| The Thunderchickens! |
[11 Jan 2010|12:50pm] |
Hey, all. I know I'm rarely posting on livejournal anymore, but rest assured I'm still out here reading all of your posts in as creepy and anonymous a fashion as possible. The reason for this post is to pimp a really great comic currently up for consideration at the Zuda Comics competition. It's done by a couple of creators I know over at Digital Webbing named William Dean Blankenship Jr. & Chad Boudreau. These guys are going all out to promote the comic and win the competition, and I definitely think it's worthy of the prize. They came up with a really neat promotional comic and asked, ever-so-nicely, for the Digital Webbing folks to spread it around as much as they could. So check the promo comic out below, and if you like it head on over to Zuda and give the actual comic a try HERE. And if you like THAT, please vote for it and add it to your favorites and, well... they say it much better than I ever could. So without further ado... the Thunderchickens!
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| whirlwind weekend |
[20 Oct 2009|10:12am] |
So my weekend was busy as all get out. Did a ton of driving through California with my family (wife and son). First we went to a birthday party for the daughter of one of my wife's friends. The daughter is 3 years old now, I believe, but Michael is about her size at the tender age of (nearly) 2 and a half so he always enjoys hanging out with her. Our families got together not too long back for Michael's first trip to Great America, an amusement park out here in California. We're all planning to go to another more kid-themed amusement park called Gilroy Gardens in the near future. The party wasn't exactly the most fun for adults, but there was a ton of family and friends and kids of all ages running around. Michael spent the majority of his time grabbing balloons and whopping the bigger kids with them while he bounced in one of those giant inflatable bounce houses or whatever they're called. He held his own surprisingly well while the bigger kids roughhoused and collided with one another (and him) from time to time. I was anxious, but he only got stepped on once or twice and it never seemed to upset him. The only time he really got upset was when one of his balloons went missing for a second or two, and when he knocked heads with a kid outside of the bouncing house. Speaking of houses, the house my wife's friend and her husband have is huge and gorgeous. I wouldn't want to live all the way out where they do (about an hour away from San Mateo) because of the heat and the lack of proximity to my own friends and family, but there's no denying the appeal of owning a home.
So that was Saturday, and Sunday was even more of a marathon. My wife and I attended two weddings. One for a former co-worker of hers that I barely know. She got up early in the morning for that one and took a train to meet the wedding procession so she could take pictures. Apparently the photographer they hired was only available for the actual wedding or something... I dunno. Anyway, the wedding was about half an hour away in Los Altos and I drove up there to meet Lanie about 20 minutes or so before it started. It was at a pretty quaint, pleasant church, and the ceremony didn't last nearly as long as I feared it would. My wife had been somewhat anxious about it as well because the other wedding ceremony started two hours after the first, and they were an hour apart. So we stayed long enough to chit chat with her ex-co-workers for a while and then drove for an hour to Danville.
When we got to the address of the wedding in Danville, we were moderately surprised to see that it was a country club. Even though the person getting hitched was a better friend of Lanie's than her co-worked, she seemed as surprised as I did. We drove up to the gate and told the guard we were there for a wedding and he let us right through. We parked in the first spot we could find, and when we got out we were blown away. The place was beautiful with landscaped lawns, golf courses and huge, extravagant houses and other structures that made my pockets feel emptier the more I looked at them. The wedding was really nice, and in a very nice location. It was outdoors on a large patio area, and there was an incredible view of the grounds across a narrow body of water. There was even this elegant, black swan milling around in the water. It was kinda ridiculous. Anyway, this ceremony was also mercifully brief as Lanie was freezing her butt off, and we went inside and reached a dining hall that was just as spacious and pleasant to look at as everything else. There was a tremendous amount of appetizer-style food available right from the start just outside the dining hall where the guests were kept until the dining hall was all set-up and the bride and groom were ready. We went inside after about 20 minutes or so and sat at our table, shared with Lanie's sister and her husband and a few other people we didn't know but introduced ourselves to. The reception was about what you'd expect with the toasts, the slideshow and the clinking of glasses for newlywed smooches. But there were some nice little touches. Anytime the guests clinked their glasses for the bride and groom to kiss, the newlyweds picked a couple from the room to demonstrate a kiss that they had to duplicate. That was a nice little touch, I thought. The food was served buffet-style, and the only complaint there (by Lanie) was that we were one of the last tables to visit. The food was good, and the fact that we could get as much as we wanted and even go back for more seemed insane to me. The parents of the bride/groom/relatives/sponsors and whoever else it was that contributed to the occasion really went all out. Probably one of the nicest weddings I've ever been to. The end of the night belonged to the DJ, as most weddings do, and Lanie and I cut our fair share of rug. Then we drove home, and I struggled not to fall asleep on the road. No, I am not typing this out from beyond the grave... we made it!
So yeah, busy but gratifying and fairly enjoyable weekend. The coming weekend should be much tamer in comparison, and it's a good thing because Halloween weekend directly follows and I know Lanie has quite a bit on our plate for that.
And no, I didn't watch any NFL games this weekend. The only one I caught was the Denver/SD game last night, and my dad was thrilled with that one considering he's a dirty, stinkin' Broncos fan (they beat the Cowboys). A bunch of the NFC teams fell in line with the Cowboys' 3-2 record, including the Eagles, and all the NFC East teams lost except for Dallas (they were on a bye) so I was pleased about that too. Next Sunday is a killer match-up with the Falcons that isn't a must-win, but would be a great game to have to prove that the Cowboys can beat one of the better teams in the league. So far the Cowboys have beaten three winless teams, and lost to two undefeated teams. The Falcons are 4-1.
The Texas Longhorns also won on Saturday, and I got to watch most of that game before leaving for the birthday party. They didn't win in impressive fashion, and pretty much solidified their status as the third best team in college football to this point. Florida didn't look very good either, but they've been #1 since the beginning of the season so they weren't dropping too much. Alabama is the team that's leapfrogged the Longhorns, and even jumped over the Florida Gators in a few polls. I'd have to agree that the Crimson Tide look like the best team in the nation thus far. All three of the teams have stiff tests coming up in the weeks ahead, but I feel confident that if Texas remains unbeaten throughout the season they'll be playing either Alabama or Florida in the national title game, the reason being that Florida and Alabama would have to meet each other in the SEC title game if they stay undefeated through the season and that would give one of them a loss. It's not the best way to get a chance for a championship, but as a fan I'll take it.
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| random stuff |
[14 Oct 2009|09:20am] |
So it's been a while since I posted anything. Not as long as I usually go without posting when I disappear, but still long enough that I feel slightly guilty for not doing it.
I'm making progress on my "future fairy tale" story for the Digital Webbing collaboration. I still haven't been assigned an artist, but I think I'll need a finished script turned into the editors before that happens. I've been tasked with giving my story a bit of an animated, feel-good vibe. I'm not really sure if I'm going to be able to do it, but I do have something moderately uplifting in mind for the ending.
Played competitive volleyball for the first time last Thursday. My wife loves to play volleyball, and we're trying to get to the point where we can play it together once a week. I've told her that as long as she's willing to go on a run with me every once in a while I'm willing to play volleyball with her. I didn't have loads of fun when we played, but only because I'm not entirely comfortable with what my role is on the court. I only screwed up a few times though, so that was all right. Once I figured out the best method for serving, I did that fairly well. I think I could get to be pretty decent at it, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to play this Thursday because...
My hip is bothering me again. It's been raining here for the last few days, and I'm worried that maybe I have a slightly arthritic hip due to all the running I was doing in the early part of this year. I'd cut back on my running a bit a while back and recently increased my output again and was having no trouble whatsoever. But now it's raining, and boom!, hip pain. So I'm a little bit worried about that. I don't think California is going to be starting the rainy season quite this early, so I'm sure I have plenty of blue skies to look forward to before it starts, so maybe I'll just have to monitor it as well as I can and avoid running in inclement weather from this point forward.
Watched "The Engagement" (it's "The Proposal", actually. Thanks, D!) last night. It was all right. Not as good as "Away We Go" as far as romantic comedies go, but I do think Ryan Reynolds is pretty funny and he did a good job in the movie. Sandra Bullock did an all right job as well, but it really seemed like she was caking on the make-up in this movie. I'm not sure if that was just because of her character or because they were trying to make her seem younger than she is or what, but it was actually distracting me a bit from her performance. Still, the movie had its moments, and I'll watch anything with Betty White in it because I think she's the absolute best. That's right... Betty White.
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| draggin' |
[06 Oct 2009|12:15pm] |
This week seems to be going by pretty slowly right now. I'm distressed that it's only Tuesday. However, movie night is rearing its head once more, so I'm looking forward to that. Last Tuesday night was "Monsters vs. Aliens", and I think "Year One" comes out today, so hopefully that'll be good for a laugh or two. Maybe even three!
Watched "Away We Go" last night on a whim after the Green Bay/Minnesota game started getting out of hand. It's a movie starring John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (SNL) as a newly pregnant boyfriend/girlfriend couple who only live where they live because Burt's (Krasinski's) parents also live there. When the parents tell Burt and Verona (Rudolph) that they're moving out of the country for two years, and that they'll be doing it a month before the baby is born, the couple decide to journey to various locales to determine the perfect place to raise their child. As they trek across the country and into Canada, they meet friends, relatives, former acquaintances and colorful characters with a variety of "eccentric" parenting techniques and eventually discover exactly what they've been looking for. I've gotta say, this was a really funny, charming, well-acted movie. Even the outlandish characters were completely believable, and the hilarity of the film was tempered really well with some of the more serious content that presents itself near the end. I'm not a fan of The Office, but I have friends and siblings that watch it religiously. The reason we decided to watch "Away We Go", in fact, was because my sister saw that Krasinski was in the movie. However, though I don't watch The Office, I can safely say that I've enjoyed everything I've seen Krasinski in. He has a very wry, but personable, sense of humor that I can immediately connect with. I liked "Leatherheads" and "License to Wed" quite a bit, and "Away We Go" has a slightly similar slant to the latter. So if you enjoyed "License to Wed", you'll probably enjoy this too. Maya Rudolph also holds her own really well in the movie. I'm not exactly a fan of her work on SNL, and the only other movie I can think of that I've seen her in was "Idiocracy" which was... okay. But she really caught my attention in this one, as she had a fantastic chemistry with Krasinski and was right there with him in every scene matching his awkwardness or outrage with her own emotional volley. There was a bit of an ensemble cast involved in the film, for those that are interested in that sort of thing. Jeff Daniels plays Burt's father, and the hilarious Catherine O'Hara (Orange County) plays his mother. Maggie Gyllenhall has a fantastic role as a "new age" (or whatever it's called) mother named LN. In short, I really dug the movie and I highly recommend it.
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| winded |
[05 Oct 2009|12:56pm] |
Haven't been enough hours in the day for me lately. Had a really busy weekend. On Friday I went to a party for the boyfriend of one of my wife's friends. I didn't really know anybody at the party, but was able to acclimate myself to my surroundings fairly well. Once the men at the party started talking about sports I felt pretty comfortable. On Saturday I went on a light run with my sister. The only two chances I had to run last week at all were on Thursday with my wife and Saturday. Both of those runs were fairly light. The run on Thursday took place at night, which was a first for me. I knew the route extremely well, so it wasn't all that difficult for me, but I think my wife had some trouble following me. My wife and sister aren't as advanced as I am, but they both did a lot better on the run than I did ten months ago when I first attempted it. My wife got about twice as far as I did back in January, and my sister got a little bit farther as well. I am looking forward to a somewhat tougher run today when I go out with my friend, but I think the two less-taxing runs might have done me a service considering I felt like I was breaking down a little bit again. Saturday night I went out to dinner with a couple of my wife's friends. We've been trying to involve one another in our lives more lately because we struggled with that early in our relationship. It's been working out pretty well so far. My wife really enjoys playing volleyball, and Thursday was actually supposed to be my first time doing that with her, but instead the gym she plays at was occupied and we went on the run instead. So it was nice that we shared time even though a roadblock presented itself.
Sunday was an all football day. I don't even want to talk about the Cowboys. I'm pretty much convinced that they're a mediocre football team right now. Let's just leave it at that. Went over to a friend's house to watch the 49ers game, and the Niners looked really good against the Rams. They started a little slow, but ended up scoring with every unit of their team (offense, defense and special teams). The 49ers have some stiff tests coming up against the Falcons and Colts, but they're looking really good at 3-1.
Was hoping to get a little writing done this weekend, but never had the chance. Work is much busier these days, and home life is more hectic than ever as well. I'm not really frustrated about it yet, but I would like to knock out a few thousand words at some point over the next few days. Just gotta keep plugging away, I guess.
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| halloween is a ways away |
[02 Oct 2009|09:57am] |
I think the recommended topic for writing in your livejournal today dealt with what you're planning to dress as for Halloween. What's funny is that although usually I'd say it's not a concern because October just started, my wife actually has figured out what we're going to be. My son really digs the movie "Cars" so she got him a Lightning McQueen type of costume, and she and I are going to be race car drivers. She'll be of the sexy race car driver variety, and I'll be of the lame race car driver variety in case you were wondering.
Son was feeling sick yesterday, so I stayed home from work and never had a chance to get to my livejournal. I usually find time to write journal posts and anything else I feel like during my downtime at work, but my downtime has drastically reduced lately. Just as an example of what I'm talking about, the previous sentence took me about 10 minutes to write because I had to leave the journal post a couple times to handle other issues. I think I'm more of a rhythm writer, and unfortunately it's been difficult for me to get into a rhythm over the past week or so. I'm still plugging away, but my production has slowed to a crawl. Very discouraging.
It doesn't help that I'm not getting enough sleep. I keep finding excuses to stay up until nearly midnight or later every night during the week. I never go to sleep early on the weekends, so I feel a bit like I've been riding on 5 or 6 hours of sleep for a month or more now. I also don't eat as well as I should (far too much fast food in my "diet") and it's all adding up to colossal amounts of fatigue. Has this turned into the complaining livejournal post, or what? I think I'll stop now.
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| frazzled |
[30 Sep 2009|11:15am] |
So the writing didn't go too well yesterday because work has been ridiculously hectic this week. I'm hoping it'll lighten up a little bit this week at some point and give me the chance to finish up the stories I'm working on. I feel pretty confident about my issue of fanfiction getting done this week. I also have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to be approaching my "future fairy tale" story now and I'm working on that in bits and pieces as much as I can. It's proving to be much tougher to put together than the fanfiction story, but that always seems to be the case with my "serious" projects. The fanfiction is helping to get me into the groove of writing, I think, so I'm glad to have it back in my life.
My son has regressed a little bit with his potty training, unfortunately, and that's making it a little more hectic around the household as well. He's still doing pretty well, and he isn't actively fighting with me about getting on the toilet or anything, so I still feel pretty good about where he's at. But he is having more accidents than he was at the peak of his potty productivity (heh) so I don't know... just keep at it and hope for the best is all the wife and I can really do.
Watched Monsters vs. Aliens last night. It was a pretty entertaining movie, and had enough "adult jokes" to keep me invested. My son was enamored with it while it was on, and we started the movie early enough that he didn't get to bed too late either. So that was good, because usually if he's attending Tuesday movie night it's understood that he's going to be staying up much later than usual. The opening of the movie with the awkward romantic interlude between the jock and his sweetheart was pretty darn funny. Among the main cast, Bob the Blob (Seth Rogen) was probably the funniest character in the movie, but all of the actors did a pretty reasonable job of hamming it up. Some of the jokes seemed forced and weren't that funny at times, but it was fairly amusing overall and there were plenty of hilarious visuals to bolster the dialogue. It always slips my mind that Hugh Laurie is English and originally made a name for himself doing comedy. He did a great job as Dr. Cockroach, and I really dug his origin and the reasoning behind it. The Missing Link (Will Arnett) was okay, but I actually thought he kind of sounded like Rogen at certain points throughout the movie, and I wish they had gotten a more distinctive voice to play him. Susan (Reese Witherspoon) was cute and charming throughout, and the supporting characters like Derek (Paul Rudd), General W.R. Monger (get it? Keifer Sutherland) and even the President of the United States (Stephen Colbert) did a good job, although Colbert did annoy me from time to time with his corniness. Overall, I'd give it a thumb and a half up... just like Derek's mom.
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| hurrah! |
[29 Sep 2009|10:26am] |
So the Cowboys won last night, and I'm pleased about that. It wasn't the prettiest game I've ever watched, but a win is a win. That's all that matters to me. Although you probably wouldn't be able to tell that if you ever watched a game with me. I'm beginning to realize that I'm a pretty critical fan.
Anyway, "Monster vs. Aliens" comes out on dvd today, and I'm excited to watch it with my son. Yes, I realize he's only 2 and a half years old, but I do let him watch movies occasionally. He loves "Cars", and enjoyed "Finding Nemo" quite a bit as well. "Cars" is definitely his favorite though, and every red car he sees is "a queen", which is his way of saying McQueen. Very amusing.
Trying to finish up my latest issue of fanfictiony goodness today, so I'm going to cut the journal entry off here. Wish me luck!
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| anxiety! |
[28 Sep 2009|09:22am] |
Cowboys play tonight on Monday Night Football. They're playing a team, the Carolina Panthers, that's in a tougher spot at 0-2 than the Cowboys are at 1-1, so I'm understandably a little nervous because you figure a team that falls to 0-3 is nearly dead in the water in this ultra-competitive league. The Panthers will no doubt be pulling out all the stops to make sure that doesn't happen to them. And it's not like the Panthers are a bad 0-2 team. They suffered through a horrible first game by their QB for their first loss, and their second loss was an extremely tight, competitive game against the 2-1 Atlanta Falcons. So yeah, a little worried about the game tonight.
Had a nice weekend though. It was my anniversary on Saturday, so the wife and I took in a movie, the Surrogates, which was pretty good, but not great. I probably wouldn't recommend rushing out to see it. We then had dinner at a nice restaurant with French cuisine and really enjoyed ourselves. We both tried escargot for the first time ever, as my wife enjoys trying new foods whenever she can, and I have to admit that they weren't bad at all. They were seasoned with what tasted like garlic, butter and pesto and it was pretty tasty. I just want to say that I feel truly fortunate to be married to such a beautiful, intelligent, understanding and forgiving woman. I love you, pooks.
Sunday was a good day too. Went over to a friend's house early to watch football. The Vikings/49ers game was on. That one was an absolute barn-burner that was decided in the last couple of seconds. The Vikings ended up winning it, and I know 9er fans are depressed this morning, but I have to say that this is definitely a different San Francisco 49ers team. Singletary has the team playing extremely focused football with a lot of desire. There were points in the game where the 49ers of a year or so ago would have folded up like an accordion, but they went toe-to-toe with the Minnesota Vikings even though they lost (arguably) their best player in Frank Gore early in the game. After that was over, I met some other friends I hadn't seen in a good long while at a sports bar and had a good time yucking it up. Went on a run an hour or two after that, and it was a tough one. Beer and running don't mix too well, even if you're not drunk. But I managed to get through it, at least. I've been increasing the amount of runs I go on lately and I'm noticing some fatigue creeping up again. That's what happened last time when I hurt my hip, so I'm thinking about easing back a little again until my body recovers.
And that's all I've got. How was your weekend?
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| blast! |
[25 Sep 2009|09:05am] |
Didn't get a chance to post yesterday for the first time in a long while. I could make excuses for it, but what it really boils down to is that I simply forgot to do it. So... Bah!
Anyway, I noticed one of my livejournal friends, Mr. Dino Pollard, canceled his livejournal account. He was having something of a war of words with a few other people on his livejournal, and I can only assume he decided to leave because of that. If you're reading this, Dino, hope you come back to livejournal with a new account at some point in the not-so-distant future.
Things have been going slightly better on the writing front. I'm pretty excited about my fanfiction project, and I've got the first issue and most of the second done now. I'm even considering coming back to an old series because of my excitement over this new one. The "future fairy tale" project I'm working on is coming together a little bit more now. I've been assigned a full-time editor, and we're batting ideas back and forth to try and get the concept as solid as possible before any scripting starts. It's definitely helping me focus, and I feel much more confident in my ability to get it done. I just finished editing another issue of Fist of Justice, the comic being written by Mike Imboden over at Digital Webbing. I also have the possibility of doing some more work writing for Digital Webbing at some point down the line, so hopefully that pans out. In other words... hopefully I don't blow it.
My wife is getting back into volleyball in an effort to do something she enjoys while she tries to get into better shape. I think it's great that she's endeavoring to be more active, and she's suggested that I play volleyball with her on occasion. It's not really a sport that I ever played that much. I get the general idea behind it, and I've played it a few times before, but it isn't exactly a sport I'm a fan of. I was supposed to give it a try last night, but I was extremely tired and bowed out. I am planning to go with her at some point next week and give it a try. If it's something we enjoy doing together, we'll probably try doing it on a semi-regular basis. I'll probably just have to replace one of my running days with volleyball instead.
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| rinky dink! |
[23 Sep 2009|10:23am] |
So I have this ridiculously rinky dink phone. I've had it for years. I think it's probably the second cell phone I've ever owned. At the end of this month I'm probably going to be getting an iphone. So I'm pretty excited about that, especially considering the fact that it's like upgrading from a Commodore 64 to a new Mac. I have a job where I need to be able to check my email constantly and access the internet if I need to. Having the iphone will enable me to do that, and also make it possible for me to go on vacations and still keep one eye on the work that needs to be done while I'm gone. And that's important, because the only way I'll be able to keep this job is if I can keep my company's customers happy, and the only way I'll be able to keep my company's customers happy is if I'm able to monitor the service. I tried doing that during my road trip to Texas, but it was a disaster. My phone was no help whatsoever, and my laptop occasionally had trouble getting any sort of a valid signal. So the plan is to get the iphone at the end of this month. It's definitely more technology than I know what to do with. It's probably even more than I need, but the heck with it.
I've been trying to slog my way through the "future fairy tale" story I'm writing for the anthology Digital Webbing is putting together. It... is not going well. I have the basic concept down, I think (you think!?), but figuring out how to approach it is turning my brain into mush. Unfortunately, there are so many other concepts being turned in for this thing that the editor is swamped with work (currently the project is looking for artists) and doesn't really have the time to talk me through each and every little concern I have with my concept. So my orders are to just write the darn thing and present it as best as I can. The editor is sure it'll be good, which is nice to hear because it shows confidence in my abilities as a writer, but at the the same time I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to reward that confidence with anything resembling a coherent, clever, entertaining story. Ugh... stupid "serious" projects.
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| Spider-Lizard! |
[22 Sep 2009|01:23pm] |
So I don't have much of anything to talk about today. However! My wife sent me an excellent link about a pet that every comic nerd in the world should have. So I'll share that!
The Amazing, Spectacular, Sensational Spider-Lizard!
Y'know, unless you don't like Spider-Man or lizards... but if you don't I have no use for you!
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| grumble |
[21 Sep 2009|08:20am] |
So all I'm really going to do today is rant about football, so for those of you that aren't interested you'll probably want to ignore this one.
The Dallas Cowboys drive me crazy. They played the New York Giants last night in what turned out to be a pretty incredible game. The Giants won on the last play of the game, when Lawrence Tynes kicked a 30-odd yard field goal to make the final score 33-31. Wade Phillips, the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, called a timeout just before Tynes kicked the ball. It went safely through the uprights, but because the timeout had been called before the ball was snapped Tynes had to kick it again. He made it... again. So I had to basically watch the Dallas Cowboys lose the game twice! Always a good time.
Ball security. I just can't stress it enough. I was perusing a Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants messageboard/blog and saw a picture somebody had cobbled together of a downtrodden Tony Romo (QB of the Cowboys) shuffling off the field with his head down. Below the picture was the phrase: "Average QBs... you'll know them by their turnovers". And it really rang true to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Tony Romo has average talent. Not even close. The guy has impressive athleticism, pocket awareness (that internal clock that lets you know you've got to get rid of the ball or you're gonna get smeared) and a laser beam for an arm. Those are the types of things you can't teach, and most good to great QBs have them in various increments. But what you can teach, and what Romo is either unwilling or unable to learn, is that you have to take care of the football. You have to make smart decisions with the football and give up on a play sometimes because the athletes on the other side of the ball are so good these days that any glaring mistake you make is going to be capitalized upon immediately.
Tony Romo threw three interceptions last night. The first one was entirely his fault. One of his receivers ran a shallow inside route, and the other ran a post pattern to the outside. Romo threw the ball to neither receiver, instead throwing it directly between them where a NY Giant was patiently waiting for the easy interception. At the time the Cowboys were leading the game 3-7. The pick was returned for a touchdown, putting the Cowboys behind 10-7.
The second interception was a bit of a fluke. Romo threw to his TE, Jason Witten, who was cutting across the field. The ball deflected off Witten's hand (because it was thrown so far behind him), fell down onto Witten's heel, and bounced back up into the arms of another Giant's defender. If the play hadn't been whistled dead (because the referees initially thought it was an incompletion), the defender would have had another easy stroll into the end zone. Instead, the Giants got the ball at the Dallas 28 yard line and scored another touchdown anyway. At the time of the interception, the score was 13-14 in favor of Dallas. Dallas' defense had really only given up two field goals to the Giants offense (and one of those was the result of yet ANOTHER short field after a fumbled kickoff return by another Dallas player). Dallas' offense had been dominating the game whenever they could hold onto the ball. After the Giants touchdown, the score was 20-14. Dallas had basically gift-wrapped 17 points for the Giants as a result of their miscues, and the Cowboys went into halftime down 20-17.
The Cowboys only had one more turnover in the second half, but it was a killer. Once again the Cowboys had the lead, this time 20-24 in the third quarter. The Cowboys were driving down the field and having quite a bit of success. It looked like they'd take a two-score lead with at least a field goal, and possibly a touchdown. Then Tony Romo dropped back to pass, and heaved a throw downfield that traveled at least 5 yards beyond his reciever and landed, you guessed it, right into the arms of a waiting defender. It was more like a punt than a pass, and was unquestionably the most unforgiveable play of the night. The announcers did a fair job of describing why Tony Romo threw the ball, and what he must have been expecting from the play. But the fact of the matter was that he didn't see the defender at all, and overthrew his receiver by a ton. The Giants took their gift and scored another touchdown, making the score 27-24. The Giants added another field goal to their total, and the Cowboys defense did well to hold them to it, to make the score 30-24. The Cowboys offense scored another touchdown to re-take the lead at 30-31, but because the defense had spent so much time on the field (the Giants owned a 10-minute time of possession advantage despite only being able to run for 97 yards) they were too exhausted to mount much pressure or resistance on the final, game-winning drive for the Giants.
The Cowboys could have, and probably should have, easily won the game. But the Cowboys turned over the ball four times, and the Giants didn't turn the ball over once. Romo accounted for three of the turnovers with his interceptions, and each of them was thrown when the Cowboys had the lead. Instead of solidifying their lead position with a score, Romo swung the momentum right back to the Giants with his miscues. It has long been a criticism of Romo, and it isn't going to change anytime soon... unless he can figure out how to make correct decisions when he's throwing the ball, he'll remain an average quarterback. And in the National Football League, you'll only go as far as your quarterback can take you.
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| back in the saddle |
[18 Sep 2009|07:54am] |
After I contacted the editor, he contacted me back and shared that he felt like I was making a mistake by dropping out of the anthology. We talked about it for a little while, and he convinced me to give it my best shot.
Maybe I'm just gunshy right now. I was invited to contribute to another anthology a while back, and I completely whiffed when it came to getting my story ready for it. I started and stopped 4 different versions of it and eventually was left with nothing resembling a finished product for inclusion. I felt like I let people down, which is a natural reaction, I think, and that's never a nice feeling to have.
I am feeling better about the future fairy tale than I was yesterday. I can say that much. And I actually do have a bit of a bug in my ear to write today, I'm even getting my livejournal out of the way early for it, so we'll see how that goes.
And, uh... that's it!
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| grah! |
[17 Sep 2009|02:41pm] |
So I decided to contact the editor of the anthology he's putting together with the Digital Webbing talent and pull my "future fairy tale" from the book. Although it sucked while I was doing it, I definitely feel better about not having a sub-par addition, especially considering all the amazing ideas that were being put forth by other writers out there. I really just felt like my additional idea was head and shoulders better than the one that eventually got accepted. I might be wrong about that, but I didn't want to go into a project like this with that kind of baggage bogging me down. I've still got another day or so to come up with a new idea, so if I can get that presented in time... who knows?
THe weight has been lifted, for now at least, so let's see what happens next.
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| barely |
[16 Sep 2009|02:44pm] |
Just now getting the chance to write in my livejournal for the day. I'm having a bit of a rough patch with feeling motivated to write lately. I think part of the problem stems from the fact that I feel pressured to make something profitable or worthy of the future out of the things that I write, instead of just writing for the sheer enjoyment of it. I'll write something for fun, and then I'll end up stressing out over it because I worry that it's a waste of time. That prevents me from writing anything else that's fun, and keeps me from writing anything at all because the projects I'd need to work on to make any money seem like they take too much blasted effort.
I don't know, I think I'm just psyching myself out. I recently submitted an idea to an editor for a "future fairy tales" anthology. Basically putting a future spin on a pre-existing fairy tale. I came up with an idea I really liked for "The Ugly Duckling" and submitted it. The editor liked it too, but had already accepted another story for the ugly duckling. I submitted another one spinning off of "Rikki Tikki Tavi" that I didn't like nearly as much, and it was accepted. Now I'm worried that I won't be able to do nearly as good a job on it because I don't like it as much as the original idea I came up with. Psyching myself out.
I also had to pull out of one of my fanfic commitments because of similar concerns, and that's pretty much like throwing logs onto the fire. I don't really know what to do about it at this point except keep plugging away and hope for the best. Anybody have better advice?
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| whew! |
[15 Sep 2009|11:43am] |
Had one of the toughest runs I've had in a long while today. A friend of mine recently mentioned that I should switch my run up, not only by mixing in sprints or a faster pace from time to time, but also by seeking out new routes while running essentially the same distance. The idea being that your body won't get used to what it's doing and plateau.
My original run (once I found it) consisted of me running to a set point, turning around and basically retracing my steps. I've been doing that since the beginning of this year, usually anywhere from 2 to 3 times a week. It's been good, despite some minor setbacks with my health. Today I decided to approach that run from a different direction, as I always noticed people veering off the path I usually take. The run led me along a beach, up a pretty brutal hill with a nice ocean view I completely ignored as I huffed and puffed my way up, down that same hill and, wouldn't you just know it, I ended up at the turn-around point of my usual run. I decided to go back the way I came this time, and the brutal hill isn't quite as brutal on the way back, which is slightly encouraging. Basically this presents some really nice options for me now, as I can basically take four distinct routes and run basically the same distance every time. I can take my original route out and the new one back. I can take the new route out and the original route back. Or I can just run the old or new route themselves. So I'm pretty happy about that.
Another friend of mine (yo, Steve!) gave me a great tip to cut down on the amount of time it would take to do weight-training as well, so overall I think I'm going to be pretty occupied with my physical fitness regimen for the near future.
And health-wise, I've found that my new shoes mixed with the arch support I'm wearing has really cut down on the aches and pains. I'm not running quite as often as I was during my peak, but I've been told that switching your shoes out every 6 months or so and utilizing the arch supports will do wonders. And so far, it's done exactly that.
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| weekend stuff |
[14 Sep 2009|11:00am] |
Went to Great America this weekend (Saturday) with my wife, son and the family of my wife's friend. They have a young daughter who I believe is about a year older than Michael, but they're almost exactly the same size and they had a blast together. Michael really enjoyed riding the rides, and we got these classic pictures of him riding a "mini-drop-zone-type" of ride with this supremely distressed expression on his face. Instant hilarity. My wife posted some pictures of it up on her facebook, so I may update this post with that eventually. He also rode a mini-rollercoaster and I was really impressed by how well he handled it, especially because the daughter of my wife's friend had to spend a little bit of time recovering before she was ready for more rides. My wife and I had to curb our efforts to potty-train Michael while at the park and transfer him back to regular diapers because there was no way we were having him sit on the toilet for 10+ minutes while we were there, but we did get back to it on Sunday and he seemed to pick it up again right away.
Cowboys won their opening game of the season. Despite the impressive showing from the offense in scoring 34 points against the Bucaneers, I was pretty discouraged with the defense's inability to sack the QB or register any turnovers. Last year the Cowboys were horrible at creating turnovers, and they don't seem any better at it thus far. What they were good at last year was sacking the QB, though, so failing to register a single sack in this game was even more disturbing than the lack of turnovers. I've heard from analysts (didn't get to watch the game) that the Cowboys pressured the QB all day and just didn't manage to get him on the ground, but if the opposing QB is being rushed and making haphazard throws, you'd hope the defense could get a turnover or two because of that. So far... no dice.
Of course, I can't leave out the offense either. Even though they scored a bunch of points and Romo threw for a career best 353 yards (I think that was it), I'm still bothered by the fact that the majority of their points came from huge passing plays down the field. The offense didn't ever really methodically move down the field to score their touchdowns. It was pretty much just Romo heaving the ball to the WRs 50 yards downfield and scoring on big plays. Big plays like that don't hold up over the course of the season, especially when you start playing the tougher teams that scheme to stop you.
The Eagles and Giants both won yesterday as well, and I'd argue that they both played tougher teams. The Eagles, in particular, looked scary with their defense registering 5 sacks and 7 turnovers. That's just scary production, and if the Cowboys don't improve they'll be looking up at both teams in the division before long. Next Sunday night is the Giants vs. the Cowboys in the new Texas Stadium, so we'll find out in pretty soon what the pecking order in the division is going to be.
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| uh, ya got a lil' something there, buddy... |
[11 Sep 2009|08:49am] |
If an annoying acquaintance got spinach between his or her teeth or an embarrassing salsa stain, would you tell them or let them suffer in shame?
I'm pretty good about telling people about stuff like that, even if I dislike them for some reason, just because I wouldn't want somebody to return that kind of animosity back in my direction at some point down the line. In the case of the piece of spinach in the teeth, that'd actually kinda gross me out if I was talking with the guy or gal for any extended period of time, so I'd want that bad boy dislodged just as quickly as possible. If they were being a royal dick just before leaving, I must admit that I'd consider not saying a word though. I'm only human. It's our nature!
So yesterday I mentioned that I finished the first issue of one of the fanfic series I've taken on. I'm pretty pleased with the way it's turned out, and my writerly comrade has expressed that he enjoyed the issue as well. So now I'm not quite as worried about the long-windedness of it as I was initially, but I think worries like that are a constat thing with me anyway and I just do my best to manage them.
I also mentioned that I'd talk a little bit about "New Ways To Die". I think I said a while I was reading it that it was my favorite arc of the new "Brand New Day" version of Amazing Spider-Man to date. Now that I've finished reading it I can definitely confirm that. I'm not sure what it was, exactly, but the story pressed all the right buttons for me. I really enjoyed Anti-Venom, although it's kind of a silly name. His hard-on for "cleansing" people of their "anomalies" is a pretty inspired idea, and it was nice to see Brock back in some kind of Venom suit. I never really enjoyed Mac Gargan becoming Venom, as I thought it would have been just as viable to beef him back up as a threat in his Scorpion persona, so it was nice to see him tail-whippin' up a storm in the "climax" of the story-arc. And yeah, those were quotation marks, used in this case because the climax of this storyline wasn't really a climax at all. There really wasn't any major resolution in the final issue, and some of it seemed kind of forced. I get the feeling it's all set-up for something else down the line, but the story had so much potential in the initial stages that I was hoping for a little bit more. One thing that was incredible was all the action taking place. Although Spidey whomped the Green Goblin a little too easily, I thought the rest of the action was handled remarkably well by JRJR. I know there are those out there that don't enjoy his art, but it was remarkable in this series of issues. So yeah, looking forward to more Spidey now... although I'm somewhat reserved by the fact that I've heard this was the best of the bunch and has remained so, I'll still be reading to my little Spider-heart's content.
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| finito |
[10 Sep 2009|07:24am] |
Finished the first issue of one of the fanfic series I'm taking on. That's a good sign. The issue ended up being over 6,000 words, and I'm pretty amazed that it ended up being that long. The final scene, in particular, kind of blossomed a bit and took on a life of it's own. I'd planned for it to be pretty short, sweet and to the point. I've been showing a fellow writer scenes from the issue as I complete them to get feedback, and I did that with the final scene as well. I'm a little worried that it might be too long-winded, but we'll see what he has to say about it.
Anyway, it does feel good to finally (kinda) finish a story again. The first arc of the title I'm taking on is going to be two issues, so technically it's a "To Be Continued..." type of thing. Still, I'm pretty happy about it anyway.
Don't have too much else to talk about today. Did finish "New Ways To Die" yesterday, but I'll talk more about that in tomorrow's entry, I think. The only other thing I did was watch "Big" with Tom Hanks last night. That's a great freaking movie. Really funny, and Tom Hanks does these very subtle, child-like things that really make sense if you're watching for them. He was a pretty fine actor even before he "graduated" to doing stuff like Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.
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