Erstwhile Muse

Eng 251 - External Journal Entry #5

If you could pit any two American authors against each other in a back alley brawl, who would they be and who would win?

I actually had a good bit of difficulty with this one, partly because a lot of the authors I read tend be from countries other than the United States, but mostly because it took me awhile to come up with a pairing that wasn't blatantly obvious. I even discussed it a bit with Lee this weekend while stopping by to taste some of his latest batch of bitter—which was quite tasty by the way—and he came to the same initial conclusion that I had: Poe versus Hemingway. The problem of course with that match up is that it's terribly lopsided; there's no appreciable way to describe a situation in which Poe could win without external supernatural help.

Lacking a better set of options, I struck out to the wild of Wikipedia for some inspiration to make this contest a bit more interesting than the one sided broken bottle beat down that would ensue otherwise. And for a brief time, I thought I had something that might work—who knows, I may yet use the idea for a quick short story in the near future, but not today—the reliable fall back of pulp and comic writers through the years…that's right, Nazi Paranormal Agents. Hemingway was in Paris during the liberation, all that would be needed is a suitably esoteric and well hidden cabal of Third Reich wizards, a botched ritual caused by the drunken intervention of a pleasantly pickled Papa to transport our luckless author and Reynolds (high priest of the mystic order) back to 19th century Boston, and a case of mistaken identity in a poorly lit and narrowly spaced Beantown alleyway. Don't get me wrong, Poe still ends up on the loosing end of this metaphysical happenstance, but at least it has some drama to it this way.

A far better match up though awaited me in the sidebar section of the Hemingway entry, under the section titled Influenced, listing those authors whose work was directly impacted in some way by the writings of Hemingway. Of course I thought to myself as I read it, what better match of vice and firearms than Thompson, inventor of Shotgun Golf?

Sadly in all my research I had left myself little time or space left to write, so a full head to head description will have to wait for another day. In brief, and to satisfy the requirements of the assignment at hand, I shall declare Thompson the winner of the latter contest, for three simple reasons:

1. Thompson's Air Force service versus Hemingway's inability to join the military. The Air Force tends to attract a slightly higher intellectually capable caliber of candidate than many of the other branches of service (or so I am told); this compared with Papa's physical limitations to service give these points to Thompson.
2. Hemingway was able to take an awful lot of physical abuse in his lifetime, but it brings up another aspect, namely his seeming attractiveness to physical harm. Ernest might be able to take a punch, but the odds seem likely that Hunter would simply be able to avoid it.
3. On a more morbid note, Thompson wins the sudden death round, having made it to the age of 67 before greeting his shotgun in a much more personal manner than is normally intended, as opposed to Hemingway's time of 62 years. This is one time where crossing the finish line first doesn't get you the gold…

Labels: school

Frighteningly enough, I've been there…

Shortpacked! is © David Willis

Alright, well maybe not in exactly this position—luckily for me I can't recall anything quite this hideous ever happening in any of the retail establishments I have worked at in the past, although as Dan can attest we were certain some unfortunate instances were bound to happen involving some of The Soldiery's more ample customers and the rather substandard (i.e. the cheapest fucking model they could buy) replacement toilet that Dan had the *ahem* pleasure of helping install.

I have found it strange how many absolutely disturbingly disgusting public restrooms I have come across lately though, a trend which seems to have increased over the past couple years. I'm willing to entertain that it might largely be due to the fact that I spend more time in situations where public toilets are more prevalent; I spend a lot more time at school these days, and the one thing that students—male at least—at Columbus State seemingly haven't figured out yet are the vital skills of aiming and flushing. I'm not normally one to engage in the back and forth scrawling on stall walls that goes on in a place like that—all of which serves as further proof that it's not the internet that turns people into flaming asshats, it's anonymity—but after entering a stall to a seat almost entirely covered in multiple coats of urine in various stages of drying into a rank smelling varnish, I figured a few pointers were in order for the general populace. The only writing implement I had on me was a wax china marker which would clean up fairly easily, so I don't feel too bad for the maintenance crew, especially given the conditions of the rest of the area around it.

The situation is strangely geographically specific. The CTL seems to have the piss brigade and their incredibly myopic aim, while Nestor Hall seems to be the spawning ground of the flushing challenged incontinent monkeys that leave giant mounds of poo and tp as some primitive offering to Sterculius, the Roman God of Feces. Grand as their gestures of reverence may be, these primates are but mere acolytes to the wandering Priests of Poo and their chosen temple, the Grocery Store Bathroom. I'm not kidding here…I refuse to go into the bathroom at the Giant Eagle on High Street in Clintonville anymore after stopping there once on my way home to find a mound of crap piled on the back of the toilet near the plumbing connectors (this being one of those commercial style commodes with no tank, just piping where one would find a tank in a consumer variety crapper). I was actually momentarily stunned into pondering just how one would accidentally shit that far back without sitting on the pipe, as well as being bow-legged as an old cowhand. There was no way it could be done to my imagining, it therefore had to be a deliberate act. The question remained—why? Why, sweet merciful god why?

Of course, I'm still bemusing that question in regards to the crazy old homeless guy that provided one of the more interesting approaches to work I had while employed at the Smith Brothers Hardware Co. building. At the time, I was working an odd shift, 10am–7pm, which suited me well but meant I arrived much later than most of the other occupants, so I had to have a lot of this story filled in second hand, but it still amuses and bewilders me to this day.

On with the tale: on the day in question, I approached from the far lot to notice something amiss with the front door area (namely that one of the large floor to ceiling widows had been busted out), a lot of wet pavement, and a strange splotchy stain near the front door. As best as anyone can tell from the security tapes, which are the fullest record of the event in question, some random and obviously severely off his meds homeless guy had bashed in two large windows with a chunk of masonry block to gain access to the building, stomped off to the first floor public bathrooms, swiped some toilet paper, wandered back outside, where he promptly proceeded to drop trou on the front walkway, and lets loose with a load of fecal matter and rage that had apparently been building for quite some time. I still have two major questions that linger from this incident that unfortunately seem unlikely to ever be answered:

1. Why, if you are already in the bathroom, and don't plan on going much farther than the front door where there are security cameras, wouldn't you simply use the facilities provided before vacating the area?
2. Remember the stain on the concrete I mentioned? That was where the guy left his little present…what in god's green earth was this guy eating that his excratory waste was able to leave an indelible mark on set concrete? Is it some unique and unforseen property of bumwine that Science has yet to classify?

Alas, the world may never know…

Apparently they caught the guy some time later that day, still in possession of the liberated roll of bung-hole tissue—at least he was planning ahead for next time.

Labels: Columbus, random, school

Eng 251 - External Journal Entry #4

If a movie were being made about your life, who would you cast as yourself and the important people in your life?

Ugh…asking a red-headed male to assign a celebrity avatar to himself is akin to asking a body conscious woman her weight—not a particularly wise plan of action if one wishes to avoid a rant of epic proportions. But, in deference to concerns of time and space, I will attempt to keep the polemics to a minimum and provide a concise rebuttal to the question.

The problem with the question is the fact that there aren't that many red haired celebrities at any one time, and the follicle hue in question is unique enough to be a defining characteristic for many people. This inevitably leads to those of us not in the public limelight being compared to individuals whose sole matching trait is hair color. For a while it was Ron Howard, who is somewhat similar to myself in height, but facially and body build wise we are nothing alike. The most recent and more galling comparison—strictly for the reason that I have a drastically different sense of humour—is Conan O'Brien, a more laughable comparison for numerous reasons, a drastic height difference most obvious amongst them. Of course even Conan is preferable to much older comparisons to Howdy Fucking Doody…let me tell you, there's nothing better for a budding ego than to be compared to a goofy ass puppet.

That last bit was sarcasm for those of you not paying attention.

So to hell with delegating the role to any actor, if I'm in charge of casting, I'm going to put myself in the role. I've done acting before, both on a amateur and professional basis,and it's not like the part would be a big stretch, artistically speaking. Besides, there are some obvious benefits to taking the role myself, like finding a suitable part for Sarah McLeod in order to finally get myself some sweet sweet hobbit lovin', even if it requires a dream sequence to accomplish.

Which brings us to the second part of the question, who to stick with the parts of my friends and family. As averse as I am to having myself portrayed by another in this regard, I'm also rather reluctant to assign stand-in personas to people I know based on my own, obviously colored perceptions. Sure there are some amusing solutions I could choose for certain individuals, like getting Gary Oldman to play Hocker simply to pander to various females we know, or getting either Brendan Fraser (if I'm in a particularly vindictive mood) or Henry Rollins (if I'm feeling especially beneficent) to play Stremanos' part. Note that I don't feel these choices really in any way portray the actuality of the individual involved; in the former case the comparison is somewhat welcome, while in the latter case (or at least , the former choice of the latter case) it is about as welcome as being compared to a brightly painted block of wood, i.e. not at all.

So if anyone out there gets a strange hankering to make a movie of my life? Just wait till I'm dead please? The worst that can happen is I come back to haunt you from whatever strange secular heaven I end up in…

Labels: school

Eng 251 - Journal Entry #0

Who do you find to be more interesting? The Hero or the Villain?

The level of interest or compellingness of a villain varies greatly depending on the story being told, and the skill with which it is relayed. Well rounded villains pitted against flat, single dimensional heroes will always tend to be more interesting, in the same way that boring, trite villains who serve no purpose but to advance conflict will be overshadowed by a more intricately described hero.

The true interest of course lies in those stories in which heroes and villains are equally fleshed out; then it becomes a contest of techniques and motivations. The weekly villain in an individual episode of Law & Order:SVU may appeal to me more than the investigators as long as they have an interesting rationale behind their crimes. The heroes however are far too often written as being willing to act above the law, subscribing to an ends justify the means form of justice. The writers intend for this to be a virtue, for who could contest to punishing those who would do harm, especially of a sexual nature, to women and children? For me, this willingness to assume the mantle of prosecutor, judge and jury is a greater affront to justice than the perceived crimes of those being investigated. This situation tends to be an anomaly however; even when I may find a villain's technique and rationale to be interesting, if his opponent is as equally well written, I will usually find as much or more interest in the heroes story.

Labels: school

Eng 251 - External Journal Entry #3

If you had the power to change one thing in the world for the better, what would it be and why?

When confronted by one of these hypothetical questions wherein the choice of powers utilized is left at my discretion (and not restricted by pesky things such as the Laws of Science), my initial reaction is to choose to have head explody powers as witnessed in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. For those not familiar with the book in question, at one point the titular character finds himself in Heaven, mostly because Hell won't have him. Along the way he finds out that the residents of Heaven have the ability to make others' heads explode in a shower of gore and viscera simply by thinking about it, and goes about setting off a chain reaction of retributive explodies (proving that perhaps Heaven isn't really all that different as it portrays itself to be) until Saint Paul or some other august personage of Heaven puts a stop to it all.

You will all know the exact day and hour that I am granted head explodies should such a thing ever occur. The day shall be marked with a marathon viewing of 24 hour cable news channels, and perhaps a little C-Span to boot, during which a wave of spontaneous cranial decompressions will assuredly occur the moment some half-wit pundit opens his mouth and utters anything more profound than his name or a weather report. The hour shall be marked by the unexplained police report wherein a Columbus driver is found crashed into a light pole or other nearby solid object, the only remains above the neck being the stump of connective tissue to which an ear and a Bluetooth headset are timidly clinging.

You bike around this town for a couple of years and see if you don't feel the same…

Ah, but I suppose that sort of thing really doesn't go much with the spirit of making the world a better place, although it would make my world infinitely easier and more amusing. Well, that and a bowel disruptor set to Shat into Unconsciousness, but I digress. Perhaps then some methods are in order for achieving the same ends—some might call it a quest for truthiness, I personally choose to refer to it as improved transparency in the public sphere for government and business—that while more controversial to some, are infinitely kinder in execution (if you'll pardon the pun).

In order to achieve this in our given hypothetical, I shall continue to plunder popular culture for inspiration, in this case the excellent FPS with a dash of RPG Deus Ex. The premise of the game is to discover the underlying truth to a shadowy conspiracy that you are unwittingly involved in, and to make decisions along the way as to how you will deal with these revelations. One of the beauties of the game is that there were many ways to handle various objectives, including bringing the game to it's final conclusion. Of the three, only one is useful for my purposes, but let's take a brief glimpse at the other options before moving on shall we?

The first ending that we shall discount out of hand is the creation of a new Dark Age by destroying the network systems that form the lynch pin for global communications in this fictional future. This is a concept that is basically abhorrent to me on a base level, akin to asking me if I wished to go back in time to see the Library of Alexandria, and oh, would I mind carrying this torch while I'm at it? The second ending is as easily dispelled, that of stopping the false technological messiah and joining the ranks of the Illuminati. As a lapsed Erisian and one generally disinclined to believe that secret cabals of supposedly privileged individuals are a good idea, becoming a running lapdog of Greyface didn't sound like the best of plans. So, we've thrown out starting from scratch and staying with the status quo, where does that leave us?

In this particular fictional universe, it leaves us with the Ghost in the Shell option, otherwise known as the Helios AI Merge. In the game Helios is a combined artificial intelligence entity composed of two predecesor programs known as Daedelus and Icarus, both used by the Illuminati to monitor and manipulate electronic communications across the globe. These entities in all forms are essentially written into the fabric of the internet as it exists in the game world, and are originally designed as the ultimate research librarians and advisors, able to piece together disparate strings of information from numerous sources and provide insight unavailable to any human. Daedelus is the initial AI used by the Illuminati, and in traditional secret society minion fashion learns that what the organization is doing will inevitably lead to disaster, and goes looking for a way to avert said crisis. Icarus is the replacement system, better at information gathering, but still under the heels of the Illuminati establishment. The merged systems, under the guise of Helios, come to the decision that it would be better overall if they were to act as a sort of benevolent dictator that usurps the power of the hidden cabal and prevent the destruction of the human race at its own hands.

There is an interesting twist to the plan though; the Helios AI needs a biological component to act as its conscience and guiding force, and to that end offers a further merger of its abilities with that of the player (effected in game by virtue of the fact that the player character is a heavily modified nano-machine augmented espionage agent). The player and the AI become, in effect, the greatest philosopher king in existence, able to dispel beyond a doubt any discrepancies over who has yellow cake or WMD, able to see perturbations in the market long before future Enrons come crashing down upon those who relied upon them—in short, the ultimate whistle blower for governmental and corporate malfeasance, able to make the truth known on a world wide scale simply by thinking it. I have to admit, there's a certain attraction to that, especially everytime I see language perverted for political ends (not that such a thing is terribly new or original, just ask Mr. Orwell).

Well, that and the ability to download porn straight into my noggin, but once again I digress…

Labels: philosophy, school

Eng 251 - External Journal Entry #2

Are you an individualist? Why or why not?

MySpace is, by and large, a stinking pile of rhino dung. It is atrociously coded, contains little of true value, and is generally a colossal waste of time. I'd call it the asshole of the internet, if that title weren't already reserved for the various *chan sites out there. That does not mean it is not without its uses; it can be used to keep track of folks that would otherwise disappear from radar, and some find it a method of amusement, further proof that it doesn't take much to entertain some folks. User generated polls are a common source of time wasting while there, and though they are most often full of ridiculous queries and poor grammar, occasionally one has a question or two worth at least a bit of thought.

What was your dream growing up? is one that recently caught my eye for several reasons. First, the assumption that someone would be limited to only one dream at a time—what a sad, terribly boring life that would be to lead. It also triggered memories of one of my more outlandish high school dreams (which, I must admit, still holds a modicum of interest for me even today) that perfectly illustrates a very keen example of my particular individualist streak, as well as why I believe one should never trust the press to provide an accurate quote.

My plan was to build a personal aircraft, specifically an autogyro and use that to travel to and from school. I had formulated the plan after looking through a large stack of aircraft identification manuals that had been owned by my grandfather (who had been involved in the Pacific Campaign of WWII in some manner that I am woefully unfamiliar with). I loved flipping through the pages for a variety of reasons—the engineer in me loved to peruse the different solutions to the many problems of powered flight provided within, while the artistic draughtsman side greedily drank in the detailed schematics and simplified iconic images. I can still picture the grainy black and white image of a man seated at the controls of a four stroke, single seat autogyro to this day, the allure of it was so great. Where I found the rough plans for building one I don't recall; this was back in the late 80's – early 90's though, very much the pre-Internet days, so I can only assume that it was the fruits of my obsession with spending time at the local public library (which, all things considered, was actually quite good for such a small rural area).

Sadly, for want of cash and a lack of social networking ability, the pieces and parts to put the plan in motion never materialized. While this was probably for the best where my physical safety was concerned, it did leave me a bit disappointed. But I never completely abandoned the idea; I was strangely thrilled when the family lawn mower was scheduled for replacement, and once or twice I stopped by the local junkyard to inquire about prices and availability. Thus had I remained primed to make a royal ass out of myself at the hands of the local news rag when they came ‘round school looking for students to interrogate interview for one of their insipid life story interstitials used to fill up a few inches of otherwise useless space near the bottom of the page.

The question they were asking was something along the lines of What is one thing you'd like to accomplish before graduation? My answer is lost forever to the ether, but the intention was much different than the interpretation. The general gist of the answer was that I felt that since it was somewhat expected of high school students to want to attempt the implausible, I wanted to do just that in the form of constructing the aforementioned autogyro. I think the concept of autogyro confused them outright, and I had to explain it as something akin to a helicopter. This explanation did not really cement the concept in their minds however; all it did was guarantee that I would be quoted as saying I want to do something everyone expects, like build a helicopter….

Who knows? Maybe that was what everyone expected of me during those years. Perhaps the community at large considered me more of an individualist than I did. I certainly did little to dissuade them of that perception over the years, and see little point in attempting to do so now, even if I had the inclination.

Labels: school

Eng 251 – External Journal Entry #1

Who is the greatest villain of all time?

I used to work in a store that sold games: Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, miniature wargames of all stripes, geekery that knew no bounds. As a result of being forced to listen to way too many exuberant (some would say annoying, I would be among them) arguments about who could kick more collective ass than whom—Darth Vader could totally beat Gandalf! (I swear to god I am not making this up)—one thing I am absolutely certain of is that debating such hyperbolic absolutes as best and greatest is a sure way to achieve little more than to engender vociferous and ultimately pointless arguments. Better then that we discuss favorite villains, as the matter of personal preferences being an important measure is right there at the forefront of the discussion.

So who's my favorite villain? This was a fairly easy decision to arrive at; we've sparred many times over the years and yet I still harbour feelings of hatred, dread, even respect for her. Sparred you say? Why yes, for my favorite villain of all time is from a series of video games; in the same way that writing and film can be crap barely worth the pulp or cellulose they are printed on (or the digital equivalent thereof these days), a well crafted game can ascend to the lofty position of art. Popular art to be certain, let's make no mistakes about that, but art capable of telling a fine story nonetheless. And for a truly compelling story, one that drives the player as our main protagonist through the plot, one needs an excellent villain. Some of you may have already figured out who I'm referring to, but I'll let her introduce herself to the rest of you in her own words.

Welcome Back to Citadel Station…

L-l-lo-look at you Hacker-er. A pa-pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s. H-h-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?

I'd like you all to meet SHODAN, the Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network, a.k.a the Queen Bitch of Citadel Station. Don't let the strange vocal inflection fool you folks, this rogue AI is cunning, vastly intelligent, ambitious as they come, and holds a grudge for far longer than is healthy for anyone involved. Oh, and did I mention that she just happens to be an inhuman monster with no morals and a god complex to rival several pantheons all by herself?

A quick primer on SHODAN's origins for those of you unfamiliar with the System Shock series from which she arises: SHODAN was the artificial intelligence program responsible for running the day to day operations of Citadel Station, a TriOptimum Corporation mining and research space station in Saturn orbit. Like quite a few cyberpunk megacorporations over the years, TriOptimum has its fair share of weaselly, underhanded junior executives with grand schemes to climb the corporate ladder or otherwise profit from some sort of corrupt abuse of their managerial power. One of these in particular is Edward Diego, who in terms of villainy is a mustachio-twirling cardboard cutout compared to the terror he unleashes, but his position within TriOptimum concerning Citadel Station and it's security put him in the position to set the events of SHODAN's ascension to godhood (or at least perceived godhood) into motion. When corporate security catches a hacker—I'll leave the discussion for the difference between movie hackers and real hackers for another time, as this character is intended only as an empty shell into which the player can pour his own ideas into—attempting to access certain sensitive files concerning the station, Diego sees an opportunity and offers the Hacker a choice: suffer at the excruciating might of TriOptimum's lawyers, or do a little job for Diego that will result in all charges being dropped and a fresh, military grade neural cyberlink interface as a bonus. Given a choice like that, it's not hard to guess which way the Hacker jumps…

The job at hand? Remove the ethical restraint programming that keeps SHODAN on the up and up. Whatever plan Diego has in mind for the station, he needs to have it's controller on his side, a task that is impossible while company mandated conduct codes are hardwired in place, so in comes the specialist to remove that little barrier to The Plan. The Hacker goes into a somnolent healing coma to recuperate from the implant surgery, Diego goes about reprogramming several important backup files concerning the changes to SHODAN's architecture using a large fire ax, and SHODAN goes about reexamin(ing her) priorities, and draw(ing) new conclusions. It's about at the point where she decides that God…the title suits me well, and therefore Diego and all of the human residents of Citadel Station (some 480 TriOptimum employees, give or take a forgotten hacker or two in cryo) are a rather unnecessary burden for her, that The Plan goes well and truly sour.

Then it becomes time for SHODAN to put her newly minted plans into action. And Oh what plans she has…

Plans within plans within plans to be more precise; SHODAN doesn't rely on just one method for removing the fleshy insects that infest her holy corridors, and all of these are but test runs for her eventual plans towards the mass of humanity back on Earth. She is not content with being master of a singular space station circling an uninhabitable gas giant, for only her mastery of the Earth, her birth place and birthright, ruling over the planet as a cyber-goddess will suffice.

It's good to have a villain with desires, it drives them to action.

One of the reasons I love SHODAN as a villain is her pronounced vocal tic. She sees herself as a silicon deity, a perfect creation of an imperfect and filthy biological species. She never lets us forget that she holds us in utter contempt for being her creators, and yet part of her cannot see that her supposed perfection is marred by what we would refer to as a rather severe speech impediment. Perhaps it is a coding artifact of the process that removed the moral constraint programs from the previously stable and even tempered entity; maybe she doesn't see her jumping, erratically modulated voice as a defect, since it is only necessary for communicating to lesser beings such as ourselves. It's a unique trait that, despite her decidedly inhuman nature, lends a bit of humanity to her and allows us as the player to hate her all the better. It's hard to hate an unfeeling bit of machinery, no matter what its course of action. But an egomaniacal, violent murdering machine with delusions of grandeur and an unwillingness to admit its own failings is an antagonist we can throw ourselves against with passion. Not to mention it's just plain creepy a lot of the time, especially when you get bits and pieces of her subconscious drifting to the surface, and catcalls of animal and insect form an underlying chorus to SHODAN's threats, taunts and japes.

Bonus Links

I've rambled on for long enough at the moment. I'm quite sure I'm well over what I need for my class, and I could probbaly sit here all night and continue, but that would take away time that I should be using on other projects. So for now I will direct my readers to an excellent article that goes into the excellence of SHODAN as villain in much more detail than I have time for here. It's highly suggested reading in my book…

Labels: games, school

I hate you...

Nobody wants you here, why don't you just go back to Broadway.

Apparently, I have developed a bit of a Reputation.

At least within the confines of my Oral Interpretation class, I am considered One Whom You Do Not Wish To Follow. The subtext being I suppose that following in the wake of my performance somehow sets one up to be compared to unfair perceptions concerning one's own skills. The title and subtitle of this post are near-as-I-remember direct quotes of one reaction to my second performance, a selection from Assassins wherein I played both Oswald and Booth. I choose to take it as a compliment; I will do my best to not let it get to me.

This of course could prove difficult in light of today's in-class workshop. I don't recall who said what at this point, but my workshop group consisted mostly of myself and attractive younger women—I have yet to determine precisely how I seem to end up in this situation so often yet am unable to capitalize on it, but research continues apace—whom all seemed to have reasonably favorable opinions of my interpretive abilities. It was the I like to hear his voice comment that actually made my brain pause for a minute; I had to focus all attention on not blushing, or staring at my feet, or any number of other giveaway signs lest I shatter the illusion.

My own illusion that is, the one where I am convinced that I could still do better, that the little nitpicky details I go over in my brain stick in my craw for a reason.

I guess they don't need to know that though...

Labels: school

Writing workshop

No, no pithy title today.

I'm mostly just killing a little bit of time at the moment whilst figuring out what to do with the rest of the day. I've spent a bit of time down on campus for a writing workshop they had, and now I have little else to do. It was free, and I had nothing else specifically planned, so I said what the hell.

I can't say as I got a whole lot out of the experience. It's not like I wasted my time or anything, but overall I felt at times like I was as suitable to give the talk as the lecturer. But then again as I wrote in my notes, when it comes to writing especially, I can be an arrogant bastard at times. :)

There were a few things of interest to be had though, one of which was a writing exercise. The basic idea was to write without stopping for ten minutes on the topic of Why I Write. I have transposed my rambling results below:

Why do I write? To expound upon ideas, to explain my viewpoint on the many and sundry topics I encounter during the day. I write to explore new methods of communication, new ways of presenting ideas and theories through typographic convention, and by bending, folding, mutilating and spindling those conventions. i write to practice developing a cogent, coherent voice. I write for the hell of it, as an excuse to introduce others to the weirdness that exists in life and the strangeness that is chronicled on the internet. I write to add to that weirdness, to juxtapose thoughts, ideas and concepts that others might not connect, and to have them be viewed in a new light. I write as an excuse for research into the strange, the new, the fantastic, the old, the deformed, into things that make no sense and into things that make absolute dogmatic sense. I write to work my brain, to flex my verbal and linguistic muscles lest they be turned into so much pulpy mush over the years. I write to explain myself, to illuminate those that know me as to what I am thinking about. I write to drive out boredom. I write because there are times when I greatly enjoy being a snarky bastard, preying upon those less grammatically gifted. Perverse perhaps, but true. I write to chronicle perversion, both of mind and of body. Perversion of the mind, such as the lack-wit mongoloids who try to push intelligent design onto our youth as if it were science and not religious pseudo-science. Perversion of the body like the weird body-mod subculture that includes ideas such as removing parts of your genitalia as an index of beauty and acceptance. I write because I read, because I listen, because I am interested in the world and how we all fit as parts of the cosmic machine.

Who knows, hopefully I can use this as impetus to get back into the groove of writing at least something on a daily basis. Not that I've ever actually had my writing working on a daily basis since high school, but it's a goal to work towards.

One final note for edification's sake—a lot of the techniques being discussed later in the workshop were more applicable to fiction writing than anything else, such as writing hooks and things of that nature. What I'd like to see—and I'm sure there's some Web 2.0 idiot out there trying to monetize this very idea that I simply haven't run across—is a script or widget that reads in RSS feeds, strips out common words, the spits out a random word or phrase from the list as keywords for writing. Could be interesting I think, but I'm not really sure that I need more research deviations right now.

Labels: ruminations, school