Archive for July, 2010

« Older Entries

The Colony


30 Jul

Tags: , ,
Posted in Television, The Colony | Comments Off

The Colony on Discovery has returned for a second season. The premise is that there has been an apocalypse, and this group of people has to survive and rebuild.

In the first season, we had a generic apocalypse. In the new season, we are told it was a pandemic, so concepts that weren’t in the first season, like a need to quarantine members of the group after contact with outsiders, were prevalent in the season opener.

There are things they do I like; there are things they do I disagree with, but wither way, its makes for great conversational television.

D&D Encounters: Dark Sun (4)


28 Jul

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games | Comments Off

Three encounters in to second level on Athas. We followed an ankheg hole below the desert and have found ourselves in a dungeon of sorts. Up until this point it had all been rough hewn, possibly created by giant worms, but full of the dead who came back to life.

Tonight, though, we fought through a crystal spider web and entered an obvious dungeon, created by intelligent beings for a specific purpose. What that purpose was, we do not know. What we do know is that the crystalline creatures that were guarding the place are now shards beneath our feet.

A bit of fiction


27 Jul

Posted in Microfiction, Writing | Comments Off

Time slipped through their minds like sand through the fingers of children. Years passed by unnoticed; decades disappeared without remark. They searched for the proverbial needle in a haystack, the one single moment in the whole of history on which their future- creation, destruction, entropy -hung. The pendulum kept swinging, relentlessly counting the seconds to the end.

A glimpse here, a hint there, they would pause and hope, but no answers were forthcoming. Time was running out, both in their search and in their reality. Had they missed it, should they rewind or keep moving forward? The silence was deafening.

I don’t want to grow up…


26 Jul

Posted in Home Ownership, House work | Comments Off

I think one of the reasons I regularly feel like I am just pretending to be a responsible adult is that I don’t like to clean. While having a clean house/room is nice, I rarely feel the need to clean for cleanings sake. In this way, I am the opposite of my mother.

But it’s not just my mother I am comparing myself to. I work with a woman who vacuums her area rugs and wood floors every day. Every day. I just recently started vacuuming every 2 weeks, right before my friend who is allergic to dogs comes over.

Upgrading the Disney collection


25 Jul

Posted in Movies | Comments Off

Today I babysat an 18 month old for 4-5 hours while her parents both played in a ShadowRun game in our basement. This routine will repeat every other Sunday for the foreseeable future.

I’m good with it. It actually takes very little time for the dogs to settle down around the baby. The problem is my DVD selection. I am not the parent of an 18 month old. I have very little patience with TV aimed at her. But she likes animation and siging. Obviously this means it is time to start converting my Disney collection from VHS to DVD.

King County Libraries


24 Jul

Tags:
Posted in Authors & Books | 2 Comments »

I got myself a library card today. This makes me happy. But the library here is nothing like I remember the libraries of my childhood. Now, it could be that my memory is skewed considering the last library I spent any amount of time in was the library at UNR. You could get lost in the stacks there.

The King County libraries that I have been in are nice, but their collections are small. The Burien library (where I went today) is a lovely building, but its more space than books. The adult fiction section isn’t even divided by genre.

Writing Goals


23 Jul

Posted in Writing | Comments Off

I recently came to the realization in my writing that I really prefer the short form. I know that given the format of this blog, that shouldn’t seem surprising, but most aspiring writers I know think of themselves as novelists in the making. There is not a whole lot of exposure for short stories out there.

Since I came to the decision that the short form is where I want to focus, I need to set myself goals that don’t involve completing a novel. So I’ve been looking at magazines that accept story submissions. Goal: Publication in Assimov’s Science Fiction

Writing Flash


21 Jul

Posted in Microfiction, Writing | Comments Off

I love my critique group. They are the biggest reason that my writing continues to improve. But sometimes I need to trust my writing and just go with it.

Today I decided to write and submit a piece of flash fiction to The Molotov Cocktail, an online flash magazine located here at wordpress. At 550 words, there’s not much critique can do for it, without making it longer, turning it in to something its not.

I have realized lately that I really do prefer the short form. Flash is great because I can write and revise it around 2 hours.

My Favorite Books: Orca by Steven Brust


20 Jul

Tags: , ,
Posted in Authors & Books, Steven Brust, Vlad Taltos novels | 2 Comments »

As a series, Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels are my favorite. I buy them in hardback as soon as they are released.

Orca, though not the first book in the series, was the first Vlad book I read. In Orca, two very important bits of information are revealed which are meant to cause a reader to go back and rethink the earlier books and inform the future ones– but the books are not written in chronological order, making it so that the reader needs to remember not only what they know now, but also what the characters know at this point.

D&D 4e: Bloodstone Pass (2)


19 Jul

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games | Comments Off

The day started with stone singing giants who, using a ritual, were able to melt stone walls that it had taken me (also via ritual) hours to build. We were able to defeat them and even get one to surrender and repair the breach in our wall.

After that, we moved on to the Grandfather of Assassins and his retinue. The Grandfather “fair escaped” using a ring that allowed him to teleport to some tower far away from our motley band, but we did take down a death titan. All in all, a win for the town of Bloodstone Pass.

« Older Entries

100 Words On

topics explored in exactly 100 words