Archive for December, 2004

Friday, December 31, 2004 — New Year’s Eve

Dec 31 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

[Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence artwork]

I did very little today. Basically just took care of a few things online, and watched Hong Kong film and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

I didn’t like Innocence much, though that’s mostly due to my love of the original characters from the manga, and the movie characters deviate very far from those in the manga. And I know that the director intended to deviate. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop comparing the movie characters to the manga characters, and the movie characters just weren’t as interesting.

But that’s part of the point of the movie, which is about humans and dolls. It’s similar to the emotionally lifeless acting in 2001 which contrasts with the relatively human HAL; the humans in Ghost in the Shell seem more doll-like than the androids and dolls that have been created to reflect humanity.

But frankly, emotionless acting makes for pretty dull cinema. Combine this with a lot of visually pretty animation that frankly does nothing to push the story forward, such as the amazing parade that the protagonists pass by, and the movie turned into a series of yawns.

Now, that can be offset by good intellectual content, which Innocence does provide, but there’s not enough of it. The main problem is that the movie doesn’t provide a consistent argument; characters spout bits of moral philosophy and one-liners comparing humans to dolls, but we don’t get a sense of progression or even much sense to any of it. Yes, there are many ways one can compare and contrast humans and life-like dolls, but so what?

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Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Dec 28 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Japanese is incredibly difficult to learn.

The main problem is that it’s so completely alien. I took French for three years, and at least French is structured similar to English. Japanese is wildly different; the words are arranged in patterns that continue to confound me.

Which means that it can’t be approached like a typical learning experience.

What do I mean by that? Well, most educational programs try to teach you by relating their subjects to things you know. Things are presented as extensions (“Calculus builds on trigonometry and algebra by…”) or comparisons (my Calculus textbook states, “My educational philosophy was strongly influenced by attending the lectures of [two professors who] consistently introduced a topic by relating it to something concrete or familiar.” — James Stewart, Calculus: Early Transcendentals, Third Edition). It’s assumed you’ll be able to build on your current knowledge.

But Japanese isn’t like that. It doesn’t build on any language I know, and it’s not like any language or communication system I know (though I do detect the faint odor of a programming language). I can’t relate it to my current knowledge.

The solution I’ve found is repetition. I don’t worry about learning each lesson when I read it, but I read it again and again over the course of a week or so. The lesson sinks in on its own.

I’ve discovered that my comprehension of Japanese has increased dramatically since I’ve taken this approach to learning it. I pick out those Japanese words that I’ve read in recent lessons while watching anime in Japanese. It appears to be working.

Of course, the real test will come about four months from now, when I’ve reached the end of my Japanese language book (assuming I maintain my current pace). How much Japanese will I know then?

And now, more VR story.

Trouble was, Doodlehopper was in way over her head. She just knew what her Mum would say if she were here. “Why’d I have to raise a daughter who risks her life and limb to earn a dollar? Are you a hooker now? Selling your body for a few measly bucks?” All rational explanations were useless.

But no, she said to herself, she wasn’t going to think about Mum right now. Too many other things. Like this damn stupid Thomas. She’d met some pretty thick guys in her time—had dated a few—but Thomas took top prize. Strutting around like he was suddenly Sherlock bleeping Holmes. She was glad to be rid of him. And back to less dangerous jobs.

Which was just when she noticed two very large men in trench coats standing on a street corner, their attempts to blend in to their surroundings making them stick out like an Uzi in a garden. She slowed, and cursed herself for not seeing them more quickly. She was way too distracted.

She had no trouble recognizing the two thugs. Her hands reached into her jacket automatically, but stopped halfway to the smooth handles of the tazers. The thugs were facing her, their hands were empty and outside their pockets, and they looked…hangdog. Like they wanted to apologize.

She approached them with the caution of two junkyard dogs meeting for the first time. They didn’t move until she stopped moving, about twenty feet from them. One of them opened his mouth.

“We’re sorry we tried to hurt you.”

Doodlehopper didn’t exactly decide to stay still; she was too shocked to do anything else.

“We were just following orders. Nothing personal.”

She remained still, wondering if she was being taped for some TV joke show.

“Will you forgive us?”

This was the enemy. She may have been young, but Doodlehopper had been trained hard and well. This was the enemy, waving a flag of truce, and history showed that many times this was the most dangerous thing for an enemy to do. But…well…she tried to think of a reason not to accept their apology, and couldn’t think of a thing.

“Okay,” she said, trying to sound cool.

Both massive men visibly relaxed, the speaker especially. “I’m really, really glad you said that,” he said. “Because, uh, we kind of have a problem.”

It was the third most awkward cup of coffee Doodlehopper had ever had. The first was the one where her mother had suddenly asked if she was a virgin. The second was with a boyfriend who was not only eyeing every other girl in the place, but also commenting on how good they’d be in the sack. This one, sitting in front of two men who were acting like little kids in the Principal’s office, wasn’t nearly as bad. But the hairs on the back of her neck refused to go down. Her mind was screaming that these were enemies, not to be trusted, and what was she doing sitting here carefully sipping a bad cup of coffee listening to them?

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December 27, 2004

Dec 27 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Who was it who wrote that the secret of happiness lies not in having more but wanting less? It’s so true.

I’ve been applying that principle to my daily dissatisfaction with my accomplishments. I tend to be frustrated with how little I get done despite the number of hours in my days. After thinking about this for awhile, I realized that I don’t define my goals well, and when I do define my goals, if I accomplish them I just add more goals. So I’m never satisfied.

So, I’ve begun to write a little map of my daily goals, either the night before or the morning of each day. Once I leave for work, I don’t add to that map. I’ve determined that, if I accomplish everything on my map, I’ll be content with my day.

And I accomplished everything on my map today: I went to the bank, I got groceries, and I proofed another 25 pages of my big proofing job (I’m now halfway through the book!). So I’m content.

[Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex]

I also watched disc 3 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which is some of the best anime I’ve ever seen. Every episode was movie-quality. I was amazed, especially after the so-so first volume and merely good second disc.

It was interesting to see an episode that centered on a truly despicable act of psychological terrorism perpetrated by…Americans. I mean, the series went out of its way to make this as sick and twisted as possible, and approved by the U.S. military and government. It’s the sort of thing that goes way beyond Abu Ghraib and even most of the Nazis’ atrocities. Heck, I’d feel queasy about attributing it to any country or culture; it’s a heck of a thing to suggest that a government might conceivably condone something like this.

Saalon writes:

But how, exactly, do you write the first sentence?

Something feels so arbitrary about it. It’s important. Vital to people continuing to read the entire novel. Yet every decision you make this early in the game smacks of guesswork. By the middle of the story, you’ve necessitated certain things occuring in certain ways. Your options are narrower. Choices can be weighed on the merits of how the interlock with the other things in the story. You’ve got context. At the beginning, you have none of that. You’re guessing what you think you’ll need for where you think you’re going. How do you feel confident about a choice like that?

Yeah, you can go back. Yeah you can always change things. It’s just that the idea of your first step being “Write throwaway first chapter which you will later scrap and rewrite specifically so you’ll know you have to throw out said chapter and rewrite it,” is kind of upsetting.

Saalon’s suggesting a false dichotomy here: Either you write the perfect first sentence, or you write something that you know you’ll scrap later. It’s rarely that extreme.

Yes, it is guesswork. But it’s the guesswork of an archaeologist. You come up with something that feels good to you, and you write it. Later on, you return and improve it. You may need to change a word here or a phrase there, and you may even need to rewrite a paragraph or a few pages, but at least you have something to work with.

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Friday, December 24, 2004 — Christmas Eve

Dec 24 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

I had intended to wake at 7:00 this morning, so that I could exercise and generally prepare well for the holiday. However, my recent troubles with my boss haunted me last night and kept me awake. When my alarm played “All the Way” at 7:00, I switched it off and slept for another three hours. Of course, my body undoubtedly needed it.

So I finally drove up my parents’ driveway at about 11:30, carrying a platter mounded high with homemade Christmas cookies, gaily-colored presents, and a bag of overnight supplies. We then spent the afternoon enjoying martial arts flicks, from Shaolin Soccer to Jackie Chan documentaries. Mom dubbed it Kung Fu Christmas. And it was good.

One of our Christmas traditions is the opening of one present per person on Christmas Eve. We (it was just my parents and I) opened gifts from my aunt, who got us all excellent gifts. Mine was a home improvement book full of color pictures and explanations. Great choice.

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Thursday, December 23, 2004

Dec 23 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Heh. I wrote on Sunday about my bout of nausea, and my suspicion that I was having an allergic reaction to milk. It turns out that I was just getting sick; I spent Monday and Tuesday quite ill.

I got back to work on Wednesday and had an incredibly bad day. I had a very unpleasant set of meetings with my boss, who basically wants nothing to do with me, rejecting all my attempts to connect with him. I was quite completely depressed Wednesday night, as you can no doubt imagine.

He had some worthwhile criticisms of my current job, though, so I’ve been thinking about how to improve myself there.

I returned to work on Thursday to the realization that I can do very little about this, as my entire floor is being renovated this week and the next. I knew this would happen, but I didn’t connect it with my present predicament until I arrived at work in the morning and tried to make some inroads. I’ll do the best I can, but that was frustrating.

I feel better now, though. It’s been a very rough 36 hours, but thanks to a few answered prayers, I know I’ll be able to get through this.

Now I’m simply looking forward to a visit with my parents; I’ll be staying with them Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. At least I can completely chill out there. I’m lucky that ways.

On a side note, I took advantage of my illness to finish the entire Witch Hunter Robin, which I intend to review here soon. My overall reaction is a thumbs-up.

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Sunday, December 19, 2004

Dec 19 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Today did not go according to plan.

I woke up a little late, so I had to miss Sunday School and went straight to church. I heard another great sermon, which I won’t bore you with here. I got home and had some more of that amazing tart I made yesterday, along with a big glass of milk. Wonderful.

I then sat down and worked on taxes for Otherspace Productions, and made more progress than I thought I would. I think I have it well in hand now. It’s actually not hard.

But then I got very tired and rather nauseous. I lay on my window seat for a while, then popped in some Mystery Science Theater 3000, and some more Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Nausica

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Sunday, December 19, 2004

Dec 19 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Today did not go according to plan.

I woke up a little late, so I had to miss Sunday School and went straight to church. I heard another great sermon, which I won’t bore you with here. I got home and had some more of that amazing tart I made yesterday, along with a big glass of milk. Wonderful.

I then sat down and worked on taxes for Otherspace Productions, and made more progress than I thought I would. I think I have it well in hand now. It’s actually not hard.

But then I got very tired and rather nauseous. I lay on my window seat for a while, then popped in some Mystery Science Theater 3000, and some more Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Nausica

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Thursday, December 16, 2004

Dec 16 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

Accomplishments, in list form to encourage brevity:

  • > Bought volume 4 of Gundam SEED, which came out this week. Can’t wait to find out what happens next. Very good show, even by Gundam standards.
  • Had a productive day at work, though things are slowing down to the point that I have very little to do. Which means that I should find things to do.
  • Stopped by my local Starbuck’s at 7:00, in the hope that the other member of my Technical Writers’ Meetup Group would attend this month’s meeting. She didn’t. Oh well; it gave me the opportunity to update a few of my websites.
  • Came home and ate another bowl of potato soup. One serving left. Man, home cooking is delicious and ridiculously economical; I made the entire pot of soup at a cost of maybe $15 at most.
  • Finally had a phone conversation with Saalon, who has been sick lo these many weeks. It’s always good to talk to him. I don’t mean simply that I have a good time; it feels good to talk to him. He’s a fundamentally good presence in my life.
  • Planned my December short story (part of my plan to write one short story per month through October of 2005). It’s a story set in my Big Fantasy World, about a young man who disrespects others and pays the ultimate price. A little dark for my usual tastes, but that’s what’s in my head right now.

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    Wednesday, December 15, 2004

    Dec 15 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

    Today was a day in which I had many plans, all of which were thwarted by good works.

    I forgot that I promised a co-worker that I’d help her move a desk this evening. That was no problem; we hauled the desk into my truck, then chatted pleasantly in the truck as we moved it, and I ended up only spending less than an hour or so moving it.

    I got home and microwaved some more of my homemade potato soup, then finished updating Matrix Experiments Lain, at which point I checked my messages and got a message from my Dad which…wow.

    Suffice to say that my grandmother is being extremely difficult and has put my Mom in a bad position. So I called my Mom and spent about an hour getting the full story from her. Which was a good thing.

    But at that point, I didn’t want to do much of anything, so I ended up doing nothing and just went to bed. So the laundry list of Stuff To Do was pushed back yet another night.

    :sigh: But I can’t complain, because Matrix Experiments Lain is almost done and it felt incredibly good to realize that this thing that came out of my head is being birthed and it’s even cooler than I imagined it. Pursuing your dreams? WORTH IT.

    Now, here’s more VR story. Doodlehopper’s speaking:

    “You know, when I got into this racket, somebody gave me some advice. He said, ‘Honey, sometimes you’ll work with jerks. And when you do, remember this: Just like they can fire you, you can fire them.’”

    She let this sink in, and his eyes widened slightly.

    “Now that you’re so satisfied with yourself that you can pull a trick,” she continued, “it looks like you won’t be needing me anymore, now will you? ‘Cause that’s sure how you’re acting.”

    And with that, she stalked over to the door, yanked it open, walked through, and slammed it shut behind her. He heard her receding voice yell, “You’re not worth it!”

     

    Well, thought Thomas, that certainly changed things.

    He cast his eyes to the dull ceiling and began thinking about his options. Things seemed increasingly bleak as he ticked off possibilities. He couldn’t go back to his apartment. He couldn’t go back to Safe House. The cops were surely combing through the shattered convenience store by now, and he and Doodlehopper had certainly spent enough time standing in the aisles for the clerk to remember them. Thomas felt a flash of guilt at the cold shoulder he’d literally turned towards the girl, but that was quickly subsumed with a stronger flush of anger at her treatment of him, sneaking into VR and following him around VR like a spy.

    He suddenly wondered just how she’d done that. It was difficult to track somebody on VR, especially when they’re hopping from world to world like he’d been. A small corner of his mind murmured admiration, but his indignance drowned it out.

    He deduced that the teen guiding Thomas in had probably helped her, attaching some sort of tracer to his session when setting it up then handing the output to her. Thomas mused that, for all he knew, she had charmed the boy into doing her a favor.

    That same corner of his mind that was impressed with Doodlehopper now began to gnaw at him. Was it really right of him to dismiss her like this, so casually? Hadn’t she saved his life? She’d been paid to do that, he countered. Even so, she’d been a genuine help to him, and a good friend. Had he ever had a better friend?

    He pushed that thought away. He’d never had any close friends in the physical world. He’d never made friends easily growing up, and once he’d begun VR diving for hours every day in junior high, he’d spent too much time in VR to be able to make friends. He’d chosen his life, and he was comfortable with it, he told himself.

    But was he? Hadn’t he always been a bit disappointed with his lack of deep physical connection? If he was so comfortable, where was this disappointment coming from?

    He opened his eyes, and stared up at the bland beige ceiling, and missed Doodlehopper. Sadness swept over him in a wave far larger than he had suspected possible, and he curled over in the bed as if to avoid it. He was alone, but worse, he was isolated, like a thick invisible wall surrounded him and blocked out the rest of the world.

    And, suddenly, he was so very sick of being alone.

     

    Doodlehopper strode down the street like a battleship at full speed. She had her hands jammed into her jacket pockets and barely noticed the streets as she carved a path through the fog and grime of the city. She was frustrated, she was angry, and though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, she was exhausted nearly to the point of physical breakdown.

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    Tuesday, December 14, 2004

    Dec 14 2004 Published by under Miscellaneous

    Two writing groups in two days! Now if only I had some fiction to write.

    Honestly, I do have some fiction to write. I just need to extract some stories from my big fantasy world. And that’s hard.

    See, it’s not enough to have a big story idea. Stories live and die by the depth of the reader’s connection to the characters. If the reader cares about the characters, you can lead them through just about any plot. If the reader doesn’t care, you’re sunk.

    So, how to make the reader care about the characters? The characters must be working on their own issues. Great literature almost invariably deals with characters that change, or at least characters that interact in interesting ways. The only way to do that is by having interesting characters, and putting them in interesting situations. To paraphrase someone in tonight’s writing group, “It’s okay to write a slice-of-life story, if you have the right slice.”

    And this is why it’s difficult to write fiction. Many newbie writers have neat plot ideas. That’s good, but a good story idea doesn’t make a good story. You have to have interesting characters that are on their own emotional journeys to give flesh to that neat plot idea.

    An example: A friend of mine is writing a story that upends a fantasy cliche. In her story, the grand prophecy of saving the world—which the characters naturally fulfill—was actually written down wrong by the bard to whom it was told. The steps they completed unleashes the doom of the world, not the savior of the world.

    Neat idea. But my friend is struggling because the story doesn’t go anywhere; it has no life. Why? Her characters aren’t compelling enough to drive the story to that neat idea. She can think up stuff that happens to her characters, but that stuff manifests as bland obstacles. Since the characters aren’t changing and aren’t deeply affected by the events of the story, the reader doesn’t care much about them, so the story meanders and flounders.

    The solution is difficult, and requires a lot of hard thought. But it is necessary. Even stories that don’t feature significant character development or emotional involvement by the characters—such as high-end space opera or hard-boiled detective fiction—involve characters who are deeply committed to their actions, and we appreciate them because of the strength of their convictions.

    Monday was a clear, cold day, that reminds me of Russian novels. The wind could cut through solid oak. You step outside for a few minutes and you begin to realize that you simply couldn’t survive this if exposed to it for a couple of hours. It’s as if Jack Frost taps your shoulder and whispers poems about your mortality.

    Monday’s was a reasonably productive meeting; nothing of mine being critiqued, and the three excerpts we were reviewing I had either already provided my comments on or had been unable to read before the group met. I did get into a somewhat passionate argument with our resident curmudgeon, and I regret getting upset over it. I dislike hostility over writing, and I felt myself getting hostile over his persistent negativity towards the novel’s protagonist.

    In particular, the critiquer disliked how the protagonist takes no action until about fifty pages into the book, and explained that the protagonist needed to drive the story forward. I disagreed, pointing out books like Catch-22 in which the protagonist does very little to direct the plot. And I started to get flustered. Fortunately, the moderator pointed out a few things which gave us the space to cool off.

    But I began to lose control there, and I still don’t know why. Maybe I was fed up with the critiquer’s behavior—and he’s been doing this since I first attended the group about six months ago. Maybe I was being maternalistic towards this novel that I really am enjoying. Maybe it was just the culmination of a very, very busy week.

    But it was definitely not cool.

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