SAYONARA NaNoWriMo

Alex: Well, the only writing I've been able to do, aside from work-related stuff, is for a speech. My novel-to-be is dead with a single entry, and I'd delete if it weren't for the possibility that I might actually come up with a plot for the situation.

Xandro: Alex, Writing does take a lot of discipline.

Alex: *whipcrack*

Xandro: No Alex, self-discipline. *beat* What I mean is, it takes willpower and persisitence to finish a novel in a month. Even short stories require that.

Alex: Well, there's a script that I've been meaning to finish for Ner. For four 24-page comics.

Xandro: Then enter there. (Sorry, dear reader. That's an in-joke between me and Alex)

WRITING WOES

My efforts to embark on the NaNoWriMo quest of a novel in a month are hitting choppy waters. It's difficult to churn out thousands of words of plot, character and theme when you've not really completed that many stories in years. Often my ideas wrestle me down paths of too much research and I have to revise my plans.

Still, as a challenge, it is an engaging one. Being forced to focus on the potential plot and characters of a story worthy of a novel is something I've never considered before.

The FAQ for the effort notes that much of what is written will likely be crap, but that the goal is to push the writer to WRITE regularly and towards a specific goal. Heaven only knows how successfuly I will be. Writing crap novels takes time too, apparently.

Some Recognition

HERO SYSTEM SIDEKICK is the set of Easy Learning Rules for the Hero System.

Here's a quote from the SIDEKICK book published by DOJ, Inc. (dba Hero Games):

A WORD OR TWO OF APPRECIATION...

Playtesters: We were especially fortunate to have the time and the resources to playtest Sidekick broadly and extensively. In addition to our regular group of Digital Hero testreaders, over the course of more than a month, dozens of playtesters - men and women, adults and children,
experienced gamers and newcomers, and gamers from many countries around the world
- got together to put Sidekick through its paces and report back to Steve regarding their impressions of the bookand suggestions for improving it. They are: Tobie Abad, ... , JayAnyong, Kate Aton, ... , Lenard Ignacio, ... , Adrian Martinez, ... ,Alexander Osias, ... , Vincent Michael Simbulan ...

A Pause in the Rat Race

As I type this, I'm actually at Kate's parents' place, while Kate (my beloved mahaw) furiously studies for her upcoming certification exams on her laptop.

It's nice to have days like this where things stop moving quite so quickly (and by this I mean, the clients that I have to handle are also on vacation), and be able to pause and recharge.

A major project that I've been overseeing has taken a strange turn. Now, I will have to engage the services of my company to handle a lot of documentation because we will no longer be performing several very hectic training schedules this coming November and December.

This means I'll be able to focus on ensuring that the manuals we've provided are complete and not totally incomprehensible to the people who'll be using it to install and configure and use our application.

In the past few weeks I've been to Cebu, Davao (which has a very nice new airport - kinda like a smaller Centennial Airport), and Zamboanga. I'm no stranger to travel, but it was one of those few times where I go alone to these places... and you discover that time alone is often a matter of killing time (unless you've got a presentation to prepare or work to coordianate back at the main office).

It's nice to be back in the Metro...

Out And About
Well... I leave the Metro again for a client-oriented trip. It's got something to do with this long-running project I'm involved with. It's sad, but it will suck up my entire day just for a 1 hour presentation. Normally a shorter presentation based on the last time I did this.

Feh. Best to bring my charger.

Research and Puzzles

IMPERATOR. \Im`pe*ra"}.] (Rom. Antiq.)
A commander; a leader; an emperor; -- originally an appellation of honor by which Roman soldiers saluted their general after an important victory. Subsequently the title was conferred as a recognition of great military achievements by the senate, whence it carried wiht it some special privileges. After the downfall of the Republic it was assumed by Augustus and his successors, and came to have the meaning now attached to the word emperor.

Why did this word jump out at me when visiting the site of the American Association - Electronic Voice Phenomena? I'd gone to the site after visiting the link providing by Garapata's blog on the movie thriller White Noise. And I saw an article regarding safety. Here's an excerpt:

Attitude is everything. Attitude is an expression of our worldview, and it
is our worldview that we use as a mold to build our personal reality.
We have
had a number of people ask us about the dangers in seeking to communicate with
our friends on the other side. Some have expressed great concern that they might
leave themselves open for attack from angry entities or that they might
inadvertently invite a disruptive force into their home. The words, “demon” and
“low levels” have come up more than once. We think a better term might simply be
“less spiritually evolved entities,” as this is what they are. However, “low
level” seems to be the term that is most used and understood...
... It has been made clear, via just about all of the forms of spirit
communication, that Spirit entities are always with us. They may be in our home
at any time, whether we sense them or not. A group we have communicated with,
the Imperator Group, has told us that they do not watch us, and that they only
come to us when we call on them or when we need help. We are certain that this
group is not earthbound. It may be that earthbound entities do watch us. With
that said, we believe that EVP researchers can request privacy and can tell
earthbound entities to go away if they are being bothersome. An entity certainly
does not have to be in your home to initiate EVP.

That word jumped out at me. Perhaps because it's Latin? I figured that the site could be a pseudo-site used to market the movie and it sounded like a term that the movie might use. Latin's always great for making scary movies.

A quick search online brought me some results...

Lisa says she and Tom were stunned. "It has been over two years since we had
recieved a medium stick artifact from the Imperator Group," said Lisa. The
Imperator Group is a Spirit World group that specializes in independent writing,
and frequently include small "Medium" sticks in their correspondence.

(from this link to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches newsletter archive)

Here's another...

In 1897 the Imperator group took charge of the séance proceedings. Phinuit
disappeared and Pelham became relegated to the role of a minor communicator.
While Phinuit had much difficulty in keeping back other would-be communicators,
the advent of the Imperator group of controls made the communications freer from
interruptions and from the admixture of apparently foreign elements. They
excluded "inferior" intelligences, whom they speak of as "earth-bound" spirits,
from the use of the light. Under the new regime the communications assumed a
dignity and loftiness of expression, as well as a quasi-religious character,
which they had heretofore entirely lacked. Moreover, the passing in and out of
the trance state which in the earlier stages had been attended with a certain
amount of difficulty and discomfort, now, under the new conditions, became quiet
and peaceful. Prof. William James called special attention to the point that the
Imperator group of controls not only exhibited characteristic personalities, but
they could divine the most secret thoughts of the sitters.

(from the Biography of Leonora Piper)

What we now call the "Imperator group," representing
alleged spirits, assuming Latin names for reasons that have not been explained
and for which we need not care until later discussion, may best be described,
for the sake of clearness in understanding, as a group of personalities
purporting to take charge of the "communications" from the "other side"
precisely in the same manner in which Mrs. Piper has been scientifically managed
on this side. From what has been said the reader can perceive that, on any
theory whatever of the facts, they appear to be intermediaries for the
"communication" of supernormal facts and that their work takes the form of
supervision of the whole process. What will be the outcome is not yet known. But
they still control the experiments and represent, with the frequent assistance
of George Pelham, a most interesting and complicated psychological problem for
science. What the Imperator group does cannot be treated as evidence of spirits
until they prove their identity, but what is mediated through their action in
proof of the identity of others must receive serious consideration of some kind
and may indicate the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, while its analysis
and explanation may suggest a theory beyond any form of secondary personality
that we know.

(from History of the Piper Case)

Fascinating indeed...

Mighty Men and Monster Maker

I always had leanings towards art. I never really pursued it with the same passion that my other classmates did, though. I was always a dabbler, deferring to classmates who apparently had greater talent in the field.

Then I found a toy: the Mighty Men and Monster Maker! It allowed you to build a wide variety of heroes and villains, and all you needed was a the toy itself... a crayon, and a sheet of paper. You had plates that you could shift around (for the head, torso, and legs) and when satisified you put the paper on top of the templates and rubbed the crayon.

Viola! Instant character.

Alas, they only had a certain number of poses and could never give me the sense of motion I wanted... just like in the comic books... so after a while I put it away. Somewhere.

Still... all is not lost... check out www.heromachine.com online! It's almost like an online version (upgraded and improved and... well... new!)

Bourne Again

I enjoyed the sequel to the movie version of The Bourne Identity. On reflection, the plot of Bourne Supremacy isn't really that complex, but the way that the story was shot and edited kept the pacing fast and the tension taut. Action sequences are excellent, but not as over-the-top as some other spy thrillers might have gone.

It's amusing to see how far ahead of almost everyone else Jason Bourne is... but there is a minor thing that set alarm bells ringing in my head. Cellphones. In a country awash with cellphone promos and cellphone theft... we're somewhat familiar with dead spots and security issues regarding cellphones.

We know that the U.S. embassy has very strict policies about not using cellphones inside their facilities. We've also heard rumors that the local CIA office (oh, it's reputedly somewhere in the vicinity of the embassy) has anti-cellphone devices that block / interfere with cell signals. Security issues. Yet Bourne was able to contact one of these CIA heads (one in her own office in NY) through the cellphone. And she NEVER uses the Caller ID function, dammit!

Minor quibble... but I kinda expected that they'd be set up for tracking the cellphone already the next time he called. Maybe they couldn't do it in the foreign countries where you need an "in" with the cellphone providers and the governments... but in the U.S. of A... in the interests of national security?