By 10am, today, it was confirmed that some unknown force had caused flakes of ice to fall from the skies of Houston Texas! And while the best minds at Texas A&M are currently in seclusion and still trying to understand what this means, many have started turning to religion. Still others seem unaffected by this indicating either a certain knowing, or possibly denial.

Normally, December is simply considered an extension of Autumn, with short sleeves and the occasional leather jacket still complimenting cowboy hats and sunglasses. But today temperatures in the city seemed to plummet well below the normal 50 degree weather that the Lone Star state is accustomed to. As if that wasn’t enough to make even the oldest natives of H-Town flood hardware stores in desperate search for something called a ‘heater’, alarm started to rise as people realized that the ‘rain’ seemed to be falling in the form of light flakes of ice.

“This is crazy!” observed one woman in an HEB parking lot, as she shoved canned foods into her mini van. Local news, and I’m not making this up, is warning about traffic conditions and many offices are trying to close a half day early. Some schools have suspended their classes and sent the student home for an early start on their weekend. No doubt the students who can drive are simply going to be out on the same ice coated roads that the HISD didn’t want them driving home on in the first place, but then again the High Schools in this state have never really been that big on promoting a thought process anyway.

One thing that has started to weight on me is what this means for the world? I found out, through a reputable source, that there is no snow fall in New York. How is this possible? Morally the Big Apple is covered in 12 feet of snow while people in H-Town are tanning on the beach. But for a city that experiences 108 in the shade on a good day in the summer, to be feeling snow fall down on it while New York is flake free worries me.

Could this be a sign? Should we worry that the death of an innocent and a child born without a soul are next? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I will keep an eye out for a man on a pale horse

So, as I announced recently, I’m diving into NaNoWriMo.org this year and to get ready for this I’ve start looking up how I need to prepare for writing a book, let alone one in 30 days. And I have to say, that even though it’s only Mid Aug and I am not to write A word before Nov 1st I’ve already started to learn quite about this process. Ironically enough, the process is *gasp* to write a book!

Say, isn’t this something I’ve always said I wanted to do and never got around to it? Is it possible that this NaNoWriMo thing is exactly what I needed? Is this just one more example of something I waited too long to do? I think many of us reach a point in our life and ask “What if?” questions. What if someone would have noticed that I like to tell stories? What if a teacher would have encouraged me to pay attention in English and keep writing? What if I would have decided to try this NaNoWriMo thing when I first heard about it 3 years earlier?

I think fear of the unknown and failure are the two things that hold us back the most. We ask if something is possible or real. Only recently have I truly started to grasp the concept that someone has to win the lottery. The biggest problem I see, time and time again, is that people compare themselves and others to everyone else. I know a guy who was a great director and put all his passion into a low budget movie. Sure, not everyone can be the next Tim Burton or Martin Scorsese and I know I probably can’t, but just because myself and everyone else I know would probably never make it as a Hollywood director doesn’t mean he couldn’t. Now, if I were better than he for any reason the question now is about drive and that’s what makes the difference.

I heard a story once, from Tony Robbins about Harland Sanders who supposedly had 1,009 rejections when he tried to sell his fired chicken recipe at age 65. It makes me wonder; If you’re meant to do something, is it ever too late? Or does destiny keep waiting around for you to finally get a clue? Cearly that drive is what makes the difference. Could anyone have sold a chicken recipe and had a $2 million dollar franchise in 9 years? Well, neither would Sanders, had he not had the drive to keep trying.

You can chicken and egg the whole thing (no pun intended). Did Sanders succeed because he had a great recipe or did he succeed because he had great determination? Maybe it was both, but it’s clear he believed in it. That, above all, is probably a more important factor to the equation. The debate still rages if great writers are born or made. Stephen King tells about how he had a stack of rejection letters nailed to his wall in his youth. In his book “On Writing” he said he resubmitted a story that was rejected to the same people who originally rejected it only to have them love it… of course by then he was a well known author but the point was that your story might not be a bad story, it’s just wasn’t supposed to be released yet.

So back to my own writings, and the story I intend to tell. I have two plots now, both somewhat personal. There’s also the life story I still intend to tell one day, when I’m brave enough to let the skeletons of my family out of the closet to total strangers. But it’s the lessons I’ve learned along the way that I hope others learn from. And while NaNoWriMo is more for fun it’s a good exercise.

And if this post is anything of a clue I don’t think I’ll have an issue coming up with 50,000 words in 30 days.

I’m wondering what sales of the Sims 3 are really going to look like. Sure it’s more visually appealing than the Sims 2 and from what I can tell the character development and game interaction is more involved but who’s really going to  buy it? Most of the people I know who bought the Sims 2 weren’t actually playing the game but using it for filming.  Conceptually there isn’t a whole that that seems to have changed from the Sims 2. Fights are still “cartoonish”, most of the intimacy has the a majority of maturity removed, and we’re going to be back to square one as far as modding the Sims 3 goes. While it won’t take long for cheats and hacked object to show up it will still be a while before was have pictures that allow us to force the characters to interact in desginated ways.

When I first played the Sims (original) I played the game, but the Sims 2 was leaps and bounds ahead of the Original Sims so I bought it to play and accidently felling to Machinima wich only boosted sales for the game. But again, I don’t really know anyone who “plays” the game at this point. Even my own need to purchase expansions were not for the game itself but for the varous locations and objects I wanted to use for filming. Those that are doing movies have already expressed they don’t want to convert over as no one would want to rebuild everything for a series they are in the middle of.

Personally I think Lionhead should get off it’s laurels and make a “the Movies 2″ but with better technology. Or sell the whole concept to EA Games. Can you imagine characters that look like 3rd Gen Sims in a game like “The Movies”? Not only would these movies be better looking (one of the things that killed the game in the first place) but they wouldn’t be as static (fixed camera angle and limited interactions is another thing that killed the game). Lionhead has always been  one of those companies that had good ideas they could never execute. When I first bought my copy of “The Movies” it was always locking up and crashing my system. I spent months going back and forth with Tech Support only to get “We cannot determine what would be causing this issue” and then they basically told me to stop bothering them. I don’t think I’ve bought another product from them again… so I guess a sequal to “The Movies” would have to produced by another company before I’d buy it anyway.

To recap real quick, JK Rowling is trying to block the publication of a Lexicon that Vander Ark and RDR Publishing want to print which indexes the information in Rowling’s 7 books without Rowling’s permission. They claim it’s for scholarly pursuits worth $29.95.

You can read most of the deatails yourself in here but in short it seems the judge hearing the case actually seems to suggest there is merit in something like Ark’s Lexicon if it were done “properly”. I still suggest that Rowling should simply be allowed a portion of the sales, because he pretty much IS taking her ideas and just re-writing them in a new format without her consent.

I doesn’t seem as if there is going to be a final verdict on this for weeks and the judge suggests that Rowling and Ark settle out of court as either side is just going to file appeal after appeal for years. If I were Ark, I’d just suggest throwing some money her way, keep doing all the work, and reap SOME rewards.

Eh, but what do I know – I’m not motivated by corporate greed.

…yet.

Harry Potter Author Goes to Court

I’ve been following this story, from a distance, and I have to say it is with nail biting anticipation that I await the outcome possibly this week or next.

If you’re not familiar with it, read it. Heh-heh! But in short it’s regarding Steven Vander Ark who runs a Harry Potter based Website (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/) which had collected, categorized and indexed a great deal of information about the Harry Potter universe. “Potter-Wiki” would be another way of looking at this site.

But now Ark (via RDR Publishing) wants to publish a book based on the website, which is based off JK Rowling’s works. So I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Personally, I support Rowling in this. Granted the website was never the subject of an attack but let’s face it – the website is a hobby. www.BardsTavern.com is also a Hobby. I’ve never made a penny off my Buffy Inspired series “R.I.P.” but I still pay for my domain name and I pay for my hosting service. And like Ark, I too have started looking at way to offer merchandise related to the spirit of this Tavern mostly in hopes of off setting this cost. I doubt he, like I, entered into these project as anything more than labors of love and a way to support other fans.

But recently Ark was approached by publishers stating that they wanted to turn his website into a book, and as the aspiring writer he was, he refused when he felt it would be a copyright violation. Until Rowling released the 7th and final book… now it seems RDR Publishing and Ark are ready to go full steam ahead in publishing a book intent on making a profit.

In short they are seeking to make money off of the works of JK Rowling, and there in lies the problem I have with the whole process. I don’t think someone should be allowed to be the sole beneficiary of profits made from someone else’s unique imagination. Now in my world Rowling would get a cut of all the profits made from the sale of the book since they are just publishing re-writes of what SHE wrote.

I personally hope they don’t win this battle, mostly because I believe this kind of information SHOULD be free. On top of that if it does turn out that Ark is allowed to make the book because it’s an extension of his website then writers will have to start cracking down on internet sites and forums (which would make fan based Wiki’s targets galore). On top of that it probably wouldn’t take long for Ark to realize that people may not buy the book if the same information is on his website for free. So the next step would be to minimize the amount of information you can find on his site without some “premium” membership of some kind. Now, suddenly, the information that was free for any fan to enjoy and absorb is now ruled by the all mighty dollar (or pound).

Remember the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, gets to make the rules.

But mark my words; If Ark DOES win this thing, then I’m going to get started on a Mistborn Lexicon before the month is out. Either that or I’ll try writing something of my OWN imagination… it just depends on how lazy and unimaginative I am when they deliver that verdict.

There is little expectation for anyone to be reading this right now, but maybe in the future?

The truth is I’m currently changing hosting providers… and for the time being I don’t expect anyone to be able to access the website, mostly because the old provider it going to take 4 days to allow the domain to be updated.

So right now I’m doing my best to make time move VERY quickly.

…damn… I guess this is just one power I don’t have.

I joined yet another online, social network. Got an invite from a 3rd person I know so I finally said “Okay – fine!”

So here’s the question: How much time can we spend online?

I’M part of the various writing, fiction and gaming forums, machinima communities, MySpace, Yahoo! 360, Facebook, friends I e-mail and Online Gaming networks. On the one hand I wouldn’t give up any of the people I’ve met but on the other hand I wonder when the various communities will have to give way to one another or take over my face-to-face life entirely. On top of that I wonder what this means for my children? I mean I probably spend more total interactive time with my online friends than I do my friends who live in the same city at this point (not including a co-worker) so does this mean that my children will probably have good friends they’ve never met in the same room? And while that may seem like a bad thing from a “traditional” standpoint I wonder if it is, because I wonder what my OWN childhood would have been like if I could have come home from a bad day at school with no one understanding me and logging into a social network where I would find others who did. Instead of spent most of my days dreading the fact that I had to wake up and return to an environment where few accepted me and most bullied me.

But one of the greatest things about the world wide web is no matter how “odd” you may think yourself to be there is probably a group out there that share your same ideas, or would at least find them as equally interesting – heck I found some YouTube videos about Sai forms and Katas and outside of my Karate Dojo I don’t know anyone else who would find them interesting either – then again even IN my Karate Dojo I can probably only name 3 that would, but the video still has over 6,000 views regardless. I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of a new world of distant thoughts and people connected only by digital signals where the day may come that we won’t have to actually meet anyone at all… how wonderful and tragic all at the same time…

Here is an email exchange I had with a person who refused to accept my solution for proving I existed….

“I’m sorry BTW if I offended you in any way in the thread, I am not looking to be amused, but am trying to engage people in a thinking exercise that will require some philosophical thinking or scientific knowledge. If the solution was as simple as my not being able to name your girlfriend’s cats, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?

I hope you don’t wash your hands of it, because I feel you can win the scenario”

Actually, you’re right. This isn’t for your amusement. It’s actually a way for you to justify your own feelings of superiority and at first that was what pissed me off the point of not wanting to play your childish attempt at philosophy. But it’s clear to me that you may have come up with your own solution and you’re not looking for an answer to your question so much as you’re looking for someone to validate your own answer and by doing so proving your powers of reasoning as superior as you want others to see them as. You claim that my solution is too easy, but in truth I think it is simply to eloquent for you to accept because you didn’t come up with it first. As Einstein once said “Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Even Occom stated that the simplest solution is the best.

You see, in this challenge I actually pondered the question and came up with 5 – count them 5 – possible solutions. I then set out to find flaws in the logic of each one. 4 of my solutions were actually counter argued by me to the point of proving there were flaws in the reasoning. The 5^th, however, I was able to defend from the various angles that I myself had come up with. So you see, the answer wasn’t the challenge to me – the process of deciding which answer to use was the point of the exercise.

So that brings us to the part that REALLY pisses me off. You’ haven’t even tried to find flaws in my reasoning. With everyone else you (and even I) were able to find a flaw in the logic used by someone answering the question. With the solution of killing you without your knowledge we both agreed that the extinguishing if your existence would not prove that the murder existed outside of your perception (even though your argument was a bit weaker “If I believed I was dead”? who writes your material Mark Steven Johnson?). Then there was the concept that you don’t exist either, but we both agreed that you have first hand knowledge of your own existence but not first hand knowledge of others’ so the burden off proof was for me to prove I exist when you’re not cognizant of my presence. For MY solution however, you bother do to none of this, because you CAN’T. You cannot find a valid reason for why my exercise would (or wouldn’t) validate my existence outside of your own mind and thus your only argument is “I don’t want to.” The mere fact that you don’t even attempt a counter point that I may not have attempted myself OR come up with one that I haven’t yet only further proves that you don’t have the powers of reason or logic that you want to pretend you do. You’ve simply dodge a bullet to claim you’re immortal. While I was very upset last night I’ve literally had a chance to sleep on it and while I no longer despise your narrow mindedness and need for egotism, I’m STILL not going to return to your thread because I’d hate to continue to undermine your powers of reason in the name of philosophy before your “fans”. But the next time you go off claiming you know anything about philosophy just remember that philosophy is really about questioning existence and nature through the use of principles of reason, not coming up with questions that have only one answer.

I’d watched this person use sound logic to dispute every solution but my own. When it came to me it wasn’t a case of using sound logic anymore, suddenly it was about the “nature of the question” and the “mental exercise” – I say screw all that, he got PWND and he knows it.

So I got into this philosophical discussion with someone who wanted me to prove that I existed outside of his perception of me and that I wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.

I offered:

By proving I have knowledge of events that he does not I can prove my existence. My solution was to write down the name of a friends cat and give it to someone else to prove that I can manifest information that is outside of his comprehension thus proving I have knowledge of things he does not and thus I exist outside of the scope of his mind.

He argued that I had to prove I existed and that he had no obligation to test my solution. In short he said my idea was “too simple”

So that brings me to my point.

Is philosophy supposed to be HARD? I thought it was about exploring our existence and the reality around us through our ability to reason, I didn’t know it was about trying to come up with questions that didn’t have answers or coming up with an answer to a question yourself and accepting no others as the solution.

I gave up arguing the point but I still feel my solution, however simple it may seem, is still the most valid one because it combines logic and reason.

Am I wrong?

I was at work today, and we have this breakfast wagon that comes around every morning for both employees and customers. Thier very enterprising that way. Well it wasn’t long after they showed up that I noticed, what I assume to be, a father with his daughter, who couldn’t have been older than 5 or 6, sitting on a bench waiting for their car to be repaired. I guess they decided to grab a quick meal while they were waiting for thier car to be pulled around so there they were just sitting there, her with her juice and he with his soda. The father was holding the plate low so the little girl could get her hands around what you or I would consider a normal sized breakfast taco. They didn’t seem to talk much because they didn’t seem to need too, and both seemed content with just living in that moment of hanging out at the car service place eating a breakfast taco. It was simple, it was ironically peacefull even against a sound track of lifts rasing cars and engins starting up ever few second, and made me think that for all the strees this world can give you, and how much a child could complicate that world, there are clearly some moments in life in which happiness is as easy as eating a breakfast taco and waiting for an oil change…