A Late Celebration

Soooooo, how many people celebrated the Fifth of November this year? I sure did, and I did it the best way I know how. I watched V for Vendetta, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. The message is simple and effective, plus there's a lot of stylish action to entertain us while we listen absorb that message.

The movie constantly serves to remind me that of a lot of things I believe, and things that I sometimes let get away from me in the bustle of day-to-day life. For those of you with about three and a half minutes to spare, I'd like to share with you V's television speech. I would argue that it is one of the most relevant, one of the most important moments in the history of movies. It speaks not just to the government in the movie, but also to what ours is becoming.

Not Moving After All

About a year ago, when I was chatting about coming back to blogging again, I mentioned peeking around at other blogging platforms to determine if Blogger was still the home for me. Well, last night, after posting my World of Warcraft blog, I jumped over to a fwe other blogging platforms. After an hour or so of research, I settled on WordPress. My work on ColonelEz.net gave me a taste of what you could do with WordPress, and I think their dashboard control area is about a million times more advanced than Bloggers.

I spent many more hours building a blog over there, going so far as to actually import the contents of this blog over there. I played with the themes, read about pages, made a few of my own, and generally had a good time with it. I enjoyed the amount of customization that WordPress allows.

Not to mention, I was severely disappointed by the utter lack of customization available within Blogger's new dynamic views.

Thing is, I kept running into this problem with WordPress. Namely, there'd be some detail or another I didn't like about a theme, but I wasn't allowed to change it. You see, WordPress is actually a pay to blog service, or, at least, pay to get the most out of your blog service. Want to change fonts? Pay for it. Want to run off your own domain? Pay for it.

Many of the things that WordPress wants to charge me for (and they want a LOT of money sometimes), Blogger gives me for free. As a result, I've decided to stick around Blogger for now, but bear with me as I goof around with carious themes and skins as I try to find the right one. The dynamic view angers me with it's zero customization options, so I'm going to try to find a better one.

Until tomorrow!

EDIT: After several hours of goofing around with themes and layouts, I believe I finally have one I like. Plus, I finally have pages that function almost how I'd like them to eventually, thanks in HUGE part to fiddling around with the code provided from this blog. Yay. More categories coming soon, if all goes according to plan.

Human Behavior and Warcraft

So yeah, I must confess, one of the reasons for this project is the amount of writing time that has been leached from me by the game World of Warcraft. I resisted the urge for many, many years, but Blizzard's offer of "play for free" snagged me. I was in between interesting things to do and was randomly browsing around the web when a dancing goblin caught my eye. Play World of Warcarft for free, the advert said, until level 20.

What do I have to lose, I thought to myself. It's free. I can really decide whether I like the game by level 20.

Problem was, I REALLY liked the game.

Today, A Project

Welcome back to blogging, I'm saying to myself right now. It's been a long time, as most of the posts I made "recently" said over and over. The last few times I've blogged here, I said I was back to stay and yadda yadda. Of course, I then faded into obscurity, as the very real demands of the real world kept getting in the way. Not that there's a problem with IRL demands, but they definitely got in the way of some of the things I've wanted to do with my life - namely, write.

I'm definitely an aspiring writer, but I'm feeling a little out of practice. I've recently invested in a new MacBook Pro to replace my dying Windows netbook. I've had an Apple laptop since around 2002, one of the old iBook G3s that were made out of white plastic. I accidentally threw that thing once. I put it in my carry bag, forgot to zip it, then went to throw that over my shoulder, and BAM the laptop flies out of the bag and crashes into a cabinet before hitting the hard, tile floor. Crazily enough, I picked up the laptop, turned it on (panicking the whole time), and it worked. Booted right up and everything. The case cracked, and that was it. I've been super-loyal to Apple ever since. Fast forward 9 years, the thing still works. Just so you know.

Anyway, I wrote my first stories on my old Apple iBook, so there's something about using a Mac that makes me want to write. Which brings me back to the point of my new project. Sitting and staring at my laptop screen, I can tell I'm completely out of touch with writing. My brain doesn't want to function on that level any more. My writing hat is damaged.

So, here's my slightly early, new year resolution. I will blog every day. Yes, I said it, every day. Every. Single. Freaking. Day. From now until I get my groove back. It doesn't matter if it's a short post no longer than a tweet, or a great novel-length post, there will be something here every day. And words too, not just pictures. Posting a picture kind of violates the purpose of the project.

I need a catchy name for this project, something short that can be made into a Twitter hash tag and can be used as a label for these posts. Any ideas? Hit me up in the comments.

This here counts as my first post, as I slowly fade from consciousness, thinking to myself how I probably should have gone to bed a couple of hours ago.

Anyway, I hope this is an exciting and productive journey, and I'd like to look back on this in a year's time and think of how awesome this was. We'll see. In the meantime, enjoy yourself as I continue to fiddle with these new (and rather annoying) dynamic views in blogger.

While you're at it, you should follow me on Twitter and/or Google+. I'm usually very active on both services.

Good night.

A Farewell to SGU

It is with a heavy heart that I return to blogging. After nearly a year of absence and a posts left unfinished, I return on the day that will, at least in my mind, mark the end of great science fiction television.

It hasn't been long that I've been a Stargate fan... just a little over two years now. But Stargate filled a void that I wasn't always conscious that I had, the one for great science fiction. For the last 14 years, the Stargate franchise has been giving fans just that. Like I said, I wasn't watching 14 years ago, but in the last two years, I've managed to cram in 14 years' worth of television, and those last two years have made me a passionate fan.

Simply put, I love Stargate. I've become a diehard fan, because the Stargate franchise offers me everything I want in a TV show and everything I want in a Sci Fi show. For me, it is the epitome of awesome science fiction, and I'm not sure I can think of a better way to put that.

SGU Season 2 - Oh. My. God.

I know I said I wasn't going to talk about SGU here any more in favor of ColonelEZ.net... but OMGWTFROFLBBQ AAAAAHHHHHHH. This trailer is SO INTENSE and SO RIDICULOUSLY GOOD that I simply had to share it. If you are not on board yet with SGU, WTF is wrong with you?!?!?!

Season 2 starts next Tuesday, so catch up quick! It's going to be EPIC!

Chevelle in Concert Again (Finally)

Two nights ago, I went to Channel 93.3's "Big Gig", which was a music festival consisting of somewhere in teh neighborhood of 10 bands performing on a single stage. The event was held at what I will always know as Fiddler's Green, an outdoor amphitheater which was bought out and renamed after the Wal-Mart of dentistry, Comfort Dental.

I went with a group of friends who, aside from some questionable music for the drive up to Denver, turned out to be good concert-going brethren.

Did I mention that this is the first concert I've been to in over 3 years?? Well, it has, and shame on me. There isn't an experience quite like a concert - if you've never been to one before, I'd advise you to look at the tour schedules for your favorite musicians and correct that as soon as possible. There's and energy and an atmosphere at concerts that I haven't found replicated anywhere else.