Filler: Now with more kittens!

Turns out that I didn't write 500 words with the last post or with current ramblings through social networking sites.

Right now, this is even more difficult because I have a kitten constantly jumping onto my lap as I am typing. It is quite annoying. If he isn't jumping in my lap, he likes to just sit in front of the screen, waiting for the mouse pointer to move.

Cinder, the new kitten, has been in my home for a little over a month I think. It could be longer. I have no real concept of time when it comes to these things. Hell, I see movies on cable and think I just watched them in the theater when it was really 5 years ago they were released. Thankfully, Cinder has been declawed in the front. He used to tear my back up. He has a tendency to jump on the back of the computer chair, then slide down between my back and the back of the chair. When he wanted to move, he would take it upon himself to use my back a a step ladder to my shoulder. This was all just a set-up to sit in front of the computer screen to bat at the arrow whisking its' way across the flat surface.

I don't have a camera in front of me, so there is no picture at the time of writing. If it's not Cinder getting up in my business, it's the oldest, Stripe. She constantly wants to sit in people's laps now. There is no way to deter her. She thinks she moves slow enough so that she isn't noticed. Well, she actually does move slow enough so that the bell around her neck rarely makes any noise. For a solid 2 hours, I had to keep trying to get Stripe to stay off of me. Nothing working, including a water spray bottle. The only thing to keep her from doing it, is to just move and do something else.

Ok, I think I have enough of a start. I'm going to go get some sleep now.

Plan for 2010

OK, here is what I am going to try and do. Now, I am not really one to make New Year's resolutions. I have a nasty habit of never really following them. I don't even work toward the pursuit of a positive resolution. Still, this is something that I probably should do regardless of resolutions.

I want to write. To get me to try and do that, I am going to attempt to write about 500 words a day. Now, that isn't much, but it adds up over time. Now, I am not relegating all words to one specific thing. Everything will not be placed on this or any other blog as some sort of track record. All I want to do is just write stuff.

I am including blog entries (like this one), forum posts (were ever it is that I venture), and even tweets/status updates. I am only including such minuscule things to give me sort of a buffer for the word counts for the one person that will be an asshole about this whole ordeal. Granted, I don't think many people will even bother reading half the shit I post, so I doubt many people will try and count the words. I have no idea if I am going to decide to back track an make up for the days since the New Year, but I'm just taking this one step at a time.

The idea just sprang on me today, limited word requirement and all. I have told all of one person in the flesh. Of course, it was some one who keeps wanting me to write. The irony is that he has never read anything I have written.m Part of the concept is derived from my friend's attempt to fill a sketchbook by the end of the year. What started as a sketch a day, quickly became 4 sketches a week, with the excuse that the book only had 220 pages (110 sheets) in it. Whatever. I just want hm to work. His talent needs to be encouraged, and the only way he'll do anything with it is if he has a purpose.

So, that's the plan. With any luck things will come from this. I need to get warmed up to write some creative stuff soon.

Update Dec 27, 2009

I've been ignoring this blog a lot recently. I have no real excuse. Lack of inspiration at the time of writing is the problem. I'll be at work and a cool idea will pop into my head, but leaves shortly when there is no way to write it down.

For an update, at the moment, I am attempting another new mix. No set theme at the moment. It might just be stuff I started to listen to this year. Last year, I made a New Year mix, and even burn a bunch of copies for people, but never gave them out to anyone. This year, i will with hold the burning in favor of just enjoying a mix for me. Personal things and all.

It may even be a double CD mix, but I will probably tri it down to just one whenever I settle on a theme. So far, there is stuff all over the place with many song being things that I like from the radio.

I am also supposedly writing a script for a friend of mine. He's looking for portfolio pieces in comci sequential art. It's only to be about 6 pages, so I am trying to wrap my head around an idea that condense. You have to figure it's a standard 6 panel grid, so it's 36 panels to work with, but that doesn't include expansive panel layouts and cheesecake shots. I'll think of something. I just need an idea with minimal characters and simple story taht could be told with little or no dialog.

Christmas was fine. Had most of my family over for dinner and such. Nowhere to hide. I got some gift cards, a video game, lots of clothes and a GPS unit.

New Years Eve should be interesting to say the least. I have a love hate relationship with the end of the year. I look forward to new prospects, but hate the hype of the end of the year party. Too many expectations.

Sound of Silence

See, the weird thing is that I had plenty of time and topics to write abut over the last week. I just didn't have a functioning computer with internet access to actually compose my thoughts. It's kind of sad that I resort my self to technology as a crutch to write.

In any case, I guess it's time for an update.

It is solidly in the Christmas season at work. Hours officially changed with Black Friday, but now are staring to effect me. See, for the first few weeks, only weekends were really effected, with opening early and staying open late. Now, this week, the whole week has early openings and late closings. My Wednesday is going to suck, since it is then that I both open and close. In fact I have to go in before open to get work done then. I'm going to need some Red Bulls or something.

My Thanksgiving was all right. It was vastly different than past years. Instead of my home playing host to my immediate family, I joined my mom in center city Philadelphia for an extended family Thanksgiving. My brother was married on the next day, so with his wife's family in from another state, they had Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel were the wedding was to be held. It's strange having such a classic meal with menu options. Don't worry, I had the turkey choice. It was good, but nothing like a home cooked meal. I am also surprised how many people actually go out to eat for Thanksgiving. There was over 100 reservations for the hotel restaurant. Granted our party was most of it, but it still seems like a lot.

My brother, Chris, was married on Black Friday. This was significant because it gave me the greatest excuse (aside from a death) to not have to be at work. An added bonus was the extended days off, my first 4 day weekend/vacation since I was sick in January 2008. It was a good ceremony. It seemed non-denominational. They aren't actively practicing anything that I know of. Still, it was good to see all of my family. It is an extremely rare occasion when even my immediate family is all in one place. I talked with cousins, and generally had a good time. I drank and danced and tried my best to ignore my coming sickness. It never fails that I get sick to some degree whenever I am away from work for extended time.

Saturday started day one of house sitting. Since my brother was recently married and heading to a honeymoon in Belize, I was drafted to house sit and watch his cat, Blue. To describe it in a word, I would use "lonely". I didn't have a computer to connect with he outside world, so I settled for ondemand television and seasons of old TV on DVD. I finished up Generation Kill, Fear Itself and The Adventures of Brisco County Junior. I also brought my Xbox 360 to hook up to the HD television... Well, I hoped to at least.

The cords I had were for standard definition. I thought they may work in some capacity anyway. even if I didn't have the ful HD experience, I could at least connect it to the the internet and play some Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 online. Hell, with the new Xbox updates, I could even check my twitter and Facebook accounts. I held out for a day and headed to Gamestop the following afternoon. There I broke down and bought the HDMI cables needed for full High def experience. That was a good $50 right there. Then I headed to RadioShack and grabbed a 3ft ethernet cord for $10. I was in a good mood. I was going to waste away the rest of my solitude filled nights with mass killing of virtual people. I opend the packaging for the HDMI cable and set to connect it to the TV. Were the cable now connected to the TV, it didn't connect to the Xbox. Apparently, I have an early model that didn't support HDMI. Well, there's wasted money. Instead of getting too annoyed, I opted to attach the Xbox to the TV that was in the bedroom I was staying in. It didn' have internet access, but at least I could get some use out of it. I resorted to played a couple nights of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

Now, if you read this blog with any frequency, you may have perused the one written about the date I had. It was fun. We went out a couple times over the next few weeks. We talked nearly everyday. Then Thanksgiving came, and there was silence. With attempted phone calls and text messages left unanswered, I am just assuming the worst. I just have no idea what the hell happened. I'm not going to try calling again until I hear something back. There are other things I should be focusing on, like Christmas.

Project: Mix CD

I spent the last couple hours doing something I should have done a long time ago. For the past few years (read this as about 8 or so) I have been making mix CDs. Before that, it was the mix tape because I didn't have a computer capable of burning CDs . Since I have purchused a new computer, I have yet to re-synch my iPod with it. See, my iPod still has the track listings of most of the mixes that were on my original computer before it broke on me. Now, I am going through those playlists and making a hard list of the songs in case I ever need to make them again.

One of the unfortuneate things is that all of the mixes I have mde aren't represented digitally on my iPod. For that I need to rediscover the actual burned discs I created oh so many years ago.

For the past few years, a group of friends, collectively known as The Schmibb, have been making mix CDs and sharing them with each other. I have done this with them as well. They have produced a grand variety of mixes that I still listen to this day. It's nice that there can be some purpose behind the whole mix CD thing. My only problem with it is that my direction toward these shared mix parties usually makes me think of something either obscure or something to fill their tastes. I personally think some of my favorite mixes I have made tend to be personal, even to the point of just being songs I like at the time.

For example, here is the track listing for one I did probably about 5 years ago. It was around the time the Sin City movie had it's trailer being shown by my seeking out and using the song from the commercial as the opening track.

Kevin 3

1. The Servent – Cells

2. Phantom Planet – Big Brat

3. Sparta – Breaking The Broken

4. The Killers – Mr. Brightside

5. Sunny Day Real Estate – Seven

6. Hum – Stars

7. Keane – Somewhere Only We Know

8. Muse – Hysteria

9. Foo Fighters – The One

10. Dashboard Confessional – Vindicated

11. Queens Of The Stone Age – Little Sister

12. The Mars Volta – The Widow

13. Interpol – Evil

14. My Chemical Romance – I'm Not Okay

15. Beck – Epro

16. Pavement – Stereo

17. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Soul to Squeeze

18. Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta

19. Living Colour – Cult of Personality

20. Nine Inch Nails – The Line Begins to Blur

I know. It's such a snazzy title for a mix CD, right? It's Kevin 3 because I made 2 before that. The problem is they were never on my old computer and from my iMAC days. God, I haven't used that thing in forever. It's 9GB hard drive shies in comparison to today's 1TB semi-standard. Still, I have the CDs for them. I have to reliste and transcribe the songs. I'm going to have trouble with the second one. It has a few sound clips from various shows throughout. I think I still have all of them somewhere.

Eventually, I will have them all transcribed. I may even be brazen enough to dig through my mix tapes and attempt a similar thing. That's really going to show some age.