You are browsing the archive for 2007 December.

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by M. J. Young

Prime Advances

December 18, 2007 in Blogs

Moments ago I was again reading the draft of Do You Trust Me? and I again spotted a needed correction; in making an edit just before printing, I had deleted one too many words in a string, leaving no sense in the sentence. It was simple enough to replace the missing word, which has been done.

Not yet done is taking a son back to his brother; he went with his mother on a middle-of-the-night shopping trip which short-changed her significantly on sleep (I had told her that I would take the boy shopping today, if necessary, but she felt that he wanted her with him, so that’s what was done). This trip is the more complicated, because one of our houseguests has some furniture that needs to be removed from a previous address, and the brother needs some of that furniture (and actually, we could use some chairs ourselves), so we’ll be organizing this as a truck delivery. This is in turn complicated, because the brakes on the pickup decided to go from leaking slowly to leaking rapidly over the weekend, so I’m going to be taking it into a shop tonight and will be renting a vehicle once again for the effort–Enterprise is even now on its way to get me. But you do what you must.

Finding myself alone last night, I turned my attention back to the temporal anomalies in Primer. I did more writing, in which I resolved a few more of the problems and reached some critical conclusions, but then being too tired to continue I retired to the bedroom, started the movie, and fell asleep in the first ten minutes. I awoke a few hours later, still alone, with the movie playing the menu screen, and restarted it. This time I was asleep before the opening dialogue, and I slept through to the alarm. I can’t say it helped my analysis, but that’s coming along pretty well.

There’s also been some discussion on the first of the Multiverser Triple Play collections, the horror group. My title Slasher Summer Camp is supposed to be a multiple-murder scenario in which no one knows who the killer is until it’s solved; but my crew tell me that if I call it “Slasher” it’s going to require that my villain wear a mask when he kills–and this is problematic, because part of the point is that even when you see the killer and the last victim together, you don’t know which is who unless you solve the mystery. A mask just ruins the whole thing. Of course, I’m thinking of this along the lines of Ten Little Indians, and not being a horror movie fan I’ve never really paid attention to all those nightmares on Halloween. I like the ring of Slasher Summer Camp, but do I really have to change the title to Seven Little Campers or something?

We’re working on resolving it. I’ll let you know if we change the title.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Written In Blood

December 17, 2007 in Blogs

I did not get much done since yesterday, really. As mentioned, I made the trip to pick up my son from his brother’s house; he slept a good part of the way home, and is sleeping now, but apparently he has to come home to sleep well. I finished up the online work, and then crashed, falling asleep atop my bed in front of the television, with the quilt pulled over me.

My wife woke me when she came in; I do not know what time that was, but she went out again, and I dozed for a while fighting to awaken sufficiently to get changed for bed. Eventually I did so, somewhere close to three, and realized that I had forgotten to do the weekly computer maintenance. I set up the backup and went back to bed; it would be done inside a quarter of an hour, but I would not be awake for it.

When I got the boy off to school before seven this morning, I remembered the backup, and so stored the disk, and started running the maintenance programs–scan, clean, defrag. The defrag program takes a while, but once it was started I returned to bed to get the rest of my sleep, and when I rose, after I attended to getting coffee started, I found the computer awaiting me. I still got off to a somewhat groggy slow start, but I’m progressing.

At some point in that, I picked up a printout of the book Do You Trust Me? which, as I think I mentioned, I’d printed for comment. Someone had moved it to the bathroom, so I started reading through it. I realized that when I was discussing the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, I observed that some claim Abel’s sacrifice was better because it contained blood, and Cain’s did not. I explained why that did not fit, but did not mention (and feel silly now that it had not occurred to me) that blood is not mentioned at all in the text. That suddenly struck me as a significant point, so I added it to the text.

All of which means that I actually did some work on books, but that it was less altogether than it took for me to explain just now what it was I did.

I still have to visit my mother-in-law to take her shopping, and there’s talk of picking up a Christmas tree and something for her, but I’m not sure when any of this is going to happen, so I’m going to keep working until it does.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Matters of Trust

December 16, 2007 in Blogs

A couple months ago I completed a first draft of the text of another book, entitled Do You Trust Me? The odd thing is that since I finished it, I keep getting questions which are answered in the book. This is the odder, since I am not completely happy with the structure–it feels to me like I didn’t know what to write next, so I wandered from issue to issue, but as I attempt to reorganize it in my mind it there doesn’t seem to be a better sequence for the material. Thus I’m thinking I need to get this in print; people apparently need it. I find it difficult to say that about one of my own books, but apparently that is the case.

Thus motivated, I went through the text yesterday evening in a major edit. When I wrote the draft, I inserted footnotes, but did not write the text of the footnotes; this involved looking up verses I had quoted or cited from memory, remembering the asides or explanations I had wanted to add outside the text, and sometimes inserting new footnotes or deleting some that weren’t really useful.

Now I have a completed text for it. I have no cover art; I don’t have so much as a concept for the cover, in fact, although the image of an oustretched hand, palm up, waiting for another hand to be placed in it, comes into my mind sometimes (an image I could not possibly render, I note). I have no proofreader/commentator available to tell me whether I’ve made any glaring errors. However, I really feel like this needs to get into print, if for no other reason than that it is a lot more fundamental than my other two books, and answers a lot of questions people just don’t get.

My son got a ride from his mother Friday night, to take him back to his brother’s house in time to work the weekend; he is now awaiting my arrival to bring him back here for a couple days, and then hopes to return on Tuesday night. Oh, and the missing houseguest reappeared sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, but not before his son, who has abandonment issues, started really freaking over his absence. I’ve not yet heard what happened, and don’t know if I ever will, but things seem to be returning to abnormal.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

A One-Liner

December 14, 2007 in Blogs

I spent a bit of time with family last night; it was unexpectedly disrupted.

It seems that while I was doing a bit if impromptu Christmas shopping, one of our houseguests called home. He had unexpectedly wound up in the hospital, and needed a ride. Another of our houseguests fielded the call, which was overheard (one of our phones is a speakerphone only, so many conversations are overheard). He left the house, and it was assumed that he had gone to pick up the friend in need.

I got this information some time later, after I returned home, when the stranded patient called again to find out where his ride was. It seemed possible, though, that the knight errant had decided to accomplish other tasks on the same trip. We called his girlfriend to see if she knew anything, and she denied having any such knowledge. We waited to see whether there would be any word.

In the end, sometime after midnight I made the half-hour drive to the new Regional Medical Center, waited half an hour while the release of the patient was organized, and drove back half an hour. I watched the sides of the roads for any evidence that the previous ride was stranded somewhere, but saw nothing. He did not return last night; his son made it to the bus unaided this morning; we are now going on twenty-eight hours without any information as to his whereabouts. We’re not terribly happy about that, as you might imagine; his son has special needs which he is supposed to be addressing, and he’s not supposed to leave the boy unattended without making arrangements for his supervision. On the other hand, we are a bit worried that something might have happened to him, and are unsure how to begin investigating the disappearance of a person on whom we have no real claim, who might just have decided to play hooky from life for a few hours.

When I got home and was getting ready for bed, I opened up the Multiverser Triple Play draft of space scenarios, and did a bit of reading. I realized that the opening summary of the first included world failed to mention something rather fundamental to the setting, so I added that to it. That, though, is about all I can claim to have accomplished on my light day.

Well, perhaps that is not all. It happened that Collision did not exactly rehearse–Baxter was sick, and Brittany’s mother was hospitalized for surgery–but Adam and I put some time into getting the first three songs a bit more solid on his end. I also practiced a lot of the vocals in the car on my various errands. I saw Brittany today (she works in one of the larger stores I frequent), who says her mother is doing well, and she will be here next Thursday.

I’ve got to figure out supper now. I’ll be back.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

The Horror Of It

December 13, 2007 in Blogs

Having collected the input of some of the Valdron staff, I went back into the three worlds of the first Multiverser Triple Play–the horror one–and did a bit of tweaking and expanding to each of the worlds. I don’t know if they’re finished, but they’re a lot closer now. The tweaks have already been posted to the development forum, and so I’m awaiting comment there.

Fortunately Thursdays are usually light. I am expecting Brittany to appear late this afternoon, and I need to bring Baxter before that, so we can have our Collision rehearsal; but I have this nagging feeling my wife has already agreed that we will meet someone or be somewhere very early this evening, so the day has been squeezed. I’m not certain whether she remembers, but the person with whom she had the discussion has already left a message for her to call, so I think it’s on, whatever it is.

I had better keep moving.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Visiting the Lake House

December 12, 2007 in Blogs

Last night, once the dust settled, I went into the bedroom and put Lake House in the DVD player. Honestly, I was tired of thinking about the temporal anomalies in Primer, and wanted to wrap my head around something else. Then, while the movie was getting started (I had seen the beginning already), I went back to my office and got involved in writing up Terranova Habitat for the space-themed Multiverser Triple Play worlds package. I did that for a while, and then went back, rewound the movie (which seems entirely the wrong word for a DVD) to a point that looked familiar, and watched the rest.

Lake House is going to be a lot easier than Primer; on the other hand, it’s not going to be reconcilable. The story collapses within the first ten minutes, but it’s watchable because you aren’t given the proof that those first ten minutes are impossible until the last ten minutes. It has a happy, if totally impossible, ending, and is an enjoyable film whether or not you like its stars. I’ve been a fan of stories about architecture since having been forced to read ninety percent of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead in high school, and some of the comments on architecture are insightful. There are a few spots where they get gimmicky, treating correspondence as if it were dialogue, which will have to be addressed; but in the main, it’s pretty clear what is supposed to have happened, and equally clear why none of it could have.

So I’ve accomplished something, but not nearly enough. Let me press on through today; maybe I can accomplish more.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

China to Rome

December 11, 2007 in Blogs

I was on my way here when the phone rang. Someone at work had forgotten a critical piece of equipment, and needed it delivered. I located said piece of equipment, and since I often wind up sitting in parking lots for extended periods on such errands, I took my recently neglected Romans editing with me. It happens that I waited no time at all there, but that I was then hit with a request to provide Chinese food (specifically, a delicacy which is rarely on the menu even at those places which make it, Coconut Shrimp). Thus I routed myself to a particular Chinese restaurant, and settled into a booth while awaiting the preparation of an order large enough to satisfy the unpredictable number of mouths which would have to be indulged.

And thus I managed to move the Romans editing forward several pages.

I am encouraged to note that I am very near the halfway point; I split the material into two roughly equal folders, and have only a few pages left in the back of the first folder. I’m not running as many sit-and-wait errands as I was a month ago, though, so this work has slowed significantly. On the other hand, other work has benefited from the decrease of that commitment.

On yet another hand, though, there are too many projects awaiting my attention; I’d better go see to things.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Slippage

December 10, 2007 in Blogs

Things seem to be slipping past me.

Last night my wife and I watched the DVD of the third of the Pirates of the Carribbean movies. I had so completely forgotten that it had been released to theatres that I was still waiting for it–but I see that I had been on the way to see it half a year ago when I lost a tire. Funny, I had not remembered where I was going then, or that the movie I had wanted to see was in theatres.

I was tired this morning, but still managed to get things going reasonably early. I wish I could say the same for my mother in law. I called her before four to let her know that I was going to be there a little after five to take her to the store, and my errand on the way took long enough that it was almost five thirty by the time I reached her–but she was not ready to leave until six, which on my original timeline was pretty close to when I hoped to be headed home again. I’m still playing catch-up, and someone has to pick up my commuter son who has called for a ride from over an hour away. However, if his brother will bring him part of the distance, his mother will meet them and I can do my work; otherwise, the work gets delayed and I go into tomorrow very tired once again.

Word is: I get to stay here and work.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Direct From the Meeting

December 9, 2007 in Blogs

The scheduled directors meeting was both sparsely attended and brief, but the ground covered was solid. Our new Multiverser Triple Play series has everyone excited, and there was some discussion of directions for that. We also began discussing the idea of creating a Wiki, which we agreed we would consider and examine, and try to reach some decision by February.

I might have yet another new player coming, someone I know from church who took an interest in the game. His preference is for real-time MMORPG play, but this sounded interesting to him, so we’ll see whether he manages to find his way here following my somewhat lacking directions. He was attempting to find several different sites (the Christian Gamers Guild among them), and I was attempting to make it simple by sending him to one site–my own–from which the others would be linked.

I also put a bit of time into updating some of the music sheets for Collision, late on Friday, but I’ve still a lot to consider and a lot to accomplish.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Banding Around a Voice

December 7, 2007 in Blogs

We had an excellent, if abbreviated, session yesterday for Collision.

The slight delay in our start was my fault; I did not realize that Brittany would be driving, so I did not drop everything and run when Baxter said she was headed to meet us at the local pizza place. She was waiting when we arrived, but it probably only cost us about five minutes. She also had to exit early for an exam in a college math class; I hope she got there quickly enough.

We started by asking her to sing and play something for us, and we were quite impressed with her vocal abilities. She’s got a strong voice, a good range, and an ear for harmony, all of which are going to be very helpful; already I’m reconsidering how much I can rely on her voice in the songs we’ve chosen. Her guitar playing is probably better than adequate, a notch above Tyler of 7dB. Further, and unexpectedly, she owns an electric guitar, an amplifier, and an electrified acoustic–the instrument she prefers and the one I’d prefer to have her play. Also, she likes most of the songs we’ve chosen, and the rest she really likes, so this is promising.

We’ve agreed on Thursday afternoon rehearsals, as there is a window between when she gets off work and when Baxter goes to work when Adam and I are both available, and when term ends for her in a couple weeks that window gets larger, because she won’t have an evening class next term.

After she rushed off, Baxter and Adam and I worked on some of the instrumental parts, which seem to be coming together nicely at this point. I keep promising myself that I’m going to do more with Adam tonight, but I keep promising myself that I’m going to start dinner in a moment, too, and I’ve a lot to do. I’ve already done a bit of work on a world for use in the forum game, and I have to prepare for the upcoming directors meeting in addition to taking my son back to his brother’s house so he can get to work tomorrow. But all of us are excited about this at the moment, so it’s pretty high in my thoughts.

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