pres.umptuo.us

• What’s on the radio right now. Incredibly useful. The site’s getting hammered right now, but I’d love to find out how they know what song is playing.

  Monday July 31, 2006

Iowa was awesome this year. I started on my novel, and despite the fact that I’ve only added a paragraph to it since I’ve been back, it’s really gotten the thoughts and ideas flowing. I’m trying hard to sit down for at least an hour a day and write, and if not write then do nothing else but think of the story.

Why don’t we tip flight attendants? We tip people who serve us our food in restaurants and people who park our cars (I could go into a long rant about how lazy we must be to have someone else park our Mercedes for us, but I think that says it all), so why not the flight attendants? I dare say the flight attendant has to do way more work than the average waiter does.

I read through David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” while in Iowa and waiting at airports. I’ve found myself emulating his style in my writing. He’s so smooth and flowy with his writing. Really funny stuff too. Some of it didn’t do it for me, but most of the time he was on the money.

I’ve been using WriteRoom to write my novel, and highly recommend it for anyone else who has problems concentrating. Plus it looks damn cool to be working on an all black screen with green text on it. Makes me look like some hardcore writer dude.

My desktop machine has died on me for no reason at all. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s the power supply or the motherboard. Either way, I imagine it could be a blessing in surprise disguise since I no longer have access to Warcraft 3 (Damn that footmen frenzy is addicting) or my music. More time to write write write!

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I hope it’s at least PG-13 so we see them actually use their weapons this time.

  Thursday July 20, 2006

• Improving your Writing. Great collection of tips.

  Tuesday July 18, 2006

Write a story in which a store is robbed. The cast: The robber, the store employee, a shopper. Start with the robber in first person, move to the store employee in second person, and finish off with the shopper in third person. Tell the robbery from their POVs.

I sit in my car parked across the street from the bank. My eyes dart back and forth from the clock on the dash and the entrance to the bank. 8:56, it says. Anytime now.

Continue reading “POV Writing Exercise”

• Stop-Motion Human Space Invaders

  Monday July 17, 2006

I’ve been meaning to write up reviews for The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon but just never got around to it, and then today I finished reading Crossing California by Adam Langer. I came to the quick realization that I didn’t care much for either of the previous books, but will heartily recommend Crossing California.

I can now categorize books into one of two categories: Books that I recommend to anyone and everyone to read, and books that I tend to forget I had read and won’t say much about unless provoked by someone else. Of course there’s always books that are horrible and I abhor and will probably tell everyone how much I hated it, but that usually has more to do with my own personal taste in novels.

And with that, I will say nothing more about The Alchemist or You Remind Me of Me

I am in Iowa attending the Summer Writing Festival once more, this time taking a workshop on starting the novel. We just had our first meeting and I’m feeling good about our instructor (Leslie Schwartz) and the workshop. She told us not to share our work with anyone else unless they are writers themselves because only then will they understand our plight.

That’s cool cause that makes me feel better than all the non-writers. You hear that? I’m better than you.

I saw fireflies for the first time in my life today.

• Star Wars On Earth. Like Camelot, it’s only a model.

  Thursday July 13, 2006

I drank coffee for the first time in a long time the other morning. And by coffee I mean straight coffee, not a latte or a cappuccino or a frappuccino or a mussolinoccino. And it made me poop.

Does anyone know what part of the coffee it is that induces the pooping? I drink soda all the time so I’m doubting it’s the caffeine, unless it’s the concentration of caffeine that’s doing it. In any case, I believe I shall get another cup of coffee in the morning just to make sure it’s the coffee making me poop.

And yes, I prefer the word “poop” to “poo”. “Poo” just sounds incomplete to me. Gotta finish it.

• Kevin Smith on His Superman Script. Giant spider!

  Thursday July 13, 2006

• Packard Jennings. I’m a sucker for these guerilla anti-consumerism tactics. Found from a livejournal post about his job pamphlet.

  Tuesday July 11, 2006

I would organize the Ultimate Soft Rock concert. Huey Lewis would open (Sorry Huey) along with Wilson Phillips, and then Peter Cetera, Phil Collins, and Steve Perry would take the stage. Maybe bring on Peter Gabriel, just cause I wanna see him and Collins go at it. For an encore, we’d bring out Neil Diamond and the audience would go into a frenzy.

Oh yeah, I guess I’d give some of the money to children with really bad diseases or developing nations. Or they could all just come to the concert for free. I’d let them pick.

They’d be fools not to want to see the Ultimate Soft Rock Concert, though.

• Smooth-E. Entertaining enough to sustain my ever-shrinking attention span. Reminds me that I haven’t seen a decent romantic comedy in a long time.

  Monday July 10, 2006

• Conan O’Brien at Stuyvesant 2006 Graduation. Conan is the man just for mentioning wikipedia.

  Thursday July 6, 2006

Something is terribly, terribly wrong with our college admissions system.

IllItsau d: suggestment
IllItsau d: thats a word, right?
valloq: suggestion?
IllItsau d: oh
IllItsau d: hahahahaha
IllItsau d: there you go
valloq: lol
valloq: omg
valloq: lol
valloq: hi yale
IllItsau d: i was like why is microsoft word saying im spelling it wrong
IllItsau d: it sounds right!
IllItsau d: hahaha

• The Urban Etiquette Handbook. I’m not hip enough to use 90% of the stuff in here, but still good tips.

  Wednesday July 5, 2006

• Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep. Looks excellent. Maybe Michel Gondry is the only one who can make a movie that will top my favorite Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  Saturday July 1, 2006

• Cute Overload: Sleepies. sooo sleepies. Shamelessly stolen from Airbag, but I’ve been showing it to everyone so I just gotta post it.

  Saturday July 1, 2006