Aarrgghh! Is that a Black Widow?!

Today started off with an aaarrrgggghhhh! The wife on the way out of the house spotted a spider by the stove. Taking a closer look at it, she woke me up to take a look at it.

Now, spiders are one of her totem animals. So we have a general rule of not killing spiders in the house. We made an exception for this one.

It looks like a Black Widow. I could be wrong; after all, I have never seen one up close and personal before.

To my own amusement, I was more interested in taking a picture of it than I was whacking it. I have been taking pictures of all the spiders in the house lately because I swear we have a dozen different types around the house.

In the end, I did spray the whole area down in bug spray. I don't want the cats to get poisoned--they like to stalk and eat spiders (yes, my totem animals eat hers). But why do I have to collect the bad mojo?

No Child Left Behind

I have been uneducated most of my life, at least by the formal standards of the education system. I had more of an education than my dad did (he did not finish Junior High), but not by much. I became a High School dropout, being short one class, and deciding to leave town rather than do summer school (not that I would have passed the class--Freshman Composition on the third pass--my home life was pretty bad).

Because of this I ended up working for twenty years in food service, along with the occasional side job that required a warm body and no piece of paper. The fact that I did not have a piece of paper, and that it was a writing class that I was short, always came to be a surprise to many of the people I worked with. I was always writing something, or reading a book; at the job, I was normally the best educated person there.

Ironically, this included college students (the Burger King I worked at was across the street from the campus). This puzzled me for some time. Ok, it still does. I sit in the classroom today, a forty-two year old college student, and am amazed that some of my fellow classmates actually managed to get into college. Maybe, it is because it is a community college; nevertheless, there are still times where I am the most educated person among my peers (my fellow students).

It was in philosophy that I finally figured out the reason for me being appalled by the education and general lack of knowledge exhibited by my classmates. Or rather, I was outright told by the professor. It is the "No child left behind" act.

No child left behind was a wonderful idea, maybe, on paper; if you are willing to ignore the fact that you can't force kids to learn and school districts to increase funding. Lack of interest on the part of students, and on the lack funds on the part of the schools, is the coffin of the no kid left behind act. In the end, all the no child left behind act has done is to cause school districts to rewrite the tests in such a way that any monkey, randoming filling in circles, could pass the test and earn a diploma. In essence, the no child left behind act has resulted in lower standards; it hasn't helped anyone.

Writing about fruitcake

So yesterday was the first day of my winter break. I hang around the internet, did some cleaning around the house, generally just goofed off.

I did one short short yesterday about an unwanted fruitcake. While doing it, I realized that I spent too much time this last semester in philosophy; I ended using a Voltaire reference. It is not bad enough that I am writing about fruitcake; no, I have to say something that only makes sense if you have read Voltaire. I keep telling people that college is not good for my writing style.

The Dreaded Beast--Fruitcake

Last final of the semester

Well, today is my last day of college this semester. I have my Political Science final today. It should be interesting to take considering that it is an essay style test (must answer five of seven questions), and use two quotes from the textbook in each answer.

Then starting tomorrow, I get to spend an entire month repairing things around the house, working on this and my Golden Dawn blog, and trying to bash out some articles and short stories. Basically, my vacation is not really a vacation; it is a month of intense work as I try to make up lost ground (opportunity cost).

And in a month, I get to start it all over again. I have signed up for one Literature class, one Humanity, one Psychology, and one History class. Should be an interesting semester, especially considering that two of the classes are going to involve lots of reading (they are taught by the same professor that I had this semester for Philosophy).

Carson Daly--bad news for striking writers

Last week, Last Call with Carson Daly announced that they were going to go back to work, despite the Hollywood Writers' Strike. Reading the article, my comment was "Carson Daly uses writers?!"

I have seen Last Call; there is no evidence that he uses writers. If he does, I am shocked. Do these writers stand outside Home Depot, or whatever one would find day writers (probably Dunking Donuts), because the writing on that show has never been very good.

And having watched a few of the espisodes this week, I find that Carson Daly without writers is as good as Carson Daly with writers. There is a reason why he is on so late. It is either him or an infomerical.

Not that I am saying that he is bad. It is just that occasionally I ask how much he is paying his writers. The skits he does sometimes stink. And their function seem to be burning up time.

His improv this week has been just as effective at burning up time. And he is not paying writers to hack it out. He may want to consider not bringing the writers back after the strike is over.

And yes, I realize that I should support the Hollywood Writers' Strike. After all, they are my brothers in arms. Well, not really. I am not a member of the Union. Nor am I ever likely to be a member.

Nor am I likely to be famous enourgh to ever be on Last Call, or any other talk shows for that matter. It is not that I won't like to be on such shows; it is just unlikely to happen.

I understand the complaints of the Hollywood Writers. If I was a member of the Union, I would be fighting for the same income. But I would be worried about my job, if Carson Daly can survive without writers, imagine who else can also.

Just a link to my Helium profile

Results of National Novel Writing Month 2007

Yesterday was the last day of the National Novel Writing Month. Many people, myself included, attempted to hack out the entire rough draft of a novel out in the space of a month--fifty thousand words worth of writing in thirty days. Some people succeeded; I was not one of them.

Yet while I did not reach my goal, I do consider last month’s effort (on my part) to be a success. I finished closer to the goal than I have ever came before. I ended up writing 41443 words to be exact. More if you count the amount of wordage I wrote last month on the various term papers I ended up completely.

If I could have gotten all the writing I did to go all in the same direction, I would have crossed the line this time. Unfortunately, term paper season ate me alive. In the end, I wrote over ten thousand words spread over a couple of papers--so far, one of them has turned out to be an A, still awaiting further grades to be reported.

And I consider parts of the rough draft that I wrote to be useable; or at least, parts will be usable after some revisions. Whether or not, it turns out to be a novel or just a short story (or perhaps a novella) will depend a lot on what can be fixed.

As always, this writing project was a learning experience for me. What I learned this project was the strange things that occur to me when I am trying to make an idea fix into a novel. Perhaps some of the strange ideas are good, I need to let the story sit awhile before judging parts of it. Then again, I have to finish a dozen scenes before it can be set to rest for awhile--as I said term paper season was a conflict with National Novel Writing Month. But I should have those scenes written by the first of the year--at least, I can say that I wrote the rough draft of an entire novel this year; and that makes me a winner despite not hitting the goal of fifty thousand words in thirty days.

Another thing I learned was that I can still surprise myself. At the end of this long stretch of writing, I find myself busy outlining another novel. That surprised me, I figured that I would not want to look at the keyboard for a good month afterwards; instead I find myself working on my next novel already.

For many, this will not be a surprise. In my case, it is. Sometimes, I forgot that I am a real writer. If nothing else, this last month was a good reminder that despite the expectations of those people around me, and society in general, that at heart, I am best at being a writer.

So here is to the end of National Novel Writing Month, while I did not write enough to make the goal, I am still happy with my results--and here is to next November, when I get to do it all over again.