Sunday, September 13, 2009

You Don't Run, Not When You're With Us... You Stand Your Ground and Fight!

"Cardboard" or "bar chord," which one?

Sunday fizzles to a conclusion; it's all good. Except for my pastor, who fell and broke his leg today between services. It'll be a long night for him tonight, I'm sure. [thoughts and prayers headin' up for him] Can't be easy for someone in his mid-eighties to break a leg -- or break anything, really.

On a more positive note, I know someone that is going to be a contestant on Next Broadway Sensation (sort of an American Idol show for Broadway). The first round started tonight. I guess it isn't televised - I'm rooting around online, but I'm not finding any info on television schedules... anyway, Nathan sang a song with Martha Porcelli at my brother Bryan's memorial service back in 2000, plus he performed a monologue I wrote for him in a series of Acting competitions back in 1999 (the monologue was called Joy Cometh in the Mourning), and he went to the nationals with it. I wish him the best - I hope he wins. Kind of a big deal, I'd say!

On a completely unrelated note (as is my custom), I don't know why people rip on Creed so hard... I actually really like them. Joseph introduced me to them a couple years back, giving me a couple of their songs (Sacrifice, My Own Prison, One Last Breath), mixed in with a bunch of music he let me try out. I liked the songs so much, I asked him if he had any more of their stuff, so he got me all their albums. I can't help it, I really like their music. If I did a music quest similar to Logan's, I'm sure their albums would end up high on the list, along with Alter Bridge (I guess Creed lost their lead singer, found a new one, and renamed themselves Alter Bridge). But I can't do the music quest thing because I have very few complete albums... most of my iPod is filled with a handful of songs from jillions of different artists... [Just did a Google search... apparently Creed reunited recently to record a new album... odd...]

Funny Picture Time:

Houston, we have a problem...

Had an interesting conversation tonight with the rest of the Upper Room Crew at church... this morning, we were all discussing ideas we all have for fantasy stories, and tonight, when we resurrected the topic again, I proposed (half in jest) that we start a Church Writer's Guild with us three, with the hopes that we'd meet, discuss our stuff more in depth, and maybe actually start to write on them. The idea was met with more enthusiasm than I had anticipated... I think it might actually happen, for a while, anyway.

I had what I thought was a fun idea today - one that I'm sure has been thought of before, and rejected, probably for reasons I can't quite fathom yet, since I haven't really thought it through. The idea has two parts - concept and presentation:

Concept: A fantasy story with the typical protagonist vs antagonist angle. Tell the story twice - once from the hero's perspective and again from the villain's perspective, each one justifying his/her reasons for acting/reacting the way they did.

Presentation: Do the "dual cover" thing. Let's say you're holding a book, and looking at the front cover. Let's say you then flip the book vertically, so that now you're looking at the back cover, which is now upside-down (spine stayed on the same side). Well, if you replace that upside-down back cover with another right-side-up front cover, you now have the front covers of two different books. Now, if you only told the story on the right-hand side pages, you could make it work. You start one tale, and read it through on the right-side pages only - on the left side would be what looked like upside-down pages of text. That is, until you flip the book over and start reading from the other front cover, at which time that text would now be another right-side-page-only story. Does that make sense?

Anyway, you could tell two versions of the same story, from the opposite perspectives, giving insight into each main character's perspective, and combine them into one volume in a unique way. It would be fun writing, and fun in presentation, maybe. Again, it seems like a fun idea that someone else must have thought up before, but I've never seen it anywhere... it likely is a production nightmare or something, which is why it doesn't get done. The only problem I can see is that each story would need to be edited to the same length.

Funny Video Time:

That's for the Sci-Fi geeks among us.... Now here's one for the romantics among us...



Well, we had the giggling bride the other day, we might as well have the giggling groom now. The video really should have been trimmed to 60 seconds, sorry that it goes on and on like that...

Looks like the Movie Quote Contest is dying on the vine this month. I have a new idea for a contest percolating in my brain pan... it hasn't quite gelled yet, so I'm holding off on sharing it, but we'll continue the Quote Contest for now... lots of unclaimed quotes since the first, if anyone wants to go back and dredge them up... remember, Google is your friend! If you think it's a quote, copy/paste it into Google and search it. If it is a quote, the first listing will be to a movie page on IMDB, where I likely got the quote from to begin with. Come on! There's an Amazon gift card at stake! Doesn't anyone want to win $20 to Amazon? You can buy books! Think of it!

I had some more stuff rattling around in my head, but it has fled me. I'll try and grab it as it goes by and post it in tomorrow's post. Until tomorrow, remember, we're going to have to watch that temper of yours...

DIRECTOR'S CUT of this post...

12 comments:

havah said...

That's a great book idea, Dave! Now...when are you going to start writing it???

Yes, well...they do say there's no such thing as a new plot.

*lol* I'm still trying to figure out how his pants fell down!

I've been sleeping at night lately, so I figured there were no quotes left. Maybe I'll scrounge around tomorrow.

Night now

Krista said...

Sorry about your pastor, sad.

Here's to hopping your friend does well! It's awesome that he went to the nationals with your monologue piece. Were you surprised? I bet that was exciting.

I love Creed, too. My brother got me into them a long while back when they first came out. Good stuff.

Good luck with the Fantasy book meetings. Also, I think that's a really cool idea but I bet it would be a lot of work....

Cool videos! Sucks for the groom, though!

Ah, the movie qoutes. Man, I wanted to see if I knew any on my own but it seems I don't! Except that one I got for Cool Hand Luke(one of my all time favorites!) when the game wasn't even in process LOL! I would love an amazon card for books, though! Maybe I'll try a little harder and start cheating...LOL!

Cool post!

Krista said...

"we're going to have to watch that temper of yours..." - Hulk

Now you'll know I'm just looking them up on google, though....LOL!
But alas, when it comes to free books I can't just pass the opportunity up! Let's see what else I can find! LOL!

Krista said...

"You don't run, not when you're with us... You stand your ground and fight!"- Hooligans

Man, I should have known this one I loved this movie and I've seen it several times...Pure Awesomeness!

Unknown said...

OMG that groom. So funny.

Krista said...

Oh, one more! Houston, we have a problem...- Apollo 13

Woot! Woot! so how many points is that? I hope a lot...LOL! Fun!

logankstewart said...

Hmmm. Sorry, Dave, but I just can't handle Creed much anymore. I really liked My Own Prison, but that's about it...

My problem with writing stems from me coming up with too many ideas and storylines, combined with little or no time to write and plain, unadultered laziness.

I really liked the STAR WARS/Star Trek thing.

David Wagner said...

15 points for Krista! BOOM! Like that.

Havah: When will I start writing it? That's like trying to predict the weather! Heck, I don't know!

Logan, you know you love Creed... admit it! Admit it, or I'll throw a piece of pizza at you!

havah said...

I'll admit it if I get free pizza! :D

Paula Titus said...

Sorry to hear about your pastor, still pastoring in his mid-eighties? Wow!

Very cool news about the guy performing your monologue, I know that must be a great encouragement to you. :)

I really liked Creed's early stuff, but honestly haven't heard anything from them lately (maybe because they split up? I had no idea).

Abbie said...

oh, i'm sorry that sunday fizzled for ya :( It was amazing for me!!
but i like your idea on the dual perspective book, and the dual covers would be cool too. I can totally picture it, because i've seen them do that on magazines as well :D sweet idea!! but.. the spine would be kinda weird... who would get the correct direction?
But do it!! :D

Abbie said...

lol, I just watched those videos, they are so funny! and I posted a quote on... the one before this I believe?