http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/22/adult-children
When dealing with parents as an adult, there is no way that you can ever be considered equals. There is never a time that I will ever be seen in my parents eyes as anything more than the fourteen year old teenage idiot that I was.
I've already talked about this a bit on the blog, but the short story about this is that although I have a masters degree, and although I am going to be teaching at LDS Business college starting in January, and although I'm married and have a kid, my parents, and my sisters to a lesser extent, will always see me as a stupid fourteen year old.
The reason behind this is that after fourteen, I started avoiding them.
That's right, I realized that the best way for me to not have to deal with them was by keeping myself hyper busy and never having to actually be with them. Having state orchestra, youth orchestra, swim team, and science olympiad, as well as DM-ing a campaign with friends not to mention a full load of honors and AP classes translated down to a very simple thing - I never saw my parents. As soon as I was able to control my own schedule and could control how often I was at home, I wasn't at home.
The further I got into high school, the less I dealt with them. There were times that I didn't see them for a long time, and there were even times that I hadn't seen my dad for an entire week, only to see him at church to miss him for another week.
After high school and avoiding them at all costs at all times, I went to college and avoided them, did the mission and avoided them, and finally went back to college, got married, and avoided them. I didn't want to deal with the stupidity of my family, because passive aggressive just gets too fun at some points, and so I avoided them. The only down side to this is that my family has had such little interaction with me, that they go off of when they last saw me, which was when I was 14, hence I will always be 14.
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 27, 2014
Forgot about this one
On Sunday, in Elders Quorum they were doing a getting to know you better segment. They asked great questions like what my favorite game was (I decided to go super duper random and over ALL of their heads and stick with Disgaea, because let's be honest, even in the gaming community no one knows about that random little gem).
But then came this question, "What is one way that you show your wife that you love her?" and then they side barred that by saying that I couldn't say anything traditional or normal for showing love, it had to be something unique.
I didn't really know what to go with, so I said that I think that the entire time that Alicia and I have been married that she has had to do the laundry maybe twice, and that is stretching it. I'm only saying twice because I could be wrong at saying never.
The first response from the super right wing, conservative, make guns in his back yard (not a joke, he wants to make his own guns) was, "You keep that to yourself!"
After cooking yet another AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner (if I do say so myself), I really shouldn't mention the fact that I do things like that either to his wife.
I didn't really know what to go with, so I said that I think that the entire time that Alicia and I have been married that she has had to do the laundry maybe twice, and that is stretching it. I'm only saying twice because I could be wrong at saying never.
The first response from the super right wing, conservative, make guns in his back yard (not a joke, he wants to make his own guns) was, "You keep that to yourself!"
After cooking yet another AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner (if I do say so myself), I really shouldn't mention the fact that I do things like that either to his wife.
Please Don't Be . . . - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/21/factions
I can't remember the comedian that was talking about it, but they were saying that any time they hear about someone stupid in the news/media, they just start chanting to themselves, "Please, don't be black, don't be black, don't be black, please. . ." and then it turns out to be a black guy who did it, and they just rage.
In that same realm, any time that I hear about anything coming out of Utah, the first thing that I start thinking about is, "Please don't be about polygamy, please don't be about polygamy. . ." a close runner up is, "Please don't be about extremist outlying mormons, please don't be about extremist outlying mormons. . ."
Unfortunately, this episode of This American Life, starts off with the worst of those, and talks about 'fundamental' Mormons in Utah who believe in polygamy, and also sharing the bed with more wife at the same time, and to top that all of they are a special flavor of bonkers, but only slightly bonkers compared to actual Mormon belief traditions. Just let it be said here before I move on to what I actually want to write about, that we're not all like them. There is a reason that the crazies shown in this show are excommunicated and completely removed from the actual church.
Onto the actual topic of the whole deal - factions.
Unlike the people on the show, I don't have any religious factions that I've had to deal with, I don't have much of any factions at work or in social connections, so I'm sort of at a loss to where factions would even come into my life and when I've been deep into the world of factions, but then I remembered, the tried and true faction causing game - Dungeons and Dragons.
What you don't know about D&D players is that they get deadly related to their characters and what they create. Being a GM for players means that you have to make a game that challenges the players, but also makes them work together as a team, while also falling more in love with the characters that they are palying as. The problem with this is that ocasionally, you try to add a new player into the mix and lines are firmly drawn in the sand and factions are made.
The problem to this is that new players screw everything up. Up to that point, your group is set. You have whatever you have, sometimes it isn't even balanced, sometimes it's totally broken and needs more people in it to make it work (five fighters? There's nothing wrong with that!), but the group has been through some hard times together and they've learned to work together as a group. But then comes in the new person, or people, and you might as well have just given them a boss monster that has a real life person sitting on the other side of them.
The first time that this happened was with a guy back in high school. He was a transfer student that had moved from the UK to Las Vegas, and through talking to people he found out that we had a group, and wanted to join. But the problem was that he was SUPER high brow about his play and super duper into what he was doing. He knew the lore, and he knew exactly what he wanted, but it was just too much, so the group, without any prodding from me, sabatoged and got rid of him in one or two game sessions.
Then came the big one - boy scouts.
Most of my old D&D group were in scouts with me, and we would play ocasionally on camp outs and what not. One time our leaders said that they wanted to play, as well as the other boys who were not in the group, so characters were drawn up and we flipped the story around and forced the groups together of those new players, and the origional group. Things were going well. . . until one guy realized that he was male, and that another guy in the group (the old well played group) was a girl, so he tried to flirt.
Things started to go down hill from the guy on guy playing as guy on girl flirting, a slap turned into a punch, which turned into a sword, which turned into spells being cast, which turned into a beat down, drag out, five on five match of the gladiators with the group worried more about killing each other, hunting each other down, and trying to survive the attacks from the other group, than they were about any story line, and I was stuck trying to GM the entire fight between one faction and the other, constantly reminding them that they could in fact do whatever they wanted, which typically lead to whoever just asked doing something completely ridiculous.
I mean, this fiasco of group versus group went on for an entire night. Jokes about it, insults about it, and references to it, went on for years afterwards. In fact I'm pretty sure if we got the right people together I could reference the fight, and they would be able to fill in just about every insult, comment, and flirting song that was sung from one person to the other. That's the weird part about D&D. It's totally made up, it's not real, it's played with DICE and a PENCIL, and yet somehow the stories that people play in those D&D games can be so memorable that people can remember them YEARS afterwards and remember them better than their own life.
I can't remember the comedian that was talking about it, but they were saying that any time they hear about someone stupid in the news/media, they just start chanting to themselves, "Please, don't be black, don't be black, don't be black, please. . ." and then it turns out to be a black guy who did it, and they just rage.
In that same realm, any time that I hear about anything coming out of Utah, the first thing that I start thinking about is, "Please don't be about polygamy, please don't be about polygamy. . ." a close runner up is, "Please don't be about extremist outlying mormons, please don't be about extremist outlying mormons. . ."
Unfortunately, this episode of This American Life, starts off with the worst of those, and talks about 'fundamental' Mormons in Utah who believe in polygamy, and also sharing the bed with more wife at the same time, and to top that all of they are a special flavor of bonkers, but only slightly bonkers compared to actual Mormon belief traditions. Just let it be said here before I move on to what I actually want to write about, that we're not all like them. There is a reason that the crazies shown in this show are excommunicated and completely removed from the actual church.
Onto the actual topic of the whole deal - factions.
Unlike the people on the show, I don't have any religious factions that I've had to deal with, I don't have much of any factions at work or in social connections, so I'm sort of at a loss to where factions would even come into my life and when I've been deep into the world of factions, but then I remembered, the tried and true faction causing game - Dungeons and Dragons.
The problem to this is that new players screw everything up. Up to that point, your group is set. You have whatever you have, sometimes it isn't even balanced, sometimes it's totally broken and needs more people in it to make it work (five fighters? There's nothing wrong with that!), but the group has been through some hard times together and they've learned to work together as a group. But then comes in the new person, or people, and you might as well have just given them a boss monster that has a real life person sitting on the other side of them.
The first time that this happened was with a guy back in high school. He was a transfer student that had moved from the UK to Las Vegas, and through talking to people he found out that we had a group, and wanted to join. But the problem was that he was SUPER high brow about his play and super duper into what he was doing. He knew the lore, and he knew exactly what he wanted, but it was just too much, so the group, without any prodding from me, sabatoged and got rid of him in one or two game sessions.
Then came the big one - boy scouts.
Most of my old D&D group were in scouts with me, and we would play ocasionally on camp outs and what not. One time our leaders said that they wanted to play, as well as the other boys who were not in the group, so characters were drawn up and we flipped the story around and forced the groups together of those new players, and the origional group. Things were going well. . . until one guy realized that he was male, and that another guy in the group (the old well played group) was a girl, so he tried to flirt.
Things started to go down hill from the guy on guy playing as guy on girl flirting, a slap turned into a punch, which turned into a sword, which turned into spells being cast, which turned into a beat down, drag out, five on five match of the gladiators with the group worried more about killing each other, hunting each other down, and trying to survive the attacks from the other group, than they were about any story line, and I was stuck trying to GM the entire fight between one faction and the other, constantly reminding them that they could in fact do whatever they wanted, which typically lead to whoever just asked doing something completely ridiculous.
I mean, this fiasco of group versus group went on for an entire night. Jokes about it, insults about it, and references to it, went on for years afterwards. In fact I'm pretty sure if we got the right people together I could reference the fight, and they would be able to fill in just about every insult, comment, and flirting song that was sung from one person to the other. That's the weird part about D&D. It's totally made up, it's not real, it's played with DICE and a PENCIL, and yet somehow the stories that people play in those D&D games can be so memorable that people can remember them YEARS afterwards and remember them better than their own life.
Nov 19, 2014
Run Yourself To Sleep
Lately one of the funniest things has happened before going to sleep. My wife claims that she's too awake and can't go to sleep, my response is that she should go running or something like that to get tired.
For the next 20-30 seconds she wiggles her legs back and forth under the covers 'running' and then as soon as she stops in under a minute, she's out cold.
I don't know how she does it, but she 'runs' herself to sleep, and it's getting hard not to laugh at how effective it is.
I don't know how she does it, but she 'runs' herself to sleep, and it's getting hard not to laugh at how effective it is.
Nov 18, 2014
Cool Story Bro
"Hey Adam, are you done with that story?"
"Yeah! Here's the link! You should read it and tell me what you think"
"Cool."
THEN NOTHING
That's the end of that interaction.
The end, nothing more, we're done, let's go home, you're not going to hear a single word from them from here on out.
YOU KNOW WHAT!?
You want to know why I don't share my stories with people?
BECAUSE NO ONE READS THEM!
Want to know why I think my writing sucks?
BECAUSE EVEN MY BEST FRIENDS AND FAMILY DO NOT SPEND TIME TO READ IT!
Sorry, but next time you ask me about what I'm writing, the first questions out of my mouth are going to be, "What did you think about the last thing I sent you? Did you spend time to read that?"
Who cares if you thumbs up it, or like it, or whatever else, did you actually spend the time to read through the pages and READ it? Or did you just go, 'that's a cool wall of text, I guess I should +1 this just to make sure he recognized that he spent time on it'?
This isn't high school. This sure isn't college. There's no test on the book, but I sure as Hell can tell when you haven't read it! On this note, if you want to ever make me super duper happy and all that stuff, read something I've written and comment intellectually on it. INTELLECTUALLY is the key word in that sentence. Saying, "it's nice" is just about as helpful as that thumbs up that you gave me on Facebook. You want to really make me impressed, form a full coherent thought about a character or plot element that does not happen in the first ten or the last ten pages. It doesn't even have to be a positive thought, you could absolutely hate how I do X, Y, or Z and at least it'll show me that you spent time to read!
In review, for someone who would like to consider himself an author, there are some great things that you can do to make any author's dream come true (even published, super famous authors like the following steps)
1- Read the book
2- Think about the book
3- Form an opinion about the book
Bonus round if you do -
4- Talk about that book with other people (or even the author!)
Until people show me that they can follow those three, or four, steps, NO MORE OF MY WRITING FOR YOU! (Well, not for specifically for you people, if you're reading this, you're at least onto step 3 because you're reading and thinking and starting to tell yourself if you like it or not, I'm always going to be writing something like this blog. No escape for you people to get out of me giving you random junk to read)
"Yeah! Here's the link! You should read it and tell me what you think"
"Cool."
THEN NOTHING
That's the end of that interaction.
The end, nothing more, we're done, let's go home, you're not going to hear a single word from them from here on out.
YOU KNOW WHAT!?
BECAUSE NO ONE READS THEM!
Want to know why I think my writing sucks?
BECAUSE EVEN MY BEST FRIENDS AND FAMILY DO NOT SPEND TIME TO READ IT!
Sorry, but next time you ask me about what I'm writing, the first questions out of my mouth are going to be, "What did you think about the last thing I sent you? Did you spend time to read that?"
Who cares if you thumbs up it, or like it, or whatever else, did you actually spend the time to read through the pages and READ it? Or did you just go, 'that's a cool wall of text, I guess I should +1 this just to make sure he recognized that he spent time on it'?
In review, for someone who would like to consider himself an author, there are some great things that you can do to make any author's dream come true (even published, super famous authors like the following steps)
1- Read the book
2- Think about the book
3- Form an opinion about the book
Bonus round if you do -
4- Talk about that book with other people (or even the author!)
Until people show me that they can follow those three, or four, steps, NO MORE OF MY WRITING FOR YOU! (Well, not for specifically for you people, if you're reading this, you're at least onto step 3 because you're reading and thinking and starting to tell yourself if you like it or not, I'm always going to be writing something like this blog. No escape for you people to get out of me giving you random junk to read)
Nov 13, 2014
Fun times writing
There are fun times when you manage to spell reverberate without any issues, but in the same sentence can't seem to get the word 'the' spelt correctly. Yay for that, but what's even better?
BEING DONE!
It's done!
FINALLY!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bsPB8CjLyjr7_VHb-XIfWT-O2nC6oiBiIEPWMtaFO3s/edit?usp=sharing
BEING DONE!
It's done!
FINALLY!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bsPB8CjLyjr7_VHb-XIfWT-O2nC6oiBiIEPWMtaFO3s/edit?usp=sharing
Covers
Weird thought of while I was watching an episode of Dancing With the Stars with Alicia yesterday, but just didn't make it on here until now, but there are certain songs in my mind that I only hear as the cover version of it, not the actual version.
What does this mean?
It means that there are some songs out there that sort of sucked the first go around, but when someone else tackled the same song, they did the job right and made it worth remembering. A few examples -
versus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKG5BFLqnEY
Don't know why that one won't imbed, but whatever, we'll move on.
Marvin Gaye, great guy, amazing singer, does some solid stuff. . . . but let's compare this. . .
to
I'm sorry Marvin, but Aaliyah is just what sticks in my mind when I think about this song, I blame most likely the fact that I heard her version first so it's what I thought the song just sounds like. But the weirdest one to disturb the Marvin Gaye classics (because even if they get covered all over the place, a lot of his stuff is just down right awesome so it takes a lot of work to better it) is one of the weirdest samples/covers of a song that I've ever heard.
This classic of just soul baby making music -
There's no fighting it, this is some baby making music. You play this song at the right time, and bonus points if you sing a bit of the words to your significant other, and you've got some good times ahead of you. But I can't hear this without thinking about the slightly irreverant cover that was slightly joking, but just has one of the biggest head banging moments in hardcore that I've heard in a long moment -
https://soundcloud.com/djgammer/gammer-x-marvin-gaye-lets-get
Stick with this song, make it past the introduction, and make it to the end, and that beat with Marvin Gaye's original just sticks with you.
Either way, the rule of thumb when it comes to covers in my world is that if you're brave enough to try to cover a famous song by a professional artist, you better bring something to the table that they didn't. If you're just going to try to sound like them, it's never going to work, but if you bring something more to it and make it something interesting, THEN you're working with something that just might be better than the original. I like to take this idea and say it works for literature as well. Sure, you can take ideas off of other people and be inspired by them, and even flat out steal stories from other authors, but you have to bring your own twist to the classic otherwise there's no way that you're going to do anything of value.
What does this mean?
It means that there are some songs out there that sort of sucked the first go around, but when someone else tackled the same song, they did the job right and made it worth remembering. A few examples -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKG5BFLqnEY
Don't know why that one won't imbed, but whatever, we'll move on.
Marvin Gaye, great guy, amazing singer, does some solid stuff. . . . but let's compare this. . .
This classic of just soul baby making music -
https://soundcloud.com/djgammer/gammer-x-marvin-gaye-lets-get
Stick with this song, make it past the introduction, and make it to the end, and that beat with Marvin Gaye's original just sticks with you.
Either way, the rule of thumb when it comes to covers in my world is that if you're brave enough to try to cover a famous song by a professional artist, you better bring something to the table that they didn't. If you're just going to try to sound like them, it's never going to work, but if you bring something more to it and make it something interesting, THEN you're working with something that just might be better than the original. I like to take this idea and say it works for literature as well. Sure, you can take ideas off of other people and be inspired by them, and even flat out steal stories from other authors, but you have to bring your own twist to the classic otherwise there's no way that you're going to do anything of value.
Nov 12, 2014
Two More Dreams
I'm falling asleep, I just wanted to get hyped about it so that I could finish this story TONIGHT!
Here are my notes for the last sections by the way. I just like how the ending is not "The End" but is "Row Row Row Your Boat"
College
Weird Day #2
Near the end of the day detective King calls in, caught speeding in a different city.
Group meeting for dinner
complaints about real world
complaints about how easy it is
plans for castle.
Castle - day of attack
Early morning attack
Castle is stormed before sunrise, a few mercenaries, a few pesants, a rouge knight (or two) and the duke.
Wake up royalty with a sword into the bed. Stabby stabby!
Brit saves Pia
Run to get David
Pull Kendel
Arm up and save knights
Group gets Omel, knights get everyone else.
Row row row your boat.
Nov 6, 2014
Can't Even
Got Britney to "not even" at one point, and then wrapped it up with a subtle shout out to Street Fighter church edition
The Hunt - My American Life
There have been people that I've admired from a distance, people tat I've even found out about and acted like I knew so much about them but didn't have a single thing, but the one that gets me on this, the one situation that I can agree with, is the idea of hunting a person down that played some part of your life.
School is all you know early on in your life, and those people, the friends and the teachers, are things that sit with you for a long time. I've tried to hunt down some of the long lost people that I haven't heard from since sixth grade, third grade, or anything else, but that's nothing more than searching for them on facebook, there are two instances, and only two that I hunted, one semi-sucsessful and the other. . . not so much, and both of them were teachers. We were the only 2nd grade class that were doing research papers. YES! Research papers. They were lame, and they weren't exactly professional, but we wrote a LOT in that class, then we also read. Every morning, we'd put the date on the calender (each month there was a different pattern of what the date was printed on, in October it would be something like pumpkin, pumpkin, skeleton, pumpkin, pumpkin, skeleton, and then in November it'd be pilgrim, pilgrim, indian, indian, pilgrim, pilgrim, indian, indian) and then she would read us one chapter out of a chapter book like The Boxcar Kids, or Indian in the Cubbard series. Some days, when the story was good, or the chapters were short, we'd get her to read more than just one chapter out of the book that morning.
After a phone call, we set up a time for me to come and talk to her, at her home.
I think about this meeting any time that I think about meeting a person that I've known from my past, or have hyped up in my mind - it was so anti-climatic that it was horrible. It was nice being able to tell her thank you, and tell her that what she did had stuck with me, but it was a big pile of 'meh'. I don't know what I was trying to get from that moment, and I don't really know where I was going with it, but it was the time when I learned that sometimes the people that you've made up in your mind, those that seem to be something more than just a normal person, end up being just a normal person. It's that awkward moment when you watch a person from a distance, that when you see them up close that things get ruined.
That actually fits with the second person that I tried to hunt down. When I graduated from college, I tried to hunt down my English teacher that motivated me to write and really got me on the path towards Brit Lit. Mrs. Smith (yet another teacher, and yet another person who changed her name between years, she got married the summer between when she first came to the school, and when I had her as a teacher). After hunting around, talking to her former co-workers and digging around the school, I got an email. So, I sent a thank you email. Explained who I was, explained how I knew her, and then said thank you. I don't know what I was expecting, but she didn't respond.
It hurt that she didn't respond, but at the same point, I'm sort of happy that she didn't respond because it keeps her at that distance. Nothing ruined, nothing changed, she's still Mrs. Smith how I remember her, and I can still make her be the amazing teacher that she was/is.
It hurt that she didn't respond, but at the same point, I'm sort of happy that she didn't respond because it keeps her at that distance. Nothing ruined, nothing changed, she's still Mrs. Smith how I remember her, and I can still make her be the amazing teacher that she was/is.
Keep the distance from the people that you follow, you get too close and you start to realize that they're human.
Nov 4, 2014
Writing
I just wanted to put this one here, because I realized tonight, more than any other niht, that my writing style is just flat out weird.
I don't sit at a table, half of the time I'm on the floor or a couch writing on my laptop, and whenever I'm really cranking out the wordage, EVERYONE is asleep, I have my headphones on to block out any noise on the off chance that they do wake up and make noise, and if the hardcore techno pumping through my ears weren't enough, I'm typically writing without looking at my screen. Even though I turn down the brightness on my screen, I find that I write faster and more coherantly if I can just close my eyes and get what I want on the paper without thinking about it and seeing the mistakes that I make. Once it's out there, I go back and edit, but that first draft, what I'm writing right now, involves me cranking out the musicaas loud as I want, and just closing my eyes to let my fingers fly around the keyboard at a crazy sspeed with no regard to all of the squiggly lines that pop up in your writing when you can't see a screen that you're wroking with.
I've also done it where I close the laptop down so it's folded at like a 30 degree angle, but peopleg et really weirded out by that one, they don't look at you as funny when your screen is open and it just looks like you're falling asleep, they do look at your weird when your computer is half open, you're obviously not looking at it, and THEN you're also typing as fast as your fingers will allow.
Just wanted ot share before I dive into what i"m working on tonight.
I don't sit at a table, half of the time I'm on the floor or a couch writing on my laptop, and whenever I'm really cranking out the wordage, EVERYONE is asleep, I have my headphones on to block out any noise on the off chance that they do wake up and make noise, and if the hardcore techno pumping through my ears weren't enough, I'm typically writing without looking at my screen. Even though I turn down the brightness on my screen, I find that I write faster and more coherantly if I can just close my eyes and get what I want on the paper without thinking about it and seeing the mistakes that I make. Once it's out there, I go back and edit, but that first draft, what I'm writing right now, involves me cranking out the musicaas loud as I want, and just closing my eyes to let my fingers fly around the keyboard at a crazy sspeed with no regard to all of the squiggly lines that pop up in your writing when you can't see a screen that you're wroking with.
I've also done it where I close the laptop down so it's folded at like a 30 degree angle, but peopleg et really weirded out by that one, they don't look at you as funny when your screen is open and it just looks like you're falling asleep, they do look at your weird when your computer is half open, you're obviously not looking at it, and THEN you're also typing as fast as your fingers will allow.
Just wanted ot share before I dive into what i"m working on tonight.
Nov 3, 2014
Funeral Plans
I know, I know, it's sort of morbid, but for those that know me, know that I have a rolling funeral plan going. Say what you will, but the more I see people and the more I see funerals, I have a few plans of my own for my funeral, whenever that may happen. I'm not saying that it has to happen next week or anything, in fact, I sort of hope that it doesn't, I don't want you idiots taking half written stories of mine and trying to extrapolate them, I've got stuff to finish. However, I do like to have a slight running list of things that have to happen while I'm dead and people are stuck having to stand around and talk to me.
This one is a new addition to the list, thanks to Halloween, whoever shows up better be wearing WHATEVER they want. Whatever is them in an outfit, that's what you've got to wear. If you're you in tee shirts and jeans, then wear tee shirts and jeans. The more 'you' it is, the more I want you to wear it.
Suit and tie, shorts and flip flops, UFO's and a tank top, whatever, I don't care. You just have to show up as you. For example, Jared at work, if he shows up in anything less than something like this. . .
he's doing it wrong. This is him in this outfit. As weird as he could possibly be in this outfit, and as awkward as it is, I can't imagine him any more Jared than in this Jared outfit. I'm pretty sure that he was happier than ever than his normal jeans and black tee. Everyone at the funeral, you wear what you are most comfortable in (within reason, come on, my kid(s?) are going to be there).
Hmmm. . . can't remember if I put some of the other ones I've come up with for my funeral, so just to cover some of the list already -
1- Wear what you want, or rather what you're most comfortable in. If at least one person isn't wearing something crazy, I've done something wrong in picking friends in my life. Bare minimum, Alicia better be in sweats and a tee shirt. If you're in charge of the funeral and you see her getting into a dress that she hates, take a super soaker and spray her down. Rinse and repeat until the only dry outfit is sweats and a tee shirt, or maybe a hoodie.
2- Someone better share a story that was not written by me. Bonus points if it's one of the shorts that I like. No, I'm not going to tell you what it should be, you have to figure that out on your own, I'm not going to do it all for you! Nothing too long either, try to keep it down to something that can appear in an anthology.
2.1- if you're sharing stories that I like, bonus points if you can figure out how to share stories from games that I like. Assuming I live a nice long life, there's going to be people there that are somehow related to me, or maybe a friend of mine remotely removed, so they're going to miss some of the picture. Instead of telling them about my life and what I liked, actually share it with them. You can't say that I liked X, Y, and Z without actually showing them a bit of X, Y, and Z. You can't expect everyone to know everything, throw the audience a bone.
2.2- Same goes for music, not just stories. And good luck crying to my favorite music. You cry to my favorite music while it's playing I will haunt you for at least a decade. Don't worry, I've got time.
3- Eulogy better include at least one story that makes people laugh, or at least shake their head in a good amount of shame, about me. I hate eulogies that make the dead person sound like they never did anything weird or wrong. I'm a big fat weirdo, don't you dare hide that when I'm dead.
4- Not really funeral, but death wishes. If at all possible, donate as much as you can of me to science. If I can help anyone with a pair of kidneys, lungs, heart, or whatever else, give it to them. Also, if I'm on life support, or where I'm not really ever going to be back, pull the plug. Suck it up, it's not the end of me, I'll be around, you'll see me in a bit, say goodbye and pull the plug.
5- Bring tennis balls. Throw them at whoever says "goodbye". It's not a goodbye, it's a see you later. If you plan to say goodbye, wear body armor, or bring a tennis racket. I better know at least one person with a decent arm that's willing to try to peg you in the head.
6- Totally optional on this one, but, if at all possible, pure request on this end because I don't even know if you can pull it, the big funeral service can not be at a) a funeral home, b) an LDS chapel, or c) graveside. Sure you can pull something smaller near the end of things graveside or something like that, but the big one where everyone shows up, there's eulogies, and what not, try to make it someplace normal. This thing is going to be anything but normal and I'd feel super guilty having tennis ball damage at a chapel thanks to some idiot saying goodbye and not knowing the rule. Be creative, do what you will, just not one of those three.
7- We're doing open mic night, and you can't stop it. Sometimes people got stuff they want to say. Say it. I'm dead, what's the worst that they're going to do? Let people talk. They don't have to, just give them some time to say something if they want. And if you do stand up during my funeral to talk follow the goodbye rule in fear of tennis balls, and keep it short, no one wants to be hanging out talking about a dead guy for that long.
8- Food, it better be good. If I wouldn't have seconds of it, don't bring it. I don't care how easy it is to make twenty gallons of frog eye salad, that stuff is nasty, get it out of my funeral, and make sure what you do bring is enough for people to get full.
In short, no one should be leaving my funeral uncomfortable, sad, or empty. If you knew me, you know that I never wanted anyone sad around me, why would I want that to be any different in my farewell party?
I'm sure I've got other plans scattered throughout other stuff I've written, do what you will with them. Or just ignore them all together, I'm dead, who cares what I think.
This one is a new addition to the list, thanks to Halloween, whoever shows up better be wearing WHATEVER they want. Whatever is them in an outfit, that's what you've got to wear. If you're you in tee shirts and jeans, then wear tee shirts and jeans. The more 'you' it is, the more I want you to wear it.
Suit and tie, shorts and flip flops, UFO's and a tank top, whatever, I don't care. You just have to show up as you. For example, Jared at work, if he shows up in anything less than something like this. . .
Hmmm. . . can't remember if I put some of the other ones I've come up with for my funeral, so just to cover some of the list already -
1- Wear what you want, or rather what you're most comfortable in. If at least one person isn't wearing something crazy, I've done something wrong in picking friends in my life. Bare minimum, Alicia better be in sweats and a tee shirt. If you're in charge of the funeral and you see her getting into a dress that she hates, take a super soaker and spray her down. Rinse and repeat until the only dry outfit is sweats and a tee shirt, or maybe a hoodie.
2- Someone better share a story that was not written by me. Bonus points if it's one of the shorts that I like. No, I'm not going to tell you what it should be, you have to figure that out on your own, I'm not going to do it all for you! Nothing too long either, try to keep it down to something that can appear in an anthology.
2.1- if you're sharing stories that I like, bonus points if you can figure out how to share stories from games that I like. Assuming I live a nice long life, there's going to be people there that are somehow related to me, or maybe a friend of mine remotely removed, so they're going to miss some of the picture. Instead of telling them about my life and what I liked, actually share it with them. You can't say that I liked X, Y, and Z without actually showing them a bit of X, Y, and Z. You can't expect everyone to know everything, throw the audience a bone.
2.2- Same goes for music, not just stories. And good luck crying to my favorite music. You cry to my favorite music while it's playing I will haunt you for at least a decade. Don't worry, I've got time.
3- Eulogy better include at least one story that makes people laugh, or at least shake their head in a good amount of shame, about me. I hate eulogies that make the dead person sound like they never did anything weird or wrong. I'm a big fat weirdo, don't you dare hide that when I'm dead.
4- Not really funeral, but death wishes. If at all possible, donate as much as you can of me to science. If I can help anyone with a pair of kidneys, lungs, heart, or whatever else, give it to them. Also, if I'm on life support, or where I'm not really ever going to be back, pull the plug. Suck it up, it's not the end of me, I'll be around, you'll see me in a bit, say goodbye and pull the plug.
5- Bring tennis balls. Throw them at whoever says "goodbye". It's not a goodbye, it's a see you later. If you plan to say goodbye, wear body armor, or bring a tennis racket. I better know at least one person with a decent arm that's willing to try to peg you in the head.
6- Totally optional on this one, but, if at all possible, pure request on this end because I don't even know if you can pull it, the big funeral service can not be at a) a funeral home, b) an LDS chapel, or c) graveside. Sure you can pull something smaller near the end of things graveside or something like that, but the big one where everyone shows up, there's eulogies, and what not, try to make it someplace normal. This thing is going to be anything but normal and I'd feel super guilty having tennis ball damage at a chapel thanks to some idiot saying goodbye and not knowing the rule. Be creative, do what you will, just not one of those three.
7- We're doing open mic night, and you can't stop it. Sometimes people got stuff they want to say. Say it. I'm dead, what's the worst that they're going to do? Let people talk. They don't have to, just give them some time to say something if they want. And if you do stand up during my funeral to talk follow the goodbye rule in fear of tennis balls, and keep it short, no one wants to be hanging out talking about a dead guy for that long.
8- Food, it better be good. If I wouldn't have seconds of it, don't bring it. I don't care how easy it is to make twenty gallons of frog eye salad, that stuff is nasty, get it out of my funeral, and make sure what you do bring is enough for people to get full.
In short, no one should be leaving my funeral uncomfortable, sad, or empty. If you knew me, you know that I never wanted anyone sad around me, why would I want that to be any different in my farewell party?
I'm sure I've got other plans scattered throughout other stuff I've written, do what you will with them. Or just ignore them all together, I'm dead, who cares what I think.
Nov 1, 2014
Novel November
With the lack of deadlines from school in my life, I've been putting off writing the ending of DA for a long time, I don't know, I'm still not in love with it. I have parts that I like, but it's just not the pop that I've always wanted. But with Novel November running around, I'm thinking that I just might have a goal in mind that I'm going to have to actually do, but I have to finish DA first, before I start putting a dent into the next thing.
With that in mind, I'm going to put a few sales pitches/outlines here of books that I want to write so I can show a few people them, and ask which they'd be interested in reading. Side note - as much as I enjoy the thought of writing the Angels story, it's a little too preachy, so until I figure out a way to diffuse the preachy, or at least mask the preachy a bit better, it's off the table to even be thought about. I don't mind writing the story, I just don't want to get preachy in my writing.
Enough rambling, onto the sales pitches -
4th wall - story where the main character falls in love for the girl next door that's always been his friend and he has to try to figure out how to get a relationship with her going, the twist - he knows he's a character in the book and holds conversations with the narrator all the time. Partially written first draft, deffinetly know where I want to go with it in the ending. Middle is a bit muddy, but it's only muddy if I let it be muddy.
Zodiac - I'm not 100% on premise, location, or even plot, but there's one thing that I absolutely know, and that the main characters (not quite sure if it's a series and I focus on one for each book, or just write one book from one point of view involving all 12 characters) that follow EXACTLY what they should be in their Zodiacs. It's no longer the possibility of an astrology thing being sort of correct, or being right in some areas, but not others, these characters follow their zodiac astrology to the letter. When you meet the Taurus, they are the living embodiment of a Taurus. Only bad news - I don't know my astrology well enough to pop out pages of it all in one go, would have to do some serious research.
Patterns - go back to my roots and do something I'm super duper comfortable with with a story of a high school kid that can tell patterns in things, gets recruited, and then runs away. Don't even know where I'd be going with it, I know at the end he ends up with his new friends, coming back to the place he ran away from, but I just don't know the path in the middle well enough to make it interesting enough to read. Possibly talked to Danica co-writing this and having her do the Frostad chapters (agent who is chasing after him). And to be clear, I want his pattern recognition to go beyond just 'smart math guy' or 'smart detective guy' (I'm looking at you Beautiful Mind and Sherlock) and even going past the 'smart military mind' sort of deal, I want him to know and detect patterns without thinking about it, without any understanding of the actual process, he is able to find people's every day patterns, sciences patterns, math's patterns, social patterns, and anything that could fit into a system that has order in it, he can understand it, what he does with it, and how proficient he is at altering the system itself is a little up for question, but at least he can understand what is going on and interpret the patterns that are around him.
PTSD - super with PTSD. Trying to live the super life, but having to deal with all of the stress and weirdness that comes with having done everything that they've gone through. Pretty much modern veteran problems with a super to address it a bit better. Problems, don't know enough about PTSD and would have to put in some serious research time, also, borderline preachy. It strikes a bit too obvious with a bit too much 'too soon' that much like Angels, I'm afraid it's be too heavy handed and too preachy, I just like the concept of a super (especially my flavor of supers) that gets PTSD and has to try to live with it, cope, or whatever else the options are. I don't know what it is, but I just really like and want to write a story, about the idea of a person who is beyond average, that is and should be considered a hero, brought down by PTSD. We always see supers go through so much, and having the idea of a super finally stopping and understanding what in the world they just did, and having it sit with them, and make them live with the consequences of their actions, THAT just sounds interesting to me.
With that in mind, I'm going to put a few sales pitches/outlines here of books that I want to write so I can show a few people them, and ask which they'd be interested in reading. Side note - as much as I enjoy the thought of writing the Angels story, it's a little too preachy, so until I figure out a way to diffuse the preachy, or at least mask the preachy a bit better, it's off the table to even be thought about. I don't mind writing the story, I just don't want to get preachy in my writing.
Enough rambling, onto the sales pitches -
4th wall - story where the main character falls in love for the girl next door that's always been his friend and he has to try to figure out how to get a relationship with her going, the twist - he knows he's a character in the book and holds conversations with the narrator all the time. Partially written first draft, deffinetly know where I want to go with it in the ending. Middle is a bit muddy, but it's only muddy if I let it be muddy.
Zodiac - I'm not 100% on premise, location, or even plot, but there's one thing that I absolutely know, and that the main characters (not quite sure if it's a series and I focus on one for each book, or just write one book from one point of view involving all 12 characters) that follow EXACTLY what they should be in their Zodiacs. It's no longer the possibility of an astrology thing being sort of correct, or being right in some areas, but not others, these characters follow their zodiac astrology to the letter. When you meet the Taurus, they are the living embodiment of a Taurus. Only bad news - I don't know my astrology well enough to pop out pages of it all in one go, would have to do some serious research.
Patterns - go back to my roots and do something I'm super duper comfortable with with a story of a high school kid that can tell patterns in things, gets recruited, and then runs away. Don't even know where I'd be going with it, I know at the end he ends up with his new friends, coming back to the place he ran away from, but I just don't know the path in the middle well enough to make it interesting enough to read. Possibly talked to Danica co-writing this and having her do the Frostad chapters (agent who is chasing after him). And to be clear, I want his pattern recognition to go beyond just 'smart math guy' or 'smart detective guy' (I'm looking at you Beautiful Mind and Sherlock) and even going past the 'smart military mind' sort of deal, I want him to know and detect patterns without thinking about it, without any understanding of the actual process, he is able to find people's every day patterns, sciences patterns, math's patterns, social patterns, and anything that could fit into a system that has order in it, he can understand it, what he does with it, and how proficient he is at altering the system itself is a little up for question, but at least he can understand what is going on and interpret the patterns that are around him.
PTSD - super with PTSD. Trying to live the super life, but having to deal with all of the stress and weirdness that comes with having done everything that they've gone through. Pretty much modern veteran problems with a super to address it a bit better. Problems, don't know enough about PTSD and would have to put in some serious research time, also, borderline preachy. It strikes a bit too obvious with a bit too much 'too soon' that much like Angels, I'm afraid it's be too heavy handed and too preachy, I just like the concept of a super (especially my flavor of supers) that gets PTSD and has to try to live with it, cope, or whatever else the options are. I don't know what it is, but I just really like and want to write a story, about the idea of a person who is beyond average, that is and should be considered a hero, brought down by PTSD. We always see supers go through so much, and having the idea of a super finally stopping and understanding what in the world they just did, and having it sit with them, and make them live with the consequences of their actions, THAT just sounds interesting to me.
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