National Novel Writing Month

So I am going to participate in NanoWriMo again this year. For the unfamiliar the goal is to write a complete novel of 50,000 words during the month of November.

My last attempt many years ago was not very successful, with me only completing a single chapter before giving up.

So this year I bought this book to help with my journey, and it is filled with some very sage advice.

According to that author everyone has a novel inside of them, and all that they need to write it is one very magical thing, a deadline.

He offers many astute suggestions to keep yourself motivated, two of my favorites included "wild boasting about your noveling skills to friends and family", the idea being that if you set yourself up for a big fall, that is all the more encouragement to avoid it. He also listed the example of several people who would write a check to a charity or organization that they are violently opposed to, and give it to a friend in a stamped envelope with the instructions of mailing it should you not have reached the 50k word mark on time. The idea of setting up an ingenious machination against yourself to force yourself do something really appeals.

Sadly, even though I am only a day and half in, I already feel overwhelmed and behind. I'm already some 2.5k words behind, and looking forward I just don't see where the time is going to come from to do the raw typing necessary, let alone the inspiration.

I have often thought that one's creative pools were given out in daily quotas, and to over draw from them would be to invite your muse to chuck all your imaginative t-shirts on the lawn of something or other.

Every time i think about it the 50k word goal really frightens me. I can recall as a 5th grader, agonizing over a weekend in my attempts to complete a 500 word essay. The fact that I have voluntarily undertaken that assignment times 100x would no doubt flummox my young self to the point of muteness. I haven't the guts to check, but I strongly suspect 50k words is quite a bit more than every single blog post I've made put together...

However, the real thrust of NaNoWriMo is to get people to break the bad habit of assuming that a creative work has to start out perfect. NaNoWriMo's sole drive of quantity over quality is going to be the true problem for me. Even though I'm only 600 words in, I have already completely rewritten them once. Putting down rubbish or not-quite funny jokes really does cause me injury, and I am not entirely sure why.

In any case, do not fear, the one thing I won't be asking anyone to do is read my half written novel for feedback. If you have the freetime there is better stuff to be read. I would ask that you do your best to mock me mercilessly during these months whenever convenient for you.

Effective Oxymoron

My wife told me the other day about how her high school is now doing "Online Phys Ed".

I immediately prepared a dismissive snot-snort, presuming that the conversation was going in the direction of "that is clearly the stupidest thing idea ever". However, she clarified that, in fact, she supported the idea, making me mumble something and wipedat my nose pretending that my forceful exhalation was a biological necessity and not a declaration of how much smarter I am than that idea.

She then went onto clarify how it worked.

Each of the students gets a heart monitor watch, and are given a target heart rate to achieve. It is then their homework to reach that level for 15 minutes 3 times a day, in whatever activity they choose. They are then able to upload the results (similar to Nike's Run products) as evidence which only a single teacher needs to keep track of and follow-up as necessary.

The benefits are clear:

• They get to fire all but one phys ed instructor, because fuck those people, am I right?
• The kids get to free another class slot in their busy schedule.
• An end to undressing in front of evil and demented peers!
• Teaching a life skill and habit that is useful
• A transparent and fair grading mechanism that challenges everyone equally, unlike, say, giving a short kid a "C" in basketball because he is short (I'm looking at you boring lady with a man fro whose name I don't recall from Jr High!).

But I think most importantly is that this transforms Physical Education from "The place where I fret over body issues and get taught how to ballroom dance" into "Freedom to find an activity that suits me".

Especially as I have written before, I think that myself and many others rebelled against the entire concept of physical education after high school, fleeing as far from it as possible to show it how wrong-headed it was.

Now, despite my glasses and height, I never encountered much bullying in school, a statistical anomaly I attribute to my acerbic wit. However such a defense mechanism only works in the semi-civilized daylit halls where words have the potential to shame, it is completely stripped of power in the florescent lair of jockstraps.

I myself recall changing in a hurry, constantly glancing around to see if I was going to be the one ambushed and dragged to the locker room toilet to be dunked, or keeping one hand on my shorts fearful of being panted by the older kids. Of responding to simple questions like "do you have some deodorant I can borrow?" with the caution of answering a Sphinx's riddle. Or fretting about fixing my sweaty hair afterwards without the aid of a proper shower which would involve nakedness (and which no one dared).

That shit is penal colony cruel, and I am so completely grateful that the internet has answered my hushed twenty-year-old prayers, hopefully for all generations to come.

comprehension

I read all my previous years of PAX posts and would like to inform you that I have described the experience inadequately.

Whether this is me being too close to it, lacking sufficient word-smithery or the direct result of interference by some divine pantheon of animated gaming forces I cannot tell you. I only know that my detailing of what Jason and I did and saw during the course of those 3 sweet days every year is merely the sketch of the backside of the dragon's whom we were riding.

My description is lacking to the point of more resembling a lie than truth. It is like Achilles twittering "Swimmin'!" while being dunked by the heel into the River Styx.

But yet I will try once more to scratch into electrical stone the meaning and happenings of the past weekend. If not by direct exposition, but by a slow trodden path about the indescribable thing, like sandy foot prints visible around the base of an invisible obelisk of awesome.

(PAX also apparently makes me try to write like Tycho, so sad.)

The good news, is that Jason and I have escaped the dehydrating embrace of the PAX-flu, a dodge I attribute to my wife's insistence that I adhere to some basic hygienic practices. So fear that no more!

My story begins on the Saturday night before the epic stand-fest that was that night's concert, we had dutifully joined in congress with the prevailing meat queue to insure that we would get to stand so close to the stage that we would stand through all 6 hours of the show for fear of losing our FIFO'd birth-right.

Two interesting things happened in line, the first is that they had hired a company to entertain us while we stood in a drab concrete walled room. To do this they hired a company who employed a fascinating mix of improv comedy, 1970's teletype terminals, internet videos and interactive cell phone txting technology, and it all really worked.

I introduce that strange business concept to setup my much more mundane story. Behind me in line was a father and teenage son. Presumably the son was too young to be out at a concert that was going to go well after midnight, so he was being chaperoned. As we stood in line we were shown some iconic internet videos and got to "txt" which one we wanted to see.

While I found watching those videos enjoyable, I was far more enraptured by the son's attempts to imbue his father with the necessary context for the "things" he was seeing.

It was smug satisfaction at first to be sure. Me getting to lord over my near complete cultural internet knowledge over this lowly soul. However after the third video the son gave up, stating simply "Yeah, there is no way I'm going to be able to explain this to you", this was when my feeling of superiority flitted away, a cold hard thing sliding into its place. Slowly the realization that one day, my son would be enjoying something completely incomprehensible to me began to dawn.

I know this should have been an obvious revelation, circle of life and such, but it still shook me. Some people worry about becoming less able as they age, becoming less deft of mind. Apparently I fear the one day where my internet searches which result in my finding funny videos to watch dwindle to a trickle and then to a dusty dry river bed. A day when I failed to find something on the internet funny...

Perhaps one of these days I'll get around to dealing with the fact that I'll eventually get too old to wear a hoodie with a robot on it too. =)

PAX Day 2

The non-profit Cookie Brigade was back in force this year. My friend Irene brought along a particularily clever contraption for hauling her cookies about.

We started the morning off playing a new card game from Steve Jackson called "The Stars are Right", which is vert similar to Gin Rummy, except that you yell "Cthulhu!" instead of "Gin!". I enjoyed it so much that I bought a copy on the spot.

I also purchased a copy of Telltale Game's re-release of Monkey Island, and intend to purchase the game Osmos which is a refreshingly slow and calming take on puzzle games.

Another game I'm watching carefully Torchlight which is an obvious Diablo clone, and while I doubt it will be as good as Diablo 3, the word on the street here is that that won't be released until 2011. Whereas Torchlight is coming out in 2 months and will only cost 2 months. So I have decided to support them, if only to help feed the illusion that Blizzard has some semblence of competent competition.

One sad note of mention today, during our wanderings through the Expo Hall today we came upon a barely clothed waif of a girl, presumably having wandered into the convention center to seek shelter from the rain. I offered her my coat to cover up with and asked if she knew where her parents were. She insisted she was fine, and that they knew where she was, but an extra glint in her eye betrayed the lie. (Honestly, whatever they pay these girls to put up with people like me is simply not enough.)

The capping of the night was the Jonathan Coulton concert, while this year he sang similar songs as last year, one of the big differences was that I was no longer the only person loudly singing along. In fact, the entire thing resembled something more of a "Jonathan Coulton lead sing-a-long" than a proper concert. But it was still amazing, and well worth the pain in my feet of 6 hours of precarious balancing in my meager parcel of personal space. It is now nearly 5am CST, and I question whether I am perhaps too old for this aches in my knees. =)

PAX 2009 Day 1

As you can tell from the tears of my overburdened wife it is PAX time again!

The day started as most days do, with breakfast. Sadly, it seems no breakfast places in downtown Seattle are open before 8am, I honestly wonder how the Senior citizens of the area are able to survive? After searching in vain for nearly a half hour, we settled on splitting an unreasonably sized donut.

Upon returning to the hotel, there was an amusing incident where a PAX attendee mistook Jason for one of the co-creator's of Penny Arcade, Tycho. He came up and began immediately entreating Jason about "having the grammar club at PAX next year". I attempted several times to tell the man that he was mistaken, and he ignored me, so convinced he was of Jason's true identity. After three verbal attempts at disuasion, I eventually told Jason to present his drivers license to the man which finally proved his identity sufficiently. Although, in fairness to the attendee, they do look awfully alike.

We had a big issue in that Jason left his PAX badge in MN, which as it turns out is inconveniently far from Seattle. Luckily his old roomate Nate, saved the day, and we eventually received the badge allowing us to tear into the soft underbelly of gaming entertainment that is PAX.

I haven't quite digested all the things I've seen here. But one easily understandable thing was that Jason and I got to take part in a World Record attempt for the most number of people playing a Nintendo DS simultaneously. The old record was 340 or so, and we easily topped it with 950+. So that was neat. They tried to set a Sony PSP playing record as well, but fell one short of it at "4". =P

Warning: subjective results may cause impotence.

Wired this month has a fascinating article about the problems drug companies are having with the placebo effect.

In particular, the placebo effect in drug trials has been growing *stronger*, which has been causing drug companies all sorts of headaches, as in order to meet FDA approval their drugs need to out perform placebos in double blind trials, which many new drugs are having problems doing. The article mentions that even some widely used anti-depressants of the day might not even pass drug trials right now as modern placebos are reaching equivalent effectiveness.

The only real explanation given for the sudden increase in effect? The FDA's 1997 decision to change how pharmaceutical can market drugs directly to consumers. The idea being that we've been so inundated with the concept that there are pills to fix every inconvenient ailment, that that has somehow amplified our expectations for what a pill might achieve, which *somehow* allows our brain to heal us all the more. The irony of the situation bathes me in eye sparkling glee.

In the article they mention that drug companies have never actually studied the Placebo Effect, rather they treat it like the flamboyant uncle of pharmaceutical science clad in science-proof leather chaps and motorcycle cap of subjectiveness, they ignore and loathe his presence, seeing it as an embarrassing mockery of all they strive to achieve. A thing they wish would just go away, if only because they have no idea what to buy for Christmas.

And thanks to globalization the Placebo Effect has been increasing worldwide. Although there are some interesting geographic discrepancies that vary based on the ailment being tested, or even on the size, number or color of pills being administered.

The Placebo Effect has always been of interest to me, if only because I think it is a perfect example of the one true blind spot that the Scientific Method possesses, the inner point of view. Please don't confuse this for Science-Hatin'. I'll be the first to come out swinging my Mr Wizard lunchbox to defend Science from it's wild-eye'd detractors, but that doesn't mean I also believe it to be a singularly complete tool.

The end of the article talks about a man who is finally doing a proper study of it, and rather than treating it as the bane of drug companies, is asking what things effect it? His studies involve variations on the "medicinal ritual" of administering the various sugar pills, and measuring the resulting effectiveness. Which is an open-mindedness to a result that I applaud.

One detail of the story buried in a seeming side note was how they were doing some research into possibly being able to *block* the brain from creating a placebo effect in the first place, in the interest of creating the "perfect drug trial" conditions. What is not mentioned is the reverse concept, of making a pill specifically designed to trigger those areas. Such a wonder pill could potentially be prescribed to anyone, for any condition that you need not even believe in to work, or at least, that is what their commercials will claim...

Retirement

My friend-with-a-better-blog-than-mine Chuck shared a link with me showing off various new robot designs.

What surprised me was how many were health care related... Which makes a whole bunch of sense.

The end game of growing old has always seemed a depressing venture to me, the examples I have seen make it seem like a nearly totally dismal way of continuing.

But after seeing a robot spoon feed someone, I have to wonder if maybe in 40 years, old age won't be as bad. If the prospect of retirement just means my job is to sit around and play video games while a robot changes my diaper, then it just may be that my old age might be a lot like my youth, without the need for irritating bathroom breaks.

Bones of a Dybbuk

I believe dreams have meaning. Not all dreams mind you, but if a dream seems memorable in some unexplainable way, or replays itself night after night, I often take that as your subconscious' blinking neon sign method of pointing out something obvious you are missing.

Since my cousin's death I have had a reoccurring dream. The details often change, but the setting and framework are nearly identical.

It is always a noir murder mystery based loosely around the premise of Veronica Mars, often featuring some of its characters by name, and since not once in the dozens of times I have had this dream has it featured the titular character dressed as Slave Girl Leia I am forced to assume that there is some reasoned subtext inherent that I have been missing.

In 2007, my cousin Sunny had developed a seemingly peculiar interest into the death of our Great Uncle Elof some 60 years previous. She researched details of it eventually finding a copy of his death certificate, which was, "fun fact", dated the same day as Sunny's Birthday.

The evidence of the case seemed to indicate Elof had cashed out his bank account, taken a train from Duluth to Minneapolis, slit his wrists, and then jumped into the Mississippi river with $300 in his pockets. Sunny was convinced that he had actually been murdered, and she even filled the paper work to have the case opened as a Cold Case file.

A couple months ago we received word of the contents of Sunny's official death certificate. "Cause of Death" was ruled to be "Natural Causes". Which would make sense if she were 60 years older than she was, or perhaps was suffering from Progeria. But since she was instead 30 and otherwise completely healthy I read that ruling as "I am a California corner who would rather be out surfing on the beach than in a morgue, bye-ee".

(A more reasonable person might say that since Sunny's heart was stopped by a surgeon to facilitate organ donation, that it is SOP to rule it "Natural Causes", but I am not that person at the moment.)

The lack of a "Reason" for Sunny's death angers me in an acute way that I have been told is a healthy part of the grieving process. But this additional lack of a "reason" for Sunny's death just plain pisses me off.

I feel compelled to dig into the medical particulars of her case, to file petitions for her medical records, to harangue cardiologists for plausible hypotheses. Sadly, "double first cousins" isn't a high enough familial "rank" to allow me to request the necessary documents, although clearly, I think it should be.

So ultimately, I'd have to bug her husband, an idea that always stops me cold. My itch to uncover the truth just seems insignificant compared to whatever glacier of sorrow he is riding.

And so it is, I am stuck. My brain forced to play out its driving impulses on the stage of mind, ideally with a run shorter than Cats.