Dev Dawn

I’d forgotten how easy it is to just write thoughts onto a blog. Scoble is good at it. Maybe some people don’t like how there’s a lot of babble.

Not sure how long I’ll keep this up. But for the moment, I’m seeing it as exercising my typing and writing skills. What level of skill remains to be seen. Ha ha.

Not only that .. but it’s far easier to write when you don’t have to restrict yourself. On PimpMyClarion, i am restricting myself purposefully. But that makes it a lot harder to write. Of course, the quality of writing is probably far better, because of said restriction. Or rather .. it’s direction. Purpose.

Last night, we finally got around to watching some telly recorded on our (pvr?). It was an episode of Lost, two weeks past i think.

Anyway, all was well, until the signal starts artifacting all over the place. Artifacting. That’s right. Ha ha.

Anyway, it made at least 20 minutes of the show unwatchable. Which was a real pain. Because it was a good one. We missed Sawyer’s confrontation with the man who was his .. his catalyst i guess. Tom Sawyer. Locke’s dad.

Anyway, was annoyed, because what we thought was just set in stone (the recorder giving us the taped tv as it should be), wasn’t. This isn’t the first time it’s happened .. and probably won’t be the last. That’ll learn me.

So yesterday I was perusing my “Books” directory, looking all my writing projects, and came across a kids story i’d started on. Only a few bits and pieces. The start of the first chapter.

Upon reading my notes (”Bits” word docs) .. it seemed pretty cool. Some of the ideas.

Anyway, there’s a little shop on Fifer street that the main characters (twin boy and girl) visit. The bus stop is out the front of it.

Using “Fifer Street” when describing the shop seemed important to me.

The little shop on Fifer Street, Odds and Ends.

Anyway, taking a look on the web, which means wikipedia usually, I read up on Fife’s and the Fifer. Pretty cool stuff. A Fife (pipe) was used in folk music, and in battle. You could hear a fife above the sound of guns and such. It was phased out late in the 19th century i think, early 20th in the states (of course, all my knowledge comes from wikipedia).

Cool stuff. I mean, probably boring .. but acquiring random useless information is one of my best talents.

The last match of the Tri-Nations will be played in NZ on saturday. The Wallabies versus the All Blacks.

I’m hoping for a step up in competance from both teams. They can (obviously) both play amazing rugby when things stick. But the last two matches against South Africa have shown that the continuing quality is lacking.

The All Blacks seem to be unable to get things happening in the back line. Which seems wierd to me. I always thought they had the best backline in the world. But then Tana left. And Carter stopped playing complete games every time. You know, it occurred to me that maybe .. maybe this is all a plan. That they’re just playing below par so that it _looks_ like everyone else has a chance for the world cup.

The Wallabies on the other hand have come from almost nothing. Playing way below par against teams that were .. below par. But then, against the All Blacks, and the Springboks in SA .. they step it up about ten notches. Which is awesome. Just like to think they can maintain that level of product.

So here’s to a great game of rugby on saturday night/afternoon. Certainly, with the last couple of weeks games in hindsight, it should be a game either team can win.

Contrary to the last post, this one isn’t going to be about software development. As I’ve got http://pimpmyclarion.com as my main focus for Clarion and Development, Dev Dawn will mostly be used as an outlet, more like a personal blog. Hope that’s okay.

I’d love to tell stories for a living.

The biggest problem is that I never finish what I start. I’ve got at least 30 unfinished novels. Lots of short stories, one screenplay, and heaps of poems.

Most of them are unfinished. Well, not the short stories .. but the _vision_ for the short stories are unfinished, mostly because I was writing them together like a tv series, and only got a few done.

Good writers _write_. They keep going. That’s how I figure is the only way I’ll get anywhere. I just have to concentrate on one story, and finish it. Then another .. one step then another. And so on.

The second problem, related to the first, is that after a while, after the lustre of what i’m working on has faded, I move onto something else, something more exciting. It might be a new story, or a business software idea, or even a few times an idea for a game. But in the end, the project lies forgotten until the next time.

Another problem is that I get stuck on inconsequential issues. It shouldn’t matter that I don’t have a slick and awesome website to put my stories onto .. but at times it has really blocked my progress. I start thinking about putting together the website, and that takes my mind from the story .. and suddenly I’m fleshing out notes for a huge story telling website.

This isn’t always a bad thing .. but it’s happened so many times now that I come to dread it’s onset.

Of course, it happens with all my projects. At the moment, I’m stalled on Bank Buddy, a very cool personal finances tool. It’s an awesome idea, and has come together pretty simply .. but I can’t get past a couple of sticking points. And it’s frustrating. Thankfully I can still see light at the end of the tunnel with this particular project.

Back to the topic at hand.

I’d love to tell stories for a living. Books. Comics. TV. Movies. Radio. Each medium would provide new challenges .. but at the heart, it’s all story telling.

A few years back I had a site, TaelsOnline, for which i wrote a small number of short stories. I took it down a while back, but still have the url.

I’d like to start it up again. Maybe. Wordpress is a good tool .. but what I want out of a storytelling template is a bit more. Modding Wordpress is simple though .. maybe someone else has done it already. Will have to check out the wordpress scene.

Cheers,

The last Harry Potter book is coming soon.

On the weekend, disguised as a hobo as I’d locked myself out and had to wander around Sydney aimlessly while awaiting my beloved’s return from the country, I watched the latest movie. Order Of The Phoenix. It was a good movie, and made me belly laugh in a few places.

However today, while reading a review, I stumbled across the wikipedia entry that gives you the differences between the book and the film.

It made me realise there’s a lot that doesn’t make it in. And some of these are points I would have thought important. But then .. I’m not J.K. Rowling. Ha. Or even a movie director.

So anyway. I’ve started reading the books again. But this time, there’s a big pit of sadness sitting in my gut. It’s going to be over. And no matter how awesome the last book is, endings are sad. I remember when we finished the Hobbit for the first time (Dad+Mum reading to us), and the same with the Narnia books. Then, as I got older, other series/books invoked a similar feeling.

It’s good, but it’s sad.

And that’s what life is all about. Relationships. Of course, you can’t have a relationship with a book .. but you can have an imaginary relationship with the characters in the book. You can hate Voldemort and fall in love with Fleur.

I guess in the end, even though books can affect us (well, me .. and maybe a few others ), nothing is a substitute for the crazy antics that make up our own lives. The highs and lows, the relationships, loves, hurts, hatreds.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the last book, but at the same time don’t want to read it.

‘Nuff for now. Perhaps the next post should actually be about some kind of development talk. Ha.

 Okay. It’s been a while.

Thankfully, it looks like it’s been a good wait. I’m thinking after posting a while in the new Live Writer Beta (2)?? I’ll do a review. But initially, it’s good.

One very cool thing ..

Setting the publish date steps Live Writer one more .. step .. in the direction of being a functional offline blogging tool. You can write and write and write .. and by setting the publish date, I’ll not have to go into the wordpress admin panel in my browser.

Nice.

Okay, one more thing. This is _very_ cool.

Check it. Now when you insert a picture, you can select one from the web. This is simple, but powerful. I mean, think about it. Now .. you are no longer limited by the mind’s splitting the desktop and the web. This brings them together. If you see an image on the web, you can snag it. Nice. Of course, there are copyright/legal things .. but ahhhh .. the beauty.