This made my day.
"Twice a day for ten minutes at any point in the world, barring knowledge of cardinal directions, is a span of time when no one can tell if the sun is rising or falling, the night coming or going. The sky takes an indigo-turning-black, but the eyes can still make out every detail of everything around them, like nighttime in the movies, though viscerally natural. It is a transition; a heartbeat as the Earth blinks or opens its eyes, draws back the veil, and reveals a world cloaked in shadow, plain as day."
I wrote this earlier today as a part of the story I'm working on. I've been fascinated by the long hours I've put in that afford me the ability to witness this unusual event: that for ten minutes, dawn or dusk, you can't tell if the sun is coming or going. It's an experience. If you remember this around one of those times, just stand there and try to imagine the sun doing the opposite of what it should. The world can turn upside down if you try it hard enough.
I wrote this earlier today as a part of the story I'm working on. I've been fascinated by the long hours I've put in that afford me the ability to witness this unusual event: that for ten minutes, dawn or dusk, you can't tell if the sun is coming or going. It's an experience. If you remember this around one of those times, just stand there and try to imagine the sun doing the opposite of what it should. The world can turn upside down if you try it hard enough.
<< "Take me to your leader" (courtesy of jcdprints)If you know me well, you'll know I have a weakness for puppies. Its like kryptonite. I think everyone should grow up with a dog. It helps one to become a well-adjusted individual. I'm pretty much an all around animal lover, but I definitely attribute dogs, especially when they're little, with what makes the best in having a pet really shine.
Yes, no one really expects this. Me, a strapping young man with a big macho beard, a guy who spends his free time doing punching and kicking and flipping around, swinging swords and breaking boards.
Except that I trim it to whatever is popular in Japan right now, and the martial arts I do is flashy and completely useless in a real fight as are my floppy spring steel swords, and having just disclaimed myself as anything even remotely macho, this means, yes, I really do like puppies for puppies, and no, I'm not some douchey guy who just says so to get girls to warm up to him. And to guys like you, for shame. You're a few degrees off from using roofies. Here's why.
Puppy dog eyes can increase levels of oxytocin. One part of this hormone triggers "maternal instincts" and "bonding" when it is produced, and apparently, according to this article, playtime with pups can actually trigger oxytocin production, instinctively causing humans to bond and trust their dogs, leading to the stress relieving effect that advocates of pup-therapy espouse as their most theraputic and healthy trait.
In conclusion, dogs are drugs. They express hypnotic suggestion through their big dark puppy dog eyes that make your brain secret hormones that make you think you're relaxed. Just kidding. Really, think about it.
It's cute. Furry. It's always happy to see you. It wants nothing more to play with you, and it will listen to you whenever you need a big floppy ear. Man's best friend indeed.
Here's some awesome sites that I peruse from time to time to get my pup fix.
http://www.cuteoverload.com
This site has a great selection of other great animal pictures in other categories, but I visit the pups one the most.
http://ihasahotdog.com
Following in the traditions of lolcats comes the premiere loldog site on the internet.
http://www.dailypuppy.com
For enthusiasts who just want to click through picture after picture.
Enjoy!
*I'm trying to write shorter posts. Woe unto my poor readership that has to suffer through text walls, but unfortunately I cannot do pups justice for today.
Sister's wedding is tomorrow. Will continue blog soon! Gonna do a double feature GPW this coming Wednesday so stay tuned :)
I watch Supernatural.
This could eventually go under Guilty Pleasure Wednesdays, primarily because...(okay I'll come right out and say it)
It kind of sucks.
I'll give you a moment to spit fire and venom at me. Done? Great, here's why.
I think it began when the show moved its focus from monsters to Angels, which seemed like a good move to begin with since this massive demon war was central to its overarching plot, but the 2nd act is where, as they say in Hollywood, "the desert where the dream may die".
But has anyone noticed the weird little signs? True, there was that hiatus following the passing of Kim Manners, but after that it felt like there was going to be some creative differences on the rise.
First there was that Prophet Chuck episode, "The Monster at the End of This Book", which felt like a cheap copout reboot of the storyline. They had their big bad evil demon (which at this point in the season had become extremely ephemeral--there was almost no developed conflict with her, much less than when she was introduced in Season 3), who wanted out from her ultimate plan in freeing the Devil. It stinks of new writers not liking Lilith and trying to make her a second stringer.
Then they had to name their next episode "Jump the Shark", which conceptually was great, but in execution had a back-heavy laden exposition delivered by the villians of that episode, and I need not point out the significance of its naming. It was almost as if the writers of the show were poking fun at themselves, and apologizing for such a crappy storyline.
Obviously, I'm not watching the show for Ackles or Padalecki (the latter of whom I've gotten rather tired of, with his constant whining, ginormous brow, and unrealistic dialogue delivery), so they aren't really helping the situation.
Yeah, Supernatural has been kind of bland. I'm sure there's a million girls out there who if they read this, they'd be sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches. But I've watched it since the beginning, and I guess I'll for now remain a fan.
Now, I had a hard time admitting this to myself. It's because the concept of monsters in America in the classifiable way they first introduced it was plausible, novel, interesting, and something that I had come up with during my junior year in college, which is incidentally when it began to air. So color me frustrated that the WB/CW was going to slap it together for mass consumption, because cleverness gets watered down easily for mass consumption when it comes to TV. Not that I mind that much though, because it makes room for one of my novel projects I'm working on.
So I enjoyed it, for what it was worth, this nice one hour of watered down supernatural mystery suspense thing headed up by a couple of Anglo pretty boys, filmed mostly in picturesque parts of Canada. Then the watered downness began to increase, and the Anglo boys did more cliched things than smart things. And my little supernatural mystery suspense void began to feel a little betrayed.
I'm not writing this to detract from the show, really it's shooting itself in the foot. I'm just pointing out where I think things have gone wrong.
For the finale itself (SPOILERS AHEAD, UNLESS YOU MANAGED TO FIGURE OUT THE ENTIRE PLOT IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES) well, it pretty much went for the hurt. I'll just list it:
- Dean whines to Bobby
- Bobby gets redneck on Dean
- Angels screw around with Dean and *GASP* oh noes they're actually evil in that authoritarian big brother way that no one expected at all. Ever.
- Castiel defects. Again. God make up your mind.
- Ruby's SINISTAR EVIL PLOT is revealed. Sam is in catatonia, which must be something like boredom, because that's how he was acting. Like we didn't see this one coming either (she's a demon)
- Sam goes all demony and crosses the line. Oh gee. We didn't expect this either, like the Angels or Ruby.
- And the Devil gets freed. Crossing fingers that Supernatural drops its pretense and just turns into a dark comedy like Reaper.
So yeah. It wasn't really a finale more than a, let's rehash everything that happened this season into their expected final outcome.
I didn't feel invested in the characters at all. I think they've just been taking their arc developments and just thrusting them into different situations. There's no change, no development, no accessibility that gives them sympathy. This season is basically great in concept and poor in execution. And now we'll all have to wait an entire summer to see the results. Hopefully, (if they exist) these new writers will have something better up their sleeve.
This could eventually go under Guilty Pleasure Wednesdays, primarily because...(okay I'll come right out and say it)
It kind of sucks.
I'll give you a moment to spit fire and venom at me. Done? Great, here's why.
I think it began when the show moved its focus from monsters to Angels, which seemed like a good move to begin with since this massive demon war was central to its overarching plot, but the 2nd act is where, as they say in Hollywood, "the desert where the dream may die".
But has anyone noticed the weird little signs? True, there was that hiatus following the passing of Kim Manners, but after that it felt like there was going to be some creative differences on the rise.
First there was that Prophet Chuck episode, "The Monster at the End of This Book", which felt like a cheap copout reboot of the storyline. They had their big bad evil demon (which at this point in the season had become extremely ephemeral--there was almost no developed conflict with her, much less than when she was introduced in Season 3), who wanted out from her ultimate plan in freeing the Devil. It stinks of new writers not liking Lilith and trying to make her a second stringer.
Then they had to name their next episode "Jump the Shark", which conceptually was great, but in execution had a back-heavy laden exposition delivered by the villians of that episode, and I need not point out the significance of its naming. It was almost as if the writers of the show were poking fun at themselves, and apologizing for such a crappy storyline.
Obviously, I'm not watching the show for Ackles or Padalecki (the latter of whom I've gotten rather tired of, with his constant whining, ginormous brow, and unrealistic dialogue delivery), so they aren't really helping the situation.
Yeah, Supernatural has been kind of bland. I'm sure there's a million girls out there who if they read this, they'd be sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches. But I've watched it since the beginning, and I guess I'll for now remain a fan.
Now, I had a hard time admitting this to myself. It's because the concept of monsters in America in the classifiable way they first introduced it was plausible, novel, interesting, and something that I had come up with during my junior year in college, which is incidentally when it began to air. So color me frustrated that the WB/CW was going to slap it together for mass consumption, because cleverness gets watered down easily for mass consumption when it comes to TV. Not that I mind that much though, because it makes room for one of my novel projects I'm working on.
So I enjoyed it, for what it was worth, this nice one hour of watered down supernatural mystery suspense thing headed up by a couple of Anglo pretty boys, filmed mostly in picturesque parts of Canada. Then the watered downness began to increase, and the Anglo boys did more cliched things than smart things. And my little supernatural mystery suspense void began to feel a little betrayed.
I'm not writing this to detract from the show, really it's shooting itself in the foot. I'm just pointing out where I think things have gone wrong.
For the finale itself (SPOILERS AHEAD, UNLESS YOU MANAGED TO FIGURE OUT THE ENTIRE PLOT IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES) well, it pretty much went for the hurt. I'll just list it:
- Dean whines to Bobby
- Bobby gets redneck on Dean
- Angels screw around with Dean and *GASP* oh noes they're actually evil in that authoritarian big brother way that no one expected at all. Ever.
- Castiel defects. Again. God make up your mind.
- Ruby's SINISTAR EVIL PLOT is revealed. Sam is in catatonia, which must be something like boredom, because that's how he was acting. Like we didn't see this one coming either (she's a demon)
- Sam goes all demony and crosses the line. Oh gee. We didn't expect this either, like the Angels or Ruby.
- And the Devil gets freed. Crossing fingers that Supernatural drops its pretense and just turns into a dark comedy like Reaper.
So yeah. It wasn't really a finale more than a, let's rehash everything that happened this season into their expected final outcome.
I didn't feel invested in the characters at all. I think they've just been taking their arc developments and just thrusting them into different situations. There's no change, no development, no accessibility that gives them sympathy. This season is basically great in concept and poor in execution. And now we'll all have to wait an entire summer to see the results. Hopefully, (if they exist) these new writers will have something better up their sleeve.
It's hump day, and the week already feels longer than it deserves to be. Presenting: Guilty Pleasure Wednesdays! A segment here that highlights some of the things we do but won't admit to that help us get through the week.
Ah, K-pop. Disclaimer: I'm not Korean, nor do I know what is being said, but honestly, in my limited experience with it, I've found more catchier songs, doper beats, and had an inkling of young fanboyness that I haven't had since middle school when random news comes across about some K-pop stars. Besides which, when you live in a region that plays like top 10 hits (more like top 5, because seriously you can hear the same song four times running errands for like two hours), you're going to want something completely different.
Big Bang
I admit it, in junior high/high school, I listened to H.O.T. (among a lot of others like Jinusean, Turbo, G.O.D., Yoo Seung Jun, S.E.S.), but only for like two albums and then I couldn't stand them anymore. Number one reason:
thanks to http://www.geocities.com/clubplanethot/ for reminding me how freaking lame I was in high school.
They look like girls. Really ugly girls. Either that, or mutant sheepdogs.
So, many, many years later, my good friend Michelle introduces me to this group called Big Bang. K-pop boy band, five members, and even at one time they covered the popular H.O.T. song "Candy"
Scary. I had very low expectations for a group that still got dolled up in furry pink overalls so girls could scream at them. Honestly, seeing some videos of those fans that flock around K-pop bands, I think they would scream at anything.
But really, my first experience with Big Bang came from this little gem of a video. It had everything a K-pop music video should've had.
1. A catchy beat
2. Fobby English
3. 4 minutes to wrench your heart in an impossibly complex situation between a boy and a girl.
And so my interest was piqued. But here's the awesomest part about these guys.
They come across with a unique urban style that no other K-pop band at their inception could pull off. The departure was so refreshing that it was probably what got them their popularity. There's no big mental exercise to accept indecipherable lyrics, strange hair, or outlandish outfits to nitrous-induced electronic beats. They come off as accessible to an American audience.
Since then it's been a slow descent into the madness that K-pop has been for me. In particular, I'm a fan of Tae Yang (Dong Young Bae), the lead singer who came out with a solo mini-album. It's surprisingly insightful, as the songs are written around the process of love attained, strained, and lost. His vocal style is reminiscent of a Korean Usher, of whom Tae Yang is a big fan of, among other male R&B singers from the states.
Big Bang for me came at a time when I kind of needed a healthy obsession. Work kept me stuck in a rut, and injuries kept me from good practice habits. I barely had time in the day for any creative efforts, and long hours were blandly spent waiting for that period of time when I could take a breather doing nothing.
For the lack of anything better to describe it, following a K-pop group had that familiarity of when times were a little simpler, and the welcomeness from a generation raised on the internet could break down language barriers so hunting for information was not something as painstaking to do.
I'm definitely far from a fanboy though. It's kind of fun to read an article now and again, but I pretty much keep it to that. I mean, I think they're dope, their style is fresh, and their music is awesome, but what really keeps me from following their exploits up and down is probably the fact that their oldest member is still three years younger than me. And they got me riding their coattails. Seriously, what did I do wrong to get to this age with nothing to my name?
But that's just one of many groups that I've started to become familiar with lately, and one of many things that I do that halts my productivity that I'm coming clean about.
What do you do on hump day?
Ah, K-pop. Disclaimer: I'm not Korean, nor do I know what is being said, but honestly, in my limited experience with it, I've found more catchier songs, doper beats, and had an inkling of young fanboyness that I haven't had since middle school when random news comes across about some K-pop stars. Besides which, when you live in a region that plays like top 10 hits (more like top 5, because seriously you can hear the same song four times running errands for like two hours), you're going to want something completely different.
Big Bang
I admit it, in junior high/high school, I listened to H.O.T. (among a lot of others like Jinusean, Turbo, G.O.D., Yoo Seung Jun, S.E.S.), but only for like two albums and then I couldn't stand them anymore. Number one reason:
thanks to http://www.geocities.com/clubplanethot/ for reminding me how freaking lame I was in high school.
They look like girls. Really ugly girls. Either that, or mutant sheepdogs.
So, many, many years later, my good friend Michelle introduces me to this group called Big Bang. K-pop boy band, five members, and even at one time they covered the popular H.O.T. song "Candy"
Scary. I had very low expectations for a group that still got dolled up in furry pink overalls so girls could scream at them. Honestly, seeing some videos of those fans that flock around K-pop bands, I think they would scream at anything.
But really, my first experience with Big Bang came from this little gem of a video. It had everything a K-pop music video should've had.
1. A catchy beat
2. Fobby English
3. 4 minutes to wrench your heart in an impossibly complex situation between a boy and a girl.
And so my interest was piqued. But here's the awesomest part about these guys.
They come across with a unique urban style that no other K-pop band at their inception could pull off. The departure was so refreshing that it was probably what got them their popularity. There's no big mental exercise to accept indecipherable lyrics, strange hair, or outlandish outfits to nitrous-induced electronic beats. They come off as accessible to an American audience.
Since then it's been a slow descent into the madness that K-pop has been for me. In particular, I'm a fan of Tae Yang (Dong Young Bae), the lead singer who came out with a solo mini-album. It's surprisingly insightful, as the songs are written around the process of love attained, strained, and lost. His vocal style is reminiscent of a Korean Usher, of whom Tae Yang is a big fan of, among other male R&B singers from the states.
Big Bang for me came at a time when I kind of needed a healthy obsession. Work kept me stuck in a rut, and injuries kept me from good practice habits. I barely had time in the day for any creative efforts, and long hours were blandly spent waiting for that period of time when I could take a breather doing nothing.
For the lack of anything better to describe it, following a K-pop group had that familiarity of when times were a little simpler, and the welcomeness from a generation raised on the internet could break down language barriers so hunting for information was not something as painstaking to do.
I'm definitely far from a fanboy though. It's kind of fun to read an article now and again, but I pretty much keep it to that. I mean, I think they're dope, their style is fresh, and their music is awesome, but what really keeps me from following their exploits up and down is probably the fact that their oldest member is still three years younger than me. And they got me riding their coattails. Seriously, what did I do wrong to get to this age with nothing to my name?
But that's just one of many groups that I've started to become familiar with lately, and one of many things that I do that halts my productivity that I'm coming clean about.
What do you do on hump day?
Some people have been wondering exactly how I'm going about doing this writing thing. I wonder what they are thinking. I imagine they think I'm sitting in a Starbucks with pretentious coffee and a pretentious laptop with pretentious glasses drinking and looking frustrated and pounding out words that sound too archaic to be in anything but a book. Or that I can magically write page after page after page because creative writing is easier than critical writing.
My weeks as of late have been pretty much laid out like this:
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Writing in the afternoon. Training in the evening. Writing when I get home.
Tuesday: Read and plan writing path for the week.
Thursday: Writing group review
Weekend days are for resting.
Now, it sounds like a lot of writing done, but really it isn't. I'd be happy to net 500 words a week that I'd want to keep, but there's a lot of reading and editing done whenever I say I'm actually writing. Also, in the afternoon I usually do more reviewing than creating, and in the night to early morning is when I do more original material than reedit.
I've learned that you really need to be able to attribute your time to your mental capacity/mood. In an ideal world I'd be able to create anytime I want, but on top of that be able to write perfectly and never have to edit. It's not like that though.
I write better on rainy days than sunny (there's an article about this...something to do with being distracted by awesome weather outside) and I'm more prone to creative thinking late at night than in the daytime.
I'm particularly learning that I don't have to be 100% satisfied, at least not yet. I'm writing, and words on paper means more to the craft than anything. Making progress is satisfying, doubling back is frustrating, and sometimes all the editing in the world won't give you the confidence to back what you just put down.
And the most satisfying part; the most rewarding part of the creative process--you determine the outcome of whatever you're writing. It's not in stone. As my writing teacher once told me, "You are the God of your own work."
Moral of this story of story-writing: Write freely. Edit harshly. Read carefully. Screwing up will do you good in the long run.
My weeks as of late have been pretty much laid out like this:
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Writing in the afternoon. Training in the evening. Writing when I get home.
Tuesday: Read and plan writing path for the week.
Thursday: Writing group review
Weekend days are for resting.
Now, it sounds like a lot of writing done, but really it isn't. I'd be happy to net 500 words a week that I'd want to keep, but there's a lot of reading and editing done whenever I say I'm actually writing. Also, in the afternoon I usually do more reviewing than creating, and in the night to early morning is when I do more original material than reedit.
I've learned that you really need to be able to attribute your time to your mental capacity/mood. In an ideal world I'd be able to create anytime I want, but on top of that be able to write perfectly and never have to edit. It's not like that though.
I write better on rainy days than sunny (there's an article about this...something to do with being distracted by awesome weather outside) and I'm more prone to creative thinking late at night than in the daytime.
I'm particularly learning that I don't have to be 100% satisfied, at least not yet. I'm writing, and words on paper means more to the craft than anything. Making progress is satisfying, doubling back is frustrating, and sometimes all the editing in the world won't give you the confidence to back what you just put down.
And the most satisfying part; the most rewarding part of the creative process--you determine the outcome of whatever you're writing. It's not in stone. As my writing teacher once told me, "You are the God of your own work."
Moral of this story of story-writing: Write freely. Edit harshly. Read carefully. Screwing up will do you good in the long run.
Welcome to my rebooted blog!
My name is Andrew and this is where I deposit thoughts of various interests. I'm a (fledgling) writer/(martial) artist living in the OC, just to name a few things about myself. Here you'll find humble literature of my own hand, scribbles, rants and raves about various movies or tv shows, odd articles, links to stuff that I find interesting enough to post, random musings, and probably a million other things that I can't think of right now. But you'll find things to read, period. Check back often, because as the name implies, I come here when I get writer's block, which is pretty much all the time.
My name is Andrew and this is where I deposit thoughts of various interests. I'm a (fledgling) writer/(martial) artist living in the OC, just to name a few things about myself. Here you'll find humble literature of my own hand, scribbles, rants and raves about various movies or tv shows, odd articles, links to stuff that I find interesting enough to post, random musings, and probably a million other things that I can't think of right now. But you'll find things to read, period. Check back often, because as the name implies, I come here when I get writer's block, which is pretty much all the time.
