That's Bug Eyed Monsters.

Which are, of course, the most interesting characters in the Men In Black movies. I really loved the first one, and <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JKZ3/fantasistnet"&gt;
Men in Black II</A> didn't dissapoint either. It's the same kind of raucus fun that the first movie was, but taken to a higher level. If you haven't seen this yet, stop reading, 'cause I'm going to dish out some spoilers...
It was fun to see Tommy Lee Jones do his whole amnesiac, Postal worker bit and see Will Smith get to be the guy in the know for a change. But, still, the coolest stuff was really the CGI work and the aliens. They really are what drive this movie.
Most of the comedy is derived from human <i>looking</i> aliens not behaving quite like humans. And, as always, the "humans" that turn out to be aliens in disguise. My favorite, though, was Frank the Pug. First of all, pugs are cute. There, I said it and I'm not even embarassed. Pugs are, in fact, cute. A talking pug, even if it has a voice like a 50 year-old chain-smoker from Pittsburgh, is even cuter. And, as in the last movie, some of the best lines in the film were written for the dog. That had to hurt Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith, but it sure was funny. And, Frank as Agent J's partner was just a hoot to watch!
I didn't care much for Lara Flynn Boyle's character though. She just never seemed alien to me. In fact, she barely seemed awake most of the time. Maybe keeping up with Jack's worn her out. Who knows.... I actually used to like her work, but now she just seems kind of pathetic.

Anyway, it's a fun, fun movie and well worth buying on DVD, but get the <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JKZ3/fantasistnet"&gt;
special edition <A> with the blooper real!

What if there were no difference between nightmares and reality?

I know someone who reacts as though any dream or nightmare she has is reality. A nightmare might haunt her for days, making her irritable and even frightened. If I do something to her in a dream, she sometimes acts as though I <b>actually</b> did it. And, will occasionally hold whatever it is against me.
Imagine a person who cannot, in fact, tell the difference between dreams, nightmares and waking reality. How would that person act? What would their daily life be like? Is this, by definition, insanity? What kind of interaction problems might this person have?
I see, in a character like that, an interesting challenge and type of story. It's a seed of an idea that needs to be married to a plot, but I can see possibilities here. Especially, if the story, whatever it may be, is told from the first person view. In fact, I think a device like this would only work from a first person point of view. That kind of limiting perspective is neccessary to get the full juice from that literary fruit.

Of course, someone will not doubt tell me that it's been done to death already. After all, there's nothing new under the sun.

Why making excuses is easier than writing.

I had an idea for an opening to a story the other day, but I didn't do anything with it. Why? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but they all boil down to fear induced writer's block.
See, it's like this... I have a series of ideas about stories set in a particular world. I can see whole, huge sections of the world all laid out for me in startling detail. But, I have no idea what anyone's name is. Or, what their language is like. Now, I could just make it up as I went, but that feels wrong to me somehow. And, I've looked into creating a language, or several, from whole cloth. The only problem there is that I'm not a linguist, or even close enough to feel very comfortable creating the language. Still, I'm not quite willing to let someone else create that much of my world for me, either.
Quite a dilemma, no? No. Quite an excuse. I've been playing at language creation for literally years. By now, I could have several related languages and dialects, if I really wanted to have them. But, I've used that as an excuse to not write. Why? Because, I'm scared, that's why. If I put work out there, people might not like it. And, it's been more than ten years since I really wrote seriously. Damn, that was hard to admit. So, what to do...

Comments are welcome, folks.

Interesting fiction.

I'm currently reading <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345443020/fantasistnet">Perdido Street Station</A> by <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=fantasistnet&keyw… Mieville</A>. So far, it's living up to the fabulous reviews. The novel is set in a very different setting, especially for fantasy. I don't think I've ever read a <i>good</i> fantasy novel set in an <i><b>industrial</b> city</i> setting before. And, I have to say, that he handles the setting very, very well. Which is why he's won awards, I guess, eh?
In any case, I'm about half-way through and loving every minute of it. I was a little intimidated by the heft of the book, but it's really been a pleasure to read and has gone fast. In fact, I'm hard pressed to remember the last time I really looked forward to reading this much.

Stay tuned for a full review when I'm done.

Updates and such...

Well, I've been a little busy with site development stuff lately, which is why I haven't been too chatty in this blog. But, I think it'll pay off.
I've been working with MovableType elsewhere on this site and I've gotten some good results, I think. I've worked out a blog that I hope will help me get around some writer's block and get me back into writing. Essentially, all I've done is set up an instance of this blog software to let me publish short fiction quickly and easily. And, the format will encourage me to not only write, but keep it tight. So far, all I've done is add in two old stories from ten years ago, which is when I was really writing a lot of fiction. But, I hope to add more soon. When I get more stuff in there, I'll make it active and publicly available instead of the wierdly formated stories that are available now.

Also, I've been working on alternate methods of posting to this and my other blogs. So far, I've managed to set up a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.meryl.net/articles/archives/001033.php">barely passable method</a> via <a target="_blank" href="http://www.avantgo.com">AvantGo</a&gt;. But, I'm trying to get a <a target="_blank" href="http://clouder.jp/yoshiki/mt/archives/scripts/qmail2mt.pl">mail to MT gateway</a> setup, so that I can just send e-mail to my blogs. That would rock!

More later!!

It must be storm season again...

This morning, shortly after I finished shaving, we lost power. There was a great roll of thunder and a flash of lightning then all the lights flickered and went out. Luckily, I knew where there was a flashlight and my wife has lots of candles around. In short order, I had several candles burning and could navigate around without fear of tripping on one of the cats.
Then, I had to get enough candles and light together to take a shower. And, since the hot water heater's thermostat is electric, I decided I should hurry and get a warm shower!
It was actually a bit of fun, after I first made the adjustment. I think I got a slightly better understanding of what it was like in earlier times for workers who got up before dawn. A bit of fumbling about and a fair amount of squinting in the mirror, really. And, I really appreciate the fact that I didn't have to shave in the dark! I would have had all kinds of odd whisker shadows on my face if not for that. But, just as I was trying to decide whether or not to put on water for tea, the lights came back on and my fun was over.

We talked about living by candles on purpose for a day, one weekend, though. Just for fun. My wife and daughter both thought it might be an interesting experiment. Reading by candle-light. Cooking over an open fire, or on the gas stove. Warming ourselves by the fireplace. It's good to remember the old skills of seeing by candle. To relearn what it was like for our ancestors to live ruled by the cycle of day and night, their lives changing as the seasons changed.
So, today, I got a little inspiration from the dark and I move from the darkness to the light.

DragonQuest still rules.

Okay, the new version of Dungeons and Dragons is good, but is a new version really neccessary already? Well, Wizards of the Coast sure seems to think it is. They've announced a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/rs/rs20030218x">D&D 3.5</a>. What, are they taking lessons from Micro$oft?

So, it's back to good old DragonQuest for me. Thanks to some helpful pirates in New Zealand, I can still get copies of the DragonQuest rules, albeit modified with their house rules. Still, the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.dragonquest.org.nz/files/files.html">Seagate Guild of Adventurers </a>has everything you need to play, except dice. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, they've ignored copyright issues to bring this to the public, which I admire. Of course, they're in another country, which makes copyright enforcement a little tricky, I guess. In any case, over the years several gamers, myself included, have tried to get teh rights to DragonQuest, to no avail, so it's nice that someone has made the info available.
Though, you can still try <a target="_blank" href="http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?GetResult&query=dragonquest&fr…; for stray copies. They do turn up from time to time.

For those of you who are wondering what that lovely parody from yesterday came from, here it is:
<B>I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little death the brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me
and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn
to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will
be nothing. Only I will remain.</b>
<i>"Bene Geserit litany against fear"
Frank Herbert, Dune</i>

It is by Caffeina alone
that I set my mind in motion.
By the Beans of Java,
my thoughts aquire speed.
The hands aquire the shakes,
the shakes become a warning.
It is by Caffeina alone
that I set my mind in motion...
<i> - Javacrucian chant, attributed to Isaac Bonewits</i>

Ah, the quest for the perfect role-playing game!

For me, that would be a whole, complete game with a specifically fantasy setting that included magic and is contained in a single volume. A tall order you say? Not at all. DragonQuest is one such game. In fact, it is the standard by which I rate all other games.
Oh, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd">Dungeons and Dragons</a> is a fine game. Really, it can be said that it was the first true role-playing game. But, even that was broken up into multiple books, each of which cost about what the single DragonQuest volume cost. What's more, DragonQuest dispenced with such artificial notions of "alignment" and "character classes". Characters are motivated by the same things people are and few are wholly "good" or "evil". And, as for the notion of a character class, DragonQuest took the much more reasonable approach of grouping skills into <i>professional classes</i>, but didn't impose any artificial limits on who could learn what. So, a player could create a thief that was also very good with a sword and could cast spells. All it took was time, experience, and finding a teacher for the desired skills.
The really cool thing, to my way of thinking, was that DragonQuest did all this in less than 160 pages, including illustrations, introductions and a starter adventure! And the cost? $19.95. Mind, this was back in the mid-80's when the dollar was worth more, too. Of course, there were additional adventures and even an entire supplemental world to adventure in, but all one really need to get started was the one book. A game far ahead of its time.
Of course, TSR bought SPI, who produced DragonQuest, just so they could take it off the shelves. Or, so it has been rumored. Then, TSR was swallowed up by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wizards.com">Wizards of the Coast</a>, which was in turn bought by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.hasbro.com">Hasbro</a&gt;. All of which means, I fear, that DragonQuest will never see the light of day again. I treasure my copies of the game.

What got me thinking about this, though, was a rumor I heard on-line today about a game-alike of DragonQuest being released at the upcoming <a target="_blank" href="http://www.gencon.com">GenCon</a&gt;. I have no idea if it's true or not, but I sure hope it is.
Stay tuned!