by jetblack | Feb 7, 2011 | Featured, WordPress Posts
Aaron Sorkin is writing a new show, for HBO. Read all about right here (from TV Guide’s Scott Huver). This has me excited in a way that I haven’t felt about an upcoming TV show, since the production of Studio 60 was announced in early 2006. Not to mention that I think Sorkin could really shine on HBO, where language and subject matter won’t necessarily be hindered by the sanitized restrictions of “safe harbor” programming. No date or even a rumor of an ETA has been announced for the premiere, but rest assured I’ll be among the many who tune it to see the next chapter of Sorkin’s career unfold. (more…)
by jetblack | Feb 4, 2011 | WordPress Posts
Following in the footsteps of one of my friends, Jason Nassi (whose dementia I do in fact get down on my knees and thank whomever that I have access to), I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog at least once a week for all of 2011… or at least, from this point in 2011 on until the end of the year.
I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost (basically Holidailies on crank), and the community of other bloggers with similar goals to help me, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.
If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way. Otherwise, I will just be this crazy asshole shouting at the brick wall of indifference, lose interest, and stop. 😉
by jetblack | Dec 15, 2010 | WordPress Posts
Last night I went to go see my eye doctor for the last time before my vision plan is switched over to a crappy one. My work is discontinuing my awesome eye coverage as of January 1st for reasons passing understanding (not really, they’re trying to save money), so I decided that December would be the time to get my eyes checked, see if there’s any change in my prescription. I briefly toyed with the notion of switching to contact lenses, but when they did the fluid pressure test (air puffer) and my eyelashes got in the way, it reminded me of why I don’t get contact lenses. Anyway, my eyes are fine and I can see fine as long as I have glasses on.
During the test, though, they had to numb my eyes and then dilate them for this test that sends the power of the sun directly to my optic nerve. Actually, it was this very powerful laser that shoots into your eye and takes a picture of the whole back of your eyeball. Then you get to see it in high-definition on a computer screen. Well, you don’t really get to see it. For some reason, these guys are showing me stuff that I can’t focus on… like bright-ass computer screens. Hi, Asshole, you just poured drops of this yellow shit into my eyes that allows me to suddenly have ultravision in the dead of night, and now you want me to stick my eye into a machine that sends light into my eyes? Oh, and then you want me to look at sun-powered computer displays? Thanks a lot.
It was like having night vision goggles on and then someone throws a flashbang… except I couldn’t close my eyes. At all. And if I did, well… we start all over again. Wonderful. By the time I got out of that place, my entire head was throbbing. And I remembered why I sometimes goes years without getting my eyes checked.
No, my older glasses weren't quite that big, but they sure felt like it.
I chose a different set of frames this time with smaller lenses. I’ve been kind of paring down from the ol’ seventies-throwback aviator-sized frames and lenses that I had since I was a kid. My last set were a little smaller. The pair I chose recently are even slimmer, and they’re full frames. Something I haven’t had since middle school. I’ve been rocking the half-frames since I was twenty and I wanted to go for a new look. But it seems like the hipsters are going with the full-frame goodness and me not wanting to left out of the crowd, might as well join in. Also, my wife was on hand to help me choose them, so if the next time you see me in them and you hate them, well, just be glad I’m not asking you to wear them, okay? Good. I, on the other hand, like them. Which is pretty much all that matters.
In other news, I’ve been writing a lot more, lately. Not blog posts, obviously, but still. I’m really trying to sink as much time into this short story series I’ve been working on since early last year. I was all full-bore when I started and cranked out like six stories in a row, from January until March. And then I took a break. Wrote another one near the end of 2009, early 2010. And now I’m writing another one and it’s freaking December 2010 and we’re about to enter 2011. Oh, well. It’s not like I’m getting paid to write, so there’s no real deadline, but I’d like to at least keep up the pace that I’ve been known to embrace in the past. I will keep chugging along. I wrote a ton of outlines for stories that I’m going to try and keep to. Plus, writing about the same cast of characters is nice and gives me a sense of continuity. Also, since I’m intending on having them grow up a little bit through the various stories, I’m looking forward to writing that emotional maturity and hopefully expressing it nicely. The first seven stories are actually already online. Ping me sometime and I’ll give you the link.
Only two more days until the last shopping weekend of Christmas. Have you finished all your gift shopping, yet? I know we haven’t.
by jetblack | Jul 6, 2010 | WordPress Posts
For the past couple of nights, I’ve kind of been finding myself staying up late into the morning hours. I often find myself still awake and not really able to go to sleep. I haven’t changed much to my routine, but it kind of feels like the same sleeping pattern I fell into when I was in college and working for Acer back in 1995. I would stay up real late one night, then sleep early the next, and go back and forth. Of course, back then, my nights off were split and not together like my weekends are.
What have I been doing on those nights? Writing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m going to take it as a good thing for now, considering that I’ve been pretty much on a dry spell for writing in the last forty-five days. Untitled #55 has most of my attention lately, and I’m eager to bring it to a close so I can move on to other things. In the meantime, though, I can’t write if I’m utterly exhausted. Tonight, however, I will be playing a softball game and I only got like 3 hours’ sleep last night. I will definitely be tired tonight. I just hope I’m not completely zonked by the end of the game!
In other news, I started my sit-up program yesterday and will be continuing tomorrow. I did 93 reps. I want to push that to 125, if I can. Push-ups are tonight before the game. This is our last game of the spring season. Wish me luck.
by jetblack | Jul 5, 2010 | WordPress Posts
Before I begin: Look! New header graphic! I decided that since I’m restarting things a little bit, I’d spruce up the place with a change in the header. It’s subdued, isn’t it? I was going for something a little low-key, in light of the previous graphic, which was white on black, with a pixelated graphic of Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop. This time, it’s a colorful graphic of the man, leaning against the wall. Took me forever to do the neon graphic on the right-hand side, though.
Also: Facebook peeps can now auto-connect to this blog, using their login information. I don’t save any information for commenting. It’s all handled by the Facebook API. The only way I save your info is if you register for an account here on the WordPress site. Oh, and LJ folks will have to come to WordPress to comment, as I have disabled comments on LJ. I’m trying to drive traffic here to my WP site. But don’t worry, OpenID is here to save the day! It’s all good here at jetblack’s place!
Now, on to the original topic of this post…
So most or some of you are aware that I write. Relative to the beginning of this year, I managed to finish a lingering short story from the previous year (2009), and I’m actually in the middle of another short story I’m submitting to an archive for free, public consumption (ie: I’m not selling it). It’s a romance piece, written under a pseudonym I will not mention on this blog. But I wanted to talk about how I’m enjoying this forward momentum and I hope to use that momentum into writing another piece and then one more after that. After all, one of my new year’s resolutions (see previous post) is to write 10 shorts and 2 novels by my next birthday.
My writing blog has quite a bit of dust covering it, and I’ll be honest… I only use it for the original science-fiction stuff. But with the current pieces I’m writing, there’s no real outlet for me to detail my progress and kind of keep some sort of openly visible accountability. Here’s as good as any place, so I’ve installed some progress meters and Works in Progress updates on the sidebar to the left. I’m using Untitled #55 as a code name for my current paranormal story… because the title isn’t set, yet. Kind of scary that I have had that many writing projects started (not all of them finished, either) in my untitleds directory. I’ll write more about why I number the new stories in such a fashion in a later post. Some of you have already heard it.
If you’re reading this on Livejournal, you’re probably noticing that all of a sudden, I’m posting there. Well, it’s really because of exposure, but also, I kind of miss connecting with my friends on LJ. Since I moved off, I haven’t had much in the way of people commenting (and also, I lost my drive to actually post, which precludes commenting in the first place, right?), and I felt like I was shouting into this void with no one listening. Of course, in the end, it’s more about writing and just thinking out loud sometimes. So, here I am.
