Merry Christmas

So this year, I got Beats by Dre, about 4 bottles of wine, a rather large Coca Cola tin with a six-pack of Coke in bottles, a Coke straw dispenser, and Coke stuff wrapped together, I got an Amazon gift card, a harmonica, Hickory Farm candies, Italian candies, Italian Christmas ornaments, $150 bucks, but alas I got nothing from my wife cuz she's waiting for a check.  So I'm hoping to get some nice toys later.  Today my 7 year old daughter said I was favorite person in the whole wide world.  So clearly, I win Christmas this year.

In-Drive Movie

I live in Orange County, and work near Los Angeles.  It's about 70 miles up, and 70 miles down.  Because of excessive traffic, I spend anywhere an hour and a half to possibly 3 or 4 hours going one direction.  That's typically 4 to 6 hours for me of driving a day.  I take my iPod with me.  Usually it's to listen to music, or an audiobook, though recently I've started playing a movies and listening to the audio.  It's kind of interesting, you can't see anything, but if you're familiar enough with the movie, you "see" what's happening anyway.  Of course when you're driving your eyes are supposed to be focused on the road, your mind's "vision" isn't supposed to be seeing a movie in your brain.  Though I heard there's some kind of scientific term, or something, for people who daydream during doing something, and find they have no recollection of finishing whatever it was they were doing, the only memory is what they were dreaming about.  Somehow your mind chriscrosses what your mind wants to see and what you actually are seeing.  Crazy ain't it?

The End Is Coming!

So after deciding I wasn't going to rush finishing writing projects, I suddenly find I'm closer to finishing a couple of them sooner than I thought.  I've made it so far on one of them writing completely in the present tense, and not in the past tense, as most stories are told.  At least as far as I can tell.  When I get them edited I'm going to make sure the editor looks and makes sure that that is the case.  It's nice to see this coming together.  This what I've wanted to do since I was wee tyke, and it's something of a relief to finish, and something that will be hopefully the first in a line of books I'm working on.  I suppose once you start writing, you never stop.

My Saturday

Last night I got buzzed on Coronas and slept in till about 11:30 this morning.  Today I'm getting gas for 2 cars which means 2 trips to the gas station, I went to the bank, have to go to Home Depot, Total Wine & More, Target, and the comic book store.  Naturally, I should be agitated by all this, but its more likely I'll be stuck in traffic longer than I will be inside all of those stores put together.  People are Christmas shopping, I can't do mine because I'm still waiting on a bonus to go do all that, but I'm getting some of the lighter holiday shopping done today.  I'm also remarkable calm for a guy who came pretty close to getting hit by a car too.  If I thought I should've flipped this guy the bird, as it was, I was walking a decent pace across the parking lot to get into my bank.  This yahoo speeds across the lot from several hundred feet and really only hit the brakes about ten feet from me.  I suppose I was playing chicken a little too, but it seems like "the right of way" for pedestrians is out the freakin' window.  Wouldn't surprise me if some shopper gets hit by a car because of some lunatic.

My Book

I think I've settled on a book format.  I've been trying to see if I can get another story or two done to put in it, but I decided not to rush it, and go with the three I'm working now.  Then I can take my time and get a few things done in a way thats thorough.  I've got three stories for this first book, and at least two books waiting in the wings.  One's a novel, and the other is just some silly nonsense on manhood I'm having some fun with.  There's much less of a panic now knowing I don't have to rush through a bunch of things to make it all work.  More books mean more bragging rights too.  Instead of say, writing one or two books that are short stories or novels, suddenly its "I've written three books, and I'm a social commentator."  Nice huh?

Birthday

Today I turned 34.  I got some cash and a gift card to the bookstore.  I also dropped my wife's cell phone on my small dog's head on accident when it flew out of my hand.  Poor little thing is smaller than some cats, and after her trip to the animal hospital a couple weeks ago, she shakes horribly if she's scared, and can't stand being left without human company.  Very sad.  She's my little pal.  I felt like crap.  I've got a three day weekend, but today kinda sucked.  Just another day.  I should be able to get some writing in I guess, but who knows?  I've got quite a bit of writing that has to be done, but I never seem to get as much done as I should.  Its hard to write at home, the dogs want to sit in my lap, or there's some nonsense going on around here to distract me.  I'm too lazy to drive to a Starbucks.  Though I found my pair of noise cancelling headphones, it can't hurt to drive out the world for an hour or two.

Politicizing Comics

Its odd that a medium like comic books which is read by children and adults is made into a propaganda movement.  Many of the individuals writing for comics these days are easily some of the best storytellers I've ever come across.  These visual writers are able to convey things, ideas, and concepts we might not see anywhere else.  My contention is that while in the past comics were an apolitical entertainment medium, these days the reverse is true.  The writers these are writing for themselves, much like the rest of entertainment media.  Issues like gay marriage, and "social justice," and even outright anti-religion bias seep into storylines, that quite honestly, didn't even need to be in those stories to begin with.

It would make perfect sense to maintain the usual, non-political stance that comics have taken throughout their history, simply because you're not agitating half your fanbase.  It seems to me the market is shrinking already, why add to it?  I was hearing about the comic industry shrinking 10-15 years ago, but hey, if these guys want to lose some money promoting propaganda, have at it, I guess.  It seems to me that you have heroes for a reason.  Writers, tend to sit and write, some have actually done things with their lives, as most people do, working back breaking 9 to 5 jobs, but most do not, because they cannot.  Especially these days.  We live in an era of sissies.  I too, am trying to be a writer, I work on a few projects when I can fit the time in, because I bust my hump at a strenuous manual labor job.  Our culture today, and really the people trying to steer our culture, wouldn't know hard work from a hole in the ground.  And so you get writers who are divas, who can't handle the slightest disagreement from fans about politics, or you get writers who say God was behind an alien invasion as was written in Marvel's Secret Invasion, or that "science lost out to religion" as was the case in DC story called Rock of Ages.  Its sad.  These stories were good enough they could've been done without injecting some anti-faith nonsense.  Even now we're seeing anti-cop and political propaganda even apart from anti-religous sentiment in mainstream comics, and little kids read this stuff.  Its silly to me.

What it comes down to is fiction writers are people to fantasize.  Few have really lived any sort of heroism that they put into characters.  That is, they want to be heroic, but they've no stomach for doing anything like that in real life.  It could be why many people aren't writers, or actors, or artists.  They're out there doing something themselves, they don't have to dream up what they wish they could be like.  Much like the media that is majority liberal, and more specifically like sports media, where commentators may even more liberal than standard media, as one conservative commentator points outs, they offer nonsense, or scathing rebukes of athletes who don't win a game, its the former athletes themselves who offer better analysis because they've lived through the careers that have success and failures.  Comics would do well to return to its apolitical stories.  Notice I said, "apolitical."  Stories should be neither conservative nor liberal.  Instead you have whiny, though talented storytellers, shrinking the market because they're telling stories for themselves, instead of for the readers.