Creative Tenacity With Tiny Wooden Sticks

Sometimes I like to pat myself on the back for sticking with things. Like spending 40-60 hours to beat an RPG. Or writing almost 75,000 words on a book. Or making hours and hours of Web content. Or just getting up on time and making it into work without looking like one of the special infected in Left 4 Dead.

I suppose these are all accomplishments, but they pale in comparison to this guy who made San Francisco out of toothpicks. It’s either tenacity or insanity. Or both. But I love it. I guess writing a few hundred words a night isn’t nearly as big of a deal as adding a few hundred toothpicks a night for 35 years. Continue reading →

My Former Musical Aspirations

Martin Guitar

Something that a few of you might not know about me is that I used to consider myself a musician of sorts. In college, I fancied myself as the singer/songwriter type, with a heavier emphasis on the latter portion of that. Truth be told, I wasn’t a half bad guitar player or singer, I just gravitated more towards the writing of songs and stories in them. Although I wasn’t especially great at any of those things, I did enjoy it. Continue reading →

Winter is Coming and it Has Boromir

I’ve written about a couple of books on here before, but my all-time favorite fantasy series as of this moment is A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin. It’s not exactly hard to quantify why I love this series in words. It’s a bloody, visceral thrill ride of a high fantasy story full of three dimensional characters, gritty and fantastic writing, and an engrossing political/revenge plot that so far has spanned four epic and fast-paced books.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about this great series is that there are lasting consequences for characters. Whereas other series might see the heroes in the face of danger time and time again, only to ultimately come out unscathed, A Song of Ice and Fire eliminates main characters liberally. Seriously, every time you think you’ve found a new character, Martin Whedonizes them like Wash and completely yanks their thread out of the story. It’s shocking, hard to read and totally refreshing. Continue reading →

Bad First, Then Good

The trickiest part of writing for me has never been starting it. Or finishing it, even. That was a hurdle that I eventually cleared, though it took me some time to negotiate. The hardest part of writing isn’t even making it a daily discipline or doing something that you think people will like.

No, the toughest part of this thing I do is letting something suck. Continue reading →

Movies That Need To Be On Blu-Ray

Yesterday, I saw a cool piece of news regarding Jurassic Park video games being made by Telltale Games, the creators of the new Monkey Island episodes as well as the critically acclaimed Sam and Max series. Even though I’ve already expressed my love for this, I can’t overstate how giddy it made me to read that. The idea of playing an old school adventure game in the world of Jurassic Park has a definite draw for me.

Needless to say, all this nostalgia made me want to watch the movie again. But then I remembered… it’s not out on Blu-ray yet. I’ve never really considered myself much of an audio or videophile, but lately I’ve become obsessed with Blu-ray. The switch happened when our new TV arrived, and now I’ve been hording whatever Blu-ray I can get a hold of, like some kind of technology pack rat keen on depriving the world of its disc-ish goods. Continue reading →

Rabbit Hole of Geek

Rabbit HoleFor most of my life, I have been called a geek. And honestly, I can’t even remember when this started. No, it wasn’t when I got those glasses with the rubber handlebars that locked them behind my ears. And no, it wasn’t when I wore my MC Hammer pants to school on a day that was not Halloween. It wasn’t even when my brother and I showed up in matching outfits.

In elementary school, I remember every kid on the street having a Nintendo. It was the normal thing to do. Nobody cared that it was nerdy. Or perhaps nobody had decided that’s what it was called yet. When you’re young, these things are mostly normal, but at some point, everything changes. At some point, a switch is flipped, arbitrary social lines are drawn, and people align themselves where they think they will be happiest. Around this time is when I suppose the whole “geek” thing started for me, even though I wasn’t doing anything differently than I had done it before. Continue reading →

Courting Don Draper

I would consider running away with Don Draper. There, I said it. Sorry, wife.

If you’re unaware of who Don Draper is, then clearly you haven’t been clued in to the wonderful world of Mad Men, which has in recent months become one of my favorite shows on TV. It’s a show that by all rights shouldn’t be as thrilling to watch as it is, considering its content. However, it still manages to be pound-for-pound the best written and acted show on any network, in my opinion. Continue reading →

Books That Rule: The Magicians

The MagiciansThese days, I’m often too busy to do all of the things that I love. Between hanging with the wife, writing, watching awesome TV shows, reading and playing video games, one of these items will unfortunately be forgotten. Since ignoring one of those could end in divorce, right now that particular neglected past time is reading. However, every now and then I do get to read something so I try to make it count. In recent months, I’ve read the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, and I’m currently working through Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, which is book one of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

While those books have made their own impressions and are great reads in their own right, one title that I got to read around the end of last year really stuck with me: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I suppose I’ve been thinking about this one a lot since I recently heard that Grossman is working on a sequel. Continue reading →

The Creative Bog

Brays Bayou

Lately, I’ve been getting into riding my bike along the Brays Bayou here in Houston several times a week. It’s a nice stretch near our neighborhood with a path for biking and running. The only problem is that it’s so open, there’s always one direction where the wind buffets you like a whip, and keeps you from getting up to full speed. So basically, there’s a portion of the ride that’s a bit of a chore.

I’m finding out that writing is kind of the same way. My biggest problem throughout college and my early adult life was that I had a terrible habit of starting new projects without finishing them. Getting started on something new wasn’t a problem at all — it’s actually the easiest part. But once that initial rush of doing something creative is gone, you’re left trying to ride against the wind or run up hill. It’s what I refer to as the Creative Bog. Continue reading →

The Wild West

At times I can be a bit of an impulse buyer, especially when it comes to media. Sometimes, when walking the aisles at Best Buy, there is this thing in my chest, kind of like one of the xenomorphs in Alien, trying to bust free and devour everything in the store. It’s a gruesome image, yes, but the only thing I can think of to describe that desperate urge I get when it comes to movies or games.

In college, I was particularly awful in this area of my life, but these days I’ve learned to control that beast that rages for more shiny things. One look at my DVD collection shows the symptoms of a rash media nut. This week, the animal of impulse reared his ugly head in the form of Red Dead Redemption, the newest entry from Rockstar, creators of the somewhat infamous Grand Theft Auto series. Continue reading →

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