According To Whim

Where the Blogs Are – January 2012

2012-01-17T10:18:00.002-06:00

by Chris McGinty (AccordingToWhim.com)

I’m going to start a feature here on the According To Whim blog that will have links to the writing that we’ve done during a given month. I might post it earlier in the month, and then move it to the last day of the month when it is fully populated. As this blog is meant to report the work we do, I figure a report on what we’ve written makes sense. I will likely ask Nathan for a little help with this feature if it becomes too hard to keep up with on my own. My thanks in advance for his help.

The reason for this is that we have created a number of blogs with the hope of attracting people who are looking for a specific topic, rather than putting everything on a catch all blog. So far, Nathan has been the prolific writer. I will pick it up soon. I have been writing, but I have incomplete posts. In the parentheses after the date will be the blog the article appears on.

Nathan’s Posts

Jan. 1 (Robotech Now) – Robotech for 2012!

Nathan explains the goal of the Robotech blog for 2012.

Jan. 2 (According To Whim) – Doodad Part 3

Nathan tells you about his latest actions with his VW Beetle hobby.

Jan. 3 (Robotech Now) – The Robotech 2012 Reading/Watching Order

Nathan discusses a true fan’s dedication to make the chronological reading of Robotech easy for the rest of us.

Jan. 6 (Robotech Now) – The Legend of Zor: Issues 1-6

Nathan discusses a comic book prequel mini-series from 1992.

Jan. 9 (Robotech Now) – Robotech: The Graphic Novel

Nathan discusses a comic book prequel mini-series from 1986.

Jan. 9 (Whim Movies) – Review: Demolition Man

Nathan stands up for a movie that not everyone gets. I get it, brother!

Jan. 13 (Robotech Now) – Book 1: Robotech Genesis - Prologue Through Chapter 2

Nathan continues his reading of Robotech by picking up one of the novels for a little bit.

Jan. 16 (Robotech Now) – Return To Macross: Issues 1-6

Nathan discusses another comic book series in the Robotech universe.

Jan. 16 (Net Runner CCG) – Net Runner - A very light overview and some memories...

Nathan’s repost of a Net Runner article he did on this blog.

Chris’s Posts

Jan. 10 (Robotech Now) – What’s So Special about Special Editions?

Chris discusses the possible upsides of special edition releases of movies and TV shows.

Jan. 11 (Robotech Now) – Reading and Viewing Experience: Robotech Genesis-The Legend Of Zor?

Chris’s take on the prequel mini-series.

Jan. 17 (Whim Movies) – Times (and TV) Have Changed

Chris talks about how he would run a TV network.

Doodad Part 3

2012-01-02T08:34:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to the 3rd post in my Doodad series of blogs. Here is part 1 & 2.These blogs are about my Volkswagen Beetles and my attempt to get them looking and running great (and possibly sell one or both of them).
Today's update is due to the nice weather. Over the New Years weekend the temperatures here were in the low 70's in the afternoons (Friday and Saturday) with sun and mild temperatures on Sunday. I started working on the cars last week when I got the guy who sold me the 70 Beetle to come over and adjust the carb to keep it running. He came over and adjusted it and the Super Beetle so it wouldn't idle so high. It wasn't a perfect fix for both but it did help.

Last week I drove the Super around a bit and bought some Sea Foam on his advice for both cars. You can get it at Walmart or Autozone. It is a gas additive that is supposed to do some great stuff for older engines. Anyway I got the Super ready to take into Decatur to get the inspection and get new tags. I didn't remember getting the notice in the mail to renew the tags so I read on the Texas DPS site to just bring in the old receipt and they can issue you new tags with it.

The first day I tried to take it to work (which is in Decatur as well) the key wouldn't turn in the ignition. I tired and tried and bent the key a bit and finally gave up. After work I played with it some more and put some graphite in the key hole and got it to work.

The next morning I got out there and pulled out into the street and felt the car pull to the right. I got out and sure enough one of the front tires was flat. I know that 3 of the 4 tires have slow leaks but they are REALLY slow and the tire was fine the day before. I pulled back in and gave up on that day. After work I pulled the tire off, aired it up and poured water on it to see if I could see any bubbles. Nothing... I put it back on and decided to try yet again the next day.
On Friday I got it to work without any mishaps. At lunch I went to the inspection place and waited forever there. The guy who owns it does a lot of business and works alone. While looking in the glove box for the insurance paper I found an envelope. Lo and behold there was the tags. I HAD gotten them back in May but I never put them on the car. I just shoved the envelope in the glove box. Once I got the inspection I put the tag sticker on as well. Finally! The Super is now street legal again. It's a fun car to drive but there is still alot of work that needs to be done for it to be a 'daily driver'.

On Saturday and Sunday I worked on the Beetle. I beld the brakes and they tightened right up! The brake fluid that came out was really dark though, almost looked like oil so I might have an issue in there (or maybe I just need to flush it all). I took out the stereo that was in there and put the tape deck I had just bought before I traded in the Ranger. Once I got it hooked up I found out that the speaker wires were all backwards so I put played with them until I got them all in the right spots.

I also adjusted the driver seat belt retractor. It was all loose and the seat belt wouldn't retract but now it does. I also cleaned off the little add-on console that was originally in the car when bought it and reinstalled it so I could have a place to put sodas and other junk. I cleaned the car out again and used some Armor All on parts inside to get it extra nice looking.

I drove it to work today and it was fine (after it warmed up). I will attempt to get it inspected and then I will have a daily driving car that will be a lot more pocket book friendly at nearly 30 miles per gallon.

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Fifty-Two – Yep, Chris Always Gets the Last Word

2011-12-31T17:56:00.002-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(This Episode by Chris McGinty)

[INT – CHRIS’S HOUSE – DAY]

(Chris and Miguel are in the living room with Garrett who is tied up to a chair. Chris’s decoy Duran Duran collection is being put back in its rightful place by Chris and Miguel, as they tell Garrett the story of what happened since the cave. Garrett, in his tied up state, has no choice but to sit and listen to the tale.)

GARRETT: So you guys all fell asleep in Nathan’s bed that night, and he slipped into a coma. Then Larry came and put him into a neat and tidy dream where all the loose ends were conveniently tied up, and he will spend the rest of his days joyriding in a life sized lightcycle, while his coma ridden body withers away in a bed at Dainty Pines Assisted Living Center. That’s kind of sad really.

MIGUEL: Why is that sad? Chris was “Seven and the Ragged Tiger” the seventh album?

CHRIS: No, the third.

MIGUEL: So then it goes after “Big Thing?”

CHRIS: No. Let me do that. Just put the posters on the wall in alphabetical order of the artist that designed them.

GARRETT: That’s sad because Nathan is in a coma.

MIGUEL: How do I know who the artist was?

CHRIS: Are you really that incapable, Miguel?

MIGUEL: I don’t know shit about Duran Duran.

CHRIS: You know enough to get by I’m sure.

MIGUEL: I know that they were next door neighbours with Information Society. Sure, Garrett, Nathan is in a coma, but he’s happy. We’re happy that he’s happy. So why is that sad?

CHRIS: I have to at least give you credit for saying “neighbours” in proper British.

MIGUEL: Well, thank you. Speaking of “Thank You,” does that go with official albums or not.

CHRIS: Yeah, technically.

GARRETT: Well, ok. So Nathan’s happy, but you two will never see your friend again. Doesn’t that make you sad?

MIGUEL: Ok, so does it go after “Big Thing?”

CHRIS: Yes.

MIGUEL: About how far after “Big Thing?” See, Garrett, this is the problem with our society. We place a higher value on how the self experiences life than we do on the happiness of others.

GARRETT: Well, I can’t help it. I have to worry about Angelina, and I’m just trying to find out what I have to look forward to if Nathan’s experience was just a dream…

(It’s at this point that there is a deep rumbling noise approaching the house. They all look out the window in time to see a life sized red Lightcycle go zooming by, a familiar voice filling the air.)

NATHAN: Yeeeeeeeehawwwwww!

GARRETT: Why do you guys want to fuck with me?

CHRIS: Cos we’re bored.

GARRETT: So then all the stuff that Larry did really happened, and wasn’t Nathan’s coma dream?

MIGUEL: Yes.

CHRIS: Probably.

MIGUEL: Probably.

GARRETT: So then where is Larry?

CHRIS: Who?

GARRETT: Miguel?

MIGUEL: What? I’m happy that you’re the one having to deal with his difficult side rather than me. It’s refreshing.

CHRIS: Are you sure that you want to do this, Garrett?

GARRETT: Well, I guess I really have no choice. I have to go into hiding for a while so that Angelina doesn’t find me and castrate me. And at the moment your offer to organize your real Duran Duran collection is the only means I have of hiding from her.

CHRIS: Ok, Miguel, I’ll lift at his feet. You lift the other side.

(Chris lifts Garrett, who is still tied to the chair, by the feet, as Miguel lifts Garrett by his face.)

GARRETT: Mphs suggle fhlilm.

MIGUEL: English please, Garrett.

(They carry him to Chris’s Daytona, and throw him into the backseat.)

GARRETT: I said that you can untie me.

MIGUEL: Hmm. Wish we’d thought of that.

(They get into the car, Chris driving, and they take off down the road. Garrett grumbles in the backseat.)

GARRETT: You could at least have thrown me back here face up. Why does the backseat taste like decade old soda?

CHRIS: That’s probably decade old soda.

MIGUEL: Um, I think I might vomit.

CHRIS: Decade old soda isn’t that gross.

MIGUEL: No, that’s not it. It’s the speed you’re going.

CHRIS: Well, we’re racing Nathan’s Lightcycle. That thing can fly.

(Miguel rolls down the passenger side window and flips off Nathan, who has the mirrored windows drawn back so that Miguel can see him. He holds up some sort of iDevice.)

NATHAN: I got it today!

CHRIS: Oh great! Like you need more debt.

NATHAN: No, I bought it for cash after selling rides in the Lightcycle to a bunch of thirty something guys at the local comic book shop. It’s the iDevice that Larry had in the cave, but I got all 52 optional upgrades, so mine’s better.

CHRIS: And by better…

NATHAN: I mean that I can’t figure out how half of the features work. But I figured out the most important one.

(The bullhorn comes on, and Nathan’s voice comes over as the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

NATHAN: Hasta la vista, baby!

(The Lightcycle flies away so fast that within ten seconds they can no longer see it.)

CHRIS: If he thinks he’s going to charge me to ride in that, he’s a fool.

MIGUEL: I’m thinking I’d rather stick with less nauseating activities… like sticking my fingers all the way down my throat after drinking curdled milk.

(In nearly no time, Chris pulls into a self storage park. He goes all the way to the back, where he parks by a pink leopard skin painted storage shed. They get out, and Chris opens the storage shed. They drag Garrett in, and once they’ve gone through all seven of the security clearance checkpoints, they are on an elevator that is traveling a mile and a half below the surface; it’s at this point that they untie Garrett.)

GARRETT: The two of you are so kind. I’ll be sure to thank you after my skin grows back from the ropes rubbing it off.

(When they get to the bottom of the shaft, and Miguel has been properly medicated against the panic attacks he almost experienced from claustrophobia in the elevator, they step into an immense cavern. There are warehouse sized shelves filled with Duran Duran recordings and memorabilia that seem to go on for miles.)

MIGUEL: I really had no idea your Duran Duran collection could be this big. I mean, I was expecting big, but this is insane. I’m imagining that if I look long enough, I’ll find a crate that’s marked “Ark of the Covenant shoved in here somewhere.”

GARRETT: I’m not sure that I’ll be able to organize all of this in five years.

(Andy Taylor steps out from between shelves.)

ANDY: Don’t worry. You’ll have help.

MIGUEL: You have an actual member of Duran Duran in your collection!

CHRIS: Twice ex-member… but yes. It was the only way that I could get the master recordings of “Reportage.” I had to agree to let him watch over them to avoid them being leaked to the public… fucker.

GARRETT: Remember. We agreed. If Angelina dies by some tragic accident, or is showing any signs that she’s either forgotten or forgiven me, you come get me immediately.

CHRIS: Yes. Yes. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to see how things are going, but for now, I need to get Miguel back to the surface before the meds wear off.

MIGUEL: I love you, Chris.

CHRIS: Thank you.

(Once Chris and Miguel are back in Chris’s car; Chris makes a phone call and puts it on speakerphone. He hands the phone to Miguel to hold up and drives off as it rings. Angelina answers.)

ANGELINA: Hello?

CHRIS: Hey. Garrett is taken care of. He won’t see the light of day for another five years, although, he’ll have the greatest music ever recorded to keep him busy. But at least you won’t have to inflict bodily harm.

ANGELINA: That’s good. I’m not really a violent person by nature, just by trade.

MIGUEL: Wait, that sounds like you’re saying that people are born a certain way, and that bad actions are the result of choice.

ANGELINA: Why do you hang out with that liberal, Chris?

CHRIS: I’m not sure. He’s certainly more interesting now that he plans to become a licensed bounty hunter and travel the world looking for people to rough up.

MIGUEL: I was only considering that, thinking out loud if you will.

CHRIS: So I guess you and Paul are vacationing in foreign lands now?

ANGELINA: Well, we will be after Paul figures out how to land this damn balloon. I’ve had to hang my ass out of the basket twice now to pee.

MIGUEL: I don’t know why, but that makes me a little hard.

ANGELINA: Why do you hang out with that pervert, Chris?

CHRIS: I’m not sure. Listen, I hate to tell you Angelina, but Dentre probably overrode the balloon remotely so that it won’t land by normal means. I would suggest that you figure out a way to deflate it before you drift into hostile territory.

ANGELINA: That Dentre. I think he’s probably the coolest guy who I never slept with. I can understand why he’s resentful of Paul taking the money, the girl, and the balloon, though not necessarily in that order of importance. Well, I gotta go. I have to figure out how to create makeshift parachutes that will work.

(They hang up.)

MIGUEL: I mean, some guy thought it was raining, but little did he know, he was getting a golden shower from a golden goddess.

CHRIS: Miguel… you’re making me queasy now. Stop.

[INT- DAINTY PINES ASSISTED LIVING CENTER – DAY]

(Chris and Miguel walk in. They find Agent 1, Agent 2, and Agent 3 dressed as orderlies pushing the professor in his wheelchair.)

CHRIS: How’s the patient?

AGENT 1: He’s doing well today. He’s coherent, holding conversations, and the false aging reversed a little.

AGENT 3: We think he’ll be alright with Agent 2’s healing power.

AGENT 2: Ah, but my work isn’t as good as Larry’s work. Larry has helped the professor move beyond his need for extreme competitiveness.

PROFESSOR: Yep. I’m ok with the fact that you guys defeated my plot to control the world. In fact, I’m happy to just let the world turn without my interference.

MIGUEL: Sounds for sure like there won’t be a sequel.

CHRIS: Hey, watch this.

(Chris punches Agent 2 in the face very hard, caving in his nose. Agent 2 uses his healing power to put it back in place.)

CHRIS: That’s so much more fun now that I know he can heal. Miguel, quit drooling.

(They walk out to the patio where they find Nathan and Stan.)

CHRIS: Where’s Oliver?

NATHAN: He’s taking the Lightcycle for a Test Spin. Then he’ll bring the Program into his hand at the end of turn. Did you see that Jane Wiedlin link I sent you?

CHRIS: Yeah, when she speaks Japanese, she looks just like an Anime character.

NATHAN: The Professor of Dirt is coming by later to visit his brother, and play a few games with us. And your psychologist friend, the one played by Kelsey Grammar wants us to start going to a weekly session. I told him that I doubt you could free up the time from following around Danny Daewoo.

CHRIS: Good call. And way to wrap up a bunch of minor characters in one line.

NATHAN: And by the way, while I might not like Mr. Daewoo’s music, he is leading a fight against Tidy Cabs to create legislation forcing them to clean up their cabs. The first thing they did was to apologize to me for P.R. sake, and so now that I really don’t need it, I’m allowed to ride in cabs again.

CHRIS: Anything else amazing happen while I was dealing with Garrett?

PROFESSOR: Eric called and reminded me of our plot to overthrow the world through crochet. I told him that I wasn’t interested, but he also told me that the government used COBALT Driver’s vehicle repair ability to catch up the six month backlog at the motor pool.

NATHAN: Great! Another resource that we no longer need that is now available to us.

CHRIS: Everything is tied up so neatly.

(Larry appears surrounded by a glow that accompanies his transcendence from the physical world.)

LARRY: Ok, I have now made sure that Dorothy is no longer running around in the dream state that she got caught in when my secondary power was manifesting itself. She’s back in Kansas, and is happy. And her little dog too. Her aunt bought her tickets to see Rick Springfield perform “Living in Oz” from start to finish.

CHRIS: Ooh! Ooh! Nathan! Take me!

NATHAN: No!

CHRIS: We can go in your Lightcycle!

NATHAN: Ok. Just this once. But first, we have game day.

(Speaking of Lightcycle and game day, Oliver comes whipping around in the Lightcycle and skids to a halt.)

OLIVER: Nort bad. Nort bad ert all. Let’s play Axe-iz ‘n’ Alleys.

(An hour later, the “Axis and Allies” game is set up.)

MIGUEL: This is so cool!

NATHAN: I didn’t think you would like this game.

MIGUEL: It’s just like “Return of the Jedi!”

NATHAN: Well, it’s more like World War… oh, you’re talking about something else.

(Nathan turns to see three ghostlike figures standing there. It’s vaguely reminiscent of Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda at the end of the original trilogy… if Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda were a board member, a unicorn, and Larry.)

BOARD MEMBER REGINALD: Well, I was unable to transcend until I cleared up all continuity glitches in this story, but I finally realized that I was holding on to my comfort zone, thinking that there was a way to explain everything in rational, realistic way. But once I let go, and realized that every single bit of it could be explained away as bad dream states, and Angelina’s mercenary nature, I transcended into the next level of existence, along with Larry and Skippy, here.

(He points that the unicorn who recently was referred to erroneously as Fluffy in the cave.)

NATHAN: Wait. Wait. You mean that Chris caused a continuity glitch that I covered for by calling a questionable reality into play?

CHRIS: It happens.

SKIPPY: It’s ok. My Little Pony really caused a problem in the eighties of perpetuating the belief that all horses, and all magical horse-like creatures, look alike. It’s an honest mistake for a human, Nathan.

CHRIS: I’m Chris.

NATHAN: Speaking of misspoken names. Is anyone going to tell me how Larry relates to all of this?

SKIPPY: What? You don’t care how I transcended?

NATHAN: Well, of course I do.

SKIPPY: But you’re not going to ask?

NATHAN: Great. I’m married to a unicorn. Why yes, I was just wondering how you transcended, Skippy.

SKIPPY: On a basketball scholarship through TCC.

NATHAN: Um… I want a divorce, Skippy. Ok. What’s up with Larry!?

LARRY (in his best Yoda voice): Patience, you must have. Told, my story will be.

MIGUEL: Oh, this is so cool!

CHRIS: This oughtta be good.

LARRY: Have we ever established if this is 2006 or 2011?

(Everyone looks at each other and shrugs.)

LARRY: Well, then I’ll be vague as to the timeline. A little over ten years ago, I was born. Mein Pa, my real father, worked for the government. He was working in an experimental section on a program to create super soldiers, because for some reason the government does everything only to advance the cause of war in these types of stories. They created a serum that would grow super powers in people. The problem is that there were people like the professor here…

PROFESSOR: I’m feeling much better now.

NATHAN: Can I just interject that it would have been nice if we could have known all of this months ago?

CHRIS: It’s amazing what a deadline, and writing the last episode, will force you to come up with.

LARRY: There were people like the professor here who became too interested in the ways that these super humans could be used to bring down the government. Mein Pa insisted that the experiments stop before the professor could do anything harmful. The government responded with special forces, like COBALT, as a means of protecting against anyone getting hold of the super humans. But bureaucracy being what it is; the professor found a way to get people with powers close to him. He paid congress to pass legislation that super powers must be registered. Then he started working for a government funded school teaching a course on super powers.

NATHAN: But what took so long for him to get his plan in motion?

MIGUEL: This is so cool! And Larry’s dad should probably be added as a ghost in Special Edition releases the same way they need to add Qui-Gon.

(Nathan elbows Miguel.)

LARRY: Mein Pa foresaw a terrible future where government inefficiency let too many powerful humans slip through the cracks, so my father hid the formula from the government.

NATHAN: How do you hide anything from the government?

CHRIS: Heh, heh, heh.

NATHAN: Why are you so amused?

CHRIS: Wait for it.

LARRY: The best way to take anything out of the hands of the government is to hand it off to the private sector. Mein Pa sold the formula to various junk food companies to use as a secret preservative. He explained that in low enough quantities, people wouldn’t develop the super powers. His mistake was underestimating how much people will overdo snack foods.

NATHAN: You mean?

LARRY: Yes. Mr. Peepers soda and Twankies snack cakes are among the many junk foods with the preservative.

NATHAN: So in spite of your father’s best efforts, there would still be people with crazy powers for the professor to try to use. He just had to wait patiently for someone like Chris with super speed or you with your ability to retain information that evolved into the odd dream state power to come along, and then to find a way to manipulate it.

MIGUEL: But wait. My wife and I don’t overdo junk food. Why do we have powers?

LARRY: As it turns out, HBO Original Programming, such as “The Sopranos,” emits a frequency that is the opposite of the dampening field. It can also cause super powers to manifest.

MIGUEL: Oh. Yeah… we definitely overdo HBO shows.

NATHAN: So what happened to your father, Larry?

LARRY: The original leader of COBALT was a crazed guy who felt that he was doing his country a service by torturing my father until he told what happened to the formula. Mein Pa was killed during one of these interrogations, and that’s when this crazed guy was kicked out of the service, and Eric stepped up as leader.

CHRIS: And…

LARRY: And what?

CHRIS: Why didn’t the professor know who you were?

LARRY: Because Eric helped my mom by hiding us from the government with new identities. When he looked me up in the county records he found hardly anything.

CHRIS: Because…

LARRY: Well, I guess now that I’ve transcended from this plane of existence, it won’t hurt to say that my mom and I took on new identities.

CHRIS: Your original name being…

LARRY: Reece! Are you happy? My name was once Reece. Larry was my alias

NATHAN: Really? But how did you know this, Chris?

CHRIS: It’s like all that stuff I tipped Garrett for. I just say random stuff, and sometimes it sticks.

NATHAN: So do we call you Larry or Reece then?

CHRIS: That’s like when the asked Prince if they should still call him The Artist.

LARRY: Well, since you put it that way, I guess I know how Prince felt when he was finally able to drop that odd symbol. I’ve been emancipated from the bonds that bound me. Yes. It feels right. You may now call me Reece.

CHRIS: Whatever, Larry.

(End of “Flash Ahhhh!”)

2011 - A Whim in Review

2011-12-30T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to my 2011 Wrap-up post. This blog will be a list of stuff I (or Chris and I or Miguel and I) did over the last 12 months that was interesting, good, or bad. It's nice to have a quick review of the year like this. It's a bit like covering your yearly goals to see what you accomplished or failed to accomplish plus more cool stuff.

Hangman's House of Horrors: Once again we (Miguel and I) worked with the local charity haunted house making some videos. I decided I didn't want any direct involvement with the house this coming year because their 'core' volunteer and employees rub me the wrong way. I will be glad to help behind the scenes but that's about all.
Renegade Anime business: In 2011 I started my Anime model business back up. I have focused on online sales and conventions for the quick turnover. It has been mildly successful. I will continue it through 2012.
Dallas Comicon: I setup at the 3 conventions that the guys in Dallas put on. The convention moved to the Irving Convention center this year and was a big success. We posted a week's worth of thoughts about it.
Every 15 Minutes: This is a highschool program tries to turn kids off drinking and driving with bloddy re-enactments. I helped video the one that Decatur put on at the Highschool this year.
House Work: For some reason 2011 turned out to be all about house and yard work. I took on a lot of repair work around my own house and my mom's rent house. I did a couple of blogs about the work I did on my house.
Rent Property Work: My mom's rent house was trashed and I started a rather tedious blog about repairing the damage. The blog is still going on.
New vehicle: I had issues with my little Ford pickup and decided it was time to put it out of it's misery. I pulled the trigger and bought a new (and much larger) truck. That was not before I spent money to get it fixed and it wasn't fixed right.
Season 2 pickup day: Chris cornered me into shooting some missing stuff from Season 2 so we had a day of pickup shots (not shot where I am in a pickup, but shots we missed or were lost).
New VW: This fall I bought a 1970 Beetle from a co-worker. I didn't have the money to buy it outright so they put me on a payment plan. It's a nice beetle and I hope to use it as a daily driver in 2012. Read about it here.
College: I took some health care government funded classes from Midland college during the 2nd half of the year in preparation for a certification exam. I passed both the class and the test. I then turned my sights to going back to real college and getting a Bachelor's degree.
Concerts: I am approaching 40 years of age in a couple more years and believe it or not I have never been to a concert until 2011. My first concert experience was Duran Duran (who else?) at WinStar casino. Low and behold they came back to Texas and I got to see them again at Verizon center! Will miracles never end?!
Flash Ahhhh!: Chris got at least one big goal he started out on (with me in tow). We are talking about our whopping 52 part Flash Ahhhh! serial that can been seen here on the According To Whim blog. At times I was inspired and other times I couldn't give two farts about it but in the end I am glad we did it.

All in all it was a fairly busy yet quiet year. I can't describe it well. I am hoping that 2012 will be awesome in so many ways but I know that I will have to make things happen.

For those of you who bother to read our stuff: thanks so much.

Chris’s Goals, For Reals This Time

2011-12-29T14:58:00.001-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

On Tuesday, I tried to write my goals for 2012, but soon came to the realization that I didn’t know what they were. These thoughts kept shrouding any real thoughts, “What am I going to do the same? What am I going to different? How can I break out of my comfort zone and do the things I wish to do?” The answer to these questions seemed more important than compiling a list of arbitrary activities to do. Then I went off on a tangent about the terrible necessity of priority, using Nathan’s near contradicting goals as a my example, because I couldn’t think of a comparable example in my own life, aside from getting a better paying job that doesn’t give me as much time to write on the job so that I have more time to work on projects at home.

So today, I would like to try to actually just make a list of activities without having a mental meltdown about whether any given thing is better than the other. I can do that when I make my daily To Do List. FYI: The first ten-weeks this year actually starts after the first day of the year, because of how the last two off weeks fall. So January 2, 2012 marks the official first day of my year.

Nathan mentioned that we don’t have any group goals yet. We technically have one that involves making our blogs less catch all, and more focused on a given topic. As far as anything is concerned, I’m sure we’ll have a brainstorming session and I’ll throw out ideas, but I’m going to leave the choice of what we’re actually doing as a group, and the schedule by which we do it, up to Nathan.

My important solo goals include the following:

Prioritizing – I need to buckle down. I’m always too ephemeral in my choice of what to do on any given day. It works out for me sometimes, but too often, I find myself with too many incomplete projects. I need to pick a primary and secondary goal, and make everything else less important by action rather than concept.

Write 3,500 Words a Day – This will need to include the priority goal. I have to have a primary work and a secondary work and quit veering off into other directions. This year the daily blog was really the priority, so that worked out on some level, but I couldn’t decide on a definite secondary priority. I got serious for a couple of weeks and finished writing a novel, but I was all over the place after that.

Editing – Speaking of my novel, and many other projects of that nature, I need to do the final stages of making it readable. I adopted the “six pages a day” technique of Stephen King well enough at times, but I don’t do the planning future projects and editing thing right, because when I start planning a new project, I just start writing it. This of course means I’m not writing whatever I was writing the previous day, week, or month. This needs to stop.

Publishing – This year. No matter what. Step away from the comfort zone.

Music – I did not write a complete song this year. This will not do. While this is not the first year of my life that I haven’t written a song, it is the first year since I was in JAKT (2006) that I haven’t written (or co-written) a complete song. I bought a cheap acoustic guitar to take with me to work while I was at posts that were secluded from compressed civilization; and I did play, I did form a few ideas, but I didn’t form a full song. I guess I have two days left, and maybe I should get started now, but if nothing else, I can’t let 2012 go without music work. Oh, and… See – Publishing.

Organization – It became very clear how poorly I handled this goal this year when I was trying to find the title to my Mazda that needed to be sold for scrap. If writing is primary either music or organization is secondary. Either way, one needs to be a strong tertiary goal.

Debt – Yep. My goal is to go irreversibly into debt. Not really. Sort of. I’ve had this thought about going to college if student loans and grants could pay my whole way, and provide some living expenses; for no other reason other than to take a break from working low paying jobs and getting nowhere with it. I worked two and a half jobs this year. I think it would be ok to even it out this year. But if I decide against that, which is likely because I’m not all that interested in institutional learning, I’ll instead focus on living on hardly any money and try to pay off debt. Since I’m presumably going to be telling Nathan to live on nothing (it has to do with whether he’s serious about getting out of credit card debt or not) I feel I should put myself through the task too. Since my dad owns the house I live in and pays for it, I could live off of $800 a month (after taxes and child support are pulled from my check). It would mean cutting back on all of my already meager luxury spending, but I think it would be worth it on some level. Either it would allow me to work fewer hours, or it will give me a nice emergency fund and debt payment stream.

My fun solo goals include the following:

Reading Robotech – This is a goal that I’m sharing with Nathan, though it is not a group goal in the strictest sense. He came up with it, and it sounded fun. We’re going to read through all the printed material of Robotech, and watch all the shows and movies. One of our blogs will be devoted to Robotech fandom.

License Plate Game – I’ve been working three shifts at a hotel as a security guard. Not my favourite post to do. I don’t mind walking around. Even when I’m at secluded posts, I tend to do some amount of walking around. I get too antsy sitting in one place for too long. I have to write to keep myself from wanting to get up and walk around. Anyway, while patrolling the parking lots, I see a lot of different states on the license plates, and I remembered the game that is commonly played on long trips. It’s basically playing Bingo with the fifty states by trying to cover as much of your card as possible. I thought that it might be interesting to see how well I could do if I gave myself the entire year to collect states. I was really hoping I wouldn’t still be doing the damn hotel post by the time the new year started though.

Give Me 15 Movies to Watch – I asked a few people close to me to list 15 movies that I haven’t seen that they feel I should see. This started with Miguel and Loren, because I think they watch the most movies of everyone I know. Loren has given me most of his list. Miguel has disappointed me so far by giving me only two movies: American Pie and Avatar. While I appreciate that he feels I should see these movies, it seems like a waste to give me movies that I will probably end up seeing by default at some point in my life. Maybe as he tries to think of thirteen more, he’ll have to think of something more interesting.

And that’s really about it. I’ve tried to purposely keep my list short because of that prioritization thing. If I listed everything I would like to do, the list would be too long. Maybe I’ll create a new daily blog: “Stuff I’d Like to Do.” Eh, it would take up too much time writing that much.

2011 Junk on the web I found interesting

2011-12-28T08:00:00.003-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

This is a list of stuff I have found over the last year either through others or by Stumbling, browsing the net. Alot here is a lot older than 2011 but that's when I found them. Enjoy...

Portal video game end song. This is charming end song utilizing a text to voice I guess.
Mr. Trololololo guy. This crazy video has apparently be floating around the web for a while but I only discovered it this year. The song is kooky but his expressions and singing face are what make it great.
This He-Man flash video. This is greatness.
4 Chords is all you need to for every pop song ever made. I disagree that these are all the same song but it's VERY entertaining.
The Rocket's (a French band) song Galatica and their tribute band's version of the song. This was one of my most enjoyable finds of 2011. I also really like The Rocket's version of On The Road Again.
It wasn't until 2011 that I really got into Kraftwerk with this video. Their 2004 concert had the best stuff but most of it was pulled for copyright.
My biggest unknown find was David Zed. I was so impressed that I wrote a blog about him. I discovered him and The Rocket's because of the suggested videos that YouTube put on the Kraftwerk video page. In case you don't go read the blog here is the original video I found of him plus some of his comedy work. Here is that original video with funny subtitles.
Friday parody that is by far the best.
This color footage of London in 1927

The following isn't stuff I from this last year but it's more cool stuff from the net over the last couple of years:

Tim Curry singing the most awesome Halloween song ever!
Carl Sagan auto-tuned in an awesome video.
Captain Helix from a British comedy starring Nick Frost. These bits are great.
The utterly frightening experience known as the Paternoster.
This little known Ah-ha song from a James Bond movie. It's pretty cool.
Admiral Akbar Cereal. Your taste buds can't repel a flavor of that magnitude!
Cool Nightmare on Elm Street feature from one of the DVD sets.
The reason we should NEVER trust our lawmakers...
Leonard Nimoy's missed career.
Cool multi-part Amnityville Horror documentary.
British documentary about Snuff film urban legends.

I hope you enjoy this interesting link edition of the According To Whim Daily Blog. Please stick around in 2012 as we expand our horizons and hopefully get lots of cool stuff done.

Chris’s Apocalyptic Goals, and the End of Nathan’s World as He Knows It (and I Feel Fine)

2011-12-27T08:41:00.003-06:00

by chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Nathan spoke about his goals for the coming year in his last post, so I figured that I needed to write mine out… mostly because I need a post for today. Ok, I’ll stop being flippant about it, but the truth of the matter is that I’m not sure what goals I have for the coming apocalypse. The usual suspects are there: writing, writing, organizing, and writing. The problem comes in the form of what I should change and not change about my current situation. Like how many hours should I work per week this year, and doing what?

Let’s start by talking smack about Nathan’s goals behind his back. I’m reasonably sure he doesn’t read this blog. Hi, Nathan. The main reason to talk about Nathan’s goals first is because even though we haven’t made group goals yet, we do have one goal in common, listed right at the start of his post: Painting his house.

Wait? That’s not it. Must be the next one: Leveling his house. Oh wait: Working on his mom’s rent house. Um, oh: Selling one of the VW Beetles. It’s around here somewhere: The Anime model business. Nope: Reading Robotech. Hmm: “The biggest thing in 2012 is of course my debt pay down.”

Whoomp there it is! Well, it’s not the first thing, but it’s the biggest thing. To be fair, he said nothing about order of importance. The only reason I bring this up is because I think it ties in to what really should be both Nathan’s and my primary goal for the year: Stepping out of our comfort zones.

I’ve talked about this often. And I do realize that it’s not for everyone. But the fact of the matter is that I think that part of setting goals is to plan to do something that is not something you would do normally. Many of Nathan’s goals (and even my own goals are but in a different way) are things that if he had no written goals, he would probably get around to doing anyway. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s a good way to keep organized, and most of your goals should be created based on what you want to do. But there is another side to this.

The truth of the matter is that there are things we all want to do that are out of our comfort zone, and these things don’t get fair and equal representation on our goal list. Sometimes there’s a good reason why they don’t. For instance, I wish to one day participate in a demolition derby, but if I put that goal before everything else just to get it off my list, I’m not really using my time wisely. That’s one of those goals that shouldn’t be on my list until I’m making enough money to live off of, while doing work that I enjoy.

But the way that we think as humans, if someone approached me one day and said, “Hey, I need a driver for a demolition derby, and it will only cost you the price of the car to destroy,” the fact of the matter is that I would rationalize why it is that I should put writing my second novel on hold to find a good destroyable car, so that I could get that goal off my list. The problem is that it wouldn’t be the right choice. Not really.

Am I saying that Nathan’s goals are wrong? Am I saying that putting home improvement projects, which he’d do even if he had no written goals, is a bad idea unless he also puts something like getting out of debt on there too? No. What I am saying is that one is going to push Nathan out of his comfort zone, and one is going to keep him firmly lodged in his comfort zone. Any guesses as to which is which?

Let’s look at this quote from Nathan about our difference in opinion about how he should handle his debt:

“My immediate plan is to pay off credit cards and Chris’ plan is to pay off everything but I am not so sure about that. I don’t want to drive my life into the ground for that.”

What he’s referring to is the fact that I discussed going after all of his debt while we were at it. I had a Scorched Earth tactic that would actually get rid of all of his debt in the course of a year, with a few casualties. In my extreme scenario, he would work practically nonstop, and his house and cars would be sold by year’s end. One can see why one might call that driving his life into the ground. My point was simply that it could be done if a person was willing to take enough steps outside of the comfort zone.

What I hope Nathan realizes is that the plan I came up with when I came over about a month ago was a scaled back plan based on the fact that he only wants to get rid of the credit card debt by the end of the year. The plan was to pay $1,000 a week against his credit card debt. I’m sure he has to realize that for the next year, his life is still pretty much driven into the ground if he’s willing to do this, because he has to put the novel before the demolition derby if he’s going to even accomplish this much of his debt payoff. I can only suggest what he should do. I can’t make him do it.

What I’m saying here is that Nathan wants two things from the following year. One is to finish upgrading his house and one is to get rid of his upwards of $7,000 a year in interest payments. Imagine how much home upgrading he could do with $7,000 a year, or even the $3,000 a year that’s specifically interest on credit cards. Do you see my point?

The way that Nathan needs to run his goals in order to achieve them both is going to require that he resist the temptation to go out of order (for instance, let’s say he wanted to replace his carpet and linoleum, and applied for a credit card to afford it). In other words, he will need to throw $4,000 every two paychecks at his debt, and then live off the rest, because the credit cards don’t go completely away unless he does this. Then if he has enough money to do house upgrading from the extra money he makes doing on call, then he can do the upgrading.

The moment that he says, “Well, I’ll only pay $800 this week so I can paint the back of the house.” And then says, “I’ll only pay $800 this week because I need to do some weatherproofing.” And then says, “I’ll only pay $800 this week because I’m tired of being on call.” And then says, “I’ll only pay $800 this week because my wife has pointed out that I’m still spending money, and that I can short the debt repayment by $200 this week to buy her something.” Next thing you know, Nathan has shorted his goal by a little over $10,000.

Sure, in that scenario, he did well all things considered, but he didn’t accomplish the goal outside of his comfort zone in favour of the goal inside the comfort zone. And my example is if he’s still willing to part with $3,200 every four weeks, which may still be a bit far out of his comfort zone to happen if he prioritizes anything else that costs money over the debt repayment.

And let’s be clear, it doesn’t count if you pay off $52,000 in credit card debt if you get a $20,000 home equity line of credit for repairs, rack up $15,000 in student loans, get various new household appliances on rent to own, and rollover a current car loan into a bigger car loan for a newer car. If you’re starting with $137,000 in total debt, and you pay off $52,000 in credit card debt, you should have only $85,000 in total debt at the end of the year. Saying, “I may still have $120,000 in debt, but none of it is credit cards,” just isn’t fair representation of the goal.

It might seem like I’m picking on Nathan, but this does apply to me as well. I’m used to living on little money, so I’ve already started living on $800 a month (which is only possible because my dad pays my rent, and is not counting money paid out in income taxes and child support before I get my check). I would be better to step out of my comfort zone and look for a better paying job, whether I believe there is one out there or not. I still plan on living on $800 a month for the whole year of 2012, regardless of what I make, and regardless of what I want. I will save an emergency fund, and then I will start going after my own debt.

I don’t have a comparable plan for getting rid of my debt in a year. If something occurs to me I will certainly try. That was why I was suggesting that Nathan try that route, as opposed to just going after a small portion (though admittedly highest interest) of his debt. Yep, what is under the umbrella of credit card debt is only approximately 37% of his debt (based on the figures I remember). It just seems to me that if someone showed me a relatively low risk (albeit very life-changing) way of getting rid of 100% of my debt in a year that wasn’t illegal or immoral, I think I would have to give it an honest go, even if the plan wasn’t 100% surefire.

But back to me. I have a lot of things that I should be doing in a certain priority order. And one of them is definitely out of my comfort zone. It is the part about using priorities. For as organized as I come across as trying to be, I fail on probably the most important level. I don’t prioritize. Even when I do prioritize, my priority tends to change too soon to be effective.

Do I have goals for 2012? Yes. Do I know what they are? Yes. Do I know how to set them? No. Why? Because I’m running into the problem of priority. I can’t decide what I should put above all else. Do I look for a job that pays better, but gives me less time to write, or do I make my priority to write 3,500 words a day, even if I’m stuck in the same low paying job (or jobs) as I’ve always been stuck in? A way to do both would be ideal of course, but barring that, I need a priority.

Here’s my point lined up in one succinct sentence:

This year, Nathan and I should pick one year-long goal, and one goal per ten-weeks, which drags us out of our comfort zones, while accomplishing something that we want in our lives.

And if I’m going to further that thought, making it not one sentence and not so succinct, it’s to say that these “out of comfort zone” goals should be our priority above all other things within reason. For instance, if I found a job that paid twice as much as what I make now, but would require me to move to Alaska, it might not be a reasonable move outside of my comfort zone, but for four times what I make it might be. Not changing the oil in Nathan’s car because of debt repayment is not reasonable, but postponing a new paint job on the house might be. The point is to be honest about the excuses we will tell ourselves, and to have a true set of priorities to back ourselves up when we start bullshitting ourselves. Otherwise, our comfort zones become a soft, warm bed at the bottom of a cold pit. We know we can climb out, but it’s cold, it will take a while, and that bed is warm and requires a lot less climbing to get into. Yet we will just lie there and wish we were out of the pit.

I need to get the house in order for the Apoclypse...

2011-12-26T10:51:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

I know I've had a couple of posts about what I have done in 2011 to the house and other projects I hoped to get done and ones I did get done. This post is about the stuff I hope to do in 2012 in terms of projects not related to According To Whim. Infact Chris and I haven't had our 2012 goal talk yet. I am sure that will be happening in the next week or so.

As you all know I spent a good amount of time getting my house prepped and painted last Spring through Summer. In the upcoming year I need to finish that job. You may have not noticed that I ever claimed victory in that particular goal. It is done for the most part but there still some places that I didn't get to do. The back porch hasn't been done at all. Most of the railings need replacing so I didn't think it wise to spend a lot of time painting if I was just going to tear them down.

I also plan to do some MORE house leveling this year. I spent money this last year having someone do it but they didn't really mess with the biggest offender which is one of the additions. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself! I am going to just do it myself. It means a lot of time doing a lot of tedious house lifting in little doses so the addition doesn't crack too much inside. After that I am going to have to take some advice of one contractor and put a moisture barrier along the East wall of the addition.

I am of course going to continue working on my mom's rent house. I am getting there in little steps but I don't see it taking much longer than late Spring to have it completed (at least to point to where someone could live there).

I plan on selling one of the VW Beetles this coming year too. It is supposed to be the Super Beetle but I am not too sure now. The 70 Beetle is having issues that I don't know how to fix. We will just have to see. In order to sell the Super I will have first have to get it inspected (but I think I am ready for that now). The 70 Beetle is going to need some work with the brakes and get the engine issue taken care of. That shouldn't be too hard to do since the original owner likes messing with them and has offered to get it working nice again (for me for free).

My Anime model business will continue through the next year. EBay is going slowly but with great profit. The conventions are so-so except the May one which will look like another massive one so I might do well there. I am not selling my stock at 50% off this year though. My supply has dried up so I am going to try to get as much as possible with what I have left.

In 2012 I also plan to have the complete Robotech experience. You can read all about that in this post. I am going to have a separate blog for this so check it out once 2012 starts at: http://robotechnow.blogspot.com/.

The biggest thing in 2012 is of course my debt pay down. My wife and I are going to work towards paying off our debt. My immediate plan is to pay off credit cards and Chris' plan is to pay off everything but I am not so sure about that. I don't want to drive my life into the ground for that. We will just see how it all plays out. Chris will be posting the details as the year goes on.

I am planning on going back to college to finish my Bachelor's degree. You can read all the previous thoughts in this blog. A Bachelor's degree requires around 128 hours of credit. I already have 93 hours going in so it should be too bad.

So that's all for my personal goals for 2012 (for the moment at least). We will probably list some goals here on the blog for According To Whim stuff after Chris and I talk about it.

MEEEERRRRYYYY CARPETMAS!

2011-12-25T08:00:00.017-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

I would just like to say Merry Christmas since according to the Mayans this will be the last one you will ever have...

Today's post is about the carpet and linoleum I got installed and the trials and tribulations in getting it. Back towards the first of the month my wife and I went to The Home Depot to order carpet and linoleum for our living room, dining, and a small bedroom. We found what we wanted, got a Home Depot card so we could finance it and made the order. The cute girl that helped is said that we were lucky since it was the LAST day to make pre-Christmas installation. We made the order and waited.

The installers called to schedule a day and at first he said that they couldn't install the carpet before the 29th. I told him to forget the whole thing and he quickly changed his tune and 'found' an install date on the 21st. It was running really close to Christmas but at least it would be before the happy day.

The day arrived and our installers showed up (speaking so little English I actually did have trouble understanding what he was saying). At first he said they didn't have enough carpet. I quickly saw though the installers misunderstanding and pointed out that the living/dining area would have a combination of carpet and linoleum. It took ME, a no-body to point out the facts on his diagrams and worksheets... sheesh.

They got the work done in only about 4 hours or so. The two guys worked fairly quickly and dealt with the crappy job that the previous owner did putting his own carpet in (complete with visible seam, see pic above). After they pulled up some of the old carpet I could see the slap-dash job the previous owner did including this truly fantastic job at carpet padding.

Yes, the was another carpet under the carpet. I guess he got a better deal or had some carpet lying around so to save money on padding he used a 2nd carpet. Sheesh.

After they got done it looked great except the big uncarpeted area in the living area where the linoleum guy would come and work on the next day (Dec 22nd). After the carpet guys left I put the furniture back and enjoyed the new carpet.

The next morning the linoleum guy showed. I was surprised because he was an older white guy, very proper, very polite. I have had a lot done to my home over the last 5 1/2 years and I have NEVER had one person work on it who wasn't Hispanic. After my initial shock he got to work. He did a great job but it took all day to the one area. Apparently there is a lot of work that goes into putting that kind of flooring down properly.

Before he left one of my co-workers and her husband showed up to help me work on my Beetles so I wasn't around for the final touches (baseboards) of the job. He packed up and left while we puttered with the carburetors of the bugs.

When all was said and done the house have a new and fresh feel to it. New flooring really can spruce up a house enormously! It was expensive but I think it was totally worth it!

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Fifty-One – Wrap It Up, I'll Take It

2011-12-24T15:53:00.001-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(This Episode by Nathan Stout)

[EXT – STUBBY’S FLOODED HIDEOUT / SIX FLAGS – DAY]

NATHAN: Miguel, what’s poking me?!

(Nathan blinks awake. He is sitting in one of the Roaring Rapids rafts that brought them all up from the depths of Stubby’s now flooded-out hideout deep below Six Flags. The raft is sitting in on dry ground now, the water receded away.)

NATHAN: What happened?

(Everyone in the raft blinks, as if waking.)

LARRY: Sorry, I had to put everyone out for a bit.

(Chris looks around and sees the other raft with the Grrrls in it.)

CHRIS: So the Grrrls are still here! Maybe Nathan didn’t ruin everything.

NATHAN: Why did you mess with our minds?

LARRY: I had to take care of a few things. I altered reality to see what would happen next if I didn’t interfere and I didn’t like it so I took some steps...

PAUL: Yooohoooooooooooooo!

(Everyone looks up. High overhead Dentre’s RE/MAX balloon is floating away with Paul and Angelina in it.)

DENTRE: Paul!

PAUL: Sorry guys, Angelina and I have some making up to do. By the way, I found this floating in the water. I think it’s yours Nathan.

(Nathan’s red Tron Lightcycle lands in his lap.)

NATHAN: Sheesh...

MIGUEL: Are you going to go after them? Need some help beating the crap out of him? I can assist.

DENTRE: Nah... What’s the point? The crisis is over, Paul’s no threat, and Angelina only works for those who pay her, so she’s no danger either.

SHAG: Groovy.

NATHAN: Yeah...

SHAG: No, groovy as in... this is groovy.

(Shag fishes something out of the puddle of water the raft sits in. It’s a plastic shark.)

SHAG: I think that’s my cue. I’m out of here man.

(Shag leaps over the rail and scoots out of sight in a 70s kind of fashion. He calls out after he rounds a corner.)

SHAG: Been fun, Dentre. Ring me up when you need more swingin’ help.

(Eric comes running up to the raft and clasps a hand on the now-feeble professor.)

ERIC: You are coming with me, sir.

(The professor looks around a little confused.)

PROFESSOR: Ehhhhh?

LARRY: I don’t think so. Eric, there is nothing more you can do to the professor. He is now old beyond use... or misuse by anyone.

(Eric looks down and realizes that he is now holding a python. He yelps and drops it whereupon it vanishes. The professor is still just sitting there, staring out at nothing.)

CHRIS: This is cool. It’s like Larry has evolved into some sort of god or something and is setting things to rights.

MIGUEL: There is a name for that in movies and books...

(Miguel’s testosterone-fueled mind can’t think of the word, since clear thinking is more for those in the realm of normality, and not the World Wrestling Federation.

NATHAN: The phrase is “Deus Ex Machina” and you taught me that. It means “god out of the machine.”

LARRY: I’m no god. I am just more than I once was.

ERIC: Jay used in next maraschino or not, the professor has a lot to answer for!

LARRY: Go away.

(Eric vanishes along with his troops.)

CHRIS: Good one!

NATHAN: Where is he?

[INT - MILITARY BASE - DAY]

(Eric is sitting at his desk. He looks confused.)

ERIC: What... where?

(Eric tries to remember how in the heck he got here but there is a fog and he just can’t. He sits in the silence for a long time trying to remember, but nothing is coming through.)

ERIC: I was looking for someone or something...

(Eric thinks and thinks then sees the book on his desk.)

ERIC: Ha!

(Eric remembers that whatever this book is about is the key. It’s the book he got from the Comicon. He knows for sure that he must build whatever this book is about. That is the key to all his hard work over the months.)

ERIC: I remember!

(Eric pages through the book, mentally planning his next move. His life goal is within reach again, and no one is going to be able to stop him. The book is “The Ladies Home Journal of Crochet Hats,” circa 1972.)

[EXT – STUBBY’S FLOODED HIDEOUT / SIX FLAGS – DAY]

CHRIS: What about the professor? He’s hardly going to be able to take care of himself now.

LARRY: I need you and Miguel to take him to Dainty Pines Assisted Living Center. He can spend his days playing board games with Stan and Oliver. Arrangements have been made and your car is out at the front gate.

(Chris and Miguel do as they are told because you don’t want anyone who can think you out of existence to be irritated at you. They help the old codger out of the raft and walk him out of the park and out of this story.)

LARRY: Grrrls...

(By this time, everyone has disembarked from their rafts, and are standing around Larry.)

GRRLS: Yes?

LARRY: Thank you for making me a man.

NATHAN: Perhaps that’s what brought your powers to their fullest extent? If that’s the case...

(Nathan holds his arms out to the Grrrls, and they all turn their noses up at him.)

LARRY: I appreciate what you did, but you now need to live chaste lives. Loose lips sink ships...

(There is a nervous titter from the group.)

LARRY: Remind me not to tell that one again. Anyway, I have restored and expanded your salon, so that the income will sustain you all in a rather normal manner. No more contact killings...

(They reply in unison.)

GRRLS: Yes, Larry. Thank you, Larry.

LARRY: Good.

(Larry twitches his nose. They vanish from the park and appear in spanking new salon gear at their spanking new salon: The Healing Touche II: Electric Boutique... don’t worry, only a small percentage of you will get that joke.)

LARRY: I have nothing to do to or for you, Dentre. Your path is already set.

(Dentre exhales, as he looks about Arlington with its broken glass and depressed property values.)

LARRY: Your mission of stopping Quincy failed to an extent, but you and your organization will be thrilled with the upswing of market values once insurance companies have paid out to repair the damage.

(Dentre looks hopeful.)

LARRY: One word of advice... get into house flipping right now. You will make a killing. Oh yeah, and invest in glass companies. There were a lot of windows in this city.

(Dentre has a positive jump in his step, and he vaults out of the raft, linking arm and arm with the gold pant-suited Century 21 agents. They stroll out of the park... yep... and out of the story.)

NATHAN: Where’s Stubby?!

LARRY: He did leave as you dreamed it. We are about to take care of him now.

(There is a flash, and Nathan and Larry are sitting in LoseStar Casino at Stubby’s Blackjack table. Stubby freezes when he sees the two. His shock turns to anger, but he regains control of himself.)

STUBBY: Dealer has 21.

(There is a disappointed sigh from the others at the table. He begins collect the cards. His work hampered as it always is by his short, stubby fingers.)

LARRY: Let’s play.

(There are some chips in front of Larry and Nathan. Nathan wants to point out the fact that Larry is far too young to be gambling, but since he could probably obliterate the world with one thought, Nathan thinks better of it. Stubby watches them both with malevolence. After a couple of hands, Larry breaks the silence.)

LARRY: Ok, I think we are done. Nathan, tip the man.

(Nathan reaches into his pocket at Larry’s prompting and finds a stack of bills in it. Larry nods his head at Stubby.)

NATHAN: Here... you... go...

(Nathan puts the money on the table hesitatingly.)

NATHAN: Chris and I wanted you to... have this...

(Stubby looks stunned.)

LARRY: And they wanted you to have this too.

(Stubby’s hands cramp up and he bends over them. They hurt like hell, but then he sees them transforming, becoming longer, more normal sized. Stubby’s eyes fill with tears and he looks at his beautiful long fingers. The hot chick sitting at the table raises an eyebrow. She smiles at him and his long fingers. Her body gives an involuntary quiver.)

LARRY: Taken care of.

(The two walk to the front of the casino.)

LARRY: Well, I think that is about all. Here, gimmie that Lightcycle.

(Nathan hands him the toy.)

NATHAN: What about Garrett?

LARRY: Angelina will be taking care of him. I assure you nothing I could do could begin to equal the revenge she will have planned. I am going ahead alone. Head back and I will meet you, Miguel, and Chris. I will finish all this mess up and we can get on with our lives.

(Larry vanishes.)

NATHAN: Wait! How do I get back!?

PORTER: Sir, here are your keys.

(Nathan turns to the porter who hands him some keys. Nathan looks past him at the very real bright red Lightcycle waiting for him.)

NATHAN: Oh man...

(End of Episode Fifty-One)

The Case of the Misdiagnosed Vehicle (Part Two)

2011-12-23T08:47:00.003-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Yesterday, in Part One, I discussed the back story of my car to give you some of the clues, and some red herrings, intended to give you, the reader, a chance to solve a mystery as in some detective novels where the reader who pays attention to the details has a reasonable chance of solving the mystery before the protagonist. If you have not read Part One yet, you should go back and read it, and if you wish to have all your facts straight, maybe read through it a second time. I did my best to make the mystery fair. And the fact that it resembles a bad episode of “House M.D.,” with all the misdiagnosing, is unintentional. This is just how the situation played out.

The morning of the 20th, I was very tired, and was still feeling the effects of a recent cold. I didn’t want to stop anywhere on the way home, and of my work stuff, I was only going to take in what couldn’t be left in the car. No multiple trips from car to house for me that morning. This is probably why I didn’t notice that my headlights were on.

I was surprised that night when I was leaving for work that my battery was dead, but when I hooked up my roommate’s car battery to my car battery, and my headlights came on, I knew what the problem was. Or so I thought I did. The problem is that the car was starting when we jumpstarted it, but it wasn’t staying that way. It would run for less than ten seconds and then die. Then it wouldn’t even do that, so we let the battery charge more. It ran for less than ten seconds, died, and then wouldn’t do even that again.

My boss worked my schedule around, so that I could use my roommate’s car to go to work, and while we were texting he suggested that maybe my alternator was bad. I went to look, and the alternator belt, while not broken, had started fraying. I showed my roommate and told him that it might be a good idea while there was no traffic to push my car to the nearby mechanic so I didn’t have to pay for a tow.

This was a good idea, except that while in ok shape, I’m not in that good of shape. Pushing the car nearly killed me, which is wrong, because in an episode of “House M.D.” it’s supposed to be the patient that nearly dies, and in this case the car is the patient, damn it! The driveway is slanted, so we both had to push the car onto the street, which was not all that easy to be honest. Once we had it out on the street, he helped me start pushing it. I told him to drive his car down there to give me a ride back. Ugh. By the time I was almost there, the slight momentum that the street provided was not really there anymore, and I was gasping for air. Luckily, a couple of guys helped me push it the rest of the way. I was glad for the ability to lie down before work, and that there was an asthma inhaler in the house.

The next morning, my dad came and got me and took me to the mechanic. I explained what happened, and they said that they would start with the belts, and then see what the other problem was. We had to jumpstart the car again, but this time it started and stayed running. I was wondering if maybe the battery on my roommate’s car was just not strong enough, but dismissed it.

They replaced the belts. They drove the car. There was no trouble. I got there. They started the car and moved it from the shop to the parking lot. I paid for it. I started the car and drove it home. I parked it in the driveway. No problems. No problems, that is, until I tried to leave for work that night. It was doing the same thing, except that the battery didn’t seem to be dead.

I called my dad. I figured that we could try jumping it anyway, and if it started up he could take me to get a battery. It didn’t start though. I was completely at a loss. Maybe the alternator was bad, but why would it crank, run for less than ten seconds, die, and then not even do that? As I understand an alternator, it just recharges the battery. It doesn’t keep the car running. Have you figured it out yet, cos I hadn’t?

As my dad was driving me to my post, which was luckily a post where I didn’t need a car to sit in, he said something about how it just seemed like it wasn’t getting any gas, like the fact that my driveway sloped was causing it not to start. I immediately thought of the movie “Sling Blade,” which if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. It’s worth your time. I told my dad to turn around.

You see, I’d vaguely remembered the gas light having come on before renting the car, but it hadn’t been on after I got the car back. I was so tired and sick that morning that I was looking at the gauge thinking that I should stop for gas, but I decided that if the light didn’t come on, I’d do it on the way to work. I guess that after a certain point, the light goes off and stays off.

As I said, much like an episode of “House M.D.,” the original occurrence and symptom masked the actual problem by drawing the attention to the wrong issues, and an offhand comment brought it all into focus. We got a gallon of gas in a gas can, and the car started right up. Mystery solved.

The Case of the Misdiagnosed Vehicle (Part One)

2011-12-22T08:40:00.001-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

I have a mystery for you today. As a child I was a fan of mystery novels and short stories that gave you, perhaps, not all of the information, but enough information that if you take your time, you can likely work out the mystery for yourself. I’ve never been good at creating that type of mystery, and I’ve noticed that many detective novels shy away from giving clues in favour of holding off the revelation for all readers until the final chapter. It’s too bad, really, but today I have one for you, and the great thing is that it really happened. I will give you more information than you need, but some of it will be relevant for solving the mystery. To be fair, I will leave out a train of thought that I had during these events, because to dwell on it would be to make things too clear. I want to point out that while this should read like a bad Sherlock Holmes story, it doesn’t. Since it involves diagnosing a problem with my car, it reads more like a bad episode of “House M.D.” Enjoy.

In October 2011, I bought a car for $1,100; a Honda Accord. This became necessary as I went from having two vehicles to having nary a one. Ok, I’ll try not to sound like I’m writing in the late 1800s. The car was by no means in great shape, but when it comes to certain vehicles, Honda Accords being one make and model, you’re more or less buying a car that won’t die an easy death. At 243,000 miles though, it promised to have its share of problems.

The guy selling the vehicle explained a few of these “personality traits” to me. There was minor body damage. The door handles to both front doors were basically functional but broken. A previous owner of the vehicle had done some custom wiring that caused a number of issues; one being that rather than turn the key in the ignition to start the car, you turn the key to the on position, and then push a button that starts the car. He said that it must be a theft prevention thing.

Maybe or maybe not related to the rewiring, were some odd problems. The doors are auto-lock, but one of the doors doesn’t lock, so you have to do it manually. The gas gauge won’t go past a quarter of the way full, but will flash the light letting you know that the gas is low. There is a speaker that cuts out randomly. To make matters worse, it’s hard to say why the speaker cuts out, because the radio isn’t installed properly. It could be that the speaker is bad, or that the wire is bad or otherwise not connected properly.

I made sure of one thing before I bought the car, which was that the heater worked, because while it was still hot out and the seller was making a big deal that the air conditioner worked well, I knew that I would need a good heater in a couple of months for sitting at my security guard job. I made sure of that one thing, but I should have made sure of two.

One thing that I also need when at a guard post is stuff to keep me awake. For me, this is a wide range of electronic devices (including my cell phone and laptop) that need to be charged after a couple of hours of use. I noticed three problems that the seller had not pointed out, each seemingly insignificant at that price. The first was just that the side view mirror was being held in place by a piece of cardboard. The second was that the trunk leaked when it rained hard. The third was that there was no cigarette lighter or other jack to plug in my chargers. This has caused me the most trouble in writing. I used to write as much as I could write in a night, even if it meant charging my laptop. Now I write for a couple of hours, and even if I still have stuff to write, I have to shut the laptop down because of a low battery.

The car worked fine for the first couple of weeks, but I soon found myself having to take it to a mechanic because the brakes were out. I didn’t take the car to my regular mechanic. This was simply because I was not certain of being able to get a ride to pick the car up, so I took it to a mechanic less than a mile from my house. This way I could walk to pick it up if need be.

They looked at the brakes, showed me that one of the lines was out, and then got to work on fixing it. They did the front pads, the master cylinder, and the brake line. This was a lot of money, so when they started talking about how my alternator and air conditioning belts really needed to be replaced soon, I told them I would have to deal with it later. I went about my merry way, and had no problems until December 20, 2011.

I had no problems, but I did take it to my regular mechanic. I took my older kids to Tulsa to see their grandma for Christmas. Because I feel it is cheaper in the long run, for wear and tear, to rent a vehicle, I took my car to my mechanic while I was in the rented vehicle. On my laundry list of things to fix was: the side mirrors, the speaker problem, the door handles, the lack of a cigarette lighter, the leaky trunk, and an oil change. They were only able to do the oil change and the side view mirrors, because most of the parts had to come in from the dealer. One other thing; I’d asked him about the belts, and in his opinion they weren’t a pressing issue. He was wrong, but we’ll get to that soon.

If you’re taking the part about solving the mystery seriously, you might want to take the time to review all the facts again before we get into the events of December 20 to 21, of 2011, which we will do tomorrow in Part Two of this exciting-ish mystery.

Selling my house

2011-12-21T07:30:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

No Chris, I am not selling my house, it's just a blog title. This blog is about our economy and all the times we tried to sell this place.

Back in 2005 we lived in Fort Worth in a rent house off I-30. It was a noisy place what with the freeway yards from our front door but it did provide some entertaining moments when wrecks happened and stuff like that. The house didn't sit on the freeway but up higher with I-30 in a canyon like setup. Anyways we lived there for a year or so but I got a job in Decatur so we began to look for somewhere to live up there. Decatur is about 45 minutes North of Fort Worth. My wife got a job there too so we all we needed to do was move. We looked and looked at houses in Decatur. This was my preference but the prices were too high (for some damn strange reason) and the wife didn't like the houses that were in more reasonable neighborhoods. Decatur realty prices are still high and I could never figure that out. None of the houses are that great and the location isn't fantastic either. It remains a mystery.

We took our search South and I made a huge mistake. I am not sure why in the WORLD I decided to look at mobile homes... well I can. They are cheaper and you get more room. I have had to do a lot of work on my mom's mobile homes so I am not sure why I didn't run screaming from these places. I am guessing it all came down to price. I could pay 120,000 for small 2 bedroom in Decatur or 60,000 for a 4 bedroom massive mobile home in Rhome. Needless to say we bought it. It needed a bit of work but I am cool with that. I am fairly handy and can do a lot with the right tools. If I knew then what I know now... I would have talked them down another 15 thousand!

We had been living in Rhome in a fairly nice (and as I said earlier, big) mobile home. Possibly THE nicest looking mobile home in the whole city (yeah, they look that trashy). I hate to hate on my neighbors but most of the people out here just don't care. To be fair on Rhome, we ACTUALLY live in a city called New Fairview. Our address is Rhome but we reside in New Fairview... strange I know.

In 2009 we decided to move back into Fort Worth. The wife would be done with school and soon and I wanted to work back in the city so we were both keen to sell our house. We got the realtor who sold us the house to sell it for us this time. We set a price and waited. We went though a lot of trouble to make the house look super nice at all times so if we had a showing we didn't have to panic. We showed the house several times but no one bought. We actually started the selling process with one person who just vanished (we even got to keep their earnest money). No other buyers... this was just as the economy was tanking but at the time we didn't know this.

We have up in 2009 but went again the next year with the TOP selling realtor in Wise county. She was positive we would sell. I had done some more fixing around the house and it looked great once again. We did the usual super cleaning and de-cluttering and put it back on the market. We had about 12 showing in the 6 months it was up for sale. I even had a swanky website with a lot of pics of it. It looked like this (but this is the one from the previous realtor who tried to sell it for us). During all that time we had one positive buyer and even had the inspection done but they failed to get the final loan (they prequalified). After this we gave up again.

We are deep into the Bush/Obama economy and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Over the last year we have put a lot into the house since it seems we are going to be here a bit longer and some stuff HAD to get done. We got skirting, leveling, irrigation fixed, I added some new plumbing, ran electricity down to the shed in the back, got new carpet, painted the outside (as you are all painfully aware), and so on. A bunch of things that I am sure will help sell it next time (if we ever get out of this market slump).

One day I would love to buy a real house with a real foundation in a neighborhood of my choosing. I am not sure when that will be but one can hope.

Wait! Don't get me wrong I do like it here. I have made this place my own and done of alot of custom stuff to make it enjoyable and uptodate... it's just I would like to have a real house some day.

Tips for Writing Interactive Fiction (Part Two)

2011-12-20T08:28:00.001-06:00

On Sunday, I explained how I found that a lot of online interactive fiction isn’t worth the time to read because it lacks any real story. There are some good works online, so don’t take this to mean that I think it’s all bad. I’m just disappointed by most of what is available. I already discussed why story is the most important aspect of interactive fiction. Now I’d like to discuss some other aspects.

Map – I saw a diagram of the choices in “The Cave of Time.” The stories could be over in as few as five entries, or up to nine entries. This was because they valued the number of endings back then, and so out of 115 pages, over one third of them were endings (40 in all). In two cases, you could end up on the same path in multiple ways, which is clever, but still these books weren’t very well organized. At the time, the need to release the books quickly overshadowed a lot of testing the material. In spite of this, there are still some amusing stories, and a reasonably well structured system of branches for the stories.

Start Simple – Choose a structure that will be easy for you to fill in to begin with. Concentrate on making the stories fun to read primarily, and the map secondarily. If you wish to do something more complicated later, write a sequel to one of the endings, and tell your reader to continue from there. If that works out, write a sequel to another one of the endings. By doing this slowly and focused, you can create a longer work by creating many short works. But to begin with, write the simple one. It’ll be enough work as it is, because even if you write a 50 page work with 12 endings, you still have to write 50 pages.

Choices – The other problem that I see is too many choices or not enough choices. The examples that I gave in the section about story and plot of how the bad interactive fiction is written, you’ll note that you always had two choices. A lot of these limited games are like that.

The average CYOA book had anywhere from 1 to 4 choices per entry. The one choice would just tell you to go to another page after you read what happened. This was typically the resolution to your choice on one page, and then the set up for the next choice on the next. You rarely had four choices, maybe once or twice a book, if at all. It wasn’t very common to have three choices. But it wasn’t all just two choices the entire book.

The reason that two choices is the most common combination is because every time you give more than two choices, the more you have to do to cover for the choices. One entry with two choices creates four choices between the second entries. If those four have two choices, you will have eight choices between the third entries. Then sixteen between the fourth entries. It’s about this time that you would start ending entries so that it doesn’t get out of control. If you do two choices each time you have two, four, eight, sixteen. If you do three choices each time, you have three, nine, twenty-seven, eighty-one, and then you can start ending. You can see how quickly it can get out of hand if you’re not careful. The better way to go might be to choose your endings before you start writing so that you know what you need to do.

Also, don’t be longwinded when possible. While the readers don’t want empty entries that tell them nothing but what their choice is, they also don’t want to read too long between making a choice. Between choices you should maybe have 25 to 500 words, probably breaking up longer entries. But here’s the thing. Vary the amount of information. If all of your entries are 25 words, your reader will feel they aren’t getting any information. If all of your entries are 500 words, your reader won’t feel like they’re interacting much. A good balance and variety between long and short entries will help keep your reader invested.

Schedule – Finally, we have the bit that has nothing to do with the story itself, but the completion of the story. Plan your interactive fiction project the same way you would plan any project. If you wish to write a 90 entry story in 30 days you can either do three entries a day; or six days of mapping, then five entries a day, and six days of editing. Or whatever works best for you. But have a plan so that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. If you can see the end approaching in little steps, you will move toward the end more easily. And please don’t post your work in progress online in case you get sidetracked.

Testing – As with anything you would write, allow someone else to look at it for mistakes, and to tell you whether they’re having a good time. This is especially necessary if you write an interactive fiction with a gaming system (i.e.: if there are rules that require stats and dice rolls to get the character through the adventure). And finally, make sure that your reader doesn’t get frustrated trying to find the one good ending. I remember reading books that were almost impossible to complete because of poorly planned maps, or bad gaming systems that made it a “lucky roll” to get you to the end. One final note about gaming systems, books that used gaming systems tended to have more, but shorter, entries because the time you spent playing (rolling dice and noting changes on your character sheet) would make the time spent expand. This is typically the same with solo adventures for a known role-playing game, where the entries are shorter because you take time to randomly complete encounters.

Thank you for reading. I hope to see some better interactive fiction sites in the future. One final note. While the idea of getting everyone involved in the creation of an interactive fiction by letting people write the next entry of a game when they reach a dead end might seem like a good idea, it only really works if you have some form of quality control. This is not to say that you reject any ideas that don’t appeal to you, but that you create a submission process, and requirements (like a minimum number of words per story part).

Possums, Cats, and Skunks Oh my!

2011-12-19T08:14:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Possums are cute (most of the time). Skunks are cute when they are babies. Cats are out to kill you, but look great doing it. I can agree with that last sentence when I don't have to deal with them invading my home.

I live in a mobile home. OK, it's not a 'real' house but it is a nice mobile home. Really nice actually. One thing that sucks about mobile homes is the fact that they are raised up off the ground. The space underneath is just asking to be overrun by vermin.

When we moved into our place in 2006 there was existing skirting (the stuff that covers the gap between the bottom of the mobile home and the ground. It seems to have done fairly well at keeping critters out. Well at that point the house was nearly 10 years old and the skirting was beginning to show it's age. It began cracking and breaking open due to sun, wind, and animals trying to get under it. Eventually they did and I fought a war with possums for a couple of years. I would catch them in a trap and then release them the into a field behind the house. Note to everyone, possums like cat food.We have completely fenced in back yard and it's an acre in size so I wasn't too worried about them coming directly back. At this point I would try to fix whatever spot the vermin got in at and go about my business.

This went on for a while and in 2011 we got several things done to the house such as leveling and new skirting. The new stuff would is great. It's super think and looks decent. They put it all the way around the house. The only spot they didn't do was the side porch and the outer part of the back porch. They did put it along the house under the porch though. This effectively cut off every point of access for anything getting under the house.

This apparently didn't last too long. I would hear scratchings under the house so I set up my trap again and tried to figure out how the heck they were getting in. I finally discovered that the house siding UNDER the back porch was rotted and the screws holding the skirting on were easily pulled off. This meant that animals pulled away the skirting in this vulnerable spot and got back into their nice warm (or cool depending on the weather) cosy, home.

When animal take up residence in mobile home underpinning they tear the shit out of everything down there. There is actually a black plastic lining under the house. Behind the black plastic sheeting is the insulation, electrical wires, and plumbing. The cats, skunks, and possums get up in there and make them selves a nice comfortable home, ruining everything.

That hole they made thanks to rotten siding had been sitting on my mind for a while and what I could do to fix it. I don't want to just seal the house up and have something die under there... oh man no. I need to get the animals OUT from under there. My plan was to do something I saw on a trap of sorts. Basically I got a piece of stiff chicken wire and cut an X shape and bent the pieces out. This design would allow the animal to crawl through easily enough but then they tried to come back under the house the pointy, sharp edges would make it difficult to do and they would loose interest.

One of the cats investigating my work.

I did that on Sunday afternoon and got the clever idea of hooking up one of the old cameras with night vision and running the AV line into the house so I could see what was going on (via TV). I did this and while it was still light out side I saw the semi-wild cats of the area with my hidden camera. They poked around the new construction and one of them actually went in. It looked painful though. There were big clumps of cat hair on the wire once it got it. Later it came out easily enough but I never say it or any of the other cats go in again.

Once night fell the possum made an appearance. This is a big mother! It would investigate then move away. I think it couldn't figure out that there was a hole in the wire to get though. I think it just left to investigate other ways of getting out. From the regular timing of its visits to the hole I think it was making a circuit of the house, looking for another way out.

A 2nd possum?

After a bit more a second possum showed up. At least I think it was. It was outside the house and was sniffing around the hole and eventually got through the hole. This tells me that my hole idea isn't perfect. I will either have to make the hold smaller or bar it up completely and use the old trap method of getting the animals out from under there. Either way it was fun watching all the wild life on my TV screen!

Tips for Writing Interactive Fiction (Part One)

2011-12-18T12:02:00.003-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

When I was thirteen years old, I spent a couple of days on a very limited BASIC program for my Commodore 64. It was a D&D style adventure, and to be honest it sucked. The whole story was over in just a few segments, and the battle system was not random because I didn’t know much about programming random events at the time. I made it to look like it was random as a sequence appeared: You miss. It hits. You hit. It hits. You hit. It misses. You hit. It is dead. But that was the same sequence every time you played.

In spite of the many flaws this game had, I was learning BASIC, and I’d never written a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style game before. Recently, I have been reading about the “Choose Your Own Adventure” line of books, and I’ve been interested in reading a few. The library has many interactive fiction books, and I even own a few that I’m keeping in storage, but I figured I would look online to see what was available out there. Um. I might as well go find that BASIC game I made and put it online as a text adventure for the quality of some of these games.

This is not to say that there is no good interactive fiction online. I actually have found some interesting stuff that I plan to read/play. The problem is that there is a higher percentage of crappy works out there. Much higher. I decided that I would like to write my thoughts about how to write a good interactive fiction story. I don’t write a lot of interactive fiction, but I have dabbled a little bit. My issue is that I get bogged down in trying to create a stat based game, and become frustrated, thus never finishing my work. I’m basing this list on my own failures in writing interactive fiction, and what I’ve enjoyed and not enjoyed from the professional publishers. I will only get to one item on the list today, but it is likely the most important one:

It Is Still a Story – The biggest problem that I’ve seen, particularly online, is when the story details are written in a line or two.

“You have a soda. Drink it? Play Atari?”
“You choose to play Atari, but you don’t own one. Look for emulator? Look for actual system?”
“After asking your friends and family, you realize you’ll have to buy one. Look on eBay? Look at thrift stores?”

No one cares about a game like that. The only way that anyone will ever care about that game is if you have thousands of choices that actually lead to a thirty minute adventure with twist and turns. How bored would you have been if “The Cave of Time” read: “There is a cave. Go in? Go home?”

If you are going to take the time to write interactive fiction, map out an actual story. Realize that you are going to write a small book of short stories. Depending on what age group they were written for, “Choose Your Own Adventure” books would be around 50 to 130 pages long, and would have a wide range of possible endings (“The Cave of Time” had 40 possible endings, the first younger reader CYOA had 12 possible endings).

In most cases, these should each be short stories that dabble with a little character (this is supposed to be the reader, so not much character) and has the five basic steps of a story (introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement). Basically, each of your stories needs a plot. This seems so obvious until you see some of the crap that people have put online.

The introduction never changes, but the climax tends to often be the end of the story. Typically, your climax, falling action, and denouement will take place on the same page in an interactive fiction story, but since the stories tend to only be a few pages long each, this is ok.

The story hook obviously needs to be something that allows for a number of different possibilities. A story that is too specific in nature is probably a better short story. When you have something like a cave that goes to many different times, or a spaceship traveling among many inhabited planets, you have many directions that your story can go because you can write many unique stories using the basic plot. Treat each story, no matter how intertwined they may be, as though it is the only one your reader will read. If you don’t then it probably will be the only story your reader will read.

On Tuesday, I will continue my list of tips for writing interactive fiction.

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Fifty – Gently Down the Stream

2011-12-17T11:49:00.000-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(Part One by Nathan Stout)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

(The millions of gallons of water have completely filled Stubby’s cave and is beginning to rise back up towards the surface and the gaping hole above. Shag, Dentre, Chris, Nathan, Paul, Angelina, Miguel, and old man professor lie about in the Roaring Rapids raft wet and tired. It lazily bobs as the water level in the cave rises.)

CHRIS: Well, that about wraps it up. I think we completed my intended goal quite nicely.

NATHAN: Here, here.

MIGUEL: There, there.

SHAG: Groovy.

(A mumbling sound comes from Paul and Angelina, who are horizontal on floor of the raft, making out.)

DENTRE: What are we going to do about him?

(Dentre points to the shriveled up professor. The professor looks up.)

PROFESSOR: Huh, ehhhhh?

DENTRE: NOTHING old man, just sit there!

(Dentre has to shout it because the professor can’t hear much anymore.)

NATHAN: I don’t know. He’s not much of a danger now.

CHRIS: What do you want to do next?

MIGUEL: Fight!

NATHAN: Sleep for Christ’s sake!

SHAG: Bubble bath with some hot mammas.

CHRIS: I think we need to...

(Chris stops and tries to think.)

CHRIS: We have to...

(He thinks some more.)

CHRIS: I don’t know right now.

NATHAN: Because there is nothing else! You stirred up every pot and there is no more trouble for you to get into. Perhaps bed...

CHRIS: What about Garrett? Surely we need to deal with him.

(Angelina stops kissing.)

ANGELINA: Don’t worry I’ll deal with that sack of shit at some point.

(She goes back to kissing.)

CHRIS: Oh.

(Across the cavern, another couple of rafts slowly float along. Eric and a couple of his troops, along with Larry sit around in one raft, waiting to get to the top of the cave. In the other raft, a collection of gold pant-suited agents and the Grrrls sit.)

ERIC: This is the biggest failure my agency has ever experienced. We will be the laughing stock of the government.

LARRY: It doesn’t matter, the T.A.C. never really worked right. If you did get it, you'd only look like an even bigger fool than you do now.

ERIC: It didn’t work?!

LARRY: Nope. I just acted like it did so the professor would try and fail miserably. Now if you will excuse me.

(Larry vanishes and appears in the other raft. The women in the raft squeal at the cute boy and gather around him. They rub his hair and knock his glasses sideways and ooh and ahh all over him. Larry’s eyes roll and he has a big cheesy grin on.)

CHRIS: You know... I just wanted to have a little fun with my newly found powers...

NATHAN: I’d say you accomplished that goal beyond your wildest dreams.

CHRIS: We did have some fun didn’t we?

NATHAN: Speak for yourself.

MIGUEL: Yes, I had some fuckin’ bad-assed fun. I feel the need for more. I think I’ll join the MMA!

DENTRE: You know, Miguel, we are always looking for additional agents.

MIGUEL: Maybe. I gotta go where the action is.

(There is a squishy kissing noise and Shag points down at Paul and Angelina.)

SHAG: I think THAT’S where the action is right now!

(Everyone laughs as if it is some sit com.)

(End of Part One)

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

(But what they don’t realize is that there is an even bigger evil that they will have to face in the sequel “Flash! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”)

NATHAN: No! I’m calling bullshit.

(Fine.)

[EXT – BALLOON MADE RIVER – DAY]

NATHAN: Where is Chris?

MIGUEL: What do you mean where is Chris?

NATHAN: I mean that Chris is missing all of a sudden, and any time he goes missing, things become complicated again.

MIGUEL: Where was the last place you remember seeing him.

NATHAN: Over there where that pile of snoring black clothes is.

MIGUEL: That pile of snoring black clothes is Chris. He’s gone to sleep.

(Nathan crawls across the raft and smacks Chris.)

CHRIS: Heeeey! Wot’s, uh, the deal?

NATHAN: You got a lot of nerve passing out before I’ve had a chance to get home and get some sleep.

CHRIS: Not my fault that I’m bored after riding through a flooded Arlington on a raft for the last thirty minutes.

DENTRE: Yeah, this isn’t going to help property values over here any. Not that they were all that fantastic after Quincy’s glass breaking incident.

SHAG: Hey man, this is the groovy part though. Floods are covered under federal disaster funds. High powered amps aren’t. In a year or so, Arlington will be restored back to its original condition.

DENTRE: We can hope. Speaking of Quincy, I haven’t seen him since the flood. I hope he didn’t drown.

NATHAN: No, he didn’t drown, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of him in the future.

(Unless there is an evil brewing that…)

NATHAN: Still calling bullshit!

(Fine.)

MIGUEL: So what are you guys going to do about Paul? I mean the guy got a little bit nutty near the end there.

DENTRE: That’ll be for the International Association of Realtors to decide. You can’t repeat this to anyone, but the I.A.R. has its own court system, being a secret society like the Masons and the Illuminati.

CHRIS: Wow! Hey Eric! Did you know that the I.A.R. has its own court system, being a secret society like the Masons and the Illuminati?

ERIC: Of course I knew, Cliff.

CHRIS: My name is Chris!

(Chris notices Eric and Larry high-fiving in the other raft, and he starts to grumble. Then Larry appears in the raft with Chris, Nathan, and Miguel.)

LARRY: Hey, I just wanted to tell you guys goodbye. I’m going to transcend beyond my physical limitations. I’ve finally acquired enough knowledge in my lifetime to see beyond this matter dependant existence.

SHAG: That’s like totally far out, little man.

CHRIS: I agree with Shag. I haven’t ever admitted to this, but that’s my long term goal is transcendence from this corporeal plane of existence, you know, after starting the world’s most legendary band and writing a few hundred books.

NATHAN: I’d be happy with a full night of sleep. I could call it transcendence from this conscious plane existence.

LARRY: It’s been interesting everyone. Goodbye.

(With that Larry turns into pure light and then disappears from sight.)

SHAG: Groovy!

MIGUEL: Bad ass!

DENTRE: Fascinating.

NATHAN: Motherfucker.

CHRIS: Nathan, we really need to review your slang usage and comprehension study material.

NATHAN: No! That motherfucker transcended and never explained anything about how he became involved in all of this. And the professor is pretty incoherent, so we’ll probably never find out from him. Her Eric! Do you know anything about Larry?

ERIC: Yes.

NATHAN: Anything you can tell us?

ERIC: No.

NATHAN: Motherfucker.

CHRIS: I’d be happy with an explanation of who the hell Eric is.

(After another hour or so, the water finally thins out enough that the rafts hit land. Everyone piles out. Shag and Dentre call the I.A.R, and Paul and Angelina are taken into custody pending charges of Unethical Realty.)

NATHAN: Isn’t that phrase a little redundant?

(Eric and his COBALT goons take the professor and his agents into custody, just because no one really knows what to do with them. Stubby goes to work, a little irritated that things didn’t work out for him.)

CHRIS: You know that we’re going to have to go beat up Garrett and get my Duran Duran collection back.

NATHAN: Chris. Seriously. We’ll have time for that, but after we’ve slept for a change. Besides, if you haven’t noticed, everyone is gone except for us and Grrrl 1, Grrrl 2, and Grrrl 3.

(Chris grins from ear to ear.)

CHRIS: I see your point.

[INT – NATHAN’S BED – NIGHT]

(Chris, Miguel, and Nathan are all cuddled up under the blankets. Chris sighs very heavily.)

NATHAN: I said I was sorry!

(Chris sighs.)

NATHAN: I’m sorry! In retrospect, pointing out that, “You Grrrls have a night job to get to and we need to get to bed,” was probably not a great suggestion, and I would have been better off suggesting, “You Grrrls deserve a night off and some loving massages that we’re willing to give.” Next time…

CHRIS: If there’s a next time.

NATHAN: I’m sorry!

CHRIS: Just go to sleep. We have a lot of things to try to clear up tomorrow.

(End Episode Fifty)

Where have you gone Christmas?

2011-12-16T09:10:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

It's that time of year again. A time when happy childhood memories abound. Christmas (or should I use the politically correct liberal don't offend anyone at anytime 'Xmas') is about family get togethers, eating, and opening presents... at least American Christmas is.

I watched or read something years back that said that the modern form of Chrismas was a purely American creation from the 40's or something. I can't totally believe that cause just read Charles Dickens. There was apparently family, food, and gifts back in the day too. I guess the commercialization is what was American about it.

As far as that goes I am fine with it. Most of my happy childhood memories are about the junk I got at Christmas. That's what kids like, getting junk. I can still remember Christmas evening in my living room playing with my spanking new Death Star Playset listening to ELO on our massive stereo cabinet in the late 70's. I remember another Christmas when there were so many presents that they took up half the floor of the living room. I remember getting Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain for Christmas and being so content that I didn't leave the world of He-Man for years to come.

One year I asked for the AT-AT walker from Star Wars and knew I was going to get it. I spent the proceeding two months up until Christmas playing with my Star Wars guys in a scenario that included an 'invisible' AT-AT walker that they had to get to turn visible so they could use it. Christmas day arrived that year and a suspicious big box was under the tree. I knew it was my fabled toy but my brother sewed seeds of doubt by saying it contained nothing but underwear for me. When I opened it I found what I desired... the Empire Strikes Back Imperial AT-AT Walker. I have the photo to prove it...

I have to admit that I realize that getting toys is not the real reason for the holiday but it certainly helped me have a happy childhood and lots of good memories.

As the years go by the magic of Christmas fades away. The endless browsing the BEST, Sears, and JC Penny catalogs, marking the toys I wanted so my parents would get the right stuff has transformed into me browsing Amazon.com buying myself what I want or send the list to my mom or wife. The magic has seemed to go away. I guess it's because I'm not a kid anymore and those simpler pleasures don't excite as they used to. I do usually get what I want so there isn't anything that get shoved in the back of a drawer or into a garage sale.

I try to get in the spirit every year but it is tougher and tougher. I don't have any kids and that might one of the reasons I don't easily get into the spirit as an adult. When my nieces and late nephew were kids it was fun to buy them stuff and see the joy and excitement on their faces.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to spend Christmas with your family and all. That is the best part of Christmas for me now-a-days, it's just there is something missing. I think what's missing is youth. We are a very small family now and my wife is the youngest of the bunch (if you don't count my niece but she is in another state) and is hardly a kid anymore.

So here's to hoping that the magic of Christmas returns to me in some form or fashion. I hope the same happens to you and yours as well.

Merry Christmas!

Shit My Conservative Leader Says

2011-12-15T06:23:00.001-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

To be fair, the reason I will never consider myself a Republican is because I won’t align myself to a political party, but let’s just pretend that I didn’t have that reservation. Let’s pretend that I’m on Amazon shopping around for a political party to throw all of my blind allegiance. Let’s also pretend that this blog post is brought to you be Amazon.com, though sadly, it’s not.

My first stop, along with my virtual shopping cart, would be the Democrats. My parents voted Democrat, and we typically get our political views, not from thinking for ourselves, but from our parents. I typically feel safe when we have a Democrat in office. I don’t know if this is fair or not, but Democrats don’t seem to always want to start wars with countries that have different religious practices, and condemn people for their lifestyle based solely on something that their own religious practice says (specifically while ignoring all the stuff that their religion says about not condemning people).

The problem with Democrats is that they always seem to be on the verge of bankrupting us… unless you count Bill Clinton or John F. Kennedy, but no, fuck that. Quit changing the subject. Then there is the other side of Democrats that bothers me to no end, which is the philosophy of: Let’s give all the poor and downtrodden money to help improve their situation, and let’s consider everyone who doesn’t have a seven-figure net worth “poor and downtrodden.” Again, we’re not counting Bill Clinton or John F. Kennedy. Though when we get into the enemies of free speech category, I’m looking at you Bill Clinton, and your little dog, Al Gore, too.

So I had the Democrats in my shopping cart, and then I realized that the price was way too high. Of course, if I fill out the right forms, they’d probably pay the bill for me.

So then I’m looking at the wide selection of parties, and realize that there is really only two, so I look at the Republicans. It’s a strange thing. I’m liking what I see. They speak of balanced budgets. They speak of smaller government. They speak of privacy and independence. They speak of personal responsibility. They speak of many wonderful things. And then they don’t do any of them.

But that’s not even where the biggest problem comes from with the Republicans. It’s the shit they say in between the stuff I like. They quote from the Bible while ignoring all the passages that say things like don’t judge, and he who has no sin, and that when the Bible says homosexuality is bad it mentions in the very same passage drunkenness, fornication, and adultery, among others (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10). Maybe those other sins make our leaders abominations, and we can have leaders who are abominations.

It’s not the desire to follow Bible teachings that bothers me though. It’s the part where they talk about the principles of our founding fathers, but ignore the fact that they founded this nation on religious freedom, and freedom from persecution for your religious beliefs. That would include Muslim, Atheism, and people who interpret the Bible in a way that doesn’t agree with yours (which includes ignoring the sins that God condemns, but the Republicans are ok with). And I know I’m making some blanket statements. All the Republican potential candidates are their individual selves and these statements don’t apply equally. In my defense, that’s all the side choosing is anyway.

So I’m stuck. Each election year I have to look at each of the prospective candidates and see if any of them are worth voting for. So far as yet Obama hasn’t done anything that has amazed me. He had some good ideas with the health care bill, though not necessarily all the right ideas. The bailouts were all bad ideas. The “Cash for Clunkers” was an ok idea in that it wasn’t as bad as all the other bailouts, tough still bad, because it was a bailout aimed at the consumer first, but probably just put a lot of people into car payments they can’t afford.

So I look over at the Republican side of the ring, and I see a bunch of the most homophobic, xenophobic, rich, out of touch with the average American, candidates that I’ve ever seen. I was never scared of having George Bush Sr. or Jr. in office, though Jr. started to scare me for a while there.

I’m scared of this group though. I’m scared because someone like John McCain would have been ok in the presidency, but he had his run for presidency and lost, and so they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel now. And I think they know it too. That’s why they’re putting so much focus on getting the candidates in front of the public. Maybe they think we’ll forget that they’re running against Obama.

What my point is that I’m closing the window with nothing in my shopping cart. Once again, I’m looking at the people who are running the United States, and wish they would quit drawing lines in the sand and saying, “My side, your side.” I think I’d like a candidate, for a change, who said, “Our nation,” and meant it in a way that would see real problem solving, not cock blocking in the name of one party or the other.

Doodad Part 2

2011-12-14T09:56:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to the 2nd post in my Doodad series of blogs. These blogs are about my Volkswagen Beetles and my attempt to get them looking and running great (and possibly sell one or both of them).

My ultimate goal is to have a pristine VW Beetle. I'd prefer a Super Beetle but I would be OK with a regular one. For those of you who don't know a regular Beetle has a narrower body. You can easily tell the difference between to the two by the way the spare tire sits in the trunk. A Super Beetle's spare sits flat, horizontal where a standard Beetle's spare sits upright. The Super Beetle was an upgrade that Volkswagen put out with a different suspension, wider body, and a few other upgrades. I have a 1970 Beetle and a 1971 Super Beetle.

The 1971 Beetle was obtained when I found it on Craigslist for $1,600 a couple of years ago. It was a patched together car but the price was right for a running Beetle. It was all the way out in Canton and I had to get my coworker Jonathan to go all the way out there (from Decatur) to help me get it. It had all sorts of issues like the car wouldn't stay alive unless you were pressing on the accelerator, the brakes were soft, and camber was toe in on the back wheels (to name but a a few issues). I got it home and did some work on it like replacing all the break parts (except the lines), repairing broken turn signals, and replacing the windshield wiper motor. I was trying to get it ready for inspection. I took it to a guy nearby that works on imports and he adjusted the carb so it wouldn't die and repaired a leak in the gas tank. For the most part that is all I ever did to that bug. I did get it inspects (barely) but the inspection is out now and the carb is messed up again. I will have to get some stuff working on it to get it re-inspected. I have this one listed online for sale btw... you can see it here.

The 1970 Beetle was a more recent purchase. You can read all about what I have done to it so far in the first Doodad blog. The 1970 was bought through someone at my work. She knew I was really interested in it but didn't have the $3,500 they wanted for it. I guess they really wanted to sell it so that cut me a deal and let me just pay it out over several months. It was a modified Beetle that was customized for racing. It had this big tail pipe and was very loud. A little too loud for me. I am more interested in a stock version of the car so that was the first thing to go (which you can read about on the blog). I don't see this car as being the 'prestine' VW of my dreams but it is a start. I hope to one day sell it (for more than I bought it) and upgrade to an even better condition one. From there I can upgrade again and so on until I get the car I want.

Since that first blog part I haven't gotten to drive the 1970 much at all and that has caused me some issues. Now the brakes are REALLY soft and you have to pump them to get them to tighten up. The car will no longer stay started on it's own (like the issues I had with the Super).

Last month I registered the car to myself and got the new tags. It had Antique Auto tags but I plan on driving it daily(ish) so I needed to get regular tags. I did that (to the tune of $200+) and am ready to go (sort of).

Next week I am having to stay home 2 days while carpet is being installed and I took the opportunity to ask my co-worker (who I bought the car from) if her husband could come over and help me adjust the carb and the maybe bleed the brakes. This will get that VW up and going and I think I can get it inspected.

I will post after I get him over to help me out with the 1970 and see if there are any pointers he can give me for the 1971.

Music from 2011 in Review (Part Two)

2011-12-13T06:50:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

While Nathan is busy reviewing songs about college that he heard in commercials years ago, I am actually up with the times; as long as you don’t count 95% of what I listen to. Last year, I did a year in review of the music that came out in 2010. I did this on my Facebook page. This year, I decided to do it on the blog. For more information and other reviews, read my first part.

REM – Collapse into Now

REM called it quits this year, presumably to never release another album as REM. Just prior to this announcement they released one hell of a last offering. There is little bad to say about this album, if any. Depending on whether you count Duran Duran’s “All You Need is Now” as 2010 or 2011, this is probably my favourite (or second favourite) album of 2011.

"Uberlin" is a song that even if you like it from the first listen is misleading as to how good it really is. I would suggest listening to it a few times just to pick up on the subtleties.

"Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter" is one of the more upbeat tracks, and feature Peaches on supporting vocals. I like Peaches. I've seen Peaches live. I just kept hearing Kate Pierson when I listened to this track, even though I know it's not her. I'll get over it. Peaches sounds great on the track, and it's a fun song.

"Blue" is a track that I can't even begin to explain how much I love it. It features Patti Smith on supporting vocals. Michael Stipe's choice of vocals for this track borders on spoken word, and the music, calling back to "Country Feedback" is thick, sonic, and a bit melancholy. Simply amazing work.

Roxette – Charm School

This was an album that I noticed was out, listened to a few tracks, and then forgot it was out. The first reason is that I couldn’t find all the tracks on You Tube, and the couple that I did find were a little lackluster. Coming back to it now, near the end of the year, and finding the full album up, the truth is that it’s not such a bad album. It’s not as immediately catchy as “Look Sharp” or “Joyride,” but if you like Roxette or late 80s Europop (which basically means that you like Roxette) then you’ll probably enjoy most, or all, of this album. This is a reason to sometimes come back to an album that didn’t catch your full attention initially. In most cases, even I wouldn’t worry about it, but with a group like Roxette, I was willing to come back and hear the full album to be sure. I’m glad I did.

"Big Black Cadillac" is just a great song from the very beginning, but gets so much better when it gets to the chorus. While I appreciate that they can't both sing lead on every song, it's great when they can.

"She's Got Nothing On (but the Radio)" is one of the emphasis tracks. It kind of seems to go all over the place the first couple of times you hear it, but it's a pretty solid track.

"In My Own Way" is the track that most resembles "Listen To Your Heart" in general feel, while going about it in a different way. If the ballads are what you like about Roxette, then this is the track you most want.

Bayside – Killing Time

Bayside has more talent than innovation. I say that as a neutral statement for purposes of review. You’ve heard some folks complain that an album is too polished, and maybe as a basic concept you don’t care. I sometimes do care though. This band promises to be a mixture of the bands Brand New and Avenged Sevenfold from the first track, and to an extent they even succeed, though drenching it with a much more pop feel. The problem is that I think I would rather be listening to any number of groups that skirt this sound, including Cage the Elephant, who put out an album at the start of 2011 that I’m sure to review somewhere in these posts. All in all not a bad album, but it delivers on musicianship rather than innovation.

"Not a Bad Little War" is not a bad... eh, I can't do it. Too cheesy even for me. If there is a track on this album that I just life without reservations, it's this one.

At points, I hear some Ben Folds influence in the vocals. Like on "Seeing Sound."

"Sick Sick Sick" is an ok song. What catches my attention is that Current 93 did a song called "Lucifer Over London" in which he starts repeating the work "sick" and at first you think he's saying "six six six" which would make sense for a song with Lucifer right there in the title. Of course, I'm talking about a song other than the one I'm reviewing, so I should stop.

And that's it for this go 'round. These posts are almost harder to make, even though I get a free pass on subject matter. I'll do as many as I can without getting bogged down.

College will change your life... uh huh, everything's gonna be alright...

2011-12-12T14:47:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

The title there was from a song from a commerical I remember on TV from years ago. As you might have guessed this blog topic is about college! Fun stuff...

I got to this blog post because of my recent need to go back and finish my Bachelor's degree. I thought I'd discuss it and the college work I had done in the past and any interesting memories I had to go along with it. I'll begin with a little time travel back to 1992...

Groovy

I graduated in 1992 and transferred into Tarrant County Junior College (TCJC). For about 2 semesters I went full time and quickly ran into trouble. The 'Withdraw' option had not been enacted yet so I failed my math class. Withdraw was the ability to just dump out of the class and not fail out (thus lowering your GPA). The very next semester Withdraw started up and that saved me on many occasions.

Back in those days when it was time to register for classes you had to do it in person (there was no Internet registering). You got to the campus on the first day of registration (before dawn) and waited in a line that was literally a thousand people long. You got in and signed up for classes. When I took my entrance test when first applying I scored really REALLY low in math and had to start at the bottom (and I still failed it).

I went to classes on and off after the first two solid semesters. I would take classes and drop them if it looked like my GPA would suffer. I took Pre Algebra right up until the withdraw deadline then dropped (just as a prep for the real Algebra the next semester. I knew from the start that I would like to go for a computer degree. At first I shot for a programming one but quickly discovered I didn't have the memory for programming. I then moved it over to the PC hardware degree. For a time I even took some TV and VCR repair classes which were kind of fun. I also had 4 semesters of Cisco Networking which was a new program at the time (I don't think I retained much of that info).

I took classes for a long time at the college, even though the name change from Tarrant County Junior College to Tarrant County College. I guess they didn't want to scare away kids with the word Junior. My two favorite classes during the whole experience were: Geometry 1 and History 2. Those were some fun classes. I got really into History 2 which was strange since I barely scrapped though History 1 and hated it. One class I thought I was going to love but had to drop it was Art Appreciation. I took it more as a fun class than any prerequisite and really enjoyed sitting in the dark room, looking at slides of famous paintings and learning about design and such.

In 2000 I finally had enough to get a degree. I had more than enough and it was only going to require like 6 more hours to get a second degree! In May of 2000 I graduated with a Associates in Computer Science: PC Support and then in May of 2001 I got another associates in Networking. I had to get a couple of substitutions from the head of department but they agreed and that's all.

In 2011 I signed up at Midland College for their HITECH training program. This is a government funded workforce program to train people to work with Electronic Medical Records and similar system implementations. In 2004 they passed the HIPPA law which was going to require electronic medical records from every hospital and provider. It was discovered that in order to make this happen there were going to need to be a lot more trained IT people who could do it so this program was enacted. I took the six month class and got my certificate and passed the certification in October. Did I mention that since it was government funded I have not had to pay for any of it.

Here late in 2011 I have signed up at UTA to finish out my Bachelor's degree. I have 102 hours of credits so this can't be too difficult... right??? I am shooting for a Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Systems. I have gone too long without finishing my education and I'm sure I'll need that piece of paper to make any more than I am now (in the future).

The Younger Generation

2011-12-11T08:36:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

I thought I would do a short post today to ride the coattails Nathan’s post on Friday. He talked about how the thirty-somethings were talking to the twenty-something that had really no grasp on the technology of Olde… er, old.

The first topic I’d like to broach is that of VideoDiscs. My family had a VideoDisc player. They were fantastic… fantastically bad. They were basically like vinyl records with movies on them. The problem is that they could scratch like vinyl records, but they would become near unusable with little damage. And if you wish to compare apples to apples, I still have vinyl records that play just fine. Most of those VideoDiscs went bad in the time we owned them, which is odd because they were never really handled. They were in the case, and then they were in the machine. They were in the machine, and then they were in the case. You never directly handled the disc, because it loaded from the casing. We made the mistake of trying to clean a couple of them, the way you could clean a vinyl record, and it seemed to make them worse. They would work fine briefly, but then they would really crap out.

So what possessed my parents to buy VideoDiscs instead of LaserDiscs… and for that matter Beta instead of VHS? I can’t answer to the Beta, but I can answer to the VideoDiscs, because I was there. The sales guy showed us LaserDiscs, and, wow, were they amazing. He had me walk on one and then played it in the player, and it worked just fine. He really tried selling my parents on the Laser Discs. The machine and the discs were considerably more, yes, but long term such a better investment. Then my mom reasoned that the video store in town didn’t rent out LaserDiscs, but did rent out VideoDiscs, and that was that.

The truth is that from that time forward, technology has changed so often that it probably didn’t matter which we got. In the 1990s, Miguel pointed out that we could still buy LaserDiscs had we gone that route, but did it really matter. We had VHS and DVD was on the rise. It’s not as though we couldn’t watch movies.

Next, I’d like to tell a brief story about taking my children to see my dad once when they ranged in age from 2 to 10. I decided to play some of my Duran Duran collection, specifically the part that is on vinyl, since it is kept at my dad’s. When I went to put on a record, one of the younger kids asked, “Why are those CDs so big?”

Another time, I was getting the kids from school, and I had on the Classical music station. Needless to say, the kids were in rebellion of my choice of listening for the day. “Put on a CD!” they cried. “Don’t you want to be cultured?” “No, put on a CD!” they cried again. “Don’t you know that bullshit studies show that Classical music makes you smarter?” “We don’t care! Put on a CD!” they insisted. So I put in my Wagner CD, and played “Flight of the Valkyries.”

The first time that I experienced the “younger generation” syndrome was at work, and I was the ripe old age of 25. I told an 18 year old that I had watched “Purple Rain” the night before, and she responded with, “What’s that?” To be fair, she had heard the song. She just didn’t know it was also a movie.

Finally, I would like to tell you about a night at the club. I was with a group of four people ranging from 32 to 40. This was in 2007. One of the guys was wearing eyeliner, which I’d never seen him do before, and since he shaved his head, he looked an awful lot like Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins. These three young women sat down with us and the “leader” introduced them. I introduced our group, which were three guys and one gal. When I introduced the one guy, I said, “…but you can call him Billy Corgan, since that’s who he suddenly looks like.” The young woman who had initiated the conversation said, “I’m too young to know who that is.” I started laughing and said, “What are you, twelve?” Needless to say, I didn’t get her number.

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Forty-Nine - Learn To S-Whim

2011-12-10T07:54:00.000-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(Part One by Nathan Stout)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

LARRY: That’s why I would never help you professor!

(At this point, everyone seems to blink a few times, a little confused at the apparent jump in the action.)

PROFESSOR: I guess I should have gone back a little further in your records. Damn incomplete county records. Nevermind. Plans have changed.

(The professor points his gun at Larry. Meanwhile down below, Paul cradles the half-unconscious Angelina.)

PAUL: Oh my darling...

ANGELINA: Why don’t you just give up? Rasp.

PAUL: I don’t care what you have done. I will turn a blind eye. I don’t mind that you like freakish penises, I’ll get enhancement surgery. I love you.

ANGELINA: Oh you fool...

PAUL: I love you enough to... let you go.

(Paul bows his head, cries some more, and wipes some tears and snot off with his sleeve.)

ANGELINA: Back off!

(Angelina bats at the full orchestra that has crowded around playing sappy music during Paul’s confession of love. They back off.)

ANGELINA: I’m no good.

PAUL: No! You are!

ANGELINA: I’ve done bad things. Paul, you are too good for me. Snarf.

(Angelina wipes some snot of her own with her sleeve.)

PAUL: Come with me.

ANGELINA: Paul... no...

PAUL: Let’s fly away from all of this. Besides, I have a million from the Association as a down payment. We can run away with that.

(There is a short pause.)

ANGELINA: Why the hell are we still sitting here for?

(Meanwhile, up on the cannon platform the professor holds Larry at gunpoint.)

PROFESSOR: Put the cannon interface helmet on, or you are going to get it, like your little fat friend here...

(The professor nods to Nathan, who is lying face down on the funk-laden floor. The professor adjusts the cannon to point in a general area of the room where most of the fighting is going on).

PROFESSOR: You are going to end this now. Do it!

(Back on the dance floor, Paul has left Angelina’s side to find Dentre. He finds him but is quickly surrounded by both Shag and Dentre. They heard Paul confess to the plot by the International Association of Realtors and are understandably angry.)

SHAG: Why man? You dragged us in on this and lied the whole time! That is sooooo unhip.

DENTRE: This is below the Association. We’d never have helped you!

PAUL: That’s why I lied to you. Sniff.

(Paul wipes his runny nose.)

PAUL: Just think. If we had that...

(He points over to the cannon.)

PAUL: It wouldn’t matter how much glass Quincy broke. We could fool anyone into buying anything!

DENTRE: That’s not honest!

PAUL: Are you KIDDING ME?! Realtors keep the buyers from REALLY knowing the condition of properties until they sign those contracts. We keep the buyers away from the sellers so all the problems with the property are kept in the closet until AFTER the sale...

DENTRE: That’s not the same thing!

(Paul gives up on the conversation and distracts the pair.)

PAUL: ... Oh my God! What’s this?!

(Paul points and Shag and Dentre turn and look up. Paul snatches the remote to MaryAnn from Dentre’s back pocket and runs off.)

ERIC: Faggot!

(Eric, leader of the group of COBALT troops that crashed the party so recently, punches a Chris clone, then neatly spins in the same movement and punches one of the few remaining redneck clones. He looks up and sees the professor at the T.A.C., which is ponderously moving, aiming toward the crowd of fighters.)

ERIC: Freeze!

(The professor looks up at whoever yelled at him and sees Eric.)

PROFESSOR: What are you going to do about it G.I. Joe?

(Eric moves forward cautiously.)

ERIC: I hereby seize this weapon for the government.

PROFESSOR: I AM the government, idiot! We are on the same side.

ERIC: Our agency wants that weapon intact. Don’t fire it. It’s not safe without the proper insulation.

PROFESSOR: And how would YOU know that?

(Eric slips Paul White’s book out of one of his fatigue pockets and waves it.)

PROFESSOR: Oh. Well, too bad. My agency built it. My agency paid for it. My agency moved heaven and earth to get it to this point, and some Johnny-come-lately isn’t going to take it away!

(At this point, Paul, who is fleeing with the control to Dentre’s balloon, MaryAnn, collides with Eric. Eric, irritated, shoves him out of the way. Paul lands on the controls and activates the balloon’s weapons system.)

PAUL: Oops.

PROFESSOR: So Larry here is going to use his power to transform everyone here into puppies or something with the use of MY weapon, then the world is mine!

(The professor finishes his speech and shoves Larry’s head into the mind-power harness.)

PROFESSOR: What the Clinton?!

(Larry isn’t there anymore. There is some other kid.)

PROFESSOR: Who the hell are you?!

LARRY: I’m Reece. I'm Stubby’s son. This looks cool. Can I play with it?

(The professor looks around and shoves Larry off the platform.)

PROFESSOR: If you need something done right, you have to kill everyone first.

(The professor puts his head in the harness and hits the button. He begins to think about killing everyone else in the cave. This is the moment the balloon high drops its bombs. There is a massive explosion above the cave and everyone looks up. The ceiling of cavern crashes in, and millions of gallons of water come pouring down.)

LARRY: Nathan! Wake up!

(Larry, who has changed his appearance back to his own, is slapping Nathan awake.)

NATHAN: The toilet!

LARRY: No, the ceiling! Get up!

(The two get up just as the water comes crashing down. The professor has just hit the fire button when the Thought Amplification Cannon is hit with the water. The cannon sparks and goes haywire. Electricity, along with the thoughts that the professor was sending out, flows back and reverses itself into the mind-power harness and right into the professor.)

(End of Part One)

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

[INT – FLOODING CAVE – DAY]

CHRIS: What the fuck is going on?

NATHAN: There was an explosion…

CHRIS: No, no, no! Why the fuck didn’t I have a single line for an entire part?

NATHAN: Can we please stay on topic here for a moment?

CHRIS: Sure. Then you’re going to explain why I had no lines.

NATHAN: We’ve been unconscious since you and Larry used your reality altering powers to save us from those random robots. The cave is flooding. We need to wake Miguel, and probably start swimming pretty soon after that.

(They find Miguel. They remove his thumb from his mouth and slap him awake.)

MIGUEL: I was dreaming the worst dream where I was being beaten down by a pack of wild hyenas with chips on their shoulders.

NATHAN: That is terrible.

MIGUEL: I know. I had French dip, and they wouldn’t share.

(Miguel looks around at the water accumulating around him. He sits up.)

MIGUEL: I’m gathering that our situation is worse than my dream.

NATHAN: Yeah, slightly.

(Miguel stands. And they wait for the water to rise far enough that they have to start treading to stay afloat. They look around and see pretty much everyone, except for the various clones, treading water.)

NATHAN: Where’s Larry?

(They look to the T.A.C. The platform is just above the waterline now.)

NATHAN: Larry! Swim out here! We’ll help you stay afloat if you get tired.

LARRY: What about the professor? He’s completely incoherent! He’ll drown!

(Nathan, Chris, and Miguel swim over. They try to get the professor free from the T.A.C. hook ups, but the water overtakes them too quickly. They’re treading above the submerged professor now.)

NATHAN: We can’t do anything. We have to conserve our energy until we can get to the top of the cave and get out.

(It’s at this time that rafts start dropping down into the cave.)

MIGUEL: Where in Obama Land are those coming from?

(Fluffy, the unicorn, dives into the water from the caves above.)

CHRIS: You survived the ATW HQ being destroyed?

FLUFFY: I was at the basketball court. I was injured, but not killed.

CHRIS: You didn’t call?

FLUFFY: I’ve been busy with unicorn funerals. There have been a lot lately.

(They all look at Nathan.)

NATHAN: Sorry.

(They start climbing into the nearest raft. Everyone else is also climbing into the rafts nearest them.)

LARRY: I must go get the professor!

NATHAN: No! Larry!

(Larry has already gone underwater.)

FLUFFY: I’ll help him. I was only here to explain that this cave is under Six Flags, specifically the water ride with the rafts, and that’s how you’re conveniently saved.

(Fluffy goes underwater.)

CHRIS: Great! Now you’ve gotten Fluffy killed!

NATHAN: He’s not dead yet! Emphasis on yet.

(They watch as Fluffy and Larry struggle to save the professor. Just when things seem hopeless, they come floating to the surface with the professor, who in spite of his shock from having the cannon rebound on him, gasps for air. Miguel helps Chris and Nathan into the raft as Larry is helped into a nearby raft.)

NATHAN: See, Fluffy made it.

(They turn to help Fluffy into the raft, when suddenly the cave shakes again. Some loose rock breaks off and falls toward the water. One cracks Fluffy right on the head.)

FLUFFY: I lived a magical life…

NATHAN: Noooooooooooooooo!

(End Episode Forty-Nine)

Uphill, 20 miles in the snow, bare-foot

2011-12-09T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

So I was yapping with the guys (and gals) in my department the other day about stuff. We have a guy who is nearing mid 40's and he has all these memories of the 'old days' and how things used to be. We have a guy that's like 25 (at most) and we were all simply amazed at his lack of knowledge of stuff that existed on a decade or so ago.

We got started on the subject of RCA Video Discs. Do you remember those? Not many people do. They were these large records with movies on them. No, not Laserdiscs but actual records. They were in a hard case and you inserted the case into the player and the player removed the disc and you pulled the empty case out. Freaky, huh? I still have about 25 movies and a player in my mom's closet. If you still don't remember them watch this entertaining video... it's so cheesy and great.

Naturally the young guy never heard of them (but like I said most haven't). We moved on to Laserdiscs (which he kept confusing with the Video Discs we were talking about earlier). With both the Video Discs and Laserdiscs he was so amused at their size. He never heard of Laserdiscs eitehr and kept laughing anytime he would see a video or picture of them.

We then moved on to Beta and VHS and all the memories we all had of owning one or the other back when they were new. We discussed how movies took a year or so to come out on VHS and how if you didn't catch it in the movie theater you were stuck until came out on video years later. Even this fact just amazed the young one.

We also talked about early cable television (the kind with the key in the box so parents could lock it so kids couldn't see the porn some channels played at night). One of the women mentioned that back before cable was everywhere you could only watch kid's programming on Saturday morning or early weekday mornings. Our young guy was just amazed at how limited choices were while the rest of us looked back fondly on those times.

This all stemmed from the discussion about the instant gratification we all have now. If you want to watch a cartoon you simply have to switch to one of the all-cartoon channels. If there is a movie you want to see you can get on YouTube or Netflix and watch it right away. We are truly in the era of instant gratification. This puts us older (but so older) people in the same league as our grandparents with their 'we walked 5 miles uphill in the snow bare-footed' memories. Sure, we didn't have it that bad but growing up in the 70's and 80's we experienced things in a much more controlled way. It was 'rough' to the kids of today but we look back on it with pride a good memories. We now have our 'uphill in the snow' stories.

I'm sure by the time our young guy is all grown up his kids will see his experiences as ancient and tediously manual. They will have mind-reading machines and robots to do everything for them. They will wonder how in the world they could have gotten by with out transporter technology... driving a car??? are you kidding?!

Music from 2011 in Review (Part One)

2011-12-08T16:00:00.006-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Every year since 2010… ok, last year… I did a year in review of music from 2010 that I really enjoyed. I can’t exactly give you a link to it, because I did it on Facebook for the benefit of my friends, though I’m not sure how often my friends listen to my links. I know Nathan will pick up on a few here or there. I’m going to spend as many of my remaining blog posts for the year doing the year in music review. I know I’ve listened to enough music to fill in the posts, but as a review can mean to go back and revisit, I’m at the mercy of how much stuff I can listen to again between now and the end of the year.

As I tend to listen to most new (or music I haven’t heard before) music in free and legal formats (You Tube, Pandora, library check outs, play list sites) I sometimes will run into the problem of not hearing a full album. This is unfortunate, but I own hundreds of albums (most bought used) so it’s not like I’d ever have to hear anything new to have plenty to listen to. If I miss a few tracks here and there, I should be alright, and if I really like what I’ve heard, I’ll probably buy the CD used eventually.

So onto 2011. I’m not sure if this was a great year for music, but there were many good releases. I’m reviewing what I’ve heard in the course of the year, so don’t look at this as a top albums of 2011 list.

Wire – Red Barked Trees

Wire is a group that I should be really, really into. They have been implanted for decades in my genre of choice, and on top of that, they are a good band. After hearing most of the tracks on Red Barked Tree, I found myself wondering why I haven’t been listening to them most of my life (especially since the band form when I was three). Later, when I came back to this album, I made a point to start listening to some of their other work. I don’t think this is their best album, but it is one of the best albums I heard this year.

This is the most punk sounding track on the album. Good stuff.

The first track on the album. It's a catchy track with mildly psychedelic tendencies.

This is my favourite track on the album. It's not so mildly psychedelic. It's still melodic though, rather than just being outright strange.

311 – Universal Pulse

I have always liked 311. I think they have an interesting sound in a world where interesting gives way to trying to appeal to the widest audience. I picked this album up at the library, and enjoyed it from the first listen through on, but I wasn’t immediately sold on it. When a good band starts out, they are typically coasting by on the pent up creative energy. Their sound tends to feel more raw and inspired, regardless of their songwriting ability. Some artists over the years will improve on their songwriting to the point that you don’t miss the raw energy, because the songs are so well crafted. Some artists move more in the direction of constantly reinventing their sound, so that you never know what to expect (I’m looking at you David Bowie). Then there are bands like 311. They just remain consistently good. The problem is that somewhere the raw energy feel leaves the equation and you’re left with a band that is every bit as good as when they started, but feels a little lackluster. Every song on “Universal Pulse” is good, and I would recommend it to fans of 311 or the rock/hip hop/funk fusion genre, but listen to the album a few times, because you don’t realize just how catchy these songs are until you’ve heard them a few times.

This is easily the best track on the album. I would get this track and "Trouble" stuck in my head.

If there is a track on this album that I think is more intriguing for its music than its vocals, this is it.

This is just an odd little song that ends out the album. I think this was the track that sounded the most like 311 doing a song that isn't a 311 track at times. It still has segments that are decidedly their sound, but I would always make sure to listen all the way through the album to get to this track

Moby – Destroyed

I don’t want to talk bad about Moby. He’s truly a talented songwriter, and I’m not so sure that I can say that “Destroyed” is a bad album, as much as it hasn’t caught my attention. I became a fan of Moby in his post-punk, in your face days with the album “Animal Rights,” and tracks like “All that I Need is to Be Loved.” I liked “Play” and “18” just fine, though they were certainly more focused on a mass audience. “Destroyed” feels like an album that is not focused on mass market appeal, which is a good thing, but is also not the hardcore Moby that I enjoy the most. It feels more like an album that is meant for him to DJ rather than perform. It's also an album that I think I'll be more likely to use individual tracks for compilation discs rather than listening through if I ever buy it.

Another odd thing about this album is the lack of Moby's actual voice on it, at least compared to the typical album by a solo artist. I'm not saying he doesn't sing, but there is less of his singing than I would have expected. This is really a great track too. I'm reminded of Dream Academy meets Icehouse, which is a happy place to be musically.

This track is one of the tracks that makes this album rough for me. It's really good, but I can't latch onto it while listening to the album. If it had been a single track with a guest vocalist somewhere in between more tracks like "The Day" and fewer tracks like "Be the One" then it would have stood better for me on the unique quality of it.

This track calls back to the "Animal Rights" era, but more for the sprawling mellow sound. Very beautiful

Ok, that's it for today. I'm going to try to keep it to three albums each post and three tracks from those albums.

According To Specifics - 2012

2011-12-07T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

As Duran Duran sang: 'Is there anyone out there? Anyone else outsideeeeee?'
2011 looks to be going down as the year of the blog here at According To Whim. Chris and I appear to have it almost wrapped up... a blog for EVERY day of the year. The only problem is is that no one seems to notice it. We have busted our asses (or fingers) to get this monumental accomplishment... accomplished.

Chris has become a little distraught (maybe not distraught but I can't think of the word for it) that the blog has gone so unnoticed. He has given his theory as to why it hasn't had much at all in the way of viewers. He thinks the blog is too... (wait for it)..... According To Whim. He is right. It is, but when your whole motif is 'according to whim' you would expect it to be. The only problem is that people don't seem to like things 'according to whim', they like structure and theme. People are searching for specific subjects like video production, rock bands, video games, movies. We provide all that but that is the problem, we provide ALL of it so there is not enough to keep people interested since they can read a few blogs then move on because there is nothing else that interests them here.

I think that we have come to conclusion (through indirect discussions about it) that 2012 will have more a focused blog. One or two subjects, probably video production or writing. During a talk we had just last night we talked about blogs and it appeared to me Chris was suggesting (even if he didn't realize it) having multiple, separate blogs. A blog for each theme.

We wouldn't have to go for the gusto of having a daily blog but a few different blogs where we could post a subject that was to that blog's theme. I mentioned that I could probably do a Robotech blog since I was about to binge on Robotech in 2012 and could probably have plenty to write about. We could probably have a NetRunner blog since there is stuff you could always write about when it came to NetRunner. We could probably do a game blog too. That is a bit tricky since there are so many different aspects to games: board games, card games, video games, RPGs... we would have to discuss that one further. Chris could easily do a music blog. He has endless things to say about bands and such.

No matter what we decide the blogs would get a post only every once in a while, not a daily dose. Maybe there would be enough variety in the types of blogs that we would wind up writing a blog a day by default (although I am sure that would be hard). If we planned to do that I suspect we would really need to plan out the entire year in advance (with topic brainstorming).

Once we get through 2011 one of the things I thought about doing was to create an index page for the According To Whim blog. Perhaps a final post (that would always be a the main page) which was basically the blogs separated by subject in list format. This would put a cap on the blog (so to speak) and would provide people who just stop by (and not necessarily find us by searching) to quickly glance at the blog as a whole and find something of interest.

What ever the plan is I am sure blogging will still feature prominently in our plans. It is an easy way for us to work together creatively without having to get together often (which is really hard).

Thoughts About This Blog

2011-12-06T07:49:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

We’re coming to the end of the year… And the end of all mankind! At least according to one calendar.

At the beginning of the year, I talked about the trouble with daily goals that read that absolutely this specific thing has to be done each day. This had to do with a project that took me many years to successfully complete, to write a poem a day for a year. The problem is that even when I successfully did it, I was twenty minutes late with one poem, and so it feels less than perfect.

Nathan and I set out to post a blog each day this year, and as I announced recently, we will be moving over to a less than daily format in 2012. The problem is that we found ourselves struggling to keep up in spite of it all. I’ve recently been posting some of my pieces a day or two late, because I’m at guard posts that don’t allow me the chance to write on some nights, and have no means of charging my laptop anymore on nights that I can write. My daily writing output has decreased significantly, and it’s been harder to keep up.

This got me thinking about people who write for a living and have deadlines for a living. How do they do it? I mean the obvious answer is that they get paid for their writing, so the idea of writing for eight hours a day isn’t quite as daunting. They also have days off, even writing for a newspaper. Maybe Nathan and I should have had weekends off and a couple of vacation weeks. Who knows?

Also, I’ve been talking to Nathan about the other seeming problem with our blog. We’re According To Whim. I came up with that name for the audio show in 1999, and it was in reference to the recording schedule. It was meant to be whenever Miguel and I felt like starting a tape and talking about stuff. On a strange level, According To Whim became even indicative of not only what we talked about, but what projects in what medium we were doing at any given point. For the According To Whim blog to truly be the According To Whim blog, it can really be about any subject we can think of to write, which is great for people who want a variety of subjects to read about, but not so great for the internet culture.

I was reading Writer’s Digest the other day, and they had a list of writing websites that they thought were the best. There were quite a few that had “blogspot” in their URL. The ideal situation – to be included on a list that your core audience would likely read. If only we could pinpoint our core audience. The problem is that we do write about writing. We do write about video production. We do write about politics. We do write about self-help. We do write humour. We do write fiction. We do write about games. Heck, we write a lot of stuff. But a video production magazine wouldn’t have us on their list. A writing magazine wouldn’t have us on their list. A political magazine wouldn’t. A humour magazine wouldn’t, not in a box, not with a fox, not with a cat, not when I say silly things like that.

By the very nature of this being a blog that is a catch-all for subject matter, it’s probably also a blog that is a catch-hardly-anybody for readership. So, I guess the question is what to do about it if anything? We’re already scaling back how much we write for the blog, so we can at least limit the amount of throwaway material we post. That will be a good step. So here are some thoughts.

Do Nothing – Why not? What we’re hoping for in the long run is for people to read what we write just because we wrote it. Technically, we would be doing something, getting our names and work known. We just wouldn’t be changing the function of this blog.

Streamline – We could decide that from here on out we only write about the work we do for the show or other marketable projects. Given that we are mainly video-makers, writers, and occasionally do audio shows, we would be a blog that writes about making videos, writing, and the audio shows speak for themselves. Folks would know what to expect.

Many Blogs – We could write multiple blogs, making them themed by content. This was the odd thought I was having that brought me to write this. The problem I kept coming to with this idea is that then we’d have a lot of blogs that would each be getting little updating. If we had six blogs, and one of us or the other wrote one post each week for each blog, we would still be writing less than we were this year (not by much though), but talk about a confusing schedule. The argument I have for this is that even if the blogs were updated irregularly, eventually they would each have a wealth of on-topic writing, and a person finding the blog for the first time might have plenty of time to catch up.

Table of Contents – How do you have multiple blogs while only having one blog? You create a blog post with contents separated by topic. Say that someone clicks on a post about writing, and there is a link to other posts about writing. They click on that link, and there are links to every other article about writing over the years. They could just read what they wanted then. I like this idea, though I realize I would have to do some work over the course of 2012 to organize our blog in such a way, possibly even going back to create links on all our previous posts.

I’ll be going to Nathan’s on Thursday. We can discuss this then. In the meantime, I was just looking for something to write about, and I had to get it done, because I’m posting it a day late.

On having renters 12

2011-12-05T08:27:00.001-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

On this exciting (well, more exciting than the normal entry for this series) blog I will cover what I did this last soggy weekend at my mom's torn up rent house in Joshua, Texas. You know the whole story by now, yadda yadda yadda.

This last weekend I got my father in law to come with me out to Joshua to help with the electrical stuff. When the renters that lived here (sans contract) did a lot of remodeling they got off to a good start then just stopped for no apparent reason. This left a lot of half work and alot of mess. One thing they did was to stop using the central AC/Heat when it broke down. I guess they used electric heathers and window AC units after that. Anyway with that out of the way for some reason he disconnected it and the stove from the propane and stopped using the propane all together (stupid since electricity is so high).

After we took back over it was quickly realized that fixing the far gone central unit was a no go since he hadn't touched it in years and even disconnected all the gas in the house (for the heater part) we decided we would have to go electric too. To heat and cool the house we decided to go with the largest window unit you could get that could both heat and cool. This would require a 220 volt plug so this was going to further require a new 220 plug at the front of the house under the living room window. This coupled with other electrical issues prompted me to ask for the assistance of my father in law (the all around handyman type).

We arrived and took a look at the electrical. We tested several plugs and switches, Figured we needed to change out a block in the outside breaker box, made a list of what we needed, and headed to Home Depot in Burleson.

After about three more house we still didn't get finished. There turned out to be a bad breaker block inside the breaker box in the bedroom (that was getting hot and making the living room lights flicker). We couldn't find out where the hell the stove electrical was connected and were perplexed by a wonky acting master room ceiling fan connection. We did run a new electrical wire to the front of the house for the window unit. I drilled a hole in the floor just underneath the window and then I had to crawl under the house, grab the new line, and drag it to the other end of the house where the breaker box was. It was like I was crawling through a Stephen King movie. A lot of the insulation is ripped up and hanging down along with spider webs. There were cat skulls and all sorts of bones as well as an unidentified dessicated animal arm as well. It was frightening! I made it out alive only to discover that in two more weeks I am going to have to do it again we we re-run the stove wiring.

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 6 of 6

2011-12-04T07:50:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Here we are closing out the RPG theme week. Nathan has produced three posts telling you about his history role-playing. I have produced two posts of the same nature. Today, I will be still dealing with history, but I would like to do it through specific stories.

There is a trap to telling stories about your role-playing adventures. That trap is that nobody cares. Try this:

So there I was playing my Monk character. I had +5 to attack from leveling up proficiencies and service to the demigod Ullmanis. Now that adventure to the Plains of Desershia was crazy, but let me tell you about how I took out seven fire beetles with one blow.

Yep. Everyone is looking for a change of subject right now unless they play the game and actually get what you’re saying… and even then they might be a little bored unless it’s a particularly good in game story. Now try this:

A friend of mine had a taste for a little goofiness in his D&D games, and named his Halfling Makeapoo (Make-a-poo). His Dungeon Master was pretty upset about this, claiming that he wasn’t taking the game seriously. They agreed to disagree, called the character Meepo for short, and went on with playing the game. Later, when I was driving to Tulsa, I noticed a sign for Lake Kickapoo, and being in Oklahoma, I realized that this was likely a Native American name. I called my friend and told him about the lake. I told him to tell his Dungeon Master that if the strong and noble cultures of our Native America recognize the naming convention that it must be valid. And if he argues, tell him that you have to make a poo before you can kick a poo.

The difference between the stories (aside from the poo story being a real story) is that one uses in-game jargon and tells a tale that is probably only interesting if you were part of the game, while the other is about out of the game interaction with humour that is recognizable to almost anyone. Not all gaming stories fit as nicely into the latter category. I just bring this up as a tip for telling stories about your gaming. Find ways to tell the story so that it is compelling to your audience, making sure to be honest about whether or not it can even be compelling. For this reason, I think this is probably a hard one to write. I’ll do my best though.

I think there is something to be said about a good character. All you writers out there, here’s a different spin on characters. A good character is a character that when handed over to another player, can be played as well as by the stand in player as the original player. In terms of writing, your characters should be so good that any writer could write the character if they sat down to it. Think about the truly classic characters, like Sherlock Holmes, and how you gauge the performance of a new actor. You ask if they were portraying Sherlock Holmes faithfully, because most people have a sense of how he should be played.

I had two such moments while playing characters that were once played by others. The first was the character of Artemis, created by my friend Jennifer, who was part of our group and dating the Dungeon Master. When they split, she no longer played with us. Her character was played by one of the other guys for a long while, but I ended up taking it over for a few sessions. During this time, a character named Venom had betrayed the group. This was because Venom was chaotic evil, but had never really been played as such when he was a Player Character. Now being a Non-Player Character (NPC)… do you see what I mean about game terms? Venom was being played by the DM, and he felt that the character should act evil. Artemis, as a character, never liked Venom. That was one thing I remembered about the way Jennifer played her, so when Venom reared his ugly, toothless head again, they literally had to stop Artemis from getting killed by her own hatred, because I played her as though the person she hated most in the world had just stopped by and acted like nothing was wrong.

I had to play a character named Yicup (Why I See You Pee). Makeapoo’s player isn’t the only one who likes goofy names. Jake, Yicup’s creator, always played Yicup as comic relief. Think of Groo the Wanderer, but a little dumber, a little uglier, and a lot more arrogant. One maneuver that was probably not officially supported by the rules was the “Spoooon!” attack. This involved Yicup putting on a spiked helmet and being launched from an oversized slingshot by the minotaur character.

When Jake went overseas for a bit, I was Yicup for a while. I was used to playing a thoughtful, peaceful Monk (who started as an NPC) with some badass stats that were also not supported fully by the rules, but we kept him balanced enough. But Jake had played Yicup so well that I had no problem deciding what absolutely unreasoned, tantrum-throwing, childlike decisions Yicup would make. For one thing, when Artemis tried to take out Venom on her own, Yicup was just like, “Let her at him. I’ll help,” as everyone else tried to stop her.

The story I mean to tell is this. There was a heavily guarded tower. The characters were trying to figure out how to get in without having to fight. They had thoughts like using Sleep or Charm Person spells. My Monk was supportive of this, because he had a spell that could increase the probability of the other spells working. Another thought was to bring the minotaur in as a prisoner, probably influenced by Star Wars with Chewbacca as a prisoner. My Monk was skeptical of this, because it seemed a bit random, but he was willing to try if that felt like the best course of action. They started trying to figure out how to tie up the minotaur without actually binding him, when my Monk said, “Guys, I think we’re going to have to fight our way in. Yicup is walking up to the front door.” The beauty of this was all the other players saying things like, “Oh fuck,” and “Fucking Yicup,” as they announced that their characters were grabbing their weapons and running after him. You could almost imagine their characters saying similar things. We won by the way. Partly because as the other characters were fighting the guards, Yicup just walked in and started causing mayhem in the tower.

The final in-game story I have is about my friend Jesse’s character, Scagneti. I notice there is a character named Scagneti in “Reservoir Dogs,” but I don’t know if that’s where it came from. We called the character Skank, which in turn could have been from “The Crow.” Who knows?

There was this accessory called the Deck of Many Things. There was an actually deck of cards for the players to draw from, but in the game when the characters drew a card, whatever was on it happened.

Our characters were basically screwed. We were tied up. We were going to die viciously if our DM didn’t drop down a god to rescue us. Jesse got an idea, which was that if Skank could just get his foot free of his boot, he could use his toes to draw a card from the Deck of Many Things. Maybe whatever he got would help. We all knew there was a wish card in there that had not been drawn yet, and Jesse was hoping beyond all hope that he drew it. After the proper rolls to get Skank’s foot free to draw the card with his toes, Jesse drew a card as our DM held the deck fanned out before him. Out of the 20 to 30 cards that were left in the deck, he drew the wish, and saved us. He described what our characters saw, which was Skank standing free of the ropes, with his boot in one hand and the card in the other.

Now I’d like to make an odd point for those of you still reading, because you’re likely gamers if you got this far… gamers with patience and a good attention span. If you’ll notice that the stories that I felt most compelled to tell had little to do with rules and stats and attributes and how much damage was rolled with a critical hit, and etcetera. To me, role-playing games are more about the stories told, and the character actions that make them memorable. The rules are simply there as an anchor to keep everything straight. They are not the be all to end all. The truth is that the group that these stories were from, well, we probably got away with an awful lot that defied the rule structure, but that’s only because it was a much more fun game when we got creative.

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Forty-Eight - Search and Destroy

2011-12-03T07:32:00.000-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(Part One by Nathan Stout)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

(Larry and Nathan stand atop the platform on the Thought Amplification Cannon with Paul holding them at gunpoint, unloading all this grief over Angelina’s betrayal of him with Garrett. The professor and Chris are both dueling with swords in the middle of the huge fight below. Names and accusations float up from their battle.)

NATHAN: Look Paul... we don’t care if the International Association of Realtors gets the gun. Just keep it away from the professor. Right, Larry?

(Nathan keeps looking significantly at Paul’s gun, trying to send Larry a message.)

LARRY: Yeah, that guy is a nut job.

(Paul’s mind wanders at Larry’s last statement, and he begins to cry more.)

NATHAN: Don’t irritate him anymore, Larry. Who knows when he might shoot that GUN.

PAUL: Everything has fallen apart! The cannon should have been finished before all this!

(Paul waves the gun about the chaos.)

QUINCY: Thank you.

(Quincy comes up behind Paul and snatches the gun out of his hand. Paul begins crying that much louder.)

QUINCY: What a whine-bag!

(Quincy shoves the feeble Paul off the cannon platform.)

NATHAN: Oh no, LARRY! Quincy has the GUN!

LARRY: I can see that.

QUINCY: Now I can cross you off my “to kill” list.

NATHAN: You don’t kill people, Quincy.

QUINCY: Oh, don’t I?

NATHAN: No?

QUINCY: Lacey, Loony, Mike... gone.

NATHAN: Not Mike Timmons!

QUINCY: Yes. Let’s just say I PUNCHED him OUT of a window.

NATHAN: You didn’t kill Will Smif...

QUINCY: Let’s just say he's now the Prince of Foul Aire now... Te he he he.

NATHAN: You Monster. No wonder the professor hired you. He wouldn’t kill... but you.

QUINCY: Don’t get me wrong. My first love will always be the shattering of glass.

(Quincy goes on and on about breaking glass, and Nathan continues to try to get Larry to take care of the gun.)

NATHAN: Oh Larry... what are we going to do? Quincy has the GUN.

LARRY: Yeah. I know

NATHAN: Turn the fucking gun into something else already!

(Larry blinks then realizes what Nathan means.)

LARRY: Oh, sorry.

(Larry turns the gun into a small pane of glass. Quincy looks at it in surprise and is quickly fascinated with it. An evil gleam shows in his eyes.)

NATHAN: This is for the According To Whim headquarters!

(Nathan pulls back and punches Quincy right in the nose. There is a cracking sound and Quincy goes flying off the little platform, onto the ground. Nathan pushes Larry quickly aside, and pulls the lever that moves the T.A.C. over and down, pointing it at his hated foe. Quincy talks through his broken nose.)

QUINCY: Buf I bibn’t blow it up. Chrib bib.

NATHAN: Sorry couldn’t understand you. And this is for my shop!

(Nathan shoves the T.A.C. interface helmet onto Larry’s head then whispers in his ear. He presses the fire button and Quincy vanishes. In his place, is a large free-standing window with stained glass. The image in the stained glass is Quincy looking rather nervous.)

NATHAN: Hope no one breaks you.

(Nathan, feeling like his life has been put back together ever since the glass-breaking incident years ago yells a kamikaze yell and leaps onto a crowd of fighters below. Meanwhile, in the thick of the action Miguel fights on.)

MIGUEL: Can you smell what Miguel is cookin’?!

(Miguel lifts a COBALT trooper over his head and throws him into a Chris clone chamber, smashing the glass. Miguel moves forward in his blood lust, like a Barbarian who rolled double sixes. After throwing aside a battered redneck clone, he comes to Angelina and Garrett.)

MIGUEL: You!

(Angelina unlocks from Garrett.)

ANGELINA: Hi there, Miguel.

(Angelina reaches to her collar and slips a small gun from it, pulling her shirt apart and she levels the gun down. Her ginormous boobs are let free, designed to distract Miguel just long enough.)

MIGUEL: Poo!

(Miguel bats aside the gun totally ignoring the boobs and grabs Angelina by the throat.)

ANGELINA: Oh dear. Those have never failed me.

MIGUEL: Miguel smash!

ANGELINA: Darling... do something.

(Garrett looks embarrassed.)

GARRETT: Oh my. Is that the time? My shift starts soon.

(Garrett runs off.)

ANGELINA: You asshooooooo.

(She is cut off, as the enraged and over testosteroned Miguel squeezes her neck more.)

MIGUEL: You played us all!

(It’s at this point that the writer has to stop and draw out a small diagram so he can figure out who cheated who and who’s being true... and who don’t even care anymore.)

ANGELINA: ...

(Miguel realizes Angelina can’t give a rebuttal, so he loosens his grip.)

ANGELINA: I was hired by the Re/Max people until the professor secretly offered me more.

MIGUEL: Gggrrrrrrr.

ANGELINA: Then Garrett contacted me after he got a whiff of what was going on with Chris. I hired him to watch over you.

MIGUEL: He tried to kill us by dumping us out of that plane!

ANGELINA: He knew you would survive that fall with Larry in the truck.

MIGUEL: Noooo! Too much information! No make sense!

ANGELINA: Yesterday, I got an even better offer from COBALT to tell them where this place was! Ooof.

MIGUEL: Why you with Garrett?! What deal you make with him?

ANGELINA: No deal, he has a twelve inch cock. I’m into that shit.

MIGUEL: Grrrrrhhhhhhgggg.

(Angelina turns blue again, almost unconscious.)

PAUL: I STILL LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

(Paul comes flying at Miguel and knocks him over, freeing Angelina. Miguel crashes through a pane of stained glass some fool left in the middle of the room. Miguel is knocked out cold.)

(End of Part One)

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

[INT – FLOORSHOW OF BLOOD – DAY]

CHRIS: Clank. Clank. Clank… Clank…

PROFESSOR: Will you stop saying “clank” every time our swords strike?

CHRIS: Sure. Clank. Clank. Hmm, and yet I’m still saying it.

(Grrrl 1 falls against Chris, and is leaning against him back to back, as Chris swordfights the professor.)

GRRRL 1: Hello, Chris.

CHRIS: Hello, Grrrl 1. How’s it going?

GRRRL 1: Well, a naked clone of you is strangling me to death right now.

CHRIS: I thought your voice sounded stifled and hoarse.

GRRRL 1: Yeah, that’s why. Do you mind if I use your shoulders as support so I can lift my legs around your clone’s neck and snap it?

(Chris continues to fight. Grrrl 1 one continues to be choked.)

GRRRL 1: I need an answer soon.

CHRIS: I’m sorry, what answer? With the noise of the swords all I heard was, “I can lift my legs around your neck.” I thought you were trying to distract me so I’d get stabbed.

(Suddenly, Grrrl 2 appears and kicks the Chris clone in the head. It falls unconscious. Grrrl 1 and Grrrl 2 launch back into the battle. It’s around this time that Miguel is waking up.)

MIGUEL: I still love you too, Paul, but damn it man. That hurt.

(Miguel can hear Nathan calling from the T.A.C. He stands up on uneven footing and wobbles over to Nathan and Larry.)

MIGUEL: Hey guys, this is so much fun. Ow.

NATHAN: It’s not going to be fun for long.

MIGUEL: For a whi… ow… a while at least. You look like you were having fun.

NATHAN: Yeah, I got in there for a few minutes. I think I get why Chris likes mosh pits now.

MIGUEL: It’s crazy, isn’t it?

NATHAN: Yeah, but I couldn’t go for too long.

MIGUEL: Too much exertion for someone in your age group?

NATHAN: No, I just got tired of being slapped by the genitalia of Chris’s clones.

MIGUEL: Really? That bothered you?

NATHAN: Miguel, listen to me. We have to get Chris out of here. We have to let the professor, Paul, and COBALT fight this whole thing out.

MIGUEL: But if any of them end up using that machine…

NATHAN: I know. And you’re thinking exactly what Chris is thinking.

MIGUEL: How would you know?

LARRY: I convinced him to unlearn years of skeptical thinking and realize that the only reason he could no longer read minds was because people made him believe that he could no longer read minds.

NATHAN: Once I removed that mental block, the thoughts of all the people in this room became clear. The fact is that Chris is about to lose that fight. He’s tired. He’s having a minor asthma attack. He’s thinking that the only other course of action is to overheat the T.A.C.

MIGUEL: That’s a good idea… isn’t it?

NATHAN: It would take us all out.

MIGUEL: To dinner?

NATHAN: No, we’d be the ones who were cooked.

MIGUEL: This is a bad thing. Ok, I’ve got this. I can get us out of here. Larry, stick close to Nathan. I’m going to go throw something at the professor.

(Miguel walks out to the bloodstained cave floor. He grabs the unconscious clone of Chris with a dead man’s lift and walks over to the swordfight. He throws the clone, which lands (if that’s what you want to call it) at the tip of the professor’s sword, which does a terrible job of stopping it. The clone instead slides in a blood streaked manner all the way down the sword and topples the professor backward, so that his wheelchair falls back.)

NATHAN: I thought he meant a rock or something.

(Chris holds up his sword ready to kill the professor, when suddenly Stubby walks in with a troop of crazy looking robots.)

CHRIS: What the hell now?

PROFFESOR: My kamikaze robots! You will never escape them, Chris.

CHRIS: What kind of twisted, deranged person are you?

PROFESSOR: I was trying to just make some robots to clean my classroom and pass out exam sheets, but they kept running after people and exploding. I shut them down, but I kept them so in case I one day could figure out what was wrong with the AI coding.

(Shag walks backward past Miguel and Chris. He is being half strangled by a COBALT troop, but is putting up a terrible fight by slapping wildly at him.)

SHAG: Hey, hey dudes. Remember at your shop when I jumped over that shark?

CHRIS AND MIGUEL: No?

PROFESSOR: Kamikaze robots! Get Chris and Miguel!

CHRIS: Miguel! You asshole! I refuse to be faded like this!

MIGUEL: It’s not my fault! Run!

(Chris and Miguel run, and Nathan and Larry run after them. As they leave the cave, they hear two explosions and then Eric’s scream.)

ERIC: Not Chris and Miguel. Those were two of my best men!

CHRIS: There can only be one…

MIGUEL: You’re a little deranged too, sometimes. I wonder if they all went after those two COBALT troops with the unfortunately similar names.

(They hear the whirring of robot engines enter in through the cavern behind them.)

CHRIS: I guess not.

NATHAN: This is not what I had in mind when I got out of bed this morning.

CHRIS: I don’t think you slept last night.

NATHAN: Hmm. I think you’re right.

MIGUEL: We’re running right for a cliff at the end of a dead end.

NATHAN: Hmm. I think you’re right too.

(They find themselves trapped. They can hear the robots getting closer.)

MIGUEL: I’m going to get us out of this. For once in my life, I’m going to get something right.

CHRIS: Actions as opposed to words at this point, Miguel.

MIGUEL: Chris or Larry. Can either of you manifest a rope and a grappling hook?

(A rope and a grappling hook appear on the floor. Miguel looks back and forth at Chris and Larry. They both just shrug, bewildered. Miguel grabs it and ties the rope to the hook.)

CHRIS: Um Miguel… I don’t think…

(Miguel starts trying to hook it on something, anything at the top of the cliff.)

CHRIS: That won’t hold.

(The hook catches something.)

MIGUEL: Quick! I got the grappling hook to catch.

CHRIS: That would be fine, if you’d attached the rope properly.

(Chris pulls on the rope. It comes away from the grappling hook, and falls to the ground.)

MIGUEL: Damn it. I’m sorry, Chris. I really thought I could get us away from those Kamikaze robots.

CHRIS: It’s ok, Miguel. You did your best.

MIGUEL: But I really thought I would save the day.

CHRIS: You may still surprise us all by getting us out of here.

(They look down the hall to see the robots coming at them, already sparking from wires ready to short and explode. Chris, Larry, Miguel, and Nathan all hold up their hands in a feeble attempt to shield themselves from impact. It’s at this point that a whole lot of crazy shit starts to happen as Chris and Larry both alter reality just enough to… and then everything goes black.)

(End Episode Forty-Eight)

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 5 of 6

2011-12-02T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to the 5th day of According To Whim's RPG Week! Last time I wrote I started into the period of my life where I left the full-blown RPG world and moved into the world of miniatures and Warhammer Quest.

Before you bash me and ask why I am covering something that is not an RPG I would have to say that Warhammer Quest is partly an RPG. You start out with a character and build up its stats and battle with monsters and collect treasure. That is basically an RPG. Warhammer does vary in the fact that once you are battling a monster (or whatever) that you follow certain guidelines a little more stringently than you would in an RPG.

There are several approaches to Role Playing Games that you see out there. There are those who play with nothing but the dice and the character stat sheets. There are some who like to use grid maps and miniatures so you know where characters are in relation to other characters and/or obstacles. There are even some games that don't use dice at all (but dice are half the fun!). Warhammer is close enough to being RPG like for me to classify it so (at least for this series of blogs).

I had seen Warhammer Quest in the comic stores for a while but was always frightened away by it's $80 price tag. It comes in a VERY heavy box loaded with parts and manuals. Warhammer uses cardboard tiles that you lay down in a random(ish) fashion to construct the dungeon that you adventure through. It also comes with lots of cards that represent different treasures and of course LOTS of miniatures. There are 4 characters and tons of other creatures to battle (rats, spiders, orcs, goblins, rat-men, etc). At some point I threw caution to the wind and bought it (probably on credit, knowing me).

Warhammer Quest plays like this... you pick a character (or build one custom... very RPG like) and travel with a group of your friends to various dungeons throughout the world of Warhammer (the rules for the 2 games are mostly interchangeable). You choose the pre-made dungeon randomly out of one of the books that comes with the game. There is a short synopsis as to why you would want to explore the dungeon and you begin. The players fight and gain experience and treasures like any RPG and if successful you get what ever reward lies at the end of the dungeon and the game ends... but it doesn't.

Warhammer Quest is an ongoing game for those who want to play it in an RPG type fashion. You keep your character and you travel to the next dungeon through the dangerous world of Warhammer. One of the books with the set outlines the various locations of the Warhammer world and places you can stop to resupply and even increase your character's stats. This is where it really becomes more like an RPG. Once you are done visiting which ever village, town, or city you decide on you can then go on to the next dungeon.

James and I (and sometimes his friends) played Warhammer Quest for about 5 years (on and off... mostly off). We have played most of the dungeons in the manual and a couple of our characters are very powerful. Some have died so that sucks, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. We haven't played for a couple of years now but I am sure he will come over some time and we will blow the dust off the game again.

That's basically all as far as RPG games (in relation to me). I still haul out the Robotech RPG stuff I still have and browse though it every once in a while. It's fun to see the maps and such I created for the games we played. It wasn't until later (in the D&D years) that was let in on the fact that I was probably over-doing the whole map thing. Sometimes you just have to describe where a player is, they don't it drawn out for them. I will liked drawing them though.

One final thing I remebered. During my time shortly after my D&D phase I got a game called Dungeons and Dragons Card Master. This was a card set that allowed you to randomly generate dungeons and monsters for your D&D sessions. It was also designed to be played as a single player game (which greatly appealed to me). I spent a bit of time playing the snigle player version but I found it very difficult at times. I seemed to die way too often!

Chris has talked about getting his brother or his friend Adam together so we can play a game of Robotech. I hope that happens because RPGs are fun. They can really take you somewhere you don't go often... your imagination.

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 4 of 6

2011-12-01T07:39:00.002-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

As I explained in my first part on Tuesday, I was trying to write a simple post about how to run role-playing games, but I realized that my history as a gamer was taking up a lot of space. For this reason, I will probably get to the intended article about running a game outside of this theme week. In the meantime, here is the second phase of my RPG hstory.

After I was married the first time, RPG gaming became less frequent. It had little to do with my marriage. It was a combination of me trying to start a band and me hanging out with people who weren’t interested in RPGs. To this day, the only time I’ve played an RPG with Miguel (unless I’m forgetting something) was because he had bought the Star Wars RPG (published by West End Games who also brought me Paranoia… the game, not the mental impairment).

The Star Wars session was an odd circumstance that involved me, Miguel, my first wife (who I was married to at the time), and her future second husband (it’s not as weird as it sounds). The game was actually going quite well, until we got to a task that required a lot of skill rolls. You see, West End games valued character performance above rolling skill checks. Up to that point in the game we had all been playing the characters, and having a good time. This one section got a little tedious, and Miguel got bored. When Miguel gets bored he’s a little bitch. Sorry not to pull punches on that one, but it’s true. He doesn’t even try to muddle through and get back into whatever. I’ll talk about how to be a good player later.

After a few years of not succeeding at either the marriage or pulling together a full band, I once again started playing D&D with some co-workers. This ended up being my longest run of gaming, even compared to the years of playing with my brother and neighbourhood friends. The DM of the group was my friend Thrasher (his last name is cooler than his first name). The guy was a great DM in my opinion. I learned a lot from him. Maybe not enough, but a lot.

The thing that interested me the most about Thrasher’s DMing style is that many of the adventures he ran us through were modules and other published materials, but he would actually prepare before each session and often made the adventure more about our actual group than it could have been if he played the module unrevised. It was just little things. I think it also helped him to maintain the story between the adventures. It was a nice balance between module play and homebrewed play.

The only other experience that I’ve had since then was a D&D game that I DMed to a hostile audience. Not hostile like they were throwing bottles at me or anything, but that everything I did was scrutinized. Seriously. I rolled up a random encounter on the first level of the dungeon, and I was told that maybe next time I should be prepared before we started. I turned my laptop around and showed them the three pages of notes in the file I had open and the four other files I had notes in for encounters we wouldn’t be getting to that session, and I asked if they’d like to see the numerous pages filled in those files.

One might think that the game would have proceeded from there, but each session became plagued with massive debates about rules and gaming theory that slowed down any progress the players might make. Then they started complaining that they weren’t leveling up fast enough.

This accusation was made by two of the three players one night before the third arrived to play. I simply told them that they weren’t leveling up fast enough because we spent about one fourth of every session in debates about whether I knew what I was doing. I pulled out my notes and showed them the fact that I had the first two levels of the dungeon planned and half of the third. I pointed out that the first level had 23 rooms, and they were barely on the second level after three sessions in that dungeon (four sessions of play as the first was a town adventure). How could they level up when we weren’t getting through the game? Then they questioned other things, and I explained the entire storyline of the dungeon, and how it related to all the clues along the way (including a clue that I had slipped into the random encounter that I was chastised for rolling up during the session).

I explained that there was no reason for me to continue to run a game for the purpose of having fun if my audience wasn’t entertained. They tried backpedaling a little to say that they were entertained, except for not leveling up, but I simply dropped out that night and never played with their group again.

Since then, I really haven’t played much at all, but recent conversations with my friend Adam sparked some thoughts about game play and game creation of RPGs, and that’s where this article came from. The irony is that Adam and I have played decidedly few sessions together, I think mostly due to the distance we have lived from each other most of our friendship; but even when we would visit each other, we tended to do other things. In spite of this, we did manage to play a few games here or there.

We played some D&D a couple of times. We got into a session of Paranoia that ended badly, because again, the game is counterintuitive to most RPG conventions, and I’m still not really too sure how to run it successfully. We also played a game called Reichstar once, which was an interesting game. He ran that session, and did a pretty good job of it. That’s the only time I’ve played that game though.

The bigger irony is that Nathan and I have never played a role-playing game together. Perhaps one day, we’ll have to remedy that. After all, he’s doing a Robotech binge this next year, reading and watching all the material. I think that the Robotech RPG needs to make an appearance in there somewhere. Maybe my brother can come down for a few sessions.

On Sunday, I will do the one thing that you should probably never do, which is tell stories about your games. While it’s typically not a good idea, I think I have a few stories that won’t bore you to tears. See you then.

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 3 of 6

2011-11-30T08:00:00.001-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to part 3 of our RPG week. In the last post I wrote I talked about general stuff like Dungeons and Dragons drama in the 80's, dice, and getting into RPGs with Robotech.

A friend had introduced me to Robotech via the RPG book (the source book) and I fell in love with both Robotech and the concept of the RPG. As I got more and more into Robotech the RPG grew into more than just a basic game. This was a universe I was really into and being able to take on the role of a character in that universe was a big thrill.

For some reason I seemed to fall into the role of the GM (Game Master) when we played. I am not sure why but I guess that's a compliment. I would come up with stories that my friend would experience complete with maps and NPC (non-player characters). Since I liked to draw anyway the whole map making aspect of RPGs was just icing on the cake. My friend also got a couple of his friends into the game too (but in a much less enthusiastic way) and we had a four player game a few times. The two other guys would argue a lot so in my frustration I would make bad things happen in the game because of their real life arguments.

During all this time I would make weekly trips to Heroes Workshop in Fort Worth to look for Robotech stuff. Anime was still called Japanimation at the time and was somewhat hard to come by. Since Robotech was past it's heyday it was just as hard to find as some of that Japanimation. Most comic book stores did carry the RPG books since they were still fairly new. The prices (for me at the time) were just too high so I rarely bought the new RPG books.

As a side note to the RPG books... I blogged about the Robotech Fanzine Protoculture Addicts a while back which gives more detail about my history with Robotech. Well one of the founders of the fanzine went on to draw for some of the later Pallidum RPG books. Just and FYI there...

I played the RPG until my friend lost interest. He found the all mighty beer and soon lost interest in most of what we mutually enjoyed. I was still in high school and I soon found a new friend that liked Robotech, James. James, his brother Joey, and his sister Susan went to school and we all hung out together. I eventually got to playing the RPG again with James and Joey. I can't remember exactly but I do want to say I Susan played once (maybe). We played the 3rd part of Robotech called 'The New Generation'. I basically copied the shows storyline and applied it to their adventures. We played on and off for several months and ended with a big send off where I basically forced the character to sacrifice themselves in order to take out the enemy base.

When we finished playing Robotech I started looking into Dungeons and Dragons. Robotech was my 'gateway drug' into the evil, satanic world of D&D...

There's not much to say really. As I had suspected all those years D&D was NOT satanic or evil in any way. In fact I found it a bit confusing at times (all the rules). D&D had been developed in the 70's and had gone through many changes and was up to the 2nd Edition rules by the time I got into it. It needed to evolve and grow to give long time players enough to keep them interested. I started off with a box set and learned just the basics. I got James to play with me but we only ever played a couple of times. You see, we had discovered something else that was quasi-RPG... Warhammer Quest!

Let's start off at the beginning... Hero Quest was a board game developed by Games Workshop (a UK miniatures company) and released by Mattel as a sort of 'gateway drug' into the world miniatures gaming (an off shoot of RPG gaming). Games Workshop had a successful miniatures game series called Warhammer (and still does to this day). Games Workshop had an off-shoot of Warhammer called Warhammer Quest which was a 'dungeon crawler' type game. It is a game that takes place in a dungeon as opposed to the big battlefield like Warhammer.

I got into Hero Quest after I bought one at the Kmart I worked at. My friend Barrett and I played the crap out of that game for almost 2 years. As I now write all this out I find it interesting how I had these different parts of my life segmented off. Barrett and I played Hero Quest at the same time as James and I were playing Robotech RPG. I find it funny how the 2 never came together. I think we probably tried and Barrett wasn't into the Robotech RPG and James wasn't into Hero Quest. Anyway, as it was intended to do I was seduced into harder stuff by the seemingly innocent Hero Quest. I found the 'real' version of this dungeon crawler... Warhammer Quest.

Join me in my final part on Friday as I write some more about Warhammer Quest and my other RPG thoughts.

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 2 of 6

2011-11-29T07:41:00.001-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

This theme week (Role-Playing Games) came about from a few discussions with my friend Adam having to do with our RPG past. It occurred to me that I would like to write some thoughts I have about running games. I decided to start with a quick history of me and RPGs. It didn’t remain quick. When I had two posts worth of material, and wasn’t done, I called Nathan and said, “You want to do an RPG theme week?” He agreed and here we are. I say this to explain why it is that I seem to be leading up to talking about running a game, and probably won’t get to it this week. I will though. Without further delay, here is my first contribution to the RPG theme week.

It might be questionable whether or not I can really write an article about the dos and don’ts and the goods and bads of playing the tough role of Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master (GM). For instance, if you just thought, “It’s not that tough,” then you’re probably better at it than me.

I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and numerous other Role-Playing Games (RPGs) for over two decades now. I’m not even sure if I’m even all that frequent of a player in spite of the longevity of my run. I’ve played enough to have opinions though, so I have that qualification. I would say that about 30 to 40% of my time playing RPGs (pen and paper as opposed to video game) has been as a DM or GM. The other 60 to 70% has been spent as a player with a wide range of DM and GM ability on the narrative side of the table. I say table, but a large amount of my RPG time has been spent sitting on floors, and rolling dice on books. Please be aware that as you continue this article, a lot of my focus will be on D&D, but I will discuss other games as well.

Throughout all of this, I have always read the game books and various articles on the subject of running the games. I have noticed when the person in charge has done a good job of being in charge, and when they really haven’t. I think in many cases, I’ve also noticed the good and the bad in myself over the years. I ran some very uninspired game sessions in the early days of playing and I’ve run what were probably over inspired sessions in the later days.

Before I start dealing with more specific things, I want to say that I’m somewhat opposed to modules. This isn’t a full on disgust or hatred with modules as much as I’ve always been more interested in the creative side of games. In my mind, particularly when I was younger, this meant creating most aspects of the game, the setting, the characters, the situations, etc. Even with that basic feeling, if I ever got hold of modules or ideas, my brother and I usually found ourselves compelled to try it out. I think much of my better understanding of the game came from the study of the work of the professionals.

Let me start with the years of the Dungeon Crawl. A Dungeon Crawl adventure is almost the default of D&D games. It’s where the player characters (PCs) walk into a cave and go from room to room finding monsters, traps, treasures, locked doors, riddles, and all other forms of things. In some ways it can feel a little contrived, but it allows for a very easy way to plan encounters and make them somewhat linear if need be. I think as long as I play D&D, I’ll like a good Dungeon Crawl.

My parents bought the original red box set. My brother and I sat down at the kitchen table with our mom and dad, and we went through the sample adventure in the player’s guide together. Then my dad DMed the group adventure in the DM’s Guide. I guess my parents weren’t all that interested in the game, even after that session, but my brother and I were hooked for life. We started making dungeons to run each other through, and we even started building a rudimentary storyline.

I remember feeling somewhat lost back then. I was always trying to figure out how to make the adventure more adventuresome than just going room to room and slaughtering monsters. I later heard the term Monty Haul adventure. Monty Hall was a game show host (Let’s see what’s behind door number one!) and the term was meant to describe a style of play which was kill monsters for experience points (XP) and get treasure and magic items to make your character powerful. My brother and I played the game somewhat similarly to that, but luckily we did a pretty good job of following the charts, and our characters were pretty well balanced with the game play. The typical Monty Haul experience tends to create characters that are too powerful and players who are bored because there is no challenge. The effect was different for me though. I was interested in creating a continuing plot and developing characters, but I found myself often at a loss as to how to accomplish that.

By the time that my brother and I started playing the Robotech RPG, my skill at creating adventures hadn’t improved much, and we tended to play the game a little too much like Battletech, but we did try.

Strangely enough, right around the same time, I was looking through a catalog of some sort and read about a game called Paranoia (it was in its Second Edition at the time) and I had to get it. It seemed so quirky from the description. And it was. Oh boy was it. The game opened up so many possibilities to me as a GM. The problem was that the game defied many conventions of other RPGs and I couldn’t tend to keep players involved for more than a session or two. I probably needed to ease them into the craziness a little better.

In fact, I have a special tip for Paranoia. Explain to the players that they will only be playing their character for one adventure, and that next adventure, no matter how well they do; they will be playing a different character, because the likelihood of their character dying up to six times this adventure is high. Tell them that the goal is to have a good time first, entertain the other players so they can have a good time second, and then third, if they get around to it, survive.

The problem I ran into almost every time I played was that people would be in a very serious mindset about accomplishing mission objectives and killing enemies, neither of which happens very automatically in the Paranoia universe. They would also take the attacks of other characters on their characters as attacks of the player on them. It was a mess, and as a GM, I had no idea how to reel everybody in. Paranoia is still this amazing game of possibility that has never been realized for me.

This seemed like a suitable place to end the first part of this. Join me Thursday when I continue to discuss my RPG history. In the meantime, check out Nathan’s recollections.

Role Playing Game (RPG) Week: 1 of 6

2011-11-28T10:46:00.001-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Welcome to another fantastic theme week here at According To Whim. This week's topic is RPGs or Role Playing Games. For those of you who don't know Role Playing Games are essentially board games without the board and with a lot more detail. I really doubt any of you don't know what a RPG is so that explanation should be enough. This week Chris and I are going to talk about different RPGs we have played and some of our most memorable moments.

I got my start with Role Playing Games in the early nineties (or VERY late 80's, I'm not too sure). All during my child hood I had heard of RPGs but it was usually in a very negative connotation. During the 80's RPGs were labeled as evil and dangerous in the general, ignorant public. Being a kid I knew better (of course). I do remember my first real encounter was my Dad's roommate in later part of the eighties. He was really into RPGs and had all these Dungeon and Dragons boxed sets all displayed in his room (which I didn't go in, but could look into). I thought it was weird that they were all set up in a display setup, like a store or something.

Dungeons and Dragons was the 'big player' in the RPG field and almost everything I knew about RPGs at a younger age involved D&D. In the 80's TSR (the owners of D&D) released a toy line and I remember seeing these toys and was able to finally get some when they went on clearance. I had the Dragonne, Hook Horror, the Warduke figure, and the Fortress of Fangs. I was so amazed by the level of detail on the Fortress of Fangs.

One of the big draws (for me at least) early on was the use of cool dice in RPGs. In the mid 80's the neighbor who lived next door moved out and the new people had a kid so we played alot at their house. In their driveway I found about six RPG dice. A huge 30 sided one and few smaller ones. I still have them and they are still awesome. When I opened my shop in 2003 I bought a 'pound of dice' bag off Ebay and bought some more expensive sets from some other company to sell as well. The 'pound of dice' bag (wich you can still get) are generally fine but there are usually some irregualar ones in lot.

So back to the late 80's / early 90's. My friend Eric in High school brought me this RPG book that he thought was cool. It was Robotech. This was my first real venture into the world of Role Playing Games. He got it from someone else and thought it was cool and that I should look at it. Not only did that event start my enjoyment of RPGs but it lead to an unhealthy fascination with Robotech.

Now for those of you who don't know what the heck Robotech is, here is a brief history: Robotech is a cartoon from the early eighties. It was actually from Japan and was transported to the states with some rewriting and reediting of the animation footage. In the later part of the 80's Pallidum (an RPG company) produced a Robotech RPG. It took the robots and equipment and gave them 'stats' so you could use them in a game. There were some basic rule that weren't too hard to learn and poof! you could now be in the Robotech universe. One of the things that attracted me to the RPG was the cool drawings where gave the cartoon a real life look. From there I started reading the books, watching the show, and getting everything I could get my hands on that had Robotech on it.

Tomorrow Chris will start his series of blogs in this week of RPG posts and check out my next part on Wednesday when I will write some more about Robotech RPG and my entry into the world of D&D.

My Most Important Goal

2011-11-27T08:10:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Nathan wrote recently about our need to set goals for 2012. He wrote about the part where we revisit old goals and see if they are still relevant today. The truth of the matter is that I think that I had a full year of almost accomplishing nothing. The odd thing is that I did do a lot of work on a lot of different goals. I even accomplished a few. The problem is the comfort zone.

The reason why I think all the self-help gurus make a big deal out of stepping out of your comfort zone is not because we all need to grow as people and whatever. I think it’s because we all have goals somewhere in our heads that we never get to. Year after year we think that we need to do one or more very particular goals, but they require a little discomfort or a little risk. Maybe even a lot of discomfort or a lot of risk, but if you have a goal that is that crazy then it’s possible you should either drop it or reevaluate it to find a less risky, less painful approach.

The biggest problem I have is the amount of stuff I want to accomplish. I can never seem to reel it in. I can never seem to find the exact focus that I need to accomplish something big. I just keep doing bite-sized portions of each goal hoping that one day the goal will have no choice but to be accomplished.

Beyond that I have a problem of time. I think the most important goal that I could have is the most important goal I set last year, which is to devote the amount of time to accomplishing goals that I really need to. I was doing this at the start of 2011, and I was accomplishing many things. Then somewhere along the way I got burned out with the number of hours I was working and I found myself becoming less and less diligent about making sure I was spending eight hours a day on project work.

I have a job that allows that kind of focus, so eight hours a day may not be reasonable for everyone, but I think that in the long run, finding a reasonable amount of time for you that you can spend on your goals each day is probably the most important goal. You don’t have to keep yourself on a time clock if you’re good with time and naturally fall into a routine when you’re working on a project. If you have the focus to work on something every day, then that is probably more your goal, spend some time each day furthering your goals, and make good leaps of progress frequently.

For me, I have to be a little more intentional about the time. I was working a fire watch at the start of the 2011 at an apartment building for seniors. It was all indoors, and you had to have access to get in. Since it was a fire watch, I wasn’t there to walk around knocking senior skulls together (because they don’t really form gangs or claim territory). I was there simply to walk the building once and hour and make sure there was no smoke. It wasn’t hyper-vigilance. It was just how the laws read. If your sprinklers are out you need someone to walk around once an hour. I used the time to read “Watership Down” since I was limited by what I could do. I was at that post for 12 hours and I kept track of the time I spent reading. It wasn’t quite eight hours, and that was the ideal situation for spending that kind of time on a project or goal.

I believe I could have done better this year, and it’s because I’m not convinced that I spent the amount of time that I feel I should have working toward goals. I know I did a pretty good job most days, and I know that if I would just pick a goal at a time, I could do better at completing projects. But since I tend to be all over the place, my most important goal will be to make sure that I spend eight hours a day working on projects and goals, whether it’s something long term and serious (building a publishing empire) or short term and somewhat frivolous (reading books published by current publishing empires). The point is to spend the time on it, so that I know that I’m making the right amount of progress. I mean, if I spend one third of my life on projects and goals, I think I can say I gave it a real try, right?

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Forty-Seven - A Little Gratuitous Everything

2011-11-26T07:50:00.000-06:00

by the According To Whim .com crew

(Part One by Nathan Stout)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

LARRY: Chris isn't dead.

(Nathan and Miguel lean over a bit, looking back into the main chamber. Chris’s body is missing.)

MIGUEL: What?

NATHAN: How?

LARRY: I transformed the bullet into something else at the last moment. You might want to stay around a little longer.

MIGUEL: Let’s just get Chris and go!

NATHAN: We can’t go back in there. It’s raining bullets.

LARRY: Not for long.

(Larry turns around, facing the room. Suddenly, the guns everyone is firing turn into cats and the bullets in mid-air turn into mice. There is a general squeal from some of the females in the room, and then a cacophony of cat yowls, as twenty felines squirm to get free.)

LARRY: Let’s go!

(The three run back into the cave as the cats scratch their way to the floor, some chasing mice, some running for cover. After the general confusion, everybody was kung-fu fighting. Those kids were fast as lightning. Shag, Dentre, and the Century 21 agents suddenly discover they are back on even terms and join in the melee.)

PROFESSOR: No!!!!!!

(Everyone near the professor turns to look at what has the normally ice-cold professor in such a tizzy. The professor is looking at the T.A.C. – Thought Amplification Cannon where Chris is sitting at the controls.)

CHRIS: Laugh at my nakedness, will you?!

(Chris puts the interface helmet on and fires the cannon at the row of naked clones of himself that are still standing goo-eyed off to the side. Chris’s thought is shot into the clones and they come alive with a purpose. All then jump down and run into the fight.)

QUINCY: Ewwww.

(Quincy expresses the same thought that everyone who is fighting a naked Chris clone has. They dodge left or right, trying to avoid the clones’ naughty bits only to be caught off guard to punches and kicks. No one wants to fight a naked person, so the clones take the advantage of their opponents’ unwillingness to come into contact with someone else’s genitals.)

LARRY: Quick!

(Nathan turns to Miguel to urge him along, but doesn’t see him anymore. Miguel rushed out into the fight when the guns disappeared. Nathan shrugs and starts to follow Larry, dodging in and out of the groups of fighting people. They climb over the rubble of the collapsed wall and join Chris at the T.A.C.)

LARRY: The professor wants me to use the cannon to project my reality-altering thoughts at high-level government officials... like the President! Then he was going to use “speed freaks” like Chris to be couriers to ensure his new regime would dominate the country!

NATHAN: He said the cannon wouldn’t work without all that glass or whatever but Chris just used it!

LARRY: It takes a lot of power to project thought over long distances. The longer the cannon is switched on the hotter it gets. If he would have used it any longer it would have blown up or something. Quincy and Stubby haven’t collected enough glass to insulate it enough for the professor’s grand scheme of governmental overthrow.

(Suddenly, Larry is grabbed by the neck by the professor.)

PROFESSOR: You little twerp! You agreed to help us!

(Larry makes strangled noises until Nathan shoots a fist into the professor’s face. The professor’s wheelchair rolls back down the steps of the T.A.C. and falls into the fist fight, unable to come at them again.)

NATHAN: Why is COLBALT here?! What do they want?

PAUL: They want the weapon as well.

(Paul is standing where the professor was and he’s holding a gun. His face is streaked with tears.)

PAUL: I struck a deal with their group. The International Association of Realtors found out about the T.A.C. last week and knew that professor wanted Chris so we intervened and brought you to our safe house.

NATHAN: That was only last week? Sheesh. It seems like nine months ago...

PAUL: When it became obvious that I needed to get in closer with the professor, we staged my little show of powers at the gas station.

NATHAN: What?! You don’t have powers?!

PAUL: No. We bought one of their agents and staged the whole thing. Things were going fine... until Garrett!

(Paul starts crying again, the fresh image of Garrett and Angelina playing tongue hockey burns in the back of his eyelids. While all this is going on a bit of rock dust falls on the console and Larry looks up to see Chris hanging from the support structure at the top of the cave. He is inching along towards to the dampening generator, which is mounted in the middle of the cavern.)

(End of Part One)

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

[INT – EPICENTER OF AN EPIC BATTLE – DAY]

LARRY: Looks like your friend is trying to get himself killed again.

(Nathan looks up to see Chris playing first grade PE class, except a few hundred feet above a very hard floor, which is really more of a second grade thing.)

NATHAN: The dampening field. He has to turn it off so he can use his powers again.

LARRY: Um, yeah. Something like that.

NATHAN: Wait, how did you use your power to stop that bullet from taking out Chris?

LARRY: The two of you still haven’t figured that out yet, have you?

NATHAN: Figured out what?

LARRY: That dampening field doesn’t actually lower the ability to use your power. It interacts with your mind so that your doubts in what you can do keep you from performing to your highest ability.

NATHAN: Ok. Can you speak English for a minute, Larry?

LARRY: Have you ever read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull?”

NATHAN: No.

LARRY: Have you ever read any self-help?

NATHAN: No, have you heard of Cliffs Notes?

LARRY: Yeah.

NATHAN: I get the Chris Notes version of all the self-help stuff.

LARRY: So you understand the concept of limiting yourself.

NATHAN: Chris, be careful! Um, you could say I’ve had it explained to me a few times.

LARRY: What would you say if I told you that your ability to read minds is still there, but your brain has been trained to not believe it?

NATHAN: Your lips haven’t been moving this entire time.

LARRY: Exactly.

NATHAN: You have telepathy! Amazing!

(Larry sighs.)

NATHAN: Wow! Miguel is really getting into his new skill at fighting.

(Miguel falls back against the mounts of the T.A.C. and hits his head. He looks up at Nathan.)

MIGUEL: Suddenly, that song “Hurts So Good” makes so much sense to me. Chris is right. Rick Springfield is awesome!

(Miguel rushes back into the fight as Nathan yells after him.)

NATHA: That was John Coug… oh, nevermind.

(Nathan looks back at the Chris hanging from the support beam trying to turn off the dampening field a few hundred feet from the floor. Oh the excitement. If the narrator didn’t have to remain impartial, I might just wet myself. Of course, if this episode doesn’t end soon…)

PAUL: Why aren’t you paying attention to me!?

(Nathan looks at Paul.)

NATHAN: Oh, sorry man. You do have the gun…

(Nathan notices that Paul is actually yelling across the room at Angelina, who is doing something… well, um…)

LARRY: I’m really too young for some of the crap I’ve had to view today.

(Grrrl 2 looks in Larry’s direction and blushes.)

LARRY: They didn’t know I was standing there.

(Grrrl 3 and Miguel are facing off against each other.)

MIGUEL: I can’t really figure out which side the three of you are on.

GRRRL 3: Neither can I. I’m more of a follower.

(She punches him in the face.)

MIGUEL: You really know how to treat a guy.

GRRRL 3: Your wife doesn’t commit domestic abuse against you?

MIGUEL: Nah. We have a good marriage. No violence to speak of.

(She punches him again.)

MIGUEL: At least I won’t be coming home with hickies.

(Nathan is watching Chris slowly making his way to the dampening field. Paul is watching Garrett dampening Angelina’s field, and Larry is watching a You Tube video on his iGadgetoftheWeek.)

LARRY: I’m not sure why I got this thing. I already have seventeen other iDevices that can check email and watch You Tube videos.

NATHAN: Whoa! You have one of those! Holy cow! Those are amazing! Can I touch it? Can I hold it? Can I watch a video?

LARRY: I remember now. I was in the store and I was acting as dumb as that. And then I bought it. Hmm. No wonder I haven’t fully transcended beyond this world yet.

NATHAN: I remember reading the catalog about that. It has the most powerful speakers of any handheld product out there. It has a bullhorn mode.

LARRY: Really? I’m only to page 322 of the alphabetical list of features, The Backscratcher. It is amazingly helpful.

NATHAN: I started reading the list of features for when I can finally qualify for the home equity line of credit to afford it. I’m on page 528, Dampening Field Nullifier. I have a plan.

LARRY: You mean to nullify…

(Nathan grabs the iDevice.)

NATHAN: Yes, to root Chris on with the bullhorn!

(Nathan pushes a set of buttons on the touchscreen, and within thirty seconds, he asks Larry for his security code. Then he pushes more buttons, until finally thirty seconds after that he has turned on the bullhorn.)

LARRY: Don’t you think it would be better to nullify…

NATHAN: I’m sure you have other iDevices that you can watch You Tube on, Larry. This is more important.

(Nathan holds the iDevice to his mouth, and speaks words of encouragement to Chris, the resulting volume so loud that ALLCAPS only begin to give you an idea of how loud it is.)

NATHAN: WAY TO GO, CHRIS!!!!!! TURN THAT DAMPENING DEVICE OFF AND WE’LL GET OUT OF THIS YET!!!!!!!!

(Everyone stops fighting and looks at Nathan. Paul and Larry are covering their ears from the decibel level. Even Angelina and Garrett look for a second and then start smooching again. All the surviving mice drop dead, and the cats run out of the cave as though being chased by dog.)

MIGUEL: Oh good. I was tired of tripping over pussy.

(Everyone laughs at Miguel’s joke.)

MIGUEL: See, Chris! Everyone loves dick and fart jokes! Where’s Chris?

CHRIS: I’m up here, hanging on for dear life, because someone just scared the crap out of me, causing me to slip and almost fall to my death!

NATHAN (through the bullhorn): BUT YOU’RE DOING GREAT, BUDDY!!!!!!! ONLY A COUPLE OF MORE INCHES TO GO!!!!!

(They all hear a moan of agreement from Angelina. They all look briefly at Angelina and Garrett. Get bored. Look back at Chris. The professor is particularly interested.)

CHRIS: Motherfucker, Nathan! Stop trying to help me! The vibrations from that thing are making me lose my grip!

(Miguel starts dancing and Cabbage Patching.)

MIGUEL (singing): I got those good vibrations!

(Everyone stares at Miguel like he’s on crack.)

MIGUEL: See, Chris! No one thinks that outdated cultural references are funny!

PROFESSOR: Nathan. What kind of friend are you? You root your friend on just a little, and then literally leave him hanging without more encouragement. Why, it’s no wonder he’s given up on his pursuit to turn off the dampening device.

NATHAN: You’re right. How selfish of me. RAH RAH RAH!!!!! SISK BOOM BAH!!!!! GO CHRIS!!!! TURN OFF that damn dampening… What the hell?

CHRIS: Nathan, I will come back and haunt you! I swear!

NATHAN: Hold on, Chris. I can’t hear you over the ringing in my ears.

LARRY: No need to blame the queers, Nathan.

(Nathan punches a bunch of buttons trying to get the bullhorn switched back on. He watches as some other feature turns on.)

NATHAN: Oops that’s the Dampening Field Nullifier…

(Chris is suddenly standing in front of Nathan. He grabs the iDevice, runs off, hides it somewhere, appears again in front of Nathan again, and slaps him.)

NATHAN: What did I do?

(Chris rushes off again. He doesn’t reappear. Nathan looks at the professor and the combatants.)

NATHAN: I wish I knew if this was another one of his odd plans, or if he has really abandoned us this time.

(All the combatants shrug at Nathan, and start fighting again. Miguel can be heard yelling “Yeehaw” as he punches a redneck clone that staggers in front of him.)

NATHAN: Well, I guess he’s not…

(Chris appears in front of the professor with two swords.)

NATHAN: Nevermind.

CHRIS: Here’s the way I see it, professor. We have to fight to the death. If not, you will never admit defeat, and we’ll keep getting dragged back into your conflict.

PROFESSOR: Ok, but it has to be a fair fight. You can’t use your super speed.

CHRIS: Agreed.

(Chris and the professor face off, and soon swords start clanking.)

NATHAN: Ok, while they’re doing that, Larry, we need to do something about…

PAUL: How could she do this to me, Nathan? Didn’t I treat her like a queen with the freeze dried rations, and Star Wars videos?

NATHAN: Paul, if I was gay, that would be my ideal situation, but listen, man. Why are you pointing the gun at me?

PAUL: Because I’m sure that she’ll be sleeping with you next. She seems to want to sleep with every man she comes in contact with.

CHRIS: She hasn’t fucked me yet.

PROFESSOR: You’re not a real man, Chris.

CHRIS: I’ll help you in a minute, Nathan. I need to stop a smack talker here.

NATHAN: I’m really not sure how he’s survived so many years. Paul, forget her. Move on. Find something else to focus on. Like the T.A.C. here. It really needs to be dismantled.

PAUL: You’re right.

NATHAN: Good. Finally someone is thinking…

PAUL: But I’m not dismantling it. I’m taking it for the International Association of Realtors.

NATHAN: The I.R.A?

PAUL: No, I.A.R. Pay attention.

NATHAN: Well, that’s ok Paul…

PAUL: But first I’m going to kill you before you get a chance to fuck my girl!

(Nathan groans.)

(End Episode Forty-Seven)

Being a security guard

2011-11-25T08:00:00.001-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Well hello there! I'm sure you are online this 'Black Friday' reading interesting things instead of giving into the hysteria that is the beginning of the 2011 Christmas Shopping Season. In that case, let's have a Black Celebration!

Today's blog is a recollection of some of my exploits as a security guard. You might not think that it's too exciting but there were a few interesting bits that I thought you'd like to read.

I got my start in the security field in 1993 when my brother told me about a contract security company in Dallas that he was working for (but working in the Fort Worth area). He encouraged me to try it out and I did. I started my new job after working at Kmart for several years so the change was nice and the experience was very different. I began working at several different posts in the Fort Worth area. Once place I would have to stand around all day in one spot in the burning sun while at another I would stand around while employees entered and left a PC manufacturing plant, using a wand on them to make sure they weren't stealing (that sucked). They finally got me a semi permanent spot at a building right across from the Water Gardens in downtown Fort Worth. You can read more about it in a series of blogs I wrote back in March. Long story short about the building next to the Water Gardens is that it gave me lots of reading time but not much excitement.

A few months into that post I got transferred again to Houston General Insurance company (see the blog above for alot more detail about that post). During this time I had run of the place in the evenings and had lots of fun reading books, writing, playing PC games, poking my nose into every part of that place, and other fun. A couple of times the fire alarms went off and that was unnerving. I set the fire alarm off once by being a dumb ass and putting the elevator key (a long metal stick) into the 'fireman phone jack' in the stair well. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. Anyway it freaked me out when the alarm went off. There was no one there at the time so I was alright. Once someone called an escort service and sent a woman to the building and the guard on duty took her up to the floor she was requested to go to (to model lingerie). After getting there and discovering that there was no one on that floor she left. Now the guard on duty was a Seminary student and this was very upsetting to him. I had a good laugh though. There was a period of time when I worked during the day there and we had medical emergencies. Since building management was there I was relegated to standing out at the parking lot entrance to flag down the ambulance or firetruck.

Several years later I got another security job and there were many shenanigans that I got up to with Chris shooting Season 1 of the public access show. You can read all about those in this blog. Other than those instances were I was the culpruit of the mayhem I would often pass cars parked on the side of the some of the backstreets with the windows fogged up. I'm sure the people in those vehicles were praying or something innocent like that. I would also see cars go park behind some of the empty business so I would get out in front and go into the building and sneek a peek at the people through windows. I got to see some BJs in progess and some people making out and such. I am sure those were married people (to eachother) and what I thought were BJs were infact medial testing. She was just checking his area for some medical reason. I never busted any of these people. I am sure there are guards who enjoy doing that sort of thing but I was more of a live and let live knid of guy. They weren't doing anything to the property so I was fine with it. I would be parked someone nearby afterwards when they would leave so I am sure I scared a few of them, te he he.

If you prove to be reliable and dependable you can make it far in a security job. A lot of people get into the field but are generally flaky (usually depending on the pay) so someone who can be relied on will get lots of opportunities to get into good posts. The pay is not so great but it's better than busting your ass at retail and making less.

I have noticed that many people can't handle being a security guard. Some people need that interaction with other to feel fulfilled in their job. For someone like me the quiet of a security job was welcome. It was just me and my thoughts. All that 'me' time allowed me to do a lot of brainstorming and such. I guess this type of job is good for the creative type of person.

Being a security guard for several different companies has given me a great range of experience and some definite opinions about the industry. I never worked as an armed guard and I would never want to. We live in a day and age where people's lives are cheap and there are many who wouldn't loose a night of sleep over killing you so my opinions are about the unarmed aspect of security. I believe it's an easy job that requires little (as long as you are at the right post). Working for a contract security company you will probably get shifted around to a lot of different (good and bad) posts but all in all your job allows you to do a lot of nothing while doing something (if that makes sense). Even if you are patrolling you have alot of thinking time. If you can write (or text or whatever) you can do much even at the most annoying posts. The requirements for a security job a little and most people can do it (unless you have a serious criminal record). All in all it's a fairly easy job that offers a lot of alone time.

Nathan's Debt: A What If

2011-11-24T07:13:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Last week, I discussed my thoughts about Nathan’s goal to get rid of his credit card debt once and for all, and his choice to take me on as his accountability buddy. I spoke from a point of view of a few honest truths regarding the situation as it was, and it was probably the more radical thoughts that earned me the comment that was left within 24 hours of me publishing the post. The comment was:

Hey Nate,
Whatever you do, don’t let this retard near your finances.

I wish I could say that I was the one who came up with that comment. It was funny to me. I’m not sure how much of the Enemy of Debt posts that this guy has read, but at the very least we can be reasonably sure he read that post. What I’m trying to figure out is what I said that was wrong in this guy’s eyes.

Look beyond all of the reality show rhetoric that was having to do with the blog series, and all you have is me saying something to the effect of: Nathan wants to get rid of his credit card debt, and my advice to him is to earn more and spend less, while taking what he has treated as his disposable income for years and paying his bills with it. What exactly is retarded about that?

That’s ok though. I know that I wasn’t being exactly that clear about it. I was talking about turning Nathan’s life into a drama filled mess that would be interesting to write about. I also knew that Nathan wasn’t going to be entirely on board with the idea of having a life that was a drama filled mess. We did talk the other night though when I went to visit him, and I’m happy to report that at this stage of the game, he is at least willing to sacrifice to get through the year successful in his goal. I will write about what we talked about in another post that will be part of the opening episodes of “Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt” Season Two.

For now, I wanted to add to the feeling that I’m a chaotic financial retard by discussing how I would have gone about trying to get all of Nathan’s debt paid in the course of a year. At this time if you count credit cards, student loans, and other loans (personal, cars, house) Nathan has around $137,000 in debt. He and his wife do not make that much in a year, and even if they did, they do still have to eat and pay their bills. I joked with Nathan and said that he could keep the internet, but only so he could eBay. Then he pointed out that he can’t take IT calls from home without it. I conceded that it counts as a necessity then.

After Hours IT – Nathan has the ability to take the phones at his job, and he gets paid pretty well for it when he does. If I had my way, he would literally have the phones all 366 days of 2012. He might choose to do that anyway, who knows, but talk about the easiest way to increase his income over the year.

eBay – There is a part of me that still wants to tell Nathan to go absolutely stupid with eBay over the next year. The problem is that I’m not convinced that there is enough of a market out there for him to sell enough to almost triple his income for the year. If we were trying to pay all of his debt though, I would tell him to do much more of this than I am going to tell him to do.

Handyman Stuff – I would tell Nathan to start putting out the word that he can do many home repairs. He has two series of posts about fixing his house and his mom’s rent house. I would also tell him to take on any landscaping work he could get during the summer. The problem is that he works all day, so he would have to leave work and use the remaining sunlight to do that, or he would just not have days off on the weekend. I would probably have to help him.

Cutting Back – This one is pretty obvious, and is part of the two main strategies: earning more and spending less. When I was dealing with Genghis, he had no spending money out of necessity. In a strange way, even though it’s not completely out of necessity, I think Nathan should use the same strategy. I feel he should become reacquainted with all the stuff he’s bought over the years (since he’s still paying for a lot of it) and not buy anything new at all. His wife says that she realizes that she won’t get her $5 coffee anymore, and Nathan realizes that he will be brown bagging it.

Selling Stuff – Aside from the regular eBay business, I feel that Nathan should liquidate half of what he owns, particularly the half that will sell for a reasonable amount. We’ll have to have a talk about any savings he has that isn’t in a retirement account, like the stock he has. I would have him sell those off at some point in the year to get rid of debt. Selling personal stuff would be with the promise to himself that once the debt was gone, he could buy anything he wished to own again, but this time using cash.

Selling the Stuff that Can’t Be Paid off by the End of the Year – Here’s the part that I think Nathan would never go for, but it would be part of my plan if I was trying to get him completely out of debt. I would have them drive their current car payments until December 2012, and then, with enough money in the bank to pay off the difference and to buy good used cars, I would have them sell the cars. Starting in January 2012, I would have him looking for a good undervalued house near his work that needed repair to sell at its actual market value. I would have him sell his current home, even if it’s at a loss, and have him move into the undervalued house. Being Nathan, he would be compelled to fix it up, and by the end of the year I would have him sell that house too at a profit, and then find a place to rent, knowing full well that it would take him about two years at that point, having no debt and no payments, to save up enough to buy a small house for cash.

This won’t happen, of course, not all of it, at least. It would be an interesting ride. But at the end of the day, no matter how uncomfortable any of this makes anybody feel, all it is saying is for Nathan to do two things: earn more and spend less. I would never advise him to do anything extremely speculative to try to pay off a little debt. The two most speculative things in this “extreme version” of attacking his debt are doing lots of eBay and buying a house to flip.

The eBay is something he’s been doing for years, and he doesn’t lose money doing it. The house flipping would be reasonably safe, because even if he couldn’t sell the house he bought, they would still have a place to live. And let’s face it, $137,000 at 5% annual interest is $6,850 a year. He’s already losing money just by staying in debt. Nothing I’ve said is all that risky to his financial future compared to staying in debt.

Occupy a job you damn dirty apes!

2011-11-23T11:04:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

This blog is a companion piece to Chris' Occupy blog he posted yesterday. Chris makes some good points... in fact his well thought out ideas are probably the ideas that these hippies would come to if they just stopped their free hate festival and really sat down and thought about it. His ideas certainly give me pause for thought.

Chris states that he is a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I am more of a social and fiscal conservative. I have a few skewed ideas that don't belong in one camp or another but for the most part you can label me a conservative.

The first knee-jerk reaction to these protests is negative. The comments Chris relays from certain conservatives are fairly accurate as far as those initial thoughts go. When I see them all I am seeing is a bunch of unwashed young people who want a handout. They want government to come in a punish rich people and give it to them. That initial reaction from me is that they want the government to give it to THEM, not the poor in general, but them specifically.

If you take a few minutes and go online and look up some of the 'interview' videos of these youngsters you will find mostly 'Jay-walking' type videos. They give the most ridiculous and uninformed answers as to what they are doing and why they are even there. Now, just like Jay-walking segments I am sure the people who post these have to discard many correct and well-informed interviewees to get the popular, funny stuff. BTW I remeber Howard Stern used to have segments like that Jay-walking (which I'm sure is where Jay Leno got the idea). These videos (of the Occupy crowd) only further enforce the idea that these kids are ill-informed and are just wasting time.

The steps that Chris outlines in his blog are right on the money. The biggest one that stuck me was idea that we should be shopping at more mom and pop types stores (or at least, not the big powerful chain stores). This use of the power of the consumer would really cripple mega-conglomerations and make them change their ways (or loose too much business). I don't think twice about shopping at Walmart, Home Depot, or eating at McDonalds. Imagine how much money I spend at these places combined. If I spent that money at smaller establishements (and other did too) that would really change things.

If you notice in my last paragraph that that idea and many of the ideas that Chris puts forward rely on MANY people changing their ways. Chris talks about voting for who you really want, not along party lines. That's fine and all but you have to get others to do the same. I voted for Chris (no lie) in the 2008 Presidental election becasue I didn't think either real candidate was worth it. Some would say I threw away my vote and it's all my fault we have one of the most useless Presidents of all time in office but I disagree. I am doing what I should have done but is it useless most other people do it. The real difficulty is getting others to realize and take that step... oh no here it comes again.... and get out of our comfort zones and thing can and would change. Looking for the government or a President to change things for you will never work.

The Occupy movement is the symptom of the issue of unbalance in our nation. It will never be a solution. Not that everyone should be 'balanced' and have the same amount of money etc.. but that those rules and laws in place that have been abused and incorrectly used (including our lawmakers) should be brought back into line and corrected so this nation will function in a way that give eveyone something... opportunity. Not money, not an unfair advantage but the opportunity to do what they can to make their lives mean something and be successful (in which ever form that may take).

Occupying a Fence on Wall Street

2011-11-22T06:59:00.001-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

I guess it’s about time that I wrote my thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, even if I don’t have that many. Let me start by saying that in most cases I’m a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Mostly, I’m just a fence sitter. People seem to think that fence sitting is not making up your mind about something. I’ve been accused of not taking a side so that no matter what I can say that I was right. I’m not sure how that works with the accusation that once I have an opinion about something that I can’t be swayed, but that’s ok. To me fence sitting is more like not choosing a side immediately. You sit in the middle and look at all sides and then you figure out where to go.

As near as I can tell, Occupy Wall Street is a liberal movement that sprung up because our liberal president didn’t bring about the change that he promised. This of course interests me, because the conservative side of the argument seems to want to attack the protesters as though they were singing the praises of Obama. I think if I was going for a conservative spin I would be like, “What we have here is real Americans using their first amendment right to peaceful protest to speak out against being misled by people in power. The interesting part is that they are liberals who are upset with their liberal leader for not delivering on his promises.” Bam. Suddenly we have President Perry for four years.

But the conservative news… oops, I mean the conservative opinion mongers have trouble speaking in a way that rises above elementary school taunting. Instead of saying, “The protesters have interesting ideas that don’t agree with my opinions on fiscal responsibility,” they come out with the equivalent of, “The protesters are ugly and their mamas dress them funny.” They say things like, “These are a bunch of unemployed hippies.”

Normally, this type of tactic is used to deflect thinking from the actual issue. It’s the same thing as taking on our national deficit by saying that it’s liberal spending, but then not being willing to cut spending. The weird thing is that I see another odd paradox in the unemployed protesters argument. If nearly every one of those protesters are actually unemployed, then doesn’t it speak to just how bad unemployment is in this nation. If I was going for the conservative spin again, I would say, “It’s no wonder these liberals are protesting their own president, they want jobs, but there aren’t enough jobs created under this administration.” But no. They say, “These are just a bunch of lazy slobs who decided that they would just take their unemployment checks and go protest.” This is a weird argument because it more or less says that the unemployment rate isn’t our president’s fault because the unemployed won’t go get all the great jobs that are available.

My problem with the coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that I’m not hearing anyone talk about what the actual problem is, you know, aside from trying to shame people into not using their first amendment right to free protest. The problem is that even if you agree with the Occupy Wall Street beliefs; asking the government to fix it is the wrong way to go. If you agree with it then as a society, and, for those of you who vote, as voters, we should be dealing with the gap between the haves and the have nots on our own, not asking the government to fix the problem. If you agree with it then we should be lowering the basic power scheme of corporations ourselves, not asking the government to fix the problem.

If Occupy Wall Street is outrage against 1% of the population controlling 38% of the wealth, if Occupy Wall Street is an outrage against the excess wealth of corporations, then this is what the 99% of the population should be doing.

Step One: Save money. Work two jobs for a while and live off the income of one. If you’re married or living with a partner, live off the higher of the two incomes and save the rest. If even half of our society did this, we would have a significant middle class again.

Step Two: Seek out small businesses for any purchases you can make through small businesses. The fact is that major corporations will lose all of their power to influence the government through lobbying the moment that they are profiting, but not excessively profiting. You don’t need the government to fix that.

Step Three: When you do purchase through large businesses, find as many as you can that operate in a way that is ethical and pro-consumer. I don’t think that we really care all that much that corporations have a lot of money. They provide jobs. We need jobs. I think that we don’t like corporations that misuse the money.

Step Four: Use the charitable donations tax break to lessen the need for government programs. Be sure to pick charities and non-profits that make things happen that you wish to see happen without losing too much of their donations to operations costs.

Step Five: View yourself as a profit center. This ties into Step One, but I want to give it its own section. The biggest problem that I see right now, as money goes, is that we would be afraid to work for a company that handles its money the way that many of us do. We would be afraid that we would show up one week for our paycheck to find out that the company was in bankruptcy. Saving is simply the way that we profit as workers. Example in Step Six.

Step Six: Avoid loans and credit as much as possible. The problem with interest is that it is money that is being paid out that isn’t being earned. Technically, it is a service, but it’s not a service that does something for you specifically. It’s not like hiring someone to mow your lawn or fix your car. It is simply purchasing something now as opposed to later. That’s all. I talked about being a profit center in step five. Let me ask you this. Would you start a business where you buy a product for $1 a unit and then sell that product for 95 cents a unit? No. You wouldn’t. You would be basically giving your money away, right? You wouldn’t even turn around and sell it for $1 a unit would you? That’s a rough equivalent of what you do when you work and then spend your whole paycheck without saving, and especially if you incur loan or credit debt while you’re at it.

Step Seven: Make your vote count. I’ve heard dumb people say that if you don’t vote you don’t have the right to bitch. My take on it is that if you vote for someone you don’t really back, you might as well have not voted. Rather than blindly voting down party lines, how about if you sit down each election and ask yourself, what are the three most important issues to me right now? Then when you vote, vote for the candidate who actually works (rather than just speaking about doing it) toward making your three priorities a reality. Even better, don’t vote for those who don’t. At the very least, even if you feel compelled to vote for the lesser of two evils, make it an informed decision. It may not make sense to some people to bitch if you don’t vote, but to me it makes no sense to be lazy about voting and then bitch about what you’re stuck with as leaders.

In closing, I just want to say that I get what the Wall Street Occupiers are upset about. The social liberal in me wants to even agree with them. A people oppressed by financial inequality are still a people oppressed. The problem is that the fiscal conservative in me doesn’t agree with trying to make the government fix the problem by punishing, through higher taxation, those who have made the kind of money that the Occupiers are angry that they aren’t making. It just seems like there is a contradiction in there somewhere, because the moment you tax the corporations at a higher tax rate, the lay-offs will begin, and the rehiring at a lower rate of pay will follow. To me that doesn’t fix the earnings gap.

Visiting some goals for 2012

2011-11-21T09:44:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Goals are important. Setting goals are fairly easy and give you an overall view of what you want (whether is for the upcoming year or goals for one day of your week). I like goals. Chris likes goals. We both try to set goals and accomplish them over 10 week periods (as you may have read about in this blog in the past).

Today's post is about my goals for the upcoming year. We haven't really discussed goals recently (like we used to) mainly due to Chris' extreme employment situation. We usually sit down and list goals we want to accomplish individually and then list goals we want to work on as a group (According To Whim). These goals will be anything from painting the house to paying off a bill to reading a certain number of books.

I will admit we have a hard time accomplishing a lot of our goals. That doesn't mean we should just ditch the idea of setting goals. I think that the process helps focus you on what you really want and any sort of forward motion is good (even if you don't accomplish it). Chris is really big about goals that push you out of your 'comfort zone'. This is some goal mumbo jumbo he read in one of the many books he has memorized about goal setting. I hate that term: 'comfort zone'. I hate it because I know it's true. If you want to accomplish something major it almost always involves coming out of your comfort zone. A comfort zone might be anything that make you 'uncomfortable'. Me getting off my ass to drive to Fort Worth to shoot some stuff at the haunted house was a bit of coming out of my comfort zone. I think that some of these experts in goal setting dont' think it's worth bothering with unless you are coming out of your comfort zone. I believe that any goal that you set out to do and accomplish is worth the effort.

We haven't had our 2012 goal talk yet. I briefly discussed it with Chris on his way out of the house last night. He came over for a few hours to play (and teach me) Back Gammon, eat dinner, and talk a little about my debt reduction stuff. I told him I had a few ideas for goal setting for 2012 and that we need to have that meeting. During one of these meetings we will go over what we had as goals for the last ten weeks and year and discuss why we failed to meet some of them and what we want to do for the coming year.

My 2012 main goal is to get out of credit card debt. This is a goal that Chris has discussed in one of his last posts. He is going to help me stay focused on getting this debt take care of. That is my main goal but there will be several other goals that I will set for 2012, all of which I haven't even thought about yet. One of the things I will do is go back and look at the yearly goals I have set for myself over the last couple of years and see if any are still pertinent and should come forward.

The only other goal I have is some what large but doesn't require me to come out of my comfort zone too much so it should be easy in the long run. I want to take all the videos we have on YouTube from Season 1 of our Public Access Show: According To Whim and re-encode them into DIVX format and re-upload them. When I started uploading back in 2003/4 I was using the Windows Media Player to encode videos and that along with the compression that YouTube does it made all those videos look really rough. I have 166 videos up there and about 75% are in the old compressed codec and they look awful. This will mean we will lose our total 'view' count (which is at 102,000) but this is minor when you consider it's the content that is important, not the views.

I will come up with more goals and we will try to keep them but will probably loose out on a few. That's just the way it works. I will try though.

No Longer Daily

2011-11-20T14:35:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

We recently had a theme week, and I mentioned that I wanted to write a bit about the untapped well of potential that was the theme week. This is basically the idea that a theme week, when chosen well, provides a topic that both Nathan and I can get three posts out of. In the year of 2011, where we set out to post daily, a few more theme weeks might have been helpful for getting us through.

I also wrote a post at the start of the year discussing the trouble with daily goals. For some people a daily goal is the most helpful tool, and for others, like Nathan and me, it can be a burden. The problem is that we both tend to get focused on certain things for a while, and then we become focused on other things for a while. That is why the daily blog, when not officially a daily blog, tends to sometimes not be posted to for months at a time.

There were a number of things that we tried to do to help us get through the year, but they were met with varying degrees of success, including the degree that isn’t success.

Reserves – The idea was that we would always have so many reserves in place that we could choose the better of the posts to post. The problem is that we often ended up using the reserves as emergency posts when we didn’t have time to write one, and rebuilding the reserves seemed difficult. The odd thing is that when you’re publishing with such high volume, things like reserves and scheduled posts have a way of cycling through quicker than you expect. You might have eight reserves one week, and two weeks later, you have two left, wondering what to write.

Every Other Day – We split the writing duties pretty evenly. Most weeks Nathan took Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I took Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. This made sure that we each wrote three posts a week, and that neither of us would have to write more to achieve our daily goal. What about Saturday, you ask.

The Serial – While Nathan had a “sorta-like/hate” relationship with the serial, by year’s end 52 of the 365 days (about 14%) will have been days that we didn’t have to come up with a topic to write about. Sure, we needed to come up with the next part of the story, but we had a topic. This also allowed us to have a semi-consistent schedule for posting without having to figure out whose week it was for an extra post.

The serial is actually where the point of this post started. When I went to Nathan’s a couple of weeks ago, we had a brief discussion outside before I left. I said, “I’m presuming you won’t want to do another serial next year, unless you have some idea that you haven’t shared.” He told me that I presumed right. Then he asked if we were going to have the same daily goal for the blog next year. I told him we didn’t have to. Here are the reasons that I think that continuing to write a daily blog is probably a bad idea at this point.

Interest and Number of Topics – The biggest problem is that Nathan has been burned out on it for quite a while now. He has said that the burden of coming up with topics has been rough. I agree. Though I don’t think we’re having trouble coming up with topics, as much as we’re having trouble coming up with topics that we’re interested in writing about. I’ve gotten to a point where one of my weekly features (that has been put on hold for theme weeks and other stuff for a couple of weeks) is me going through all the topics I brainstormed and writing what I can about each. While it has made for some interesting writing here and there, it is not the ideal writing circumstance. I haven’t been burned out, but I haven’t been getting quite as much enjoyment from it.

Volume – Another thing is simply that when we write, we don’t tend to ever do 200 word bursts that sometimes passes as a daily blog. Even Seth Godin will write blogs that are readable in less than a minute, as well as blogs that take a few minutes to read. Nathan and I tend to write at least a page every time we sit down to write the blog. This became such that I started limiting myself to avoid really long posts. If I ever hit the 2,000 word mark, I would turn it into a multi-part post. When I did the “Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt” feature, rather than try to write everything that happened as it happened, I limited myself to 1,200 words, and just didn’t fret that the events I was posting were often a month gone by.

Promotion – The thing about a daily blog is that it’s probably pretty pointless when you aren’t trying to get people to your blog to read. We do write some good stuff (we write some stinkers too) but we’re not focused enough that we get many consistent readers. I think there is a readership out there somewhere, but until we try to find that readership, I don’t think they will find us. We had a lot of goals at the start of 2011, and many of them fell prey to my goal of finding enough work to pay my bills. One goal that I had with the daily blog was to find a daily readership, but it’s hard to do when the best you can do is put tags on your blog.

I spoke with Nathan recently to determine what we would do with the blog in 2012. My suggestion was that we each try for seven posts a month. This would keep the blog consistently updating while not being quite as burdensome on us. He wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to focus on the other things we’d not completed this year. I told him that the irony of that is if we’re doing things, we’ll have material to write about. That was one of the problems with topics. When we got together with Miguel at the Water Gardens to re-shoot some footage, I didn’t have to rack my brain for what to write about. I had a whole four hours of activity to discuss, and it was probably more on topic for a blog that’s supposed to be about our creative work than the blog has been most of the year.

We’re not sure what we’re going to do in 2012 as the blog goes. It seems like it will be unscheduled, and that we’ll only post when we have something to post. I feel we should have some sort of schedule, be it: seven posts a month; or six, five, or four posts a month; or a minimum of one post a week from each of us. Something that keeps the blog from not being updated for weeks and months at a time.

At this time, I still have the CTFU brainstorm topics that I can go through. Depending on how involved Nathan wants the new “Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt” to be, I have that. Nathan will likely have stuff to write about once he isn’t feeling a deadline pressure to find something to write. And I’m sure that if we get back to project work in the coming year, there will be that. I’ve thought that perhaps Nathan and I can do some writing sessions together, whether it’s when I come over or maybe over the phone where we take a set amount of time to write so much in order to generate material. We’ll see.

At this point though, the purpose of this post is just to say that we won’t be posting as much next year. If you read our blog with any regularity, but haven’t ever commented, now might be the time to comment. While we’re almost certainly not going to do daily writing anymore, it might be more motivating to have some sort of schedule if we know we’re being read. At this time though, the time pressure of three and a half posts a week is too much.

Flash Ahhhh!: Episode Forty-Six - The Gang's All Here

2011-11-19T08:31:00.002-06:00

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

CHRIS: The professor can’t get away with this, guys. What do we do?

MIGUEL: You’ll have to turn off that dampening field, and then you can quickly run around and untie us, and tie all of them up.

CHRIS: But without my super speed…

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: But without my super speed, how do I get to the dampening field without being stopped? I was only ever sufficient at football.

MIGUEL: But you were good at running plays.

CHRIS: But only with…

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: But only with the kids in my neighbourhood. I probably wouldn’t do well now.

MIGUEL: You’re presuming they are better than you. Do you think our captors are trained in football?

(Chris looks at Angelina.)

CHRIS: Some of them, maybe.

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: What Nathan! Unless you’re going to say something helpful…

NATHAN: Where is part one of this episode?

CHRIS: Motherfucker. Go to credits.

(The credits come on. Think “Saved By the Bell” meets “American Idol” with Chris and Nathan running around doing wacky stuff… animated. They’re animated. And Miguel is trying to keep up with their heroic deeds, but he keeps getting harmed in cartoonish ways. The song sounds an awful lot like something Queen would do, but is sufficiently different enough so they don’t get sued. At the end of the credit sequence, Chris and Nathan are standing there with Miguel, and an anvil drops on Miguel. Chris and Nathan give thumbs up to the camera, and we see Miguel’s hand coming from under the anvil also giving thumbs up. There is a poster of George Lucas taped to the anvil.)

by the According To Whim .com crew

(Part One by Nathan Stout)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

(Chris has rushed back, after tying up loose ends, only to find his compatriots tied up and himself the victim of the “power negation ray” that has killed his super speed ability. The professor, Quincy, Stubby, Paul, the Grrrls, a few surviving Redneck clones, and Chris’s 10 naked, mindless clones stand in Stubby’s cave hideout. Nathan, Shag, Miguel, Dentre, and the pantsuited Century 21 agents stand in a huge circle, wrapped with thick ropes.)

PROFESSOR: Now Chris, how many times have I told you to just get the fuck out of my way?

CHRIS: I can’t help it. I figured out your plans and had to do something about it.

PROFESSOR: Really?

CHRIS: Yes. By the way, just for clarification, what are your plans?

PROFESSOR: They don’t include you.

(The professor pulls out a gun and points it at Chris.)

CHRIS: Really? I thought you didn’t want to kill anyone.

PROFESSOR: Usually, but you are so insufferable that I feel I need to.

(The professor fires. Chris doubles over in pain.)

CHRIS: Shit that hurt!

(Shag sees something red then turns his head away. Chris curls into a fetal ball and stops moving.)

QUINCY: About fucking time!

PROFESSOR: Well, Stubby? How does it feel?

STUBBY: I don’t know. Kind of a let down really. I had hoped to more or less humiliate him until he couldn’t bear to live anymore. I guess I’m satisfied.

(The cluster of tied up prisoners keep Nathan and Miguel facing the opposite direction, away from Chris.)

PROFESSOR: Stubby, you and Quincy get back to glass collecting. The T.A.C. needs more insulation if it is going to project Larry’s thoughts all the way to Washington.

(Chris stirs then moans out in a fading breath.)

CHRIS: Ohhhhh. Thatssss it.....

(Chris exhales loudly then stops moving again.)

PROFESSOR: Cripes.

(He looks at Stubby and Quincy and they jump.)

PAUL: Where is Angelina? She’s been missing for a while now.

PROFESSOR: How do I know? You’re her dog, go sniff her out.

(Everyone splits up to do their own thing while the prisoners stand silent. Nathan and Miguel are stunned at what happened.)

NATHAN: Oh man...

DENTRE: Hang in there.

MIGUEL: I need to get free. I have more ass to kick.

SHAG: Calm down, mannnn.

MIGUEL: You don’t understand...

SHAG: I know. Chris was your best friend and you want to avenge his death.

MIGUEL: No, I love fighting! It gives me focus, it makes me powerful. Chris’s death only adds fuel to my fire. I want to take them all down!

(Miguel struggles against the big rope to no avail.)

PAUL: Hey!

(The shout is so loud that everyone in the cave stops. Paul has pushed a pile of boxes to the side and Angelina and Garrett are making out like bandits... as in they are kissing a lot, not stealing or making great profit on some business venture.)

GARRETT: Mumhmhummmmm.

(Garrett is unable to talk with Angelina’s tongue in his mouth. She stops and turns to Paul.)

ANGELINA: Don’t be mad, baby. It’s only business.

(Paul is totally confused by this statement as he tries to play it back in his mind several ways.)

PAUL: What in the hell does that mean?

ANGELINA: Highest bidder.

PROFESSOR: Shit.

(There is a huge explosion overhead. The wall between the main chamber and the chamber with the T.A.C. in it collapses, making one big room. From overhead shouts resound and ropes drop down. Men in military gear descend and the battle starts anew).

DENTRE: Everyone, back up!

(The tied up prisoners start to shuffle back out of the way of the action. A voice can be heard over the noise.)

ERIC: Take them down boys, but don’t damage the gun!

(End of Part One)

(Part Two by Chris McGinty)

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

(Chris and Angelina struggle, rolling around on the ground. Miguel holds Paul back with a hold he learned by watching the gay wedding episode of “professional” wrestling. Nathan is watching Chris’s struggle with a look of appalled interest.)

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: You won’t get away this time, Angelina!

ANGELINA: I’ve got you right where I want you.

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: Unless you know some amazing move to stop me, I don’t see how you have me where you want me. After all, I’m on top of you, wedged between your legs, and you’re doing all you can to get me off.

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: Nathan, not now. I just realized I may be experiencing a fantasy come true.

NATHAN: Chris, did you read the first part, or just copy/paste it?

CHRIS: Motherfucker. Sorry, folks. We’ll be back after these messages.

(We see Nathan sitting at a kitchen table looking at a bowl with mild dismay. Chris walks on screen.)

CHRIS: Is your cereal getting you down?

NATHAN: Yes.

CHRIS: Did it used to bring joy to your morning, but now it feels like a chore to get through it?

NATHAN: Yes.

CHRIS: Then…

NATHAN: Although, you were laying it on a bit thick with that whole “joy to your morning” bit. I’m not sure I was ever all that excited about it.

CHRIS: Ok. We got it. Can we get back on script?

NATHAN: Sorry.

CHRIS: Then try new Rick Springfield cereal.

NATHAN: Rick Springfield cereal!

CHRIS: Yes. Now you too can have the fruity taste of Rick Springfield in the morning. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s ask our celebrity endorsement.

NATHAN: Oh my god! You got Rick Springfield to endorse Rick Springfield cereal?

CHRIS: No, he passed. But we have Martha Quinn, former Veejay on MTV.

MARTHA (clearly reading a cue card): How delicious is this cereal!

CHRIS: We had to keep that line generic, because it’s going into all the General Mills product line commercials.

NATHAN: I apologize if I seem ignorant, but what exactly is a Veejay?

MARTHA: Like a Deejay, but with videos.

NATHAN: Like Disc Jockey, but Video Jockey?

MARTHA: Right.

NATHAN: That makes sense, but how were you a Veejay on MTV? MTV doesn’t show videos.

CHRIS: Nevermind that right now. I just want to tell everyone to go buy some Rick Springfield cereal from your favourite grocery store, on this short list of participating stores.

(There is a list that includes a Skaggs Alpha-Beta in Wilmington, Utah, and a Winn-Dixie in Toronto, New Jersey. And that’s the whole list. Then a jingle that sounds an awful lot like “Jesse’s Girl” comes on.)

CHORUS: I wish that I had Rick Springfield cereal!

CHRIS: We all need it!

NATHAN: I need it too!

(And now back to…)

CHORUS: Flash Ahhhh!

(We come back, and we’re at the lagoon. We see Miguel running along the shore in his red shirt and white hat.)

MIGUEL: Skipper! Skipper!

(Nathan comes running out in his blue shirt and white hat.)

NATHAN: What is it, little buddy?

MIGUEL: Chris has been killed.

NATHAN: That’s not possible.

(The professor wheels out in his wheelchair made of bamboo and coconut.)

PROFESSOR: He’s right, Skipper. I shot Chris.

NATHAN: Professor, no.

(Dentre and Shag walk up.)

DENTRE: We’re Ginger and MaryAnn.

NATHAN: Which is whi… oh, it doesn’t matter. Where’s Mr. and Mrs. Howell.

GARRETT AND ANGELINA: We’re over here.

(They look over and see Garrett and Angelina dressed as millionaires, sitting at a table.)

GARRETT: Ah yes, Lovie. Let me count out your money to you.

(Garrett has a wad of bills, and he starts counting, and slapping them down on the table.)

GARRETT: Four. Eight. Fifteen. Sixteen. Twenty-Three. Forty-Two.

(Paul jumps out as a witch doctor.)

SHAGGY: Zoinks! Run, Scoob!

SCOOBY: Ruh Roh!

NATHAN: Would somebody please tell me what the hell…

(Michael Emerson walks out.)

MICHAEL EMERSON: I’m here to reprise my role as Benjamin Linus. And this is my sister Lucy.

(Chris walks by.)

CHRIS: I love Lucy.

NATHAN: Wait! Chris!

CHRIS: Such a great Candlebox album.

(Larry walks up to Michael Emerson.)

LARRY: Aren’t you in a new show?

MICHAEL EMERSON: Why yes, Mr. Reese.

LARRY: My name is Larry… and Reece is spelled with a “c.”

NATHAN: Chris! What is going on?

CHRIS: Well, since I’m no longer needed as an actor, I’ve been put in charge of the writing. I thought we needed more pop cultural references.

NATHAN: No! No! I refuse.

[INT – STUBBY’S HIDEOUT – DAY]

PROFESSOR: What do you refuse, Nathan?

NATHAN: No one else saw all of that?

PROFESSOR: Larry’s power is reaching a prime, and it’s being wasted on your lame hallucinations. Quincy and Stubby need to hurry up. Eric needs to call off his men. Garrett and Angelina need to quit swallowing each other’s tongues. I want order!

ERIC: I think it’s a bit late for that, professor.

MIGUEL: Nathan, I’m starting to think that we’re stuck in a never ending cycle of misery.

(A bullet grazes by Miguel, ricocheting off the wall of the cave, and bouncing off of Shag’s platform boots.)

SHAG: Hey now. All I can see is this wall, but I don’t think I like what I’m not seeing.

MIGUEL: Like no matter what we do, there will never be a true victor.

NATHAN: It can’t be that bleak, Miguel.

(A bullet slides through Nathan’s hair, and also ricochets off the cave wall, and also hits Dentre’s funny bone, not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to make him scream in pain.)

NATHAN: That was a bit close, Eric!

MIGUEL: That’s what I mean. Five seconds ago, the professor was clearly the victor. Five seconds before that, Chris was the victor. Now, Eric seems to be taking home the prize.

(They watch as Garrett and Angelina scoot away from the gunplay, all the while fondling, groping, and kissing each other.)

MIGUEL: In a manner of speaking, Eric is taking home the prize. In another, less PC, manner of speaking…

NATHAN: One thing has changed though. I’m devastated that Chris is dead, but at the very least… If we can just get out of here. Once we’re gone, we have no reason to come back. No one here cares about us, and Chris was the one who kept dragging us back into the conflict. We just have to get out of here.

MIGUEL: But I kind of like fighting. A lot.

NATHAN: But you also like sitting in your underwear and reading gossip on theforce.net. You can’t do both.

MIGUEL: You make a good point.

NATHAN: Now how do we get out of here?

MIGUEL: Quick! I got the grappling hook to catch.

CHRIS: That would be fine, if you’d attached the rope properly.

(Chris pulls on the rope. It comes away from the grappling hook, and falls to the ground.)

MIGUEL: Damn it. I’m sorry Chris. I really thought I could get us away from those Kamikaze robots.

CHRIS: It’s ok…

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: It’s ok, Miguel. You did your best.

MIGUEL: But I really thought I would save the day.

CHRIS: You may still…

NATHAN: Chris…

CHRIS: You may still surprise us all by getting us out of here.

NATHAN: Chris! This makes no sense with what was just happening.

CHRIS: You’re right, it doesn’t. Sorry. I really thought that by the time we got here, the plot would have worked itself around to this point. Can we see the Rick Springfield cereal commercial again?

(The screen goes to a technical difficulties screen. Chris and Nathan can be heard arguing just below the music. Nathan seems to think that they are running a little close to the wire for the serial being over for Chris’s shenanigans. Chris is defending himself that he really thought he could get ahead of the game a little, and that he didn’t know it would ruin the flow of the story. Then we seem to be back to the action.)

NATHAN: Now how do we get out of here?

(A bullet hits the floor right by Nathan’s leg.)

NATHAN: If certain assholes would quit shooting at each other!

MIGUEL: I have an idea.

(Miguel starts twitching like he’s spasming. He finally topples himself over, dragging everyone else to their knees, and with his face to the floor, he holds his hands up away from his back as far as he can. Nathan looks at him like he’s lost his mind. Ten seconds pass. Then another ten seconds. As another ten seconds pass, Miguel can be heard saying something that is very muffled by the dirt he’s eating, but sound an awful lot like, “Hurry the funk up.” Or maybe not funk. Then suddenly another stray bullet gets awfully close to hitting Miguel. It instead cuts right through the ropes that bind his hands.)

NATHAN: Amazing!

MIGUEL (wiping dirt from his mouth): Let me get my legs untied, and then I’ll untie the rest of you.

(Miguel does as he promised. Everyone hits the dirt as the stray gunfire picks up.)

MIGUEL: I don’t know about the rest of you, but Nathan and I are leaving!

(Miguel and Nathan stand up to run away. They start walking like Egyptians as many stray bullets try to take them out, but they finally make it out of the room.)

MIGUEL: Oh for the love of Clinton. That was the worst 55 seconds of my life.

NATHAN: Let’s get out of here, before they try to top it.

(Larry steps out.)

LARRY: Wait guys, I have something to tell you. You might find it important.

(End Episode Forty-Six)

On having renters 11

2011-11-18T10:50:00.000-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Yeah, yeah, I know you are getting tired of this handy-man type blog but it keeps me going and helps me figure out what I need to do next so clam up! For those of you who don't know this is a series of blogs about me renovating my mom's rent house after some renters tore it up (really bad). If you want to learn more you can start here at this first blog.

I am starting to see the end of the tunnel here people... no really. I can see things moving a little faster and sooner rather than later I will get the kitchen floor done then we can get carpet. This is a late week post since I actually went to to my mom's on my Birthday to catch up on some work.

I started my day by hitting Home Depot to get more stuff. I bought 2 new doors (for the hall and master bedroom), a folding door for the master bedroom closet, a piece of tin for the outside skirting, a piece of plywood for the kitchen wall, parts for the washer connection, some white primer paint, and a couple of smaller items. The total was almost three hundred, sheesh. They were too overpriced on a couple of things and they don't cut glass so I will have to get those at Lowe's.

Most of my extra long day (5 hours this time) was painting. I started by using that primer on the ceiling of the bathroom. Old water stains keep coming though the paint no matter how many times I paint so I got this primer that is supposed to stop stains. It worked well, but not perfectly. It is good enough though. I then took the primer and painted the weird wall in the kitchen because it needs to be white and it is showing some stains aw well. Then I painted the upper half of the bathroom (the dark green part). While that was drying I started painting the other green wall that's in the kitchen (the one that was red that I talked about time before last). I then took the brown paint and painted the rest of the red that was in the house. I am talking about that wall in the living room. That more expensive paint did the job in only one coat. Awesome!

Most of my time was taken up with painting (especially all the edges) but I also tried to do a few other things. I took a look at leveling the back of the house so the kitchen floor would be more level before I tried to pour the leveling agent on it. After just a couple of minutes I gave up and decided to just let the leveling agent do it's job. I also didn't get any progress on the washer connection since I needed some PVC glue. I will have to bring that back next time.

My mom stopped by and we picked which flooring she wanted for the kitchen. I got 3 samples at Home Depot and she picked the most expensive one (of course). I will go back and get that next time I go there (but after I level the floor).

All in all I spent the most time painting. I am having to paint EVERY surface in this house... it's that bad. I still have a couple of walls in the kitchen and the lower half of the bathroom to do as well as the ceiling the living room. I am hoping I can just touch that up and not have to paint the whole thing.

My visit tomorrow will encompass more painting and some work on the plumbing stuff with some additional prep on the kitchen floor. THAT is the biggie, that damn floor. I am really worried about.

Nathan Stout - Frenemy of Debt

2011-11-17T18:53:00.003-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

If you are familiar with my “Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt” feature, you will know that I tried helping out a friend, who I gave the alias of Genghis, who got himself into a particularly bad place financially. He was facing eviction, getting his vehicle repossessed, and possibly even divorce. I saved him from all of that, but probably only temporarily, because he’s an idiot.

While I was doing that, Nathan talked to his wife about me looking at his finances and directing him in the same way I was directing Genghis. Why would he ask that? I think it’s because a person who has no emotional investment in your money can be a lot more objective about how you spend it. If I have one goal, which is to get Nathan out of debt, then the decisions I make with the pieces of his puzzle will be the logical, mathematical decisions that none of us, and I mean none of us, can make with our own money. Some people can detach a little bit from their role of spender and their role of decision maker, but we all have at least a small emotional attachment to the money we earn, the money we spend, and the services and possessions we acquire.

I’ve been thinking about Nathan’s situation since the last time I went to his house. I’ve had a few small conversations with him. Right now, I’m not sure what the best steps are to take. My problem is that I’m not really sure what Nathan wants to accomplish. If I were to set the criteria for the Nathan’s Debt feature, I would set the goal very high. I would want to pay off all of his debt by the end of 2012. To me that is a challenge that would make for a very interesting year. I even know more or less how I would go about it. It would all be very uncomfortable for Nathan. Yep.

Nathan has another idea in mind, and it’s one that isn’t quite as interesting to me. This is evidenced in Nathan’s post about the credit card game. He said, “Chris will want to go after my cars and home and such but I am more interested in getting rid of the credit debt.” Don’t get me wrong, Nathan has enough credit card debt that if I merely set out to get rid if it during 2012, there would be enough of a challenge. My problem is that I wouldn’t really need to give much advice.

I want to clarify that I’m not a financial advisor. When I say “give advice,” I don’t mean as a professional. I’m more of an accountability buddy who strong arms his friends into doing what they should by being a dick. When I was dealing with Genghis earlier this year, I made him agree to do what I said because he needed more income (so he had to do what I said and get a second job) and I would have to loan him money (so he had to do what I said so that I got paid back in a timely manner).

With Nathan, the problem is that I will have no real reason to strong arm him. Nathan makes enough money to pay his debt. The only reason I would tell him to find more income would be to speed up the debt reduction, not because he would lose his house or vehicle or marriage if he didn’t. Nathan makes enough money that I won’t have to loan him money. The only reason I would loan him money is if we were going for a very lofty goal where every little bit was going to matter. This means that I don’t have to be an outright dick if Nathan gets whiny about not having any money. I would simply say, “You have plenty of money. Do what you want.”

It’s a different world, Nathan’s finances as opposed to Genghis’s, and it will require different tactics. The biggest issue I see is that, yes, I do want to go after his cars and his house. Niccolo Machiavelli described an archer in his book “The Prince” (I’ve read only part of it). This archer, in order to hit a distant target, had to aim his arrow very high so that when gravity pulled the arrow down it would find its way to the target. I feel that gravity will drag down Nathan’s arrow as well, which is a fancy way to say that the higher we aim, the more likely we’ll hit his target.

The thing is that the higher the aim, the more I’ll actually have to do. In 2003, Nathan and I discussed his debt. My advice was to charge no more on his credit cards, get a part time job at Taco Bell, and pay everything he made at the part time job against his credit cards. That somehow turned into a comic book shop, but that story has been told on the blog already. That’s been my advice all along. Go no further into debt, and pay off your debt. The truth is that if he just wants to pay off his credit cards, then that’s pretty much all I’m going to tell him. If he doesn’t want to do anything more than take on some overtime at work and do support calls all year, then that’s pretty much all I’m going to tell him.

That’s just a basic debt snowball. Any of the financial gurus will tell you the same thing. Robert Kiyosaki, Dave Ramsey, David Bach, “Lord” Brian Tracy, and Suze Orman will all tell you that to get out of debt, you go no further into debt, you pay down your smallest debt quickly, and then you apply the money you were paying on that debt to the next smallest debt, repeat until you have no more debt. That won’t make for an interesting blog post. I just wrote it. It only took up a paragraph.

“Survivor” wouldn’t be all that interesting of a show if the concept was: You have to survive in the wilderness, but if you ever need a shower or a hot meal, just stop by the mansion.

“The Biggest Loser” wouldn’t be all that interesting if the concept was: The first person to lose 15 pounds wins.

“Hoarders” wouldn’t be very interesting if the concept was: We’re going to make you get rid of a couch that your mom thinks is ugly.

If Genghis had called me up and said, “I’m broke. Can you pay my rent,” and then he paid me back from his next two checks, I wouldn’t have even got a single post out of it.

What I’m trying to say is which of the following concepts would you actually write about if you were a writer and read about if you were a reader:

1. Nathan has $50,000 in credit card debt and makes a combined income with his wife that is very comfortable. He will pay $600 more a month on his debt each month and at year’s end will have only $42,800 in credit card debt. (Not even worth mentioning.)

2. Nathan has $50,000 in credit card debt and makes a combined income with his wife that is very comfortable. He will apply his wife’s income to his debt while living off of his income and at year’s end will still have some credit card debt, but not as much. (A little interesting, but nothing that everyone in America shouldn’t be doing anyway, since I’m a proponent of living off of one income and saving the second, smaller income.)

3. Nathan has $150,000 in debt altogether and makes a combined income with his wife that is very comfortable, but nowhere near enough to pay his regular bills and pay off even half of that debt. We say fuck that! By year’s end we’re going to have it all, every single bit of it, paid off! (Now we’re interested. If he has more debt than his combined annual income with his wife, however could he actually pay off all his debt in a year?)

The thing is that even if we just go after the credit cards, Nathan needs to realize that if I’m going to do it “Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt” style, I’ll be showing up (whether physically or by phone) when he gets his paycheck, and throwing everything he makes at his debt, literally. But in order to do this, his wife has to be on board. Why? Because they would have to live on her income while using all the money he makes to go toward debt for this to even start being interesting.

The problem is that the debt has not gone away in the last eight years, which means that much the way that Genghis wasn’t handling his finances in a way that accomplished his goal of having a place to live, a car to drive, and a wife to argue with, Nathan also isn’t handling his finances in a way that accomplishes his goal of not having credit card debt. The difference between Nathan and Genghis is that Nathan makes enough money that financial gaffes won’t end him up on the street. Nathan hasn’t saved enough that losing his job won’t end him up on the street though.

This isn’t meant to be judgmental. If my dad were to sell the house I’m living in, and cut me off from loaning me any money, I’ll be couch hopping and hoping my car doesn’t break down. I think Genghis is an idiot, yes, but I only believe Nathan is a little unfocused when it comes to money.

What this comes down to is odds. Human interest stories are not interesting (which being “human interest” requires at least one human and something interesting) unless they overcome some odds. If Nathan pays $200 a month extra on his credit card debt the odds are in his favour to have his credit card debt paid off in 21 years (that’s 21, count them, Nathan, 21 yeeeears). If Nathan pays $1,000 extra a month on his credit card debt the odds are in his favour to have his credit card debt paid of in 5 years. There is no overcoming the odds.

What if the goal was to pay off all the credit card debt in a year? Is that against the odds? No. Here’s why. Even with a comfortable combined income he and his wife would have to live off an average household income. A 40 hour a week, minimum wage worker makes $15,080 a year, which is considerably less than what she makes. While this would be a bit of a struggle for people who are used to making more, it’s a struggle that many people in our country manage to survive each year. Now it’s a little bit interesting, but not excessively interesting.

What I want is for Nathan to look at these figures. I told him I would make him uncomfortable, and here it is; the discomfort. I want him to realize that if he looked at the $200 extra figure and said, “I’m good with that,” there isn’t much that I can do to help him out of his mess. If he looked at the $1,000 extra a month and said, “I’m not ok with that,” then there is still not much I can do to help him out of his mess. I know for a fact that living off of her income, while throwing all of his income at the debt, makes him uncomfortable, but if he was willing to do it, I could help him with that. It’s still not as interesting as I would like it to be, but at least I would know that he and his wife were serious about getting rid of the credit cards.

The reason I say this is because at the start of 2011, Nathan said that he was willing to go after $20,000 of his debt. That meant paying about $768 from every paycheck on his debt. His wife had little to no income at the time, admittedly, and he did try for a couple of months, but he ended out the year with a couple of thousand in savings and investments, some medical debt, and a new truck complete with payments. He set out to get rid of $20,000 in debt, and ended up further in debt than he started, and this was even after she started working again.

I’ve talked for years about stepping out of comfort zones, and Nathan hates when I say it. He likes being comfortable, and I don’t blame him. I like comfort too. I could step out of some zones myself. The problem is that Nathan’s comfort zone looks like this: try pretty hard for a while, feel some ephemeral need to spend money, stop trying and increase the debt level. If going after 40% of his debt in 2011 was too hard, almost anything I tell him to do will be out of his comfort zone. As far as doing a feature where I tell him what to do, it means that I’ll be making him very uncomfortable from day one, even if I’m pulling punches. If I’m going to do this, I need to know that he’s going to fight his inclination to retreat back into his comfort zone, and that he’s going to fight the good fight for the entire year. Genghis lasted around three months, and the moment he was no longer facing immediate eviction, it was too much for him.

When we were in the shop, and I realized that we were in over our heads, I told Nathan how much money we were going to have to make through eBay sales if we continued to have very little walk in business. I was just reporting the facts as they were, but it knocked the fire out of him, because I was just talking about keeping the shop open. It wasn’t even going to pay us for our time at the shop.

I think that this post might have a similar effect on Nathan. I’m just reporting the facts as they are. $50,000 worth of credit card debt will not go away very quickly without a lot of sacrifice and a lot of focus. Genghis, having a comparable problem if you scaled the figures, was miserable for three months having no money for anything that even remotely resembled a luxury. Those stupid cigarettes were about all he had, and he wasn’t getting enough of those for his taste (read: addiction).

What I’m saying is that if we’re going to go after Nathan’s debt, I think we should really go after it. I don’t feel that being half-hearted about it will accomplish anything. I’ll do a more detailed analysis of how I would attack Nathan’s debt if I was in his shoes, and had me as a resource to help, if Nathan still wants to attack his debt after reading this. But for now, I’ll just say it like this, if I was in Nathan’s shoes: I would cut my lifestyle down to nothing. I would do as much at home eBay work as possible with the help of my pal Chris. I would sell a lot of stuff with the promise to myself that I would purchase it again later for cash. I would be intent on having no debt left as of December 31, 2012. That’s the simple version of it. The question is what does Nathan actually want his goal to be?

Macross Island Junkie

2011-11-16T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

As you all know I am fan of Robotech. I have enjoyed it for many a year and it has (for me) become far beyond a cartoon with dubious animation at times. I remember it around the first time back in the 80's but I wasn't that into it at the time. I am guessing I was more into G.I. Joe and He-Man than Robotech. It really wasn't until I was a freshman in High school that I got into Robotech. I think what initially happened was that my best friend in High school (Eric) got ahold of the RPG book and I think we launched from there.

Over the next several years it was a search for anything I could lay my hands on. Robotech's hey-day had passed and there was little new product coming out. I scoped out my local comic book shops (Heroes Workshop off West Berry and Lone Star Comics near Hulen) but didn't find too much in thoes early days. I remember that Heroes Workshop had a big cardboard SDF-1 and I was always amazed by it. I did find some issues of the Canadian Robotech Fanzine Protoculture Addicts and ate them up. You can read about it in a blog I did last year.

I got all the RPG books I could afford and the novelizations as well. When money permitted I would go wild at one of Lone Star's sales and stock up on back issues of the comics. Most were good but there were some strange ones too. Me and Eric and some of his friends would play the RPG. This was great fun but for some reason I was almost always the GM. Once I found 2 Peter Pan - Robotech Cassette with book sets at Pic-N-Save (which is now Big Lots). I loved those pieces of shit! They were so patched together and the narrator would constantly get the names wrong and when he read it was like he was reading the story for the first time (he would get inflections all wrong). None of it matter because it was Robotech and I enjoyed them thoroughly.

Through those first few years I got ahold of the F.H.E. version of Robotech. It had six VHS tapes with six episodes mercilessly editing together. They would only show one opening and closing credits and slap six episodes all together (cutting out quite a bit as I later found out). F.H.E. also released a couple of other versions of the series (with fewer episodes on each tape) but it appears my set was the last VHS set they produced. I would take a tape deck and record audio snippets off the show and make a 'mix tape' of audio sound bites. Years later I got the F.H.E. laser disc versions of the series and it was a totally different experience. The episodes were complete and there were scenes that I had never seen before. I gripe about those crappy VHS versions but they did offer some fun years later with the missing scenes I got to see off the laser discs.

Let's take a break with this cute chick giving us one of Minmie's songs...

Through all this I got on this kick to get Robotech Perfect Collection CD (or record it didn't matter to me). I contacted the company only to find out that it was out of print. These were the days before eBay so I was SOL. One day I was browsing something (online or in a magazine, I can't remember) and I ran across something that showed that a new soundtrack called Robotech: Perfect Soundtrack was about to be released... in less and a week! I was so excited. I got my order in ASAP but the production was delayed until early 97 and once I did get it I see why it was delayed. It had 2 discs and they were marked wrong. Disc 1 was Disc 2, etc... It still didn't detract from my utter delight. I got to enjoy songs I had never heard before including the ones I simply didn't remember from the Robotech The Movie soundtrack. As it turns out it wasn't 'perfect' there was another set that came less than 10 years later with even more.

In 1999 I built a website called Robocon.org. I already had a page about Robotech on my webpage so I moved it to the new Robocon.org and added more stuff to it. Robocon was the 10th anniversary of Robotech convention that took place in 1995. It focused on my take on Robotech as well as the voice actors that had attended the convention and so on. I had a couple of phone conversations with Tom Bateman (the organizer and protoge' of Carl Macek. He got me some info and gave me blessings to use it all on the site. He had been planning a Robocon 15 in 2000 but it fell through. In 200? He contacted me again (along with Tommy Yune I believe) about giving Robocon.org to Robotech.com (the official portal for Robotech). so they could use it for the upcoming Robocon 20. I agreed and they supped up my site and integrated it into their own. I still have my site archived here. You can compare the changes they made to it here (their official version). I found it funny that they kept the front page (the one with animation that says: 'Welcome to the Future of the Human Race' from my old site. I basically took that from my existing Front Mission fan site cause it sounded cool (I just changed 'Future of Warfare' to Future of the Human Race'). I also find it cool that the site is still up and intact after all these years.

This brings me to Macross Island. As I stated last week I am getting on a Robotech kick starting now through 2012. As I was rifling through material I found some old maps I had drawn of Macross Island. I was intrigued that I had drawn it with so much detail and fairly accurately. I started looking online at any image of Macross Island (BTW called Ataria Island in the original Japanese show) and saw that I had stuck fairly close to the animation. I added a 'Robotech Academy' thanks to the comics of the same name in the spot it was located in the comic book. It looks pretty cool but it is still 'very general'. I had this brilliant idea to redraw the map in the coming year. Do my best to make it as close to correct as I can. I know it's kind of silly but as you can tell from all the paragraphs preceding this one that I love Robotech so it will be no hard task. When I complete my project (I am still unsure which medium I will use) I will post it online for everyone to see.

Constellations

2011-11-15T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

There was a point in my life, very early on, when I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up. I was completely fascinated by outer space. My dad had a National Geographic that dealt with new pictures of Saturn, and I would look at it a lot. I tried learning the constellations, but there were only a few that I could get my head around. Some of them are very abstract to be honest. I also don’t manage to see those weird images in those posters where you’re supposed to squint and see something.

I was thinking about this because the guard post I’m at is a little way out of the main city area, so I can see the sky pretty well. I was wishing I had a book with the star maps (the kind that show you where Leo is in the sky, not the kind that show you where Leo DiCaprio lives) or maybe even that app than Nathan had on his iPhony thingy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want an iPhone, just that app for the moment.

As a side note, I have decided that that I’m not 100% opposed to Apple iProducts. I have, in fact, decided that when they release a special Faith No More themed cell phone, the iSwallow, I will probably wish I had one.

I’m not a boat and ocean type of person, but I guess on some level, I am curious about the days of sailing the sea with the sun and constellations to guide you. I mean, I’m not at all about the part where every time you get on a boat that you might not come back because of some faulty navigation, I’m just curious what it was like. The GPS of the stars. Pretty literally.

I’m not sure where I lost my interest in being an astronomer. I seem to remember that it had something to do with being told that it would require college. I didn’t want to go to college. For as long as I remember, I just wanted to get done with the required school and get to work. I’m not too sure that that worked out too good for me so far, but what can you do? Somewhere in all this mess, I wrote about the trouble with jobs and college, which is simply that even if everyone went to college, there aren’t enough degreed jobs for everyone. I may or may not have ended up being a pizza delivery driver with a degree in astronomy. At least I could have called the customer, “Yeah, Virgo is positioned to my left, and I’m at Main and Elm.”

I know that at some point I became very interested in writing, and that became the direction my life seemed to want to take. I just don’t remember how quickly I let go of the idea of being an astronomer. One would think that it would be this thing that was still present in my life in some way. Like I would complete a writing project and reward myself with a trip to the planetarium. And let’s just end this as anti-climatically as my astronomer career interest did.

The summer of work and shitty contractors 4

2011-11-14T08:00:00.002-06:00

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

This is an ongoing set of blogs about the work I have been doing this summer on my house (not the rent house as outlined in the 'On having renters' series of blogs.

Now that Daylight Savings is heading to a close (or is it open?) my time outside will soon be VERY limited. Several months back when I was doing all that work caulking and painting the house I was able to work until nearly 8:30. Soon I will have until about 5:45. This will mean I will have about 15 minutes to work outside once I get home from work during the week. That really sucks. By the time this posts time will have already switched over and I will be inside the house in the evenings, not getting stuff done outside.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been touching up the paint on the house. There are a lot of places were I might have glopped over onto good paint and I need to cover that up or just touch up places I somehow missed. There is still a majority of porch railings (front and back) that are not done. This is because it is tedious and a lot of that wood is rotted and I really just need to replace those pieces. The carport's supports also need to be painted but only I seem to notice so there is no big rush.

Last week (or so) I started working on rebuilding the trellis outside the front of the house. If you remember I pulled the old one down because it was rotted and I needed to get at the certain spots to paint. This left the front of the house looking very plain and both me and the wife wanted it to look good again. I bought a large amount of lumber when all this started including the parts for the trellis (and shed door) but alot of that wood sat around too long and warped. I took my father in law's advice and laid out the wood and screwed it to the deck and let it get wet and then dry out. That fixed most of it and I was able to continue. I did wind up buying more 4x4's for the front trellis pillars. I spent about a week getting the old holes dug back out and the new 4x4 in place and secured with the cross planks. Next I will concrete the 4x4s in and cut the excess off the top (with a saws-all) and then paint it green. I will also concrete in the fence posts I pulled up in April when we got the drainage work done.

I also started replacing the shed door. The old door was heavy and sagging and there was a big gap at the top. I tore the old one out (with the support frame) and rebuilt it all. I am still needing to sure up the frame of the thing but it fit so much better! I will paint the door as opposed to putting the sheet metal back on it.

This leaves me with more touch up painting and some general fix up issues and that all for the summer of work and shitty contractors!

Flash Ahhhh! – Deleted Scenes and Outtakes from the Convention

2011-11-13T04:26:00.000-06:00

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

Outtake: Ants in Nathan’s Pants

(We see the scene where Chris has torn down Nathan’s dealer table after talking to author Paul White.)

CHRIS: You didn’t.

(Nathan shrugs.)

CHRIS: Nevermind. We have things to do. Get in the truck. I’m getting Miguel.

DIRECTOR: Cut!

(Nathan starts scratching an itch on his leg.)

CHRIS: What are you doing?

NATHAN: Something is crawling on my leg.

CHRIS: You were supposed to stay still for continuity when my character speeds off.

NATHAN: Sorry, something is biting me.

(There is laughter from the crew. Chris walks off camera laughing.)

CHRIS: I’m going to get a Dr. Pepper and some hydrocortisone cream.

Outtake: Wardrobe Malfunction

(We see the scene where Chris is telling Nathan about his hallucinations.)

NATHAN: Yeah. Miguel is a loser like that, listening to crappy bands like Hel…

(Nathan looks at Chris’s t-shirt.)

NATHAN: You have your Net Runner t-shirt on.

(Chris looks at his t-shirt confused.)

NATHAN: You’re supposed to be wearing your Helmet t-shirt for this scene.

CHRIS: Oh man.

NATHAN: It’s part of the joke.

CHRIS: I know. It must be in my trailer.

(There is an edit and we see Chris coming out of his trailer.)

CHRIS: I need to check my car.

(There is an edit. We see Chris’s black jeans clad bum as he bends over into his car. We hear soda cans clanking together. Nathan and some of the crew are watching on.)

CHRIS: I think I might have lost my Helmet shirt.

NATHAN: But you’re wearing your Net Runner t-shirt. Ironic.

CREWMEMBER: Are you wearing two t-shirts?

(There is an edit and we see Chris peeling off the Net Runner t-shirt and revealing the Helmet t-shirt.)

CHRIS: It was cold this morning. I was bundling up a bit. I forgot.

Deleted Scene: James O’Barr

(Chris is wandering among the convention guests. He sees names that he doesn’t know that did pencils, ink, story, and any number of jobs on any number of comic books that he’s never heard of. He sees a sign that says Sean McGinty. The comic book is “Alpha 5.” Chris stops.)

SEAN: Hi, Chris.

CHRIS: Um. Do I know you? Of course I don’t. You can call ten people Chris, and you’ll be right at least once.

SEAN: I’m your brother.

CHRIS: Um, ok. Have you seen James O’Barr around anywhere?

SEAN: No, I would just follow the people in Crow makeup.

CHRIS: Thanks. Say hi to Kate.

SEAN: I thought you didn’t know who I was.

CHRIS: I don’t. But if you spell Sean like that, you know a Kate.

Deleted Scene: Lynard Dee Williams

(Chris sits down in a chair beside Nathan who is calculating his one sell of the day against the rent he paid for the table.)

NATHAN: Why do you look so glum?

CHRIS: I got kicked out of the Billy Dee Williams Q&A for yelling out, “Play Skynard!”

Outtake: Light Cycle Slap

(We see the scene with the guy in the Tron body suit.)

CHRIS: Look!

(Chris points to a dude dressed as a Tron character.)

NATHAN: That costume is not appealing to the eye. Perhaps if the dude lost about 200 pounds.

CHRIS: This is your chance to sell the Light Cycle!

(Chris swings wildly around to point at the light cycle, and instead smacks Nathan in the face. Chris starts laughing. Nathan is holding his face. Chris can’t stop laughing.)

NATHAN: It’s not that funny. I can feel one of my teeth moving.

(Chris tries to sober up a little, but is visibly unable to stop smiling.)

CHRIS: Sorry. If I didn’t start laughing, we could have used that shot. The look on your face was hilarious.

NATHAN: Oh, I’m sure.

CHRIS: I’m going to get a Dr. Pepper and an ice pack.

Outtake: What’s His Name Again?

(We see the scene with the Helmet shirt again.)

NATHAN: I was thinking of Miguel from work, sorry.

CHRIS: Um, ok. The point is that I think that Larry is close by.

NATHAN: Reece.

CHRIS: What?

NATHAN: I think that Reece is close by.

CHRIS: No, Larry is the name… wait. Shit.

(Chris reaches for his script.)

CHRIS: I’m never going to get this shit straight.

NATHAN: You’re the one who wrote the gag.

CHRIS: I know. I regret it every day.

Deleted Scene: Pill Popper

(Chris is standing in a ringmaster outfit. Miguel’s head is sticking through a hole in a wooden board.)

CHRIS: Step right up, one and all, and try the Pill Popper. Land a Prozac in Miguel’s mouth and get a prize.

SMALL BOY: What’s the prize?

CHRIS: The stories you can tell about the stuff he says once he’s sufficiently high.

Outtake: Chris’s Meltdown

(We see the point of view of a video camera switching on and swinging around to Chris, who is climbing onto a table. Rick Springfield is behind the table looking a little scared.)

CHRIS: Ok, before we go on, some motherfuckers need to recognize!

RICK SPRINGFIELD: It’s ok, Chris.

(Chris is too busy yelling at the crew, some of who are scared too, some of who are smirking like some long haired goof thinks he’s a badass.)

CHRIS: Do you ungrateful fucks realize what this man has done for music? Huh?

RICK SPRINGFIELD: It’s really ok, Chris.

CHRIS: Do you know how many albums he has? I mean, I don’t know the exact number or anything, but it’s double digits, yo. Double digits.

MIGUEL: Chris Gawwwdammit!

(The camera swings to see Miguel, and starts to move back and forth between the people speaking.)

MIGUEL: Get down from there!

CHRIS: Not until these fuckers recognize! All those albums. All those great songs.

RICK SPRINGFIELD: I tried to tell him it was ok.

CHRIS: But no, they gotta go off talking about “Jesse’s Girl” like he never recorded anything else.

MIGUEL: Chris, it’s ok to be a one hit wonder…

CHRIS: What did you say?

MIGUEL: Chris!

CHRIS: No, what did you say? Did you just call Rick fucking Springfield a one hit wonder?

MIGUEL: Sorry, I must have been thinking of some other crappy British band like a-ha.

CHRIS: Don’t make me come down there!

MIGUEL: That’s what I’m trying to get you to do! Get down from there! You’re acting an ass!

NATHAN: What the hell is going on out here?

(The camera swings to see Nathan, and starts moving back and forth between the speakers again.)

NATHAN: I heard screaming all the way from the bathroom.

MIGUEL: Oh, Chris has lost his shit again. And I’m the one who is portrayed as needing to be on anti-psychotic medicine.

NATHAN: Chris, please come down from the table, before Mr. Springfield chooses not do this scene for us.

CHRIS: Nathan, do you like the song “Jesse’s Girl?”

NATHAN: I love it, Chris. It’s a great song.

RICK SPRINGFIELD: That’s very kind of you, Nathan.

CHRIS: But what’s your favourite Rick Springfield song, Nathan.

NATHAN: “Human Touch” for sure. Fantastic song!

CHRIS: And why is that?

NATHAN: Because I’m fully aware that “Jesse’s Girl” isn’t the only song that Rick Springfield did.

CHRIS: Because you recognize motherfucker. You recognize. Not like these snot nose clueless crewless. I’ll fire them all.

NATHAN: We can’t fire them. We’ll never get this done.

CHRIS: My own fucking mother, I’ll fire her.

NATHAN: You’re mother isn’t working on the serial.

CHRIS: But you know what? She recognizes!

MIGUEL: I recognize the person who needs to be fired.

CHRIS: I’m the star! You don’t fire the star!

MIGUEL: I just remembered. My wife called me. She wants me home for the rest of my life.

NATHAN: Miguel, don’t.

MIGUEL: No! No! We’re lucky if we get three scenes done a day because of this crap.

(Chris jumps down from the table.)

CHRIS: You’re lucky to have the talented Mr. Me. You need to recognize!

(Chris looks at the camera, and scowls.)

CHRIS: Some cunt’s recording this.

(Chris punches the camera, the lens cracks and then the camera shorts out.)