Always Forgive Your Enemies -- Nothing Annoys Them So Much. (Oscar Wilde)

Swoopy Supercell clouds are the bestest. You know you want to click that picture and look at it nice and big... go on, I'll wait.

Guess who? (Or is it 'guess whom'?) It's me! (or is it 'it is I'?). You know... Dave... it's my blog, of course it's me! Who'd you think it was, Buddy Hackett? Sheesh!

Anyway, I'm here to serve you another helping of nonsense. Fall Nonsense, as it turns out. Ah, fall, my favorite time of year... why? Hoodie weather! Yay! Hopefully the rains will come soon... my lake is dryin' up... Remember, shorter days means more time to read books and play Torchlight 2 until your eyes bleed. It's an old saying. In my part of the world, anyway. Well, in my house, in any case... ok, fine, I just started saying it, but it will be an old saying someday...

That was for Abbie... she's a booksniffer...

I read a couple new books since last we spoke, neither of which I will do a full review of. I read The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, which was depressing, ultimately. The protagonist is a space marine who travels to battles with his fellow troops through portals called "collapsars" which have a strange effect on the passing of time while you traverse the galaxy using them. Basically, travel takes next to no time for you, but "back home", centuries can pass. Anyway, this guy ends up spending about 10 years in the service, surviving comparatively few actual battles, and when it's all said and done, ends up finishing his "tour" 1200 years in the future, with everything so radically different it boggles the mind. That alone made the read worth the effort.

I also read I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, which is actually almost nothing like the movie at all. In the book, the protagonist lives in LA in the late nineteen-seventies, is white with blond hair, and had nothing at all to do with the outbreak that swept the globe. The movie (as you recall) stars a black man in New York City in "current day", and was involved in the research that led to the outbreak (in which capacity, I don't recall... it's been too long since I've seen the film). I do remember the lame ending of the movie. The book ends better, though no less depressingly.

I give both books 3 out of 5. I'm diving back into fantasy, but keeping it classic. I'm reading Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, which is a book that has caused quite a division among genre fans. Thought I'd read it anyway, since it seems the bulk of the commentary against the book has more to do with the critic's opinion of the author himself rather than the book.



They love their buses in Denmark, eh?

My neck has been giving me crazy grief the past week or two. I've been to the chiropractor several times, but, really, nothing is out of place. Still, I get these sharp pains that randomly flare up and then dissipate, like someone is jabbing a needle into the side of my neck. It's quite uncomfortable. I think it might be tied into my workouts - I'm throwing some pretty heavy weights around, and when I get close to muscle failure, I really tense up to push that last rep out, and sometimes it causes my neck to knot up. I'll talk to my trainer tomorrow and see what he says. Maybe I should ease up or even take a break for a while.

Guess you didn't need to know all that, sorry.

Here's a video that has been making the rounds the past couple days. It's from a helmet camera mounted on a US Soldier fighting the Taliban over in Afghanistan. He was trying (quite effectively, it turns out) to draw fire away from his squad, which was pinned down by machine gun fire. The armor he's wearing stops several rounds, and apparently he made it down the hillside (the video stops before that) and got out ok. WARNING: It is an intense video, and there are two swear words in it that didn't get bleeped out.



Dang, all those rounds pinging off the ground around him while he runs... shouting out for help, getting no reply... man, they don't pay these guys enough...

Wow, this post kinda took a dramatic change of tone there, didn't it... sorry bout that. I thought it needed to be shared.

Almost finished with the first draft of the Christmas play script. It's about a NYC cabbie on Christmas Eve. I like the story device, but I need to find a way to add a deeper layer to it, so the play has a decent pay-off in the end. Once it's finished, I'll let y'all know.

Had a guy in a cap come to my front door an hour or two ago, claiming to be the mayor of Escondido, asking if I had any city-related issues or questions that I'd like him to address. I kid you not. He handed me a pamphlet for the person he's supporting for the City Council election that (apparently) is coming up. Weird. [EDIT: Gah, I just googled the current mayor of Escondido and it's the same dude, lol. It really was him!]

OK, well, big week ahead. I'm in a writing frame of mind, so I hope to finish the Christmas script and work on the movie script and get some headway on my novel done as well. We shall see. I may end up being a writer after all!

Adios for now,

Dave the Goof