moriartys.net

I’m thinking this guy who is dropping trou in local shopping malls to pleasure himself here in Arizona has some holiday-based issues far worse than the Grinch.  I mean, I had my share of not getting the present I wanted at Christmas, but it never even entered my mind that this might be a good way to make up for it.

Considering many stores have policies forbidding employees from detaining lawbreakers of any kind, this idiot could be at it until the official mall security captures him (or maybe ID’s him from his videos).   I just hope they catch the sick-o before he decides to permanently alter the holiday decorations…

I think I’m going to need finger replacement surgery after this month.  I’m in the home stretch on NaNoWriMo, which I think I’ll complete okay with an extra effort this coming week.  The story is starting to flow a bit better, which of course helps the word count.

I’m also wrapping up the final revision on the first act of the screenplay due for for my Screenwriting class.  I’m very happy with how that is coming together, and can’t wait to complete the screenplay and submit it to a competition or two for some coverage.

Just doing two at once that proved a tad, perhaps a trifle, maybe a nudge over ambitious.   At least it helped me stretch myself a bit - which is the only way to learn your limits (and how to expand them).

The truth about the turkey vulture.  If reincarnation is the way things work out, I’m totally submitting a request to come back as one of these guys.

Kettle Chips, which makes some tasty potato action, has a thing they do every year where they sell a sneak preview sample pack of five new flavors they are thinking about offering.  You get a box of usually tasty, always interesting, chips, and a bunch of review/voting cards.  We usually have some friends over, do a sampling, compare notes, and make a silly evening of it.  The theme this year is Fire and Spice.

Last year they had some Atzec Chocolate potato chips which were just the nasty.  But their Thai Spice one just disappeared out of the bag.  Nummy!  Highly recommended if you have an adventurous tongue.

What about my eeka, you may ask?  Not much, really.  But I did manage to get the dust off and upgrade this site software.  Will work on some plug ins and fancification later.

Just one small step for moi.  Next up - a stogie, a margarita, and some more (BLEEPING) NaNoWriMo.

As I sit here on my patio, chillin’ with a stogie and some most delicious Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale, I get the most delightful feeling of returning to center.  It’s a Zen meditation of sorts for me.  Relaxed, focused, content, with a clarity that will be shattered by 8:01am tomorrow morning as the fuzzy gray womb of my work cubicle embraces me once again.

Working a bit on my NaNoWriMo plans.  I’m pretty excited about this effort, and think I set myself up for a win with a very wide open writing idea.  There is something about the pure creative process that I became addicted to when I did Improv.  I don’t do the stage work anymore, but still love the Making.

Didn’t get to all the tech work this site needs, but picked at some of the edges.  Must fight my urge to do it all at once.  Such a strong urge, though, and my body just does love the sleep.

Gah! Not sure I’m going to get to the cleanup on this site again this weekend. Amazing how an open weekend can fill so damned quickly. I have a small pile of items like that, that seem to just retreat into the horizon as I get closer. Will they ever be completed? Who knows.

In the meantime I think I am going to put this video up in the corner of my desktop at work on infinite loop. It’s actually very similar to the way I dance, just without the “coolness”. Puzzle out what THAT looks like at your own peril.

How odd.

Writing is a lonely hobby.  Just me and my evil foe, the Blinking Cursor Of Despair, slugging it out day after day.  So I’ll take any encouragement I can get along the way.  I’m not picky, but I find the unexpected nuggets are the sweetest.

Last night in my Screenwriting class we were taking turns reading our latest scenes aloud for the class to critique.  It helps enormously to hear your dialog actually read, and I usually do a lot of wincing and note taking about where things don’t flow.  Anyway, we had already done three screenplays that night, and he wanted to squeeze one more in before we broke for the night.  This class is 7:00pm to 10:00pm, so people are pretty bushed towards the end.   He pointed over at me to pass out my copies for reading and this guy sitting two desks away claps!  Another guy goes “Yes!  I love this script!”

I had NO idea.  There are eleven of us in the class and we’ve all been working our scripts for the past two months.  Nearly everyone in the class volunteered to read a part, and I got more kudos from people for the dialog and pacing.  I’ve been doing well on the assignments, but that sort of impromptu praise from the class, a group of people all fighting the same fight as me, was huge. I’m going to see if I can finish this baby off for a local film festival submission in December!

The moral of the story is to never underestimate the impact of a little praise or some encouraging words.

Comrade and fellow smart-ass Heath seems to think I’ve been remiss in my posting.  Well, he is quite astoundingly correct.  Not much for it.

I took on more than I could chew with my internal work blogs, external work blogs, school, and other writing projects.  I’ve been doing some realignment with a new job at work, committing to NaNoWriMo for November, and just generally doing a Fall sweep on things.

Step One here has been getting the dust out of the blog.  Hell, I had to go recover my password for the site it had been so long.  I also see I need to update some software, and address a bug or two left over from the original installation.

Once I knock that off, I’ll nail down the content for this blog.  So many topics rattle around in my head, I think that lack of narrowed scope has been part of my problem.  I should get that done by end of the month so posting during NaNoWriMo won’t take much effort.

Rambling done for now.  Goal was to get a new post up.  As our President once famously said: Mission Accomplished!

I’ve been spending some time working on screenwriting over the past few years, and I’ve recently started to take it more seriously. As such, I’ve been looking for goals to help me challenge myself. One of these is participating in Script Frenzy.

Short version - it is a challenge to write a full, feature-length screenplay in a month. No easy feat. I have my ideas, some characters, and a rough story arc, so we’ll see if that (and a lack of sleep) is enough.

Gonna be a goood time!