Friday, February 9, 2007

Required Reading

I write a lot. A lot. But I'm sure you've already figured that out by looking at how small the scroll bar is on the right. Because many of the people reading this blog have not known me particularly long, I almost feel tempted to exploit that ignorance by posting things I've written elsewhere and claiming it as fresh and new.

I'm not that lazy, of course. However, I still believe that my previous works are of merit and do deserve to be looked at. After all, you can learn a lot about someone is through their writing. So I decided to create this post of "required reading." If you're going to bookmark only one of my posts, this should be it, because you may have to come back several times to read it all. Then again, that's why I'm posting this on a Friday Saturday morning; you'll have all weekend to look through it all, if you so choose.

So let's get started, shall we? What's on the syllabus?

Oh, of course. We should get started with The Tapping Wand.


As you can see by the name of the cover of this book, I am the author. No foolin'. There's a little bit of a story behind this. Originally, I wrote The Tapping Wand for a Sci-Fi/Fantasy short story contest. It was about 40 pages long, which I thought was fine, as the rules of the contest specified that the story had to be betwixt 15 and 50 pages. However, the part of the rules I neglected to read had an evil, evil hyphenated word: "Double-spaced". Suddenly, I was disqualified from the competition. However, people liked the story, and they told me I should have it published. So...I did. (It wasn't nearly as simple as that last statement made it seem.) I think it's a good story, so I like to shamelessly plug it whenever the opportunity arrises. You can get more information about the book by clicking the picture, and you can see that this isn't all an elaborate hoax by looking at the Amazon page for it.

Seriously, though, if you actually do have an interest in the book, I recommend you buy it directly from me. You won't pay tax or shipping, you'll get it right away, and I'll personally sign it (plus, I'll get more money that way).

Next on the agenda, we'll look at my blog on MySpace. I've utilized my MySpace blog much differently than I'm utilizing this one. First of all, the posts are much more sporadic, and as time went on, it focused much more on mixing photographs with words. Still, it represents a boatload of work hours, and it'd be nice for some of the older, forgotten posts to get another chance in the spotlight.

I warn you, unless you own a decent computer, don't open all of these at once. The bandwidth will melt your motherboard and make the Internet cry.

What's your ONN? : This was the first blog entry, and to be honest, it shows. I am still damn proud of my Official Nerd Number equation, but I definitely feel it needs tinkering. It is my dream to eventually make a website where you enter in the variables, and it will calculate your ONN for you. The hope would then be that users can then submit their own claculators and such, and you could post your answers, like with those quiz sites. It's still possible, especially now that I'm learning JavaScript and the like. Give it a shot, in any event, it's pretty fun.

The Obligatory Love Blog... : Hmm...this one is an interesting creature. I don't necessarily agree with it anymore, yet I don't necessarily disagree either. Where exactly do I now stand on the topic of love? That's a topic for another day, young one. For now, I'll just say that I give a good description of iambic pentameter.

Vietnamization! : I'm still really proud of this. You'd be amazed how difficult to make a song parody that works while being somewhat historically accurate.

Menagerie Overview : I have dozens, if not hundreds, of stories flying through my brain. Believe it or not, this can actually be a hindrance to actually finishing a story I start. But anyway, Menagerie is an idea I have for a graphic novel or short (50-episode) TV series. I decided to write a little overview to give people an idea of the show, and also to store down some of the information, so I wouldn't forget it later (me forgetting a story element is rare, but does occur). Just so you know, if there was ever a spin-off of this, it would star Cornelius Webster, who a friend of mine graciously illustrated for me.

MONARCH, Chapter One (Teaser) : I have three main genres that I like to write in (or some combination of the three) - Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Horror, and Comedy. MONARCH definitely falls under the latter category. I've actually finished quite a bit more than this, and if you'd definitely like to read more, just ask.

My Opprobrium - A Poem : Just a simple poem. Although I agree that not all poetry needs to rhyme, you just can't deny that it adds a special something.

Sapphire - A Dream : A MUST-READ! I love this short story to an unhealthy degree. It is, by a wide margin, one of the creepiest things I have ever written, but I think that adds to its charm. As I say, if you read only one thing on here, read this. And don't worry; it's just story...just a story.

A Story That Goes Nowhere : This one's a hoot. I laughed as I was rereading it. In order to get the full effect of this, you have to read it out loud in your best old person voice. This was directly inspired by (and in a couple places, copied from) Grampa Simpson, king of ramblers.

SAHS Prom 2005 - A Pictoral Recap : This was the first of my many photo-blogs. It's a little overview of my Senior Prom in high school. Back then, I thought it was a lot of work to make one of these (as you'll later see, it was nothing compared to what I'd later post). One thing to keep in mind that I was nominated as a potential Prom King that year. (You'll find out the results at the end). This look at the "good ol' days" is a nice way to see some of the people I went to high school with, and you get to see what I looked like before I grew a goatee. "How shocking!"

Phun With Photoshop!!! : This was one of the first times I really did any serious Photoshopping. At the time, though, I didn't actually use "Photoshop." I used "Adobe Photo Deluxe". That, combined with my novice skills, makes this seem much less impressive to me now than it did oh so long ago. My Photoshop skills have improved substantially since then (as you can tell from my background image), but everyone has to start somewhere. Something funny: although that last (non-edited) picture of me is god-ugly, it has been the source of a lot of great creepy looking Photoshops. Here's another example. You know, I really need to do a "Phun With Photoshop II" soon...

What it's like at the CKC! A Story in Pictures (and Words)... : This is probably not as interesting to people who know what Berkeley's like, but it's a fun read regardless. I also think that picture of me by Sather Gate needs to be a publicity photo for...well, something!

Two-Minute Photo-Shoot! Pre-Prom 2006 Edition!!! : This was more fun to do than it was to write. As you can tell by the title, this was all the pictures I could take in two minutes while wearing a nice suit (and sometimes having a fake cigar). If nothing else, this has a lot of really nice, quality pictures of me, which I always consider a blessing upon the world.

My Trip to Comic-Con 2006!!! HUGE BLOG!!! 100+ PICTURES!!! : This is a behemoth. An honest-to-goodness leviathan. If you copy and paste it to a Word document, it extends for 116 pages. This has it all. Superheroes! Hot alien women! Ghostbusters! Verbal jabs at Nicholas Cage! Pirates! Swords! Stan Lee! Muscles! Games! Lightsaber battles. And most importantly...me! It also includes pictures of my pride and joy of the convention, my Comic-Con notebook. It's one of my more fun blogs, or so I'm told.

My Halloween Costume - 2006 : For the past five years, my Halloween costumes have allowed me to be completely silent while wearing them. From 2002 - 2005, I dressed as a deliciously creepy mime, whose creepiness is exacerbated when combined with my pale, pudgy torso. This past Halloween, however, I went with something completely unique, and it got quite a positive response...from those who weren't freaked out of their mind. This also inspired my artist friend to illustrate "The Future". Oh, yeah, and I still think the last picture is funny.

What's Black and White and Read All Over? This B&W BLOG!!! : I still believe this is the best way to do artistic photo-editing if you don't have Photoshop. (If you do have the program, however, the equivalent filter is "Torn Edges".) This also explains where I got my little profile picture and why I like it so much.

And that's all the required reading I have for you. Feel free to look at the rest of my MySpace profile. You can also always Google my name (it works best if you use quotation marks). I have a little artwork on website, I write news articles for Effectu, a tech news site, and I appear in a few other places. Plenty of material for those cold rainy nights.

Happy reading!

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