This made my day...

Stumbled across this link today and it filled my day with happiness and wonder. If I had had this sleeping bag as a child, I would never have slept in a real bed. (note the lightsaber zipper)

It turns out that it was actually an April Fool's joke, but the demand for item became so big that ThinkGeek is contacting Lucasfilm to apply for a license.

(note: if you haven't seen The Empire Strikes Back, you won't get this at all)

(--and if you haven't seen The Empire Strikes Back, why are we friends? Because you clearly hate freedom)

Taken

I think the tagline to the recent action film Taken should be:

"You will believe that Liam Neeson is still a complete bad ass."

If all action movies were this well made, I probably would go to more of them. It wasn't overflowing with intelligence or anything, but there was a modicum of smart believability, just enough to carry it off.

There were some small issues, such as the overabundance of the Daddy Knows Best syndrome, the fact that in reality, those who operate in human trafficking (the bad guys in the film) rarely pick rich Westerners as their target.

However, it was a very satisfying, fun, dark, and brutally gruesome movie. Liam Neeson carried it off well. Its hard NOT to want to watch human traffickers get the living shit kicked out of them.

Oh my Ogame and a Faceoff

I don't know if its because of my addictive personality, because I haven't played a video game in a while, or because I'm a huge nerd, (probably all three) but I'm completely enthralled with Ogame, a free, text-based real-time space empire strategy game. A few months or so ago my friend Adam got my roommate, me, and a few others to sign up and since then I've been playing it more and more. If I paid as much attention to the stock market as I did to this, I think I might be a rich man.

The problem is, of course, that I'm playing the game when I should be writing, editing, or sending stories out. We'll see how my resolution to write first, play later goes.

ps. This story completely fascinated me. A new face!?! How amazing is that? What really impressed me was how the addition of nasal lining actually stimulated olfactory tissue in the brain and how her sense of taste was restored. I'm curious to see if immunosuppressants will actually work so that her body won't reject the new tissue. I've often wondered what long term side effects of taking such immunosuppresants would be on one's overall health.

tea and taxes

Well I haven't been on here in a while to update this thing, have I?

In my defense, I've been fighting a terrible cold for the past week, the details and symptoms of which I'll keep to myself. Its been hard dragging my sorry self to work and I've pretty much had no leftover energy to devote to such things as writing, working out, chores, or editing. Luckily I think I'm on the mend.

I will say that the illness bore some good fruit. Because coffee was drying my throat out and causing my mouth to feel like I was being choked with toffee, I switched to drinking green tea for my daily caffeine dosage.

And that, my friends, has definitely been a good thing. I did a little research. Green tea is WAY healthier for you. Maybe its psychosomatic, but I definitely feel better as I sip it. Also, I've noticed several overall health benefits. I sleep better. I don't have coffee breath. Not as jittery. Methinks that even after the illness has finally passed through my system, I may still make the switch permanent.

Anyway, I've been sipping tea and getting things done all day today, including cleaning up my bedroom, buying groceries, and... doing my taxes. The good news is, because of the interest I pay every year on my absurdly large student loans, I am getting a decent return.

The bad news is, I pay interest every year on absurdly large student loans. Sigh. But then again, I think of trips I made, the great semesters I had in Costa Rica, Peru, Ireland, and Chicago and even on campus at Aquinas, and I'm grateful. At least that's what I keep telling myself every month when I write the check.

So. Taxes done? Check. Room cleaned? Check? Actual food in kitchen? Check. Now that the bare necessities are out of the way, time to get back to working on my stories.

Speaking of which, the editor of Well Told Tales just informed me that, in addition to the audio version of my story being available on their podcast website, its also going to be broadcast on the radio this Saturday night. Here's what he had to say:

"One of our readers -- J.B. Goodspeed (a.k.a. Jacob Keebler) -- set it up. He has a three-hour block on Saturday nights, so after a couple of hours of his own music show, we'll get the third hour for "The Well Told Tales Radio Hour," slated to run at 11 p.m. PT on 92.5 The Why (http://925kyhy.com/.)"

How cool is that!?!

A Parliament of Me

Last night, I had the immense pleasure of listening to Andy Catt's reading of my short story "A Parliament of Me," broadcast on the excellent podcast website Well Told Tales.

I was blown away.

The special effects, the different voices that Mr. Catt employed, everything was amazing, far beyond what I expected. One of the interesting changes was his use of British accents for the character(s), something that I never intended when I wrote the story, but now that I hear it, very much approve.

I describe "A Parliament of Me" as Jorge Luis Borges meets Stephen King. It is my one Borges-esque story, although I wrote it long before I had ever read Borges.

The story is roughly 18 minutes long and is completely free and very easy to listen to (though I would suggest, if you like the story, and enjoy website, that you might donate a small amount). Check it out when you can! Here's the link.

inaugaration and my own anticipation

I very much enjoyed watching the inaugural ceremonies this morning and look forward to catching the re-run of The Daily Show's satirical coverage of the event tomorrow evening.

In the meantime, I've been told that one of my stories will be broadcast in two days time, and the editor of the website, Well Told Tales, told me it was one of their best readings yet.

I'm excited beyond words. For both myself and the country.

This just blew my mind...

Neil Gaiman, one of my heroes, linked to this article from his blog and after reading it, I feel I must do the same:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true&print=true

I'm very much reminded of Edwin Abbott's book Flatland. Perhaps the British teacher and theologian was more right in his geometrical/sociological satire than we knew. I particularly like the part where the universe is described as "pringle" shaped. (though reading further, if the hologram theory proves sound, it might be actually be sphere shaped, if I understood the article correctly--which I probably didn't)

Fascinating stuff, and it actually feeds into an idea for a story I've been toying around with.

All I will say as a hint is that in the kingdom of the blind, the man who can see is king.