January 30, 2007
Midnight at the Crossroads
Just got back from the Writer's Circle Meeting for January. Our writing assignment for this month was as follows: "The theme for the January meeting is "beginnings and endings." This month's topic is inspired by the Roman god, Janus. Mythology tells us that Janus, the guardian of gates and doors, has the ability to look forward and backward. He is often depicted with two faces (one bearded, the other clean shaven.) Janus was worshipped at harvest, planting, marriage, birth, and any important event in a person's life. Members are invited to share poems, journal entries, memoirs, fiction, essays or laments on the January theme. It's helpful to remember that Janus is also representative of the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city and between peace and war. In his right hand he holds a key. You take it from there...."
And here is what I came up with:
"Midnight at the Crossroads"
It was an unusually warm evening in early January. I would often take late night walks despite the season, just to clear my lungs with fresh air before bed. Tonight's walk was slightly uncomfortable; I had overdressed, expecting cooler conditions. I loosened my jacket, pulled off my toque and took a deep breath as the light breeze caressed the smooth skin of my freshly shorn head. Only scant traces of dirty snow remained along the edge of the road where it been tossed by the snowplow several weeks earlier.
My hometown (and I use the term "town" loosely), consisted of perhaps twenty homes and one general store. It sprung up along an otherwise uninteresting stretch of tertiary highway and was crossed about halfway through by a back road of the partially maintained sort that ubiquitously define the concession lines of our small island.
Continue reading "Midnight at the Crossroads"
January 25, 2007
Blog On
I've been very bad with keeping my journal up to date this month, there's been so much going on that I've hardly had a chance to catch my breath. Beyond normal computer repairs, I have also entered into 3 large scale projects this month, the combination of which will pretty much dominate my life for the next 18 months.
One of them is a huge website for a client here on the island, one of them will come to fruition September of this year and one of them won't see the light of day until the later half of 2008.
In other news, I decided to take the gig with the Cambrian College Manitoulin Campus teaching the course entitled "How to Set Up an Internet Blog", which I will be teaching over the next 3 weeks, every Thursday evening. Tonight was my first class and I believe things went fairly well, the "Campus" has an excellent computer lab (with an honest to goodness whiteboard and everything!) that we put to good use and I'm very proud of my class.
The caught on to the basics like pros, so I will have to work hard coming up with something more challenging for next week.
In the meantime, they asked me to share their brand new blogs, so, without further ado and in no particular order, I would like to present:
http://maplesugarbushstories.blogspot.com/
http://tenmilepoint-lois.blogspot.com/
http://mgconbiglake.blogspot.com/
http://warriorsof1812.blogspot.com/
My first homework assignment was to add more content, so hopefully we'll see a lot more posting very shortly!
January 6, 2007
Ok, So I Went to the City Yesterday for a Pretty Silly Reason
A friend let me know that there was a review of “Chain Mail Jewelry” on page 18 of the February 2007 issue of “Bead & Button” magazine. The weather was so nice that I just couldn’t resist slipping over to the city for the day to pick up a copy, since Bead & Button isn’t available locally.
In part, the review reads: “Clear color-coded illustrations and large detailed photos demystify the ancient art of chain mail. With these inventive projects, chain mail is now modern, versatile, at times open and airy, and made completely accessible to the beginner through careful step-by-step instructions alongside computerized graphics. There are plenty of designs for intermediate and advanced readers too, with a gallery full of artists’ work to inspire you even beyond this book.”
Which I think is pretty darn positive, thank you Bead and Button!
P.S. I actually went to Sudbury a couple of weeks ago for the almost identical purpose of picking up the Winter 2007 edition of "Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry", which contains very positive reviews not only of Chain Mail Jewelry, but also my first book, “The Art of Chainmail: Volume I”.
So, I suppose I should say “Thank you Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry!”, as well!
High Definition Format Wars – Blargh!
I found this article about frustration over the current high definition movie wars and was compelled to add the following comment in response to some of the other comments. It definitely belongs under the heading “Technobust”:
“VHS may have been convenient, but it surely wasn't any more stable than DVDs, I certainly experience my fair share of tape glitches and other VHS anomalies over the years.
I agree though, DVDs are far too fragile and unreliable.
A flash RAM solution would be much more practical, for cripes sake, we're almost a decade into the new millennium and still using mechanical data storage methods, how long are we going to be forced to relay on such inefficient and unreliable technology ? HD-DVD and Blu-ray are both colossal wastes of time, resources and money.
Here's to the hope that technology like Sandisk's SSD and backlash against the Hi-Def DVD Debacle are the final nails in the coffin for mechanical storage methods and media.”
January 3, 2007
300
Going to the city to see a movie has always been a special treat, but, with Sudbury being a 6 hour roundtrip from my home on the island, it really sucks to travel all that way to see a crappy movie. With the exception of Casino Royale (boo cliff-hangers), I'd have to say that crap is all that Hollywood was capable producing during the second half of 2006, heck, all of 2006 was pretty damn dry move-wise.
In fact, the only movies I particularly remember enjoying were Dead Man's Chest (double boo cliff-hangers), Clerks II and V for Vendetta.
2007 was starting to look pretty darn sparse as well. Ok, the trailers for Spiderman 3 were sorta interesting, but the first two Spidermans were just alright, so there's no reason to expect the third to be anything special, even if it does have Venom. Another movie based on one of my favorite Marvel comics, Ghost Rider, is scheduled for release next month, but for some reason my "bad comic book movie sense" is tingling, so this one is still a wait and see. The new trailer for Fantastic Four 2 isn't anything really special, even if the Silver Surfer has always been one of my favorite characters, I just can't see Mr. Radd's personality getting translated to the silver screen, especially if they focus on his "early enslaved to galactic evil" days.
There was a bit of stir on Digg over the new Transformers movie trailer, which perhaps shows a little potential, but it's another "give me a good story to go with all those effects and I might be interested, so this 2007 that I'm remaining sceptical about.
While looking for the Transformers trailer I stumbled on to a movie that based on a comic that I hadn't heard of before called "300". "What an odd name for a movie", I thought, so I watched the trailer and then I did something that I don't recall ever doing before, I watched it again, shivers running down my spine, thinking to myself "Holy (expletive deleted) this could be the greatest movie ever!!!"
So, what is "300"? Well, it's actually another comic/graphic novel to big screen translation, however, this time it's based on a Frank Miller (creator of my top movie pick of 2005, "Sin City", which actually ranks in my top 3 or 4 movies of all time) comic book series from the late 90's of the same name, which went on to be published as a graphic novel.
The story is dramatised re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which the Spartan King Leonidas I led a group of 300 Spartan soldiers against the invading Persian army of "Xerxes the Great" (the original, not the XERXES who was usurped by SHODAN in System Shock 2), which was said to be over 1,000,000 men strong. At this point I am tempted to talk more about the historical accounts of the Battle of Thermopylae, but I'd rather not ruin a single page of this story for those who may be unfamiliar with one of the most fascinating battles in history. Let's just say that the line that divides winners and losers can only be viewed in the context of the whole war, not just a single battle.
What really blew me away was the visual look of the movie, while different than Sin City, the trailer manages to capture and evolve the visual magic that made that movie so special. I got the distinct feeling that this is what "Troy" and "Alexander" should have been; of course, we'll have to wait to March to see if relatively new director Zack Snyder and Frank Miller have managed to create a winner. Optimism is high, so are expectations, this one will really have to shine to earn my accolades, but shine like a Hoplite's xiphos it just might!
April 2008