Writing at Walden Pond

Remember me mentioning that Tommy and Brian and I are working on a new short? Well I finished the script for it thts past Saturday!!!

Ask me where!

WALDEN POND!!!

Some SL friends created Walden Pond -- immortalized by Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 novel WALDEN -- on their land, as a personal escape for them and an attraction for others in SecondLife. I looked up pics of the place, past and present, and they NAILED! It looks JUST as it did for the 2 years and 2 months Thoreau lived there!!!

The pictures below won't do their creation justice, though. 'Cause this entry's about ME :)

So I know I need to write. And I know there's not much going on for me in-world at the moment. But I'm not feeling the desire to write in my Writer's Pad (my Home in SL).

Despite the RIDICULOUSLY HIGH Pretntious Factor [I've read Thoreau and I, sir, am NO THOREAU], I decide I'm gonna go write in Thoreau's cabin, and see how much work I get done.


Okay, so a screenplay -- even a short one -- has 4 essential components which, for our purposes here, I will arbitrarily call The Open, The Meat, The Climax and The Resolution. If the script is 7 pages long, then The Open might be 1 page, The Meat might be 3 pages, the Climax might be 2 pages and the Resolution might be 1 page. (If the script runs longer, the only component that expands significantly is The Meat. The rest stay comparitively tiny; and I think the Crap Draft of our movie runs approcimately 17 pages, making The Meat closer to 10 pages long.)

I got The Open late, late, late Friday night just before I left work.

So I sat down at Thoreau's table and got started.

The land has its own soundeffects, so as the sun set the chirping of birds faded away and I got to hear the hooting of owls out the window as I typed :)

It was WAY COOL!!!


Now looking at the layout of the cabin, there's a table, a desk and a bed. The table was most likely intended strictly for eating. Maybe reading. But Thoreau was a writer... I'm guessing he did some writing there, too :) (He probably did some writing under a tree just outside, and probably by on a rock by the pond. I mean, 2 years and 2 month? He probably did some writing on just about every square inch of that land, right?)


So I wrote at the very same table that THOREAU probably wrote at!!!

...if he had a computer with a cable modem and an XP operating system....

And there probably wasn't an alien sleeping on the bed next to him as he wrote.

These pics are me revisiting the places i wrote at. At the time I wasn't in picture-taking mode. And Brian's computer takes MUCH better snapshots than mine, so I asked him to come with me and be the photographer for these.

Which means that sometimes I'd turn around and find him in wierd palces.

So anyway...

I wrote The Meat of the script here. And after that 10 pages or so, I felt like I was probably done for the day. So I got up to stretch my legs and IM some friends and see what they were up to, and just generally feel good about myself for having done some good work, and having done it IN THOREAU'S CABIN ON WALDEN POND!!!


I strolled over to the campsite there and sat infront of the fire.

...and discovered I WASN'T spent for the day! I wrote a paragraph that had popped into my head, a piece of dialogue that seemed to come naturally after that...

And before I knew it, I had completed The Climax of the script!!!


So I ran around with my SL friend April and checked out some of the ASTOUDING things she's created in-world, and then I get an IM from my friend Tam. She's dancing at a club (HUGE surprise) and can I come dance, too?

I've done A LOT of good work today (12 or so pages in a day for just about ANY screenwriter is GOOD WORK) so I go celebrate! There are topless women dancing around me, the music is blasting, everyone's chatting to each other, and to me...

And I decide I want to work out this ONE SCENE...


So I turn my music off and whip out the Notecard I've been writing the screenplay on...

And half an hour later I'VE FINISHED THE CRAP DRAFT OF THE SCRIPT!!!

This is PARTY TIME, INDEED!!! Before I was celebrating because I had come VERY CLOSE to finishing the script! NOW I'm celebrating IT COMPLETION!!!

In the pic above is Tempest Jewel, she manages Baby Dollz, the club I wrote the Resolution in. She was there Saturday night, and when Brian and I went back to the club to get a picture, she was there THEN, too!!! All alone, playing music and dancing to it.

And Tommy left about 20 minutes ago. He and Brian and I talked about the script, about what changes we want to see in this next draft.

So I've got more work to do this week/weekend.

AND SECONDLIFE SEEMS TO BE THE PERFECT PLACE TO DO IT!!!

Exhaustive Fun

So as of Tuesday Tommy, Brian and I are working on a new short!!! It's been a couple of years, so it feel GREAT to be working on a new one!!!

Monday night after work, I go in-world and track down a TON of free scripts and decide to try to figure them out. AND I DO!!!

Well, to a degree...

I mean, I can't write scripts from scratch, but I can now read scripts a little better than I could before! They make a little more sense to me now :)

So much so, I was able to create some poseballs of my own!!!

Oh... Definition -- Poseballs are these devices in SL that allow Avatars to perform specific actions. Like, if you wanna sit down in SL you click on a sit poseball and it makes your Av sit down.

OR...

Let's say you create a haunted land, and you wanna create little scenes for visitors to pose and take pics of themselves, you might need a die poseball, for example...

Which is convenient, because Brian added onto his biggest store -- Freddy's Alley -- and created a hallway that you can walk down to get to this GREAT GRAVEYARD!!!

But that was mostly Tuesday night. Monday night I explored the Wonderful World of Scripting!

I stay up until 7:30 am or later Tuesday morning, then I wake up Tuedsay afternoon just before 1p. About 5 hours of sleep. But I don't so much feel it because I wake up and hop in-world, and I'm all being productive and stuff!!!

Then Tommy comes over -- just a little earlier than he usually does, even -- and he and Brian and I spend the next 5 and a half hours creating what I think is a GREAT short film story!!!

It was some SERIOUS fun!!!

And then after Tommy had to get home, Brian and I got back in-world and got back to work on the Haunted Land.

I built this box: The walls look like SL woods ad midnight, and the ceiling looks like a starry midnight SL sky. So whatever time of day it is, when you're in the graveyard it looks like it's midnight! Plus, the graveyard actually exists some 700 meters in the sky. But the graveyard looks like it's on the ground, in a wooded area :)

Very cool!

And then Brian made the cemetery (and the "Dark Woods Box) twice as long and set up a 2-story caretaker type house at the back of the graveyard. So if he's in the house and a visitor to the store wanders into the graveyard, he can appear behind a tree at the back of the cemetery and spook 'em :)

I stayed up WAY TOO LATE creating death poses and more poseballs for future visitors. I think I got maybe 5 hours of sleep Tuesday night (Wednesday morning, for those of you who have Normal People schedules...).

And last night at work was TORTURE!!! When I had my work done, I COULD NOT stay awake for my life!

Oh, it SUCKED.

One of my female friends called me and chatted at me for for 4 hours -- until my phone died -- and she was all frustrated because I just WAS NOT myself. Now, part of it was that she was talking AT me... She sometimes just love to tell me what she did with her kids today, and often she'll list things she bought at the grocery store, or list every food she ate at a particular meal... So it's not really like she was talking TO me.

But still, usually I'm MUCH more vibrant and... you know... much more ME.

More than that, this Sleepy-Whenever-I'm-Not-Moving thing seems to have started last week.

I've decided that it must be this: When I'm not at work I'm CONSTANTLY engaged in something that stimulates my interest. Seriously, I wake up and there's SL and/or PS2 and/or email. And when I get off work there's SL, PS2, email, and/or movies until I finally force myself to go to sleep. But work... Except for Fridays, I have a few hours work right up front, then just maintainence-type stuff every half hour.

So my body goes "You're not doing anything, let's have a nap."
And I'm like, "I'm DOING something! I'm working!"
And my body's all, "Nah, we're napping."
And I'm all, "HA! COFFEE! Take THAT!"
And my body's all, "sssslllleeeeeeeeeppppyyyy"
And I'm all "yawn; quit it..."
And my body's all "sssslllleeeeeeeeeppppyyyy"
And then I'm a zombie for the rest of night.

So when I got home last night I'm all like "I'll show YOU" and I went STRAIGHT TO BED, no SL, no PS2! I was in bed by 3a.

But then, around 5a my body's all "HUNGRY" and I'm all "NO! Go to sleep!" and it's all "HHHUUUNNNGGGEEERRRRRRRYYYYYY!" So I'm all "Okay, toast... And maybe something sweet..."

And then I finally crash around 6:30am or 7a.

But still, I woke up when my alarm went of with little hassle.

So I'm hoping tonight I'll be less narcolepic.

We'll see.

Groovin' Weekend

Okay, last entry I gave you the sort of overview og the weekend, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail.

If you're sick of reading about my SecondLife, you might want to stop reading here...

It's just so cool, the way SL and RL mesh for me! I spent all day Friday working and waiting for 2:00 am, when I could go home and get back in-world. When I do, it's like I never left.. only a lot of stuff has happened that I have to hear about.

Plus, weekends LAST LONGER in-world. Days cycle, like, every 2 or 3 hours in-world. So even if I'm just bombing around the world (because all my friends are off-line) on a Friday night/Saturday morning after I get off work, I've seen 1 or 2 sunsets and sunrises. I feel like I've lived an entire weekend before I go to sleep Friday night!!!

So anyway, my weekend begins in earnest on Saturday. I'm meeting Lisa and Regina at the theater to catch SILENT HILL Opening Weekend! This is HUGE for me! I missed STAY ALIVE at the theaters because of time/money/circumstance, and I was a little afraid that I might have to wait for dvd for SILENT HILL, as well. But stuff worked out just fine, and I GOT TO SEE IT!!!

And that's cool enough! But it just so happened that I got to have some cool, intelligent conversation about the movie for a few minutes after, as well!

Then I hop in the car, and I'm on a mission: I need to get in-world in time for the opening of the club I helped create!

Now don't get me wrong, the opening of the club is not my triumph, personally. Tam is the genius behind the vision! And this chick's SMART!!! And then Brian's also a genius, because he was able to physically (in cyberspace) create the building itself. THESE TWO are the heroes in this little story.

But I'm super proud to have been a part of this team!!! And both of them are quick give me props for my small contributions, so I don't feel guilty thinking of the club as "our" accomplishment. (But I have no actual delusions about just how small a part I actually played...)

So anyway...

I totally want to be there to celebrate with my friends!!!

So this is my mission: Get in-world for the Opening.

But...

...I have a side-mission: Brian and I need smokes and beer.

It's been a while since we drank, and I got paid Friday. So beer just seems like a groovy idea for tonight, Celebration night. Then, we need smokes. Brian's low on dough until next week, and we've both been smoking a LOT more than we usually do, so if I score a carton of cigarettes, that'll help the next week go by more smoothly.

Plus, you know... IT'S THE WEEKEND.

Oh, and I have a Netflix movie I need to drop into a mailbox. (Our complex doesn't have an enclosed Outgoing box, and the 2 times I've chanced dropping my movies off in the complex mail box, Netflix didn't get the movies. TWICE in just over TWO YEARS. Coincidence? Probably; but I don't take the chance anymore.)

Okay, so this should be a one-stop trip. There's an H.E.B. just down the street from our appartment... AND there's a drive-by public mailbox in the parking lot!

So first I drop off the Netflix movie, then I roll into H.E.B.. They're having a sale on beer, so I'm able to load up for less than I expected!

But they don't have the smokes I'm looking for.

Scheiza.

Okay, there's a Texaco down the road that I KNOW has the smokes I'm looking for, and plenty of them. It's a little bit out out of my way, and will cost me about 15 minutes. But once I've procured the smokes, Brian and I are set for the weekend!

Now, the weather's all Summer-y, and I've popped in my "Summer Jamz" mix cd, so I'm kind of getting a whiff of some of teen-dom. This, after I've FINALLY gotten to see a good Horror flick IN THE THEATER on OPENING WEEKEND...

I'm having A GREAT DAY!!!

I snag the smokes, roll home, slip into my Comfy Gear and log into SecondLife!

In-world, Brian and Tam are dancing, the club's not packed but it's got plenty of dancin' folk, and Tam reports that she's happy with the attendance tonight.

SCORE!!!

If she's happy with the way Opening Night went, then it was a success!!!

After a little while Tommy shows up and joins the fun! I have IM conversations with him and Tam and a couple other people while Brian and I are laughing and shouting down the hall to each other.

So there's more danincing and chatting and laughing and fun.

After a while, after everyone else goes to bed (in RL) Brian and I go to a screening of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW in-world!!!

I meantioned that last time. But it was REALLY fun!!! I mean, it's 1:30 am or later in RL. Nobody's awake except US at this hour. But in SL, there are some other freaks sitting and watching this movie with us, yelling at the screen and laughing at each other!!!

It's a GOOD life!

Then yesterday, had the Family Dinner thing with Mom, and that was groovy. And we burned some dvds for her, which took up the slower computer -- the one I usually use for SL when Brian and I are both home. So Brian -- generous cat that he is -- pops in BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE on the PS2 (it plays better than the dvd player in the living room) and takes over the burning process, allowing me to use his computer to go in-world!!!

(I WUV my bubba!!!)

So I get to hang with Tam and others at the Shark Pit, dancing and chatting. After the first dvd is burned, the pc decides to act wierd, so I'm sort of in-and-out of Brian's room. But that's cool when you're dancing in SL! To any in-world on-lookers, you're dancing with them. You might be slow to respond to questions, but it doesn't hurt the atmosphere or the vibe any.

Some hours later, the dvds are burnt and Brian has -- VERY GENEROUSLY -- decided to let me continue using his pc while he goes in-world on the slower one -- the living room one!

That means that ANYTHING I do in SecondLife, ANYWHERE I go, the graphics are just about as good as PS2 graphics! I get to experience the world the way the creators intend it to be experienced.

Meanwhile, Brian's such a geneous in-world that he's still wicked-skilled!!! I'm on his computer and he's on the living room computer... He STILL creates circles around me!

He's THAT GOOD :)

[He would humbly argue with me -- something along the lines of "Aw, now... I'm OKAY, but..." -- but he never reads my blog... Too busy in SL :) ]

But it would still be a while before I joined him on our Build Land. I was dancin' with Tam at the Shark Pit :)

Eventually, the later it became, the Pit crew was own to Tam, a woman named Loki and me. The ladies decided to go to another club, so we all teleported there seperately. And it was the COOLEST feeling when we all entered the front door at THE SAME TIME...

First of all, this club is in a city, and the teleport landing spot is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE CITY from the club. So you have to make your way through (or OVER... you can fly in-world) streets made to look exactly like RL Amsterdam.

And if your TerraWarp Belt is set on 2 (out of, like, 5 -- and Speed 1 will make you shoot around like a rocket), you're gonna bump into a lot of stuff.

Okay, the secondly... You know this sensation, it's happened to you before SOMETIMES in your life:

You're out with your friends, you're running around, having a FANTASTIC TIME (you feel like a teenager again... or like a GOD), and you get seperated momentarily, but you agree to all meet up at the same place. It could be the mall, it could be a dance club, it could be a movie theater. But you're all arriving in different vehicles and you've all left at slightly different times.

Then you get there, and you're walking past the sidewalk, walking toward the front door... And you look over and see your friends doing the same thing at the same pace. You ALL just happened to arrive at the SAME TIME, completely independant of one another! And you feel like a rock star or something!

And none of you says "Oh, there you are" or anything like that. You just notice each other and keep walking, each of you probably feeling that same cool vibe.

And where you're headed is actually quite a bit inside the doorway, so you all just keep walking, and the distance to your destination inside somehow makes you feel like you're a rock star in a movie about being a rockstar, and you've just entered the building and you just keep moving toward the stage, to that crowd that's cheering you on inside...

I KNOW I'm not the ONLY person who has experienced that! Right?

Anyway, that's what it felt like as I'm walking into the club (on a computer that has crystal-clear graphics, even when you're entering a new region [with visual data that needs time to render]) and I look over and see the ladies also arriving at the same time, and then the three of us take our own path through the loby and to the dance floor, and then we ARRIVE... people dancing and chatting to each other, the party that has just been warming up until WE got there :)

Yes, yes, I have a HUGE ego. I've been told this before. But truly, that's the way it FELT.

Better still, we're there only for a few minutes when we hear that it's Pajama Night... :)

You don't need details about this... Just imagine you're in a room with hot women, you yourself are a hot male, and EVERYONE is in their pajamas :)

THAT'S a good room to be in.

This entry's going on FOREVER, isn't it?

Anyway, let me cut to the chase...

So I'm up until 7-ish am this morning, and I set my alarm to 2:00 pm to give myself 6 -- rather than 5 -- hours to sleep. I hit the Snooze a few times this monring (MY "morning", mind you) and then I finally decide to get up and I turn the alarm off.

Then at 3:00 pm, I wake up again...

I had dozed off after I killed the alarm...

I have to jump in the car at 3:30 pm to make work on time...

So I jump into some clothes, throw on my No-Time-To-Make-Myself-Purdy hat, and race to work. In the car, I've still got my Summer Jamz playing :) And I get to work about 5 minutes late, and my boss in in the room when I show up.

He's in mid-conversation, though, so he says Hi to me and continues talking.

10 minutes later, I'm caught up on everything I have to do IMMEDIATELY upon arriving at work, and I'm able to join the conversation.

So for me, this weekend seems to have been about me racing around from one place to the other, conversing and laughing, and feeling cool.

And now it's time for me to race home from work and hop back in-world... and feel cool :)

Here's hoping YOU feel cool very, very soon, too!!!

Opening Night @ The Shark Pit

I gotta tell ya about this!!!

I had the COOLEST day!!!

I woke up, did some stuff I needed to, then I went to see SILENT HILL (Opening Weekend) with some friends!

That was cool enough -- I haven't been to the movies in a while -- but then afterward, I raced home to get in-world for the Official Opening of THE SHARK PIT, Tam's club -- which I helped with :) )

I danced and had a blast for several hours! Friends were there -- both RL & SL :)

Then, after things broke up and people went to bed, Brian and I went to an in-world theater showing THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW all weekend long!!!

That's what I'm doing now! Wtaching Rocky Horror with Brian!

Audience participation is a bit wierd in-world... The movie starts when you press "Play" on your "Movie Control", so the movie starts at different times for everyone. And even if you press "Play" at the same time, the speed at which your computer processes information alters the total duration of how the movie plays out.

BUT STILL...!!!

Whatching ROCKY HORROR in-world is just AN AMAZING experience!!!

Rocky Horror has always been a shared experience. And sharing it with both friends and strangers in-world is FANTASTIC!!!

just wanted to share.

I'm goign back to the movie now :)

Sorry it's been a while...

Three guesses why...

So Brian and I have been working on building a club for our friend in-world Tam. She owns a HUGE patch of land, and she wanted a store and a club on it.

We built the shop -- well, Brian built the shop, I built a huge fish tank and bought some fish to put in it. Brian allowed me to help him figure out the color scheme. I'll take credit for being helpful there.

Then, while Brian and I are on this Creation High, we moved on the club. She took us around SL, showing us what she liked and didn't like, then Brian got a picture in his head and built it. Then she recommended changes.

I danced a lot while this was going on.

And did some drinking, too. (Some in-world drinking, and some RL drinking, too.)

I was moral support.

And I actually sort of helped out with the color scheme! Tam changed the colors to match the shop -- located next door -- so I ended up strongly influencing the color pallet of the club!

:)

Unfortunatley, I haven't gotten any bright ideas about my in-world "haunted house" idea!

:(

That concept is still just sort of floating around right now, along with all the screenplays and novels I have yet to write.

Oh, and speaking of screenwriting: I haven't heard from Kelly in 2 or 3 weeks. He's been getting progressively more busy with M Studios [I believe I'm remembering the name correctly, but I can't fins it on Google to verify], his day job. So I'm not actually worried for his health or anything. But I am curious about how I'M going to write HIS movie without him...

I could probably write it myself, but all the really COOL stuff is in HIS head! He came up wih the concept, the characters and the world... So my version of HIS WORLD would, you know, kind of be crap.

I'm not overly concerned, really. Just wondering how this is going to play out.

Plus... you know... I kinda miss talkin' to my buddy...

But Brian and I have been spending A LOT of time together lately! AND I've been seeing Tommy a lot more than usual... In-world, of course... But it still counts to me :)

REALLY Fulfilling Virtual Weekend

Just logged out of SecondLife...

In fact, I can still hear Brian in his room LAUGHING! We both logged-off, said our Good-Nights, he closed his door, turned off his light... And then I hear laughter from his room! It starts out as sporadic chuckles, then bursts out into full-blown laughter!

I tell him "I can hear you laughing in there, dude," as I'm laughing myself at the surreal evening we've just had.

He pops out his head and relates the visions from earlier that keep assaulting him -- visions of an adorable zombie-bunny hopping maniacly up and down, and Paul Stanley doing back-flips for no knowable reason.

I still hear him laughing in there!

So, this weekend starts out kind of slow... Mostly me wandering around SL, looking for something to do.

In-world, we have a group called WhitelightEnt, which consists of Tommy, Brian and myself, as well as someone we only know in-world, Tamaratee Beeks. Brian and I own most of the land and all of the stores -- so far -- and Brian creates most of the merchandice we sell in-world. (Like, 99% to date.)

But we have plans...

Tamaratee has been asking us if we'll put a shop on her land (she owns, like, maybe close to as much as Brian and I own together!). And she also wants to open a dance club, as they seem to do well in SL.

In fact, let me explain...

Say you're a Resident in SL. Here's how your SL day might go:

You log-in, check your Friends List and see who you know that's in-world at the moment, and IM (Instant Message) your Friends to see what they're up to.

There's a REALLY good chance their (a) shopping, (b) creating/building something, (c) hanging out with people they know, or (d) at a club.

Now, people doing "b" usually have their own land to create on, so if they're creating you probably want to leave them alone. They're busy. They're blissfully making something that they believe SecondLife needs, and their attention is occupied. They may want your opinion of what they're making, or they may be looking for an excuse to take a break. But most likely, they're busy for now, you may hear from them later in the day.

If they're doing "c", then they might offer to Teleport you to where they are. This is cool, because you get to meet new people. And human interraction is what SecondLife is all about. You get to see people as they would like to see themselves -- which is often DEAD SEXY -- and you get to talk to them when they feel as confident as they are capable of feeling about themselves! So they're free, and fun, and OFTEN quite funny!

Now, there's also "a". If you're a guy and you're talking to a woman, there's a good chance she won't mind you tagging along as she shops. I'm not being sexist here, this is my observation. Ladies LOVE to shop! The women I know in-world have TONS of outfits -- because in SL you can actually afford to buy a different outfit for ANY occasion! AND, there are exponentially more occasions in SL than there ever will be in RL!

If it's a guy, and he's shopping, he's probably looking for something specific. he's crerating something, and he's looking for the right texture to make it look real. Or he's just wondering if someone has created a good Attack Chopper, or TIE Fighter yet. But he's busy. He might want some company while he shops, but very likely he's not looking for distractions.

Then there's "d". If someone is clubbing in SL, they're LOOKING FOR social interraction. Their either looking to just spend some mindless, fun time with their friends, or they're looking to make new friends. Either way, clubbers in SL are looking for ESCAPE.

And there are some good clubs in SL.

However, if you have a computer that isn't the newest, most badass computer available today, you might experience a severe lag in you animation.

As a result, many SL entrepeneurs are scurrying to create low-lag clubs, where people can hang out, meet, dance and listen to cool music, and just have a good time, while being able to see what's going on around them.

I say "many". I'm only speaking from my own experience. There are MANY Residents in SL, and I know very few of them.

But the ones I know are working on low-lag clubs of their own.

And that's one of the projects I've got going on right now.

So this weekend was largely about talking concept and theory with Tamaratee on the club she wants to create. A lot of her and Brian and I brainstorming about what makes a good club in a Virtual World, and what's going to draw people there.

Then, there was the Research portion, where Tam and I went dancing at clubs, checking the vibe and the patronage...

That was Saturday :)

Today I spent, mostly, working on a mock-up for the shop that she wants to put on her land. Brian built the shape, and he and I worked on the color scheme and Textures for the place. [Textures are, essentially, closeup pictures of, say, tile or wood or metal or cloth, that is replicated infinitely across the shape of the object you have created. It gives the appearance that instead of making a fence out of CG, you have made a fence out of wood. For instance.]

Late tonight I called in a super-genious friend of mine to have a look at the place and give us her thoguhts.

(I built AN AQUARIUM!!!)

Okay, but here's a reality of SL... You can do ANYTHING!!!

An example:

While Brian and I were in a Texture shop, searching for the right texture for the outside of the shop we're building, he stood in front of some Campers [There are "Camping Chairs" in SL, and if you sit in them, you earn SL money every 10 minutes or so; and so Residents will sometimes "Camp" to make more money.] and began DANCING.

He was wearing a zombie Avatar, with an evil-looking Jack-O-Lantern on his head. So he looked like some derranged escapee from a Halloween nightmare, and he's bustin Wacko Jacko moves for them to stare at in wonder/horror. MEANWHILE, he's using a technique we call Zoom-View to look around the store and examine all the Textures the store has to offer. But the people who are Camping can't see this; they only see some wierd-looking maniac dancing for them.

Similarly, your Avatar can be dancing at a club -- locked into an animation that makes your Avatar move in a specified dance cycle (or "loop") whiule you're Zoom-Viewing THE ENTIRE CLUB, checking out all the people around you and what they're up to. Meanwhile, with computer lag what it is [SL works on what is essentially a game engine, but the possibilities of what any given "game character" will do are limitless, unlike your PS2 or Gamecube, as all the "game characters" are LIVE HUMAN BEING with limitless imaginations] you're also carrying on a public dialogue with any random person who happens to talk to you, and possibly an IM dialogue with the person you're dancing with (because IM textxs can only be read by the two people involved in the conversation; whereas public "Chats" can be read by anyone near enough to "hear").

So there's this MATRIX-like freedom from physics-as-we-know-it to life in SL.

Okay, so tonight, Brian and my friend Kali and I are standing on a shop that BRian built some 700 or so meters in the air...

She gives us some input on what she likes about the shop and what could be better.

Then she busts out this igloo she built. On;y it's too small for me to enter. Now, I know that Kali has a dark sense of humor, like I do, so I put on an Avatar calles "Tiny Terribles Cahtullu" to make her laugh.

...and that was the beginning of the descent into maddness...

She whips on this Avatar that makes her look like a walking skeleton. Brian's already a madman, taking advantage of all the eccentricities that SL affords, and he whips out these dance animations that make his Avatar move in really unappealing ways.

I pop on an Avatar that makes me look like GIR from the INVADER ZIM toon, and Kali pops on this skinless cadaver Av, and starts trying to hump us.

Before I know what's going on, both of them are trying to make a Man Sandwhich outta me, and I get this IM from a complete stranger.

She is organizing an event that someone in SL is throwing, and she needs masks.

Now, I'm technically the owner of one of the stores in SL. Brian actually did all the work, but my name is on the shop and on the land. She must have did a Search for Masks, and my store came up.

Like in RL, she's looking for donations to make this event happen. And I'm not used to being a shopkeep, so I'm trying to figure out HOW to help her out. She wants a number of masks that she can give to attendees, along with my shop's card, so people can visit there. Like in RL, my helping her, theoretically helps my business by spreading my name. But the only masks we sell are Tiki Masks Brian created, and how many does she need? She isn't sure how many will be in attendance, and how many of those will not have their own masks...

Meanwhile, Kali is now a zombie bunny, hopping up and down maniacly while expressing sexual desire. And Brian is this dancing fool, trying to dance me off the edge of this VERY HIGH platform we're on! [In SL you can fly, and you don't die if you splat onto the ground before you can engage the Fly option, but that doesn't make it any less time-consuming or inconvenient to try to navigate yourself back up to where you were. Even SL physics have their drawbacks...]

So I figure out a bassic plan about how to get 25 Tiki Masks to the event coordinator (which is something of a feat, as I've never donated en masse in SL before -- different physics, different problem-solving aparatus) and I'm trying to get some help from Brian, who's busy laughing hysterically at Kali's antics while doing his own strange, mind-bending things in-world...

And I SWEAR, it felt EXACTLY like being at a really great party with fun, drunken friends and loud, loud music, and getting a business call on your cell!!! It felt EXACTLY that way!!!

So I got the help I needed from Brian -- if sluggishly -- and I hooked the person who IMed me up with 30 Tiki Masks (just to be generous, and give her some wiggle room) and she assured me she'd take care of the details, including letting the recipients of the masks know that they were donated by our shop.

And then I put on my Paul Stanley Avatar (that Brian found, bought for me and gave me sometime back) and joined what had now become a very dirty and silly dance party :)

That was tonight!

Did I mention that while I was working on a Phone Booth I had built (from scratch) Brian and Tamaratee chased each other around in Attack Choppers over our land and much of the surrounding land? (I tried to join the chase for a while, but I was on the slow computer and couldn't keep up with them.) (Also, Tam found the Attack Choppers and bought enough for all of us...)

Oh, yeah, and an in-world publication wants to interview me because I live in the featured region of the week.

I seem to have a much richer Second Life than First!

Madness.

It's all madness.

WELCOME TO THE 21st CENTURY!!!

Touring Kingstown In SecondLife

Here's another of those entries designed to lure you into the addictive world of SecondLife by accompanying my skillful narration with pics...

:)

[A quick note about pic quality: I didn't take the time to resize all the pics into a smaller size in my previous entry, and as a result my blog page went all wonky. So this time I went ahead and sized everything down. If you don't know SL, you'd be SURPRISED how much detail you loose this way. But this isn't meant to be a photo-album; it's a story primarily. The pics are meant to enhance. So sorry about the quality. Now, moving on...]

So today we're touring Kingstown.

It's a cool li'l berg in SL created by Stranger Christensen. He and his wife are huge fans of Stephen King's work, and this is their tribute to him.



This, as you can see, is ME :) I'm beginning my tour at the campsite. Behind me, you can see a hoovering dreamcatcher, which I'm guessing is a nod to the more recent novel/film DREAMCATCHER. (I could be wrong here...)



I doubt you can see in the above pic, but laying on the rock pit that the campfire is burning in is a stick with a couple of roasting marshmellows! Nice little detail there :)

And behind me in frame is my first stop, the Overlook Hotel. Now, even if you haven't read the book THE SHINING, you have undoubtedly seen either Kubrik's film (most likely) or the ABC TV mini-series STEPHEN KING'S THE SHINING. If not, both are available on dvd. Go rent them and watch them again. NOW!

Unless you don't enjoy the horror genre, in which case this entry may not interest you much. I, however, am a Horror Nerd, so I dig on a town like this!



Immediately upon entering the front lobby, you see a couple of stills from the movie. The famous Bloody Evelvator scene, and a spooky shot of Nicholson's character at the hotel some 40 decades earlier.

(A note about spoiler: I'm not going to worry about them. I am truly sorry if I ruin anything for anyone, but it's not like I'm giving away major plot points here. I'm just touring a virtual town.)

And the further into the lobby I walk... OH! What?! What's that coming toward me?!!! Could it be...

A GHOST!

YEAH, BAY-BAY!!!

When the ghost reaches me, a script in the object corrupts my avatar's built-in animations and my computer crashes.

Just kidding :)

It passes through me harmlessly -- if creepily -- and I proceed to...



...the elevator...
...and the second floor.



Okay, one of the cool things about the Overlook Hotel is that Stranger Christensen designed it so that you can actually rent the rooms!!! Not with dollars, though. With SL's own currency, called "Linden dollars" or "Lindens" (and denoted thusly: "L$").

To give you an idea of the exchange-rate: The last time I bought Lindens, $20 got me around L$5,400. Or something like that.

(But like other all money, the value of Lindens fluxuates.)

A stay at the Overlook costs L$150 per 7 days. (And sinces the transactions are all automated by scripting, you can't haggle. It's take it or leave it. But that's cool.)

And THIS, Room 418, is the room I rented!!!



And this is the view out my window.

At night.

You get a better view during the day... But this being the Overlook Hotel in Kingstown, THIS is really the view you want.

Now, the truth is that in SL there's very little reason to stay in a hotel room. I mean, you CAN FLY in this world. So room rental is really more about bragging rights than anything else. So I spent, maybe, a grand total of 10 minutes in the room for my L$150. But in my opinion: Money WELL SPENT :)



And Brian didn't come with me on this tour, but here's the room he rented.

I actually took the tour on the last day of our stay, and we got notice that we had been "evicted" at midnight (SL Time).

Below is the view from the upstairs deck. (You can see the window to my room to my left -- your right -- and the window to Brian's room to my right -- your left.)

Cool deck, right?!



Returning to the second-floor lobby, you see more stills from Kubrick's flick and...

OH NOW! WHAT'S THAT?!!

Yep, those creepy little chick ghosts!

I jest now, but the first time you walk in and you're not prepared for that, it REALLY IS creepy! And it makes you a lot more careful when you open up doors. Because you didn't even know that was possible before, now you're wondering what other surpises the person who built this might have for ya :)





And if you'd like a souvenier to commemorate you stay in the Overlook, L$49 get's you an "I Survived the Overlook Hotel" T-shirt, with Stephen King's image on the front.





So, natch, I bought one :)



Next stop: The Pet Cemetery!!!



I don't know how well you can read these tombstones in these sized-down pic, so I'll read them to you...

"RAIDER: Nessie Cobb's Best Friend And Only Companion"

That's an allusion to NEEDFUL THINGS. If you're not familiar with that one, I recommend the book over the movie. Although the movie had some GREAT actors truning in great performances, the story is too truncated.

The legacy King will be leaving literature is the richly detailed people and places he invented or modified. King fans are ravenous because they KNOW the worlds King has created -- even if they haven't been to the Real-Life places that inspired King.

So despite the valiant effort made by the movie's screenwriter(s) and director, the book is my humble recommendation. (First, at least.)



"My Poor Dog Lucky Got Hit By A Trucky; Guess He Wasn't So Lucky"

I want to say this was from the book, but I couldn't tell ya for sure. (King books are long, and I'm a slow reader, so I tend not to reread them... Sry. "Jerusalem's Lot", however... I can't quote it yet, but I'm WELL on my way!!!)



"CUJO: My Best Friend Almost To The End"

You get that reference, I'm sure :)



"Here Lies Church the Cat: Born September 1987, Died October 1989, Dies Again November 1989"

If you've seen the excellent movie or read the excellent novel, you get THAT reference :)



This is a wierd energy-ball thing in the center of the cemetery. I believe it's more Symbolic than Literal.

Like the campfire I started out by: It symbolizes the four guys camping out at the beginning of the story, rather than recreating a literal scene from the movie/novel.

Still... It's COOL!

:)



And here we are at Needful Things: A shop built by the Devil to provide you with your deepest desire... For the oh-so-small price of... "a favor." ;)



Here are a couple of items used to procure such favors. Including...



A shard from Noah's Ark!!!



And here's me with Captain Jack Sparrow...

This is actually a life-sized stand-up you can purchase in the store.

No relation to the King novels, but a bloke's gotta make money SOMEHOW, right?



And if you slip into the shopkeep's seat, you find yourself drawing upon the dark energies of the universe...





And don't forget to tip your Host!

I didm't tip when I too this tour, and I was a little wasted the night that Brian and I rented the rooms... But Brian assures me (he hadn't been drinking NEARLY as much) that I was "overly generous" with my tip... In ADDITION TO renting a room and buying a T-shirt :)

(He says that he tipped "just over what the last tip was", so I'm sure he was plenty generous, too...)



And thus concludes your guided tour through Kingstown, one of the VERY COOL places you can visit in SecondLife!

Hope you enjoyed!!!

:)

Building the Boo-Wheel

OKAY! HERE IT IS!!! This is one of my adventures in SecondLife... With pics! I figure the best way to communicate what's so addictive about SL is to SHOW you.

And to do that, I got Brian to give me a hand with a simple build: I call it the "Boo-Wheel".

Some explanation: Ultimately, I'd love to construct a full-blown Haunted House in-world. But I don't know scripting, and I don't have the (very expensive) programs I would need to create animations that worked in-world. So I need to use the simple scripts available to me, and apply them in simple machines that accomplish a desired result.

My first idea it the Boo-Wheel. It's a large, invisible wheel with a life-size cut-out of a ghost or monster. The wheel is also a "phantom" object -- which means that people can walk through it with out being affected. Also, the monster (in this case, a life-size Freddy Krueger stand-up that Brian made) is a phantom object; so when it pops out at the visitor, it doesn't smack 'em in the face and knock them down.

Now, I know we're talking about virtual people in a virtual world here. But this world has rules, and one of the basic rules of SecondLife is "Don't abuse each other!!!" I don't know that it's ever stated that way, specifically, but if you boil all the rules that get you banned and kicked-out of SL, they all stem from abusive behaviour toward fellow Residents.

So I don't want to build something that abuses my visitors. After a while, they may report me and I may get kicked out. So -- like a RL Haunted House creator -- I want to keep my visitors' safety in mind while I'm designing this.

So, here are the players:



That's us, respectively, Brian (the Grayskin ET) and me (with the blue goatee).

And this is the Project Site:



It's a platform Brian built, set way, way, WAY up in the sky. The location is for privacy, and so we don't disturb our neighbors. The size is use in that it allows more than one of us to create multiple objects at once without getting in each other's way. It also serves as a launch/landing pad for the many, MANY flying vehicles Brian owns. (You can see a small blue personal craft in the pic, but he's got some HUGE ones, and he'll sometimes fly us around, all at once.)



I didn't even have to ask Brian to get started. Before I knew what he was doing, he was already creating the Boo-Wheel. At first, he didn't fully get the concept of HOW I wanted to attatch the Freddy stand-up. I wanted it sticking out, rather than pressed against the wheel.

The next step was to create the wall, so I got on that while Brian was doing his thing.

My job was the easiest, and I was done in no time...



So then we moved the Boo-Wheel behind the Horror Wall (Ya like that? My creativity with the names?) and attatched Freddy.

Then it was time to test it out...







A SUCCESS!!!

That was the last pass, of course. We had to adjust Freddy's proximity to the wheela couple of times before we nailed it.

And what the pics can't show you is that the Boo-Wheel makes a long arch, unseen behind the wall. And every time the Freddy stand-up comes around, he pokes through the wall, appearing to the person on the other side of the wall that Freddy is swinging out to take a swipe at them and then disappearing back into the wall.

The final step of the process was to turn the Boo-Wheel completely invisible. What you DON'T see on the other side of the wall is the Boo-Wheel (which was previously wood textured).



And there ya go... My first guided tour through one of the many, many addictive aspects of SL!!! I hope to take you on more of these tours as my adventures continue.

That is, of course, if I can pull myself out of the world long enough to organize the pics and write the article!!!

Bed Time...

I need to get some sleep now, but I just wanted to record here that I spent more time meeting new people in SL today and tonight than I have in RL in FOREVER!!!

And it was really fun!!!

It started out with me hanging with Brina, then Tommy came along, then a woman I met a few days ago (whom I DO NOT know in RL) and the 4 of us hung out and made stuff and fixed stuff, then I hooked up with another woman I met last night, and she introduced me to her friends...

It's been a REALLY SOCIAL day for me!!! And I didn't leave the house!!!

Now, I get that this is sort of antisocial... Only, it's not really...

I mean, in-world the subconscious can't really distinguish between RL and SL... You're seeing stuff, you're hearing stuff, you're doing stuff....

And the people you're surrounded by are like real people -- because they ARE real people, with their own personalities and preferences, and likes and dislikes...

I'm just trying to wrap my head around this, really...

I mean, for 35 years REAL meant material, physical, able-to-be-measured-by-physics. And I knew that stuff you read, or movies you saw or music you listened to made that idea of "real" a bit more maliable. And then a deeper exploration of spirituality sort of inverted that idea.

But Virtual Living... This must be what people in the '60s who experimented with acid and LSD felt like, kind of! Because Reality is really, really unreal for me!

Am I insane?

Aw, who am I kidding? I'm not particularly concerned about my sanity! :) Experience has taught me that 9 times out of 10, insanity is a LOT more FUN :)

I've spent the day in SL

My computer crashed and is rebooting, so I thought I'd take a second to drop you an entry...

DUDE!!! I am SO addicted to SL!!!

Okay, I spent the day with Brian and Tommy and our new friend "Tam" -- that's a nickname for her SL name.

We made some stuff, rearranged our store -- where we sell stuff we've made in-world -- and now we're AT AN SL CLUB, DANCING!!!

I don't know how long it's been since I've been dancing -- in REAL Life -- but that's what I'm doing now!

I mean, I KNOW that you're not gonna get it until I can show you some pictures (video would be better, but we're not set up for that yet), but this world, SecondLife, FEELS amazingly REAL!

When you're doing stuff in there, you just DO NOT feel as though your sitting in a chair with a keyboard in your lap! You FEEL as though what you're seeing is what you're actually doing!

It's amazing!

Blah.

I'll try to get you and entry with pics soon, so you'll have some idea what I keep going on about!

Meantime, RL or SL, I hope you're having A BLAST!!!

P.S.

I'm not a complete freak...

639 people just logged back into SecondLife. I'll make an even 340.

Hi, I'm Ray Jay, and I'm a SecondLife Addict

ALL: "Hi, Ray Jay."

Okay, so Brian and I are BOTH sitting at our computers, logged into the SecondLife site, the forums pages, announcements from the Lindens section, WAITING for the announcement that the grid is back up and we can log back in.

How SICK am I?!!

After a Tuesday spent ignoring email and just cattin' around SecondLife, I spent an inordinately large portion of my day today THINKING about SecondLife. The last few hours were spent waiting for the time that I could drive home and log back into SecondLife.

This is how sick I am: I even found a way to share SecondLife with YOU! I figured out that a picture is worth a thousand words, and planned a couple of blogs that would include photos: One is a tour of some places that I like to frequent, and the other follows me as I create something in-world.

I figured that if I combined images with my words, you might get a better impression of what it is that I love so much about the virtual world.

Hold on a sec...

Had to check the announcements. The grid is still down.

:(

Okay, now to be fair to me, I'm not ALONE in my obsession. (And I'm not just talkin' about my brother/roommater, either.) I don't remember the precise number, but out of a total residency (people who have are members of SecondLife are called "Residents") of 165,094, there were a little more that 2,000 people logged in when the grid went down.

AT 3-something A.M.!

Now, granted, some are from different parts of the world, so their time is different from mine.

At 3a my time it was 4a in New York, 2a in Los Angeles and 9a in London. (I know Londond time because last year when they aired the last 2 series of the HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY radio series, the only way I could hear it -- at first -- was to wake up and listen to it live on the BBC website.)

My points are these: (1) If most of the Residents of SecondLife are American, then there are upwards of 2,000 of them as obsessive as I am, because they were online at an odd hour, too; or (2) if Americans do not comprise the bulk of the SecondLife Residents, then the addiction is far-reaching, and I should be cut some slack on THAT account.

So there.

OHMYGOSH!!!

Andrew Linden just announced that the "asset cluster" is in the process of coming back up now!!!

This means I may be MINUTES away from loggin back in-world!!!

I think I'm about to wet myself!!!

:)

HEY! DON'T you judge me! Not till you've walked down 3 flights of stair in my commander boots. (That's what Walmart's "Survivors" brand calls its combat boots.) Brian's in there looking at snapshots from his excursions into SecondLife. Mock HIM!

Isn't it kinda cool, though, that we live in a world where the term "asset cluster" actually gives us some idea of what the problem is? I mean, if you had put the words "asset" and "cluster" next to each other in a sentence, I would have thought you were suffering a siezure. But with even the layman's understanding of computers and software nowadays, "asset cluster" gives you some idea of the nature of the problem.

Or am I just a nerd?

Brian just reported that one more person just came online in the last 5 seconds! That brings the total number of people in-world to 4.

The disheartening aspect to this news it that those 4 are probably Lindens -- people who work at Linden Labs, the creators of SecondLife -- who are only online to analyze and fix the problem. (You know, get the Asset Clusters back up and running...)

There are no new updates...

:(

And Brian just decided to retire for the evening.

Which is fine, really. I was surprised to find him awake when I got home this evening anyway. He's usually crashed by the time I get home. But the nature of the SL addiction is that you think of something you want to do in-world during your First Life, or RL ("Real Life"), and then you obsess about it until you can log in and do the thing you've been obsessing about. His hit him on his way to work. So the poor guy had some 8 hours to obsess before he could slake his SL thirst!

I just checked the updates, and it doesn't look like I'm logging in anytime soon, either.

It's funny, I spent all last week overwhelmed by all my pretty, shiny new toys. I've got HOURS of Vincent Price Old-Time Radio shows to listen to, 2 dvds worth of Jim Gaffigan's standup comedy, a bunch of PRIME PS2 games, 2 novels and 3 comic books to read, and the ONLY toy in my toybox that I really, really, REALLY want to play with is broken.

I supose I am a little bit sick.

Okay, I've got 8 minutes before I need to go to bed... Let's check the announcement board again...

Still down...

7 minutes...

Still down...

You know, one cool aspect to this evening is that I FINALLY leanred the keyboard shortcut to refresh an Internet window. It's F5.

6 minutes...

Still down...

5 minutes...

Still down...

I thank you for waiting here with me. I don't know if I could handle this withdrawal on my own.

4 minutes...

Still down...

I wonder how many 12-Step programs exist to help those of us with SL addiction...

3 minutes...

"Normally the asset cluster is resilient to a node failure, however shortly after tonights initial failure other nodes also went down and we don't yet know why. The cluster is in the process of coming back up now."

That's the last message posted by one of the Lindens. It hasn't changed. SecondLife is still down...

2 minutes...

Still down...

1 mintes...

YES!!! THE GRID IS BACK UP!!! Tesla Linden just thanked me for my patience!!!

I'll talk to you guys later!

Better Than COFFEE

I learned today that RESIDENT EVIL 4 is the way to wake myself up.

Last night, after woork, I had to get back into the game... Twice. There's this village full of psycho simps wielding axes and scythes and pitchforks, and you HAVE TO take them all on for a long while. It's just part of the game.

Now, if you've ever played RE4, you know that I've just barely started the game. But that's okay, because I'm STILL trying to get used to those frickin' PS2 controls!!!

Anyway, I was drinking last night, so I didn't notice my physiological responses to this game. But this morning I dragged myself out of bed, played the game for a half-hour or more, and I noticed that my heart was RACING when I finally put it down. (I cleared the village once, night before last, but I didn't save it because I had used up all my Herbs and Ammo in the slaughter, so I'm still trying to fight my way through that village.)

So tonight I elected -- difficult as it was -- NOT to play the game until morning. Because that game GETS YOU GOING!!!

You may have read or heard that the human memory cannot distiguish an image in a film from an actual memory. You can test this idea if there's a particular scene -- of any genre or nature -- that you can remember in vivid detail. You can elicit just as powerful a physiological response by the memory of the movie as you can with the memory of something that actually happened to you. (RETURN OF THE KING: "YOU bow to NO ONE." That's one of mine. Man-tears EVERY TIME!)

So the biological responses are fairly open to suggestion, yeah?

Well, I was SO jacked with adrenaline after playing that game!!!

So I figure that the best way to utilize the game is to use it to wake up to, except on days when I don't go into work... Then I'll just ABUSE that game until my thumbs bleed!

This is a really interesting time for me -- though, not necessarily for you -- because I'm co-writing Kelly's story, I've got a little some'in'-some'in' of my own that I'm toying with here and there, and then I've got this NIRVANHA of videogames!!! (If I wanna come down off of RE4 I can play BUFFY for a while, or drive around Springfield, or BE Spider-Man!) And then I'm also working.

If you hop backward in Time on my blog, you'll find that I've been working on projects before. But here's the odd thing for me: I seem to be -- SEEM to be; Time will tell if this perception is correct -- accomplishing QUITE A LOT right now!!!

And what makes that wierd is just how MUCH I seem to be squeazing into every day. Gene Simmons talks about this in his book SEX MONEY KISS, but it's a little surprising to experience it. I mean, I've experienced it before -- there have been many times when we were shooting a short film for 12 hours then going to work for 8; and that doesn't even include when I was a teen in the theatre (mainly because I was a teen and had all that hormonal energy to burn) -- but it surprises me now because I'm 35, and SHOULD be feeling tired from all this activity.

But instead, I feel energized.

I'm guessing this is why people are encouraging you to "follow your bliss", or simply do what you're passionate about, all the time. It really does seem to add hours to your day and give you the energy to FILL those hours!

May YOUR hours be filled with bliss!!! (And shooting zombies, if you're so inclined.)

Resident Evil 4!!!

I popped SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM in the Playstation last night and got through the credits when Kelly called to do some writing.

It was a good conversation, but it went on long enough that I didn't get my horror-game fix.

So this morning I woke up jonesing for some horror gaming. But I didn't have time, before I had to get ready for work, for the slow and somewhat plodding (or, rather, "suspenseful") pace of a SILENT HILL game. I need some Action/Horror.

There's my BUFFY game...

But that doesn't really FEEL like a horror game. It feels like an action game, like SPIDER-MAN 2... You know? Like a super-hero game. Doesn't give me that horror fix.

So I'm looking through my huge-ass library of games (getting bigger by the day) and I spot RESIDENT EVIL 4, which I haven't played yet...

...and I pop it in...

AND IT RULES THE WORLD!!! I mean, I probably only played it for half an hour -- and I'm not a proper gamer, so I probably accomplish much less than most people do in half an hour -- but I LOVED every second!!!

It reminded me why I love the RESIDENT EVIL series as much as I do! There's just nothing like an RE game! Wandering around creepy setting with zombies popping out at you every few feet, and shooting!!!

Only, the graphics for RE4 are, naturally, MIND-BLOWING!!! I popped a dude's head OFF with one of my shots!!! Dude's coming at me with a pitchfork, I fire and TAKE HIS HEAD OFF, and he keeps coming for a few feet before his body realizes that it's not getting any signals from upstairs anymore!

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's HORRIBLE. But it's horrible in that Horror-Flick/Horror-Game way!!!

I do need to go back and play some more of my SILENT HILLs -- I DIG ON the psychology they employ -- but I think I'll be focusing every moment I can steal away on RESIDENT EVIL 4 for the time being! (At least, until I come up against a Boss that refused to die, and I get all frustrated because I can't progress any further. Then I'll be able to take a break...)

Okay, I'm going to go now. I have some research I need to do to create some backstory for some bad guys...

You KNOW you SO wish you were me!

:)

He's BACK!!!

Okay, so last night I pretty much finished setting up my "new" computer (new to me, anyway) for use and tonight I read the first 6 pages of script/treatment that Kelly wrote, then sent him some feedback.

I'm back in the game!!!

But now I'm torn: Part of me says "Good job, Ray Jay. Go play some Playstation", and part of me goes "You know, you could apply what Kel's written to your yWriter program and..."

Torn between 2 lovers...

WHAT A GREAT POSITION TO BE IN!!!

:)

I Am Worthless Right Now :)

Usually, when I'm writing with someone, it's a lot of me calling and emailing and IM-ing going "Okay, so now what? How about THIS? Or how about THIS?"

I get home from Bossier City and I've got a bunch of emails from Kelly, one of which consisted of the words "Why won't you write me back?"

Now I'm THAT guy, the guy who is too busy to work!

Not really. Actually, I don't know if I told Kelly Bossier City was this week. I just find it ironic -- and REALLY encouraging -- to be on the other side of that paradigm! (The difference is that starting this weekend I WILL get my ass bacxk to work! When I was the one going "Let's get busy" the other parties never did.)

Just before I left for Bossier City Kelly sent me 45 PAGES OF NOTES on our script!!! This cat's ready to roll!!!

Got me a PS2!!!

:)

And as of yesterday, I have FINALLY played a SILENT HILL game!!! Not all the way through! I've only spent a couple of hours on SH2, but I've gotten to taste it!!! My Special Makeup Effects Friend Marvin -- who will watch ALL horror movies, good or bad -- can't play the first game for more than 20 minutes at a time. It scares him THAT MUCH! So I've been dying to own a platform for 6 years or more!

And now I've got one!!!

I gambled $500 in Bossier City and won back $369 of it!!! I mostly played the slots. I put a $20 in a machine, and play until I won back more than what I put in. Many times I lost the entire bill, but then the next game I'd be down to $7 or so, and win, say, $19, and I'd cash-out at $26! It's not much of a win, but I didn't loose that bill! Then I had a couple of big wins: I won $190+ off one twenty-dollar bill, and $150+ off another! AND THAT WAS MY FIRST DAY THERE!!!

It was fun.

And the car ride there and back was a lot more fun that I imagined it would be! Mom and Brian dig on Oldies (70s & 80s stuff), so there was some fun to be had singing along or mocking or just remembering. (We got a lot of history, the three of us...)

Mom wanted to leave super early (6a) Monday so that we would have time to gamble our first day, so I just didn't go to sleep Sunday night. So on the road there I dozed a lot.

Then we got there around 1p and pretty much hit the casino right away. Mom was meeting an old (old, OLD) friend for dinner, so Brian and I planned to be scarce. But by the time 5p rolled around we all three ended up back in the room, taking a break. (Well, Brian and I were taking a break; Mom was getting ready for her dinner.)

I was about to say that by 9:00 pm Brian and I retired from the casino for the day, but he just reminded me that we STAYED IN THE ROOM that night! Can you believe that?!! We, a couple of young, verile party animals, were gambled out our first day after a mere 5 hours... in the casino... It was some 7 hours in the car before that.

We did go eat a dinner buffet, though.

To be fair, though, part of the reason we stayed in the room is that we had a plan: Gamble half or LESS of the money we had. And although I had won big TWICE within the first couple of hours, I was going through $20s like a married guy at a topless bar by the time we left the casino! I hadn't yet figured out that you don't play for the big jackpot, you play to get your money back, with a little extra. It took all that loosing to figure that out.

So Mom had said, several times, that when she gave Brian and me the $1,000 each to gamble with, we could do whatever we wanted with it: Gamble half of it or gamble it all away, just whatever. Well... Brian has been looking for a new computer with a better processor -- so he can more thoroughly enjoy Second Life, without crashing -- and I've been itching to spend hour in some horror and action games. (I think it's the weather... I think Brian and I must have gotten our Dreamcast in the Spring, so now when it gets all Spring-y outside I start jonesin' for videogames.)

So Brian and I spent Monday night in the room. We found some FRIENDS on TBN or TNN or one of those Turner stations, and after that was back-to-back episodes of FAMILY GUY!!! (One of them had KISS guesting!!!) Mom had gotten back from her dinner in time for the sitcoms, and had crashed by the time that SNOW DAY came on.

My brother and I watched SNOW DAY Monday night!

It actually didn't suck! I mean, if it weren't free on TV, I seriously doubt we would have ever seen it. And I don't think we'll be renting to watch it again. But we did have fun pointing out writing/filmmaking tricks to each other. And there were a few good laughs in there.

Actually, I'm not being fair to the movie. There was some really good filmmaking going on in that flick! And it was A LOT better written than, say, those MUMMY movies or VAN HELSING. VAN HELSING WISHES it was as good as SNOW DAY!!!

So anyway, at some point early in the movie it occured to me that this might be more fun with beer! So I went downstairs to the bar for a 6-pack of Coors Light and 6 bottles of water. Naturally, being a bar, they didn't have the cans in the plastic rings, or a shopping bag to put them in. However, being a casino/hotel, the barkeep was more than willing to help me out. He suggested I go to the gift shop and ask if they have a bag.

They did, and I had my six and my water.

Actually, the beer just made me sleepy. (I still hadn't has a real night's sleep yet sleep.) I think I only drank 2.

Anyway, after SNOW DAY the station aired SURF NINJAS, and I figured that was my cue to retire.

OH! I haven't told you about the room yet! Okay, we stayed at the Horseshoe Casino/Hotel, and it was a room with 2 beds. So Brian and I were doubling up, or one of us was taking the couch.

I brought my sleeping bag.

But when we got there, Brian volunteered for the couch, so I got a bed.

And you can smoke ANYWHERE IN THE HOTEL/CASINO!!! So poor Mom, not a smoker, got a little smoked-out. To make matters worse for her, they sold Rum Runners cigars downstairs, so Brian and I had to get ourselves one of those. (I got 1, but Brian went back for seconds... GOOD cigars!)

This trip was about excess!

When bedtime rolled around I popped in my ZVUE headphones and fell asleep to George Carlin's A PLACE TO PUT MY STUFF. I think I got as far as track 2 before I was out.

The next day, Mom was up around 5:00 am. I figured I should probably get on her schedule since we would be leaving early the next morning.

Brian was still dead asleep when she and I decided to go back to the casino. The plan had been to eat breakfast at 9a, but by 8a Mom and I were getting bored with gambling and starved! So we went back up to the room, just as Brian was beginning to stir. But he wasn't awake enough to eat, so Mom and I went downstairs for breakfast.

It was cool. She told me about how her dinner with her friend went, and told me all this backstory about them growing up. And it wasn't like our usual conversations, it was kind of like the way I talk to my friends. I kind of got to see a side of Mom that I haven't seen ever before -- sort of like the side of Dad I only got to see after he passed away. A real bonding moment.

Very cool!

Oh, and the BACON was OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! I had scrambled eggs, bacon, hash-brown-y potatoes, and biscuits & gravy, and that was a GOOD breakfast!!! Imagine the most delicious bacon your mind can muster, and that's AT LEAST as good as this bacon was!

After breakfast we went back to the casino.

Now, when I say "we went back to the casino" I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Mom gambles ALONE. It's not like we're at the mall together going from store to store together. Hu-uh! We step into that casino and Mom's all "Okay, see ya later". She's not an addict or anything, but she doesn't mess around, either!!! So it's not quite as gay as it sounds: "My Mommy and I went gambling together." No way. We step through that doorway and she's all "See Ya!"

Before breakfast I had spotted a dealer at a Black Jack table who looked bored. I had intended then to learn how REAL Black Jack was played, but it was time to meet up with Mom for breakfast. So now I found another lone, bored-looking dealer and sat down for some school. She was really nice, and very patient, and took me through what real Black Jack is. (Helpful Tip: In casino Black jack, you're goal isn't to reach 21, it's to force the dealer to keep hitting and bust. Good to know! Also, you play with 6 decks shuffled together, so you always assume that the dealer's face-down card is a face card.)

Brian showed up while I was at the Balck Jack table, but he was (as the dealer put it) "hot for the slots" so I finished up my schooling alone. I bought $40 worth of chips, and I walked away from the Black Jack table with $60+! Not bad for a beginner!!!

I caught back up with Brian and we gambled for several more hours, then around noon we met up with Mom. And we all decided that none of us would be sad if we went home today...

Remember, Brian and I had our own agendas, so we were trying not to lose everything. And Mom hadn't gambled all her money away, but she had started to get a little bored with it.

So we hit the road around 1p, Tuesday.

Like I said before, the trip back wasn't bad. There was a lot of laughter, and Brian was the one dozing this time.

When we got into town, I ran to Walmart for beer and a couple of groceries... And I came back with a Playstation 2! (And the beer and groceries, of course.)

I woke up yesterday and went to Game Stop to expand my PS2 game library further, then spent the rest of the day playing all my new games! (There was a couple of hours in there where I went over to Mom's to help her with her new computer that Brian and I had just hooked up the day before the trip.)

And that's my week! I have done NO writing, not work of any kind!

I've just been hangin' around, being WORTHLESS!!!

Not a bad week! :)

HELLO, BOSSIER CITY!!!

I don't remember if I've mentioned this yet, but my mom and Brian and I are going on a road trip to Bossier City next week!

I'm not much of a gambler, but I'm off until NEXT FRIDAY!!! So I get to go to Louisiana for 2 and a half days, then I get to crash at home for another 2 days. AND... If I don't gamble away all my money, I might be able to see a movie or something one of those days off.

Then I go back to work Friday, then I'm OFF for 2 MORE DAYS!!!

I'm SUCH a BUM!!! And I LIKE it!!!

So if you don't hear from me befor Wednesday it's because I'm on the road or drunk and gambling in a casino. If you don't hear from me after Wednesaday it's because I'M CHILLIN' BAY-BAY!!!

Well... There is a possibility that I may -- MAY -- be doing some writing on my days off.

Maybe.

But I wouldn't count on it. I'll probably be drinkin' and watching dvds.

Most likely.

:)

MY 2005 TAXES ARE DONE!!!

I had to e-file this year because they stopped doing the telefile thing -- which sucks!!! So I thought I was going to have to go into one of those places to get them done... Which meant procrastination!

I mean, I don't exactly operate during Normal Business Hours...

BUT... I think it was Mom that mentioned e-filing, and then I remembered that I had done that a few years back -- when the programs weren't NEARLY as efficient as they are now -- so that means I can file any time day or night; EVEN during MY hours!!!

So yay!

It's just a huge invisible weight lifted off me now. I can forget about taxes until next year.

...and with any luck, next year I'll HAVE TO go to a tax-prep place because I'll have sold 1 or more screenplays, and I'll have TOO MUCH money!!!

:)

I can dream.