by M. J. Young
December 6, 2009 in Blogs
I always post to announce new articles, so I’m dropping a quick line to call your attentions to the new review, In re: C. J. Henderson: The Things That Are Not There. This is the first of the Teddy London supernatural mystery stories, and the one that got me hooked.
I’ve also gotten a lot of comments on that latest posting about Primer, and so I’ve written a bit I did not anticipate writing, but that’s not really article stuff.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
October 15, 2009 in Blogs
I am still waiting to see the surge of readers who were expected to flock to an analysis of the time travel elements of Bender’s Big Score at The Examiner; but perhaps this second entry, Bender’s Big Score part 2: beginning at the end, will bring some attention. Meanwhile, the comments continue on theory questions related to Primer.
And I am not ready for Saturday’s demo, and my help seems to be missing in action at the moment. Well, there’s not that much to prepare, but I always get nervous about these things when they’re approaching.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
October 8, 2009 in Blogs
While I am perhaps somewhat frantically attempting to put together an analysis of Bender’s Big Score for the temporal anomalies series at The Examiner, I am posting articles that have been awaiting attention as answers to questions raised about Primer. This morning I had the awkward moment of discovering that the one I had intended to post today was not quite finished, so I had to put a bit of time into getting it into shape at something of the last minute. I also looked at a few other such articles in anticipation of using them possibly next week, although my preference is very strongly to finish the Futurama materials and get them posted. Primer starts arguments, which is probably good for traffic and thus for my budget, but it’s not so good for my digestion.
Today’s installment is Primer Question 2: Aaron’s future plans. I already know that Tim Sham disagrees with me on this, but his analysis is problematic, and I’ve said so publicly already and so eventually will have to write that article which explains why.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty swamped, and have more things to do. We’ve got a live demo scheduled for Saturday the 17th in Vineland, and already it looks like we’ll have more players than we can easily juggle, but that’s got to be good, right?
Right. But apparently I also have to train a new assistant.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
July 20, 2009 in Blogs
I am not really finished with Primer, but today’s Examiner post, The End Beyond the End, is the last formally devoted to the movie. As my Temporal Anomalies page shows, there are some questions to be addressed, but at this point I am shifting my attention to a theory and terminology project for the next several weeks.
In regard to the computer problem I mentioned yesterday, I have determined that it is somehow related to one of two programs which are both open when the crashes occur, one of which is open with a specific document and causes no trouble when other documents are open. I have reinstalled the other program, and if that does not solve it I shall probably decide to copy all the text into a new document and delete the one I’ve been using. That’s the best hope at present.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
July 10, 2009 in Blogs
I was going to post this yesterday, but a certainly elderly patient who went into the hospital over the weekend was discharged, creating a huge amount of work for us which consumed most of my day. Still, I did manage to upload the fourth post in the Primer series, entitled Primer part 4: the wrong Aaron.
I also got a fair amount of e-mail about temporal anomalies today, but only one was specifically about Primer and it was not clear whether the writer had come from the Temporal Anomalies web site or from The Examiner articles (although the address he used suggests the former). But one thing he said has me curious as to whether I missed something, so I’m hoping he will reply.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
July 6, 2009 in Blogs
Actually, a buck and a half–that is, that’s roughly how much money my account shows after the first week and the posting of two articles on The Examiner site. The third, Primer part 3: shot gun party, posted this evening. Traffic is increasing, so there’s hope.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
July 3, 2009 in Blogs
I mentioned last time that I am now writing for The Examiner, on Time Travel movies. Last night I posted the second installment on Primer, Primer part 2: answering the phone. I also have watched the movie again–I’d like to say twice more, but really I was out of the room for part of one time and I fell asleep for most of another, and I don’t remember whether there was or was not a third attempt in there. But I did collect the information I need for the next installment, which hopefully will post Monday.
I am also supposed to promote these articles through modern Internet systems with which I have no familiarity at all, so there’s a steep learning curve and I’m still at the bottom of it, I think. But the staff is very encouraging, and hopefully I’ll figure it out before they lose patience.
The big drain on my resources, though, is family care at present; it may be that there is more of it than I can manage, and it may be that I’m going to have to manage a way to reduce it. But we’ll see.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
June 26, 2009 in Blogs
This might go into some minds as, “What is he thinking?” After all, those who follow me know that I have too much on my plate as it is, and that I do not have time to do what I am already doing. Yet on the recommendation of someone working with Valdron Inc, I investigated the possibility of taking on yet another job–this one possibly supplementing my income simply by refocusing my attention. It’s been in the works since last week, but I’ve not mentioned anything because it was not a fait accompli and it seemed inappropriate to discuss a job I did not actually have.
It may be premature even now, but they seem eager to have me and have suggested that I go forward with my first article even before they have completed the obligatory background check to make certain I am not a felon or sex offender. I don’t know whether my reputation or my resume led them to that position, but it’s probably prudent not to ask. Over the weekend I expect to be composing the first of what may be many articles to be published on Examiner.com. Technically I am writing out of the Newark (New Jersey) office, although it appears that the site provides local coverage in many places and my materials will be national.
Those materials will involve analysis/commentary on time travel movies, similar to what I do on the Temporal Anomales time travel web site, only in significantly shorter chunks sometimes serialized. I anticipate using the format to get an analysis of Primer posted, in several installments each of which addresses a specific problem in the film.
It appears that I will also have to become educated in how to use Digg to promote the pages, but that’s not likely to be too difficult. They say they’ll instruct me on it.
I will let you all know when it all happens.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
December 20, 2007 in Blogs
My day has been chewed up into little bits, but otherwise I would say it was profitable.
It started this morning, really; I was not entirely awake when I was trying to get the boy to school, and although he rose at a decent time he had trouble finding decent clothes, and so missed the bus. That means I have to put on clothes (saying that I get dressed is overstating it–usually I pull pants and a shirt over the sweatsuit I wear as pajamas) and drive him to school. It also means that I don’t get back to bed so quickly as otherwise, as I have to remove those clothes and unwind a bit from having pulled myself into full wakefulness.
I suspect it was for this reason that I was late rising for the workday. I started getting organized, making coffee, starting the computer, and I remembered that Baxter was going to get back to me about rehearsal. Since I hadn’t heard from him and did not see him on the caller ID, I called him. He said that he was not well, but that he had talked to Brittany; he had earlier told me that Brittany, apparently a manager of her college girls basketball team (an injury sidelined her this year), had a game bumped to an early slot; I’d said that we couldn’t practice so early as one, but I could practice at two or later in the evening, and he was to get back to me on it. Brittany, he said, would be at my place around seven thirty or eight to rehearse, but he was not feeling well and had to be at work at ten, so he wouldn’t make it.
Somehow in the midst of this I started poking at the temporal anomalies page for Primer. I had put it on again last night–it’s become my cure for insomnia, perhaps. I had continued thinking about it, and went back to write quite a bit more on the subject. I also decided in the middle of this that the site probably needs a glossary page, somewhere where all the terms and abbreviations I use can be explained for reference, rather than assuming that anyone would read the entire site in the order it was written (an order I’m not certain even I can identify at this point), so I started on that.
This was interrupted; Baxter called back to say that having missed rehearsal last week he really wanted to get some time in this week, and had less than two hours immediately. It was by this time after three, but I hopped in the truck and brought him back. That was a good session, in which he got a handle on some difficult parts before I ran him back home before six.
My wife had asked me to pick up a couple things and drop them off to her at work–not things needed urgently, but things needed today–so I made that part of the same trip. I had a couple of things I wanted to get anyway, so I tossed that into the same errand. It did not go entirely smoothly, as the store where I expected to get everything did not have one important item she needed and wanted too much for an item I needed, so I went to a second store also. I got everything else there, but also encountered a retired pastor and his wife who are dear to me, and although I see them almost every weekend it was too good seeing them in the store to pass up chatting for what I hope was not more than ten minutes or so. However it was, it was after seven by the time I was making my delivery, and around seven thirty by the time I got home.
This of course meant that Brittany would be arriving at any moment. I had already instructed that people should eat the leftovers, and some had done so, and I was in the middle of writing an e-mail to a temporal anomalies contributer concerning the composition of the glossary, so I tried to finish up as much as I could of that, but still left things open as my vocalist arrived. I spent most of the next two hours working with her (Adam played with both rehearsal sessions), introducing her to some of the toughest vocal parts she’ll have to sing; she did impressively well with them, and I’m looking forward to a hopefully combined rehearsal next week, although one can never tell how holiday weeks will go.
All this means I’ve not eaten (apart from the end of a bag of white cheddar Cheetos and a couple pieces of chocolate), didn’t get to my morning study in Corinthians until after ten at night, and am pushing to get through the standard Thursday fare as midnight approaches. I’ve also got to schedule a few major trips to bring people here over the next few days, but I don’t have all the schedule information, so I’m not sure how that’s going to fit.
I’d better get to work.
–M. J. Young
by M. J. Young
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