That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked. (Then again, maybe I’m not, because now I have to come up with an answer.)
Can I still use “just bought a house” as an excuse? No? Hmm.
I guess this week I’ve spent several hours playing Fallout 3, with the Green World mod installed (as recommended by Shamus). The improvement is immediate and obvious. As they say, once you go green, there’s no going back. Or something along those lines, I don’t really know.
I’ve also been watching several TV shows on Hulu. Among them is V, a show for which I wrote reviews of the first few episodes. Last year I said this:
I’m told that after episode four, they’re delaying the show until March. I don’t really think it deserves to come back.
Having watched the latest few episodes, I stand by that. The drama is overplayed, the Vs are too stupid, and the humans are either too smart or way too reckless, I can’t decide which. That’s all I have to say about that.
Hmm. What else? I spent several hours programming over the last few days, and released SoundBoard 2.4 a few minutes ago. I have a few ideas rolling around for a more professional version of SoundBoard that, if I ever get around to actually doing it, will take a fair amount of time.
Oh, and something I haven’t been doing:
I think I need to shave...
I’m trying to decide if I should just shave it all off, or groom it a bit so it looks less scruffy. Both options take effort, something to which I am generally opposed, but I’ve reached a point where I don’t have much of a choice. Any opinions?
I’ve also spent some thought-time on the stories I want to write. I need some sort of motivation to write; writing for the sake of writing apparently doesn’t drive me to get anything done. There’s also the matter of choosing one and just writing it all out, rather than jumping erratically between them like a drunk kangaroo.
I’d like to publish one of the stories a chapter at a time, under one of the Creative Commons licenses that will still let me sell the book later if I want. I have a significant portion of that story written (just over 28,000 words), and the rest is outlined. It would give me a chance to clean it up a chapter at a time, and finish the missing pieces. I hesitate to publish it as-is, though, because I’m not really happy with the pacing, and some of the events are out of place and need to be shuffled around. Publishing chapters would effectively lock them in stone.
Perhaps I could do a chapter-by-chapter thing of another story I’ve been working on. It’s an interesting setting, and I’ve got five interesting main characters who all have apparent goals, so I have an obvious direction for the story, and I haven’t figured out where the story ends yet, which would probably make it a good choice – no need to reorder things to fit the ending I want, instead I’d fit the ending to what has already happened.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to.
Dan, do you have a beard trimmer? Trimming it to a stubble gives you almost the look of shaving, without actually shaving! Alternatively, you could still use a trimmer to make it less scruffy, making make a Riker beard, which I tried doing for a while. Still have the ( | ) thing on my chin. Also, what kind of shaving equipment do you use? Ever considered a double edged safety razor? They’re waaaay better than crappy Gillette stuff. Sharper, better for the environment, cleaner cut. This website is good:
http://www.classicshaving.com/Home.html
Anyhow, those are my shaving suggestions. As far as the story goes, nothing is set in stone. A lot of works come out in segments (at least in the earlier part of the last century) and then are changed up when they’re compiled and released as a finished product. I think that might be part of the literary process.
Get an 3 head circular electric razor like something from Norelco. On that back is a flip up trimmer. When you don’t feel like actually shaving with the heads, use the trimmer and get a kind of House “I sort of shaved but not really” look.
I don’t think I’ve ever used an actual blade in my life, the electric ones are just too easy.
I have a Norelco razor already, and when I do bother to shave, I like it a lot. I used blades for two years while I was in the Dominican Republic… and I’ll never do that again.
I don’t have a beard trimmer, though. I might need to get one.
One question remains: are you going for Riker or Obi-wan look? 🙂
Given the two choices, I think I’d prefer Riker’s beard to Obi-wan’s. (It may be true that you could replace Jonathan Frakes with a cardboard cutout in practically every scene and nobody would notice, but at least his beard looked good.)
Not really sure why.