy Hollow and The Ninth Gate, both for the great stories that back the actor, and for the passion that he brought to each part. The fact that Dean Corso, a rare book dealer, was as street-savvy in his circles as Sam Spade mad me wonder a bit, but the deadpan manner with which he was portrayed actually made me happy to see him win at the end.

As for Ichabod… Let’s just say the addition of him as a detective was brilliant, but the defining moment for me was at the beginning of the film, where he retched and fainted in the face of death. A timid man indeed, but one who went on to become a hero. This roll is to date my favorite from Mr. Depp.

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have joined forces once again to bring us Sweeny Todd, a dark tale of revenge and murder. I urge you to visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site and tell me you aren’t amazed by the visuals. Mr. Burton is a master of these, and his vision of London reminds me a lot of his vision of Gotham, sinister, morose and dark. A place where hope no longer exists.

If you’re the type that enjoys the MySpace scene, head on over and visit Sweeny Todd on MySpace. Who knows what you’ll get out of it?

Well guys and girls, it’s day 26 of National Novel Writing Month.  by my calculations you should have written 43,334 words by this point.  Have you gotten to that point?

If so, my sincere congratulations!

If not, don’t despair, my friend.  You’re not alone by any means. I’ve never finished a NaNo either.

Having said that, I’m pretty sure that I have, in fact, written far more than 43,334 words in the past month, but I don’t count blogging as NaNo fodder, though I know there are those who do.  Maybe next year I’ll count blogging for one blog only as NaNo qualified.  That way at least what I’m writing will be linear in nature.

Of course if you’re reading this , that means you’re on a break from your NaNo project, right?

RIGHT?

No!  you’re slacking!

GET BACK TO IT! (Just envision the whip cracking mid-air)

Now go, you’ve got work to do. 

1. Make ‘em say no.
2. Don’t ask the question if you can’t live with the answer.
3. Never have a philosophy that supports a lack of courage.
4. You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let anyone else make yours.
5. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
6. Whatever you are willing to put up with is exactly what you will have.
7. Check small things.
8. Rarely resist the opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
9. Get mad, then get over it.
10. Never argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.
11. Moderation is the key.
12. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
13. Have a vision, be demanding.

It seems that the major chain stores aren’t the only ones who have begun a series of serious marketing campaigns designed to get the unsuspecting consumers out there to purchase their products this holiday season. the spammers have jumped on the seasonal marketing bandwagon as well and they, if anything, are more aggressive about it than the superstore trying to sell me that 50-inch plasma TV.

I was away from my keyboard yesterday, in Oklahoma with family for funeral services. Upon my return I was greeted with over 40 emails, most of them letting me know that if I would just try their product, my manhood and stature with the ladies would be increased by unimaginable amounts. Still others promised that I could download the most sought after windows software on the market today at a mere 10% of what the original companies sell the product for. Yet another batch of helpful, yet unsolicited advertises wanted to inform me that I would never truly be at my fullest fashion potential until I purchased one of their “genuine replica” watches… (rodex, anyone?)

I suppose I should be angry that these people have managed to concoct a message that will :

1. make it through all 3 layers of junk filtering I employ on my server, my home system and in custom junk files.
2. Waste my time having to mark each new message as spam, so that said custom list can identify them on the next round
3. Insult my intelligence with poorly written pigeon English and references that outside of their native tongue are quite offensive to most Americans.

But to be honest, I usually just chuckle. I applaud the fact that these people are persistent enough to fool some of the most widely used spam catcher software in the world. It shows perseverance, if not intelligence on their part. And honestly, I go through my mails as they come in for the most part, so the amount of time “wasted” is generally negligible, at least in the grand scheme of things. The poor English almost always makes me smile, for if these fools knew what they were really saying to me, they would know I would never think of looking at their stuff.. Ever.

so in conclusion, I would like to send a message to all of those individuals who bombard me with this chaff on a daily basis.

1. My “manliness” is not in question. Both my wife and myself are satisfied with each other and the way we’re put together. I don’t need your help. Thank you, but no. If you feel such a strong need to focus on this problem, perhaps you should take your phallus enlarging pill, and then your confidence level would improve enough that you could move on to selling TV’s
2. No matter how inexpensively you offer me software, I will never buy it from you. had you done any market research at all, you would realize that most Linux users have little or no need for Windows® Software. As a matter of fact, I only use 3 pieces of the stuff, and that is on a second partition on this machine that I really don’t like having to use, because I simply detest the operating system.(If anyone is listening, can e get better WACOM support in linux, a USB driver for Guitar Port and a reverse-engineered DAZ 3D from the Solaris sources???) If so, I can dump windows forever and never look back.
3. Again, back to market research folks… I have not worn a watch for over 10 years, and I have no plans to start with one that’s going to turn my arm green.

OK, I’m off the soapbox now… Just had to vent bit.

Fellow writers, it’s that time of year again. Time to commit to be committed and sign up for NaNoWriMo 2007. for those who don’t know what I’m talking about. November is National novel Writing Month, or NanNoWriMo. a wildly popular yearly event that urges writers to attempt the incredible, writing 50,000 words in 30 days.

The theory behind NaNo is simple… Just write it. don’t stop, analyze, or worry where the story takes you. Just dive in and crank out 1,667 words per day for 30 days. The goal is to increase the speed at which you write, and perhaps to spawn one or more story ideas along the way.

Sound impossible? It did to me, too. Last year I entered and only made about 12,000 before life, the universe and everything else got in the way. By the time the month was over I would have sworn it was a completely impossible task.

I’ve since found facts that prove it isn’t.

You see, as the owner of 5 different blogs, I write every day on one or another, if not all of them. My posts average about 550 words per blog per day, which totals to something like 2,750 words per day. There are days when these numbers are considerably less, of course, but then there are days where they are considerably higher than 500 words. (The cooking blog averages about 1,000 per post, since recipes tend to require a few more words to get things right.) So it seems that it is in fact quite possible to write 50,000 words in one month. I’ve been doing it myself since January 2007, and I see no reason to stop now.

Will I be a part of NaNo this year? Unfortunately, no. This year I’m participating in NaBloPoMo, a 30 day event aimed at blogging once a day, every day for one month. (You may find me and friend me here, if you’d like!) That to me would be quite an accomplishment, especially for a cooking blog, which is the blog I’m participating with.

What’s the challenge there? you say? Let me tell you. While it’s true that everyone has to eat every day, it’s also true that humans are creatures of habit, and we tend to eat what we like, which means there’s nothing new to blog about if I’ve made another batch of tomato basil soup. It’s still gonna be the same soup, unless I get in and get creative, and let me tell ya, sometimes I just want the same thing I had last week, with no changes!

So, if you’re a glutton for punishment and you think you can tell your story from start to finish in 30 days, hop on over to NaNoWriMo.org, sign up, and crank out that great American Novel you’ve had simmering on the back burner of your mind for the past few years. Who knows, you may just surprise yourself, get the story written and become the talk of your family, friends and the New York Times best seller’s list!

What!?! It could happen! I have complete faith in you!

Oh, and for those of you who think I’ve been blowing smoke up certain orifices that you most likely possess, the final word count for this post, including this line, is 576 words.

If I can do it, so can you! Go on.! Join in the madness. If it doesn’t kill you, it only makes you stronger!

I’ve added this into the writing tips category, but it should be considered tips on what never to do!

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year’s winners…..

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

*Note: I got this in email, and assume that this is an actual communication. Aside from most being terribly wrong, (and pretty funny!) I find I may actually use #19 as the beginning of a short story.

Enjoy the day!