Anniversay Time

Today is my and Kelly's eight year anniversary. Since it is in the middle of the week we are going to wait until Saturday to go out. It is really great to have spent the last eight years with such a great friend. Kelly really gets me like no one else does. When she doesn't then she tries. I can be kind of weird sometimes. Anyway life is great.

50,000 Time

I just finished 50,000 words on my novel. I am halfway to finishing my book. 100,000 words is the goal for the average novel. I have been working on it since Kelly bought me my laptop. This Christmas will be two years since I started working on it. I have written and written and rewritten. The weird thing is if you think about a real writer, and by that I mean someone who has published a book, they have written many hundreds of thousands of words for their books. For me though the 50,000 mark is one I have been striving for recently. It is a real relief to reach it. The rest is downhill... right?

Heroes Time 2

In my last post I talked about Heroes and the problems I have with the plot. I guess my problem is that when I see a problem occur in a show I try to figure out how the characters are going to fix it. In this third season problems occur and I know how they can be solved. The problem is that the character are too powerful. HRG wants to kill Sylar. Just use the Hatian to turn off his powers and shot him in the head. Problem solved. Maybe Time Traveling Peter can zip right back to before he shot his brother and stop himself from causing these new problems. Also why is Peter so adept at time travel and Hiro can never get it right. Nearly everytime Hiro time travels in to the past he ends up in he wrong spot. He does okay going back to the past from the future, but the whole backwards travel thing was not good.

Maybe there are some rules in the Heroes universe that have not be revealed. Maybe there is some greater force controlling the time stream. Maybe that is why Hiro's backwards jumps always end badly. I am thinking that the thing is the writers having written themselves into a corner.

Heroes Time

Time travel is a hard concept to do in science fiction. If done the
wrong way you open up door into questions of why didn't they just go
back and stop themselves or if they change the future why do they
still exist as they are now.

I was worried in the first season of Heroes when Hiro started time
traveling. Would the writers be able to handle this difficult concept.
I thought they did a great job. When Hiro went back to save the red
head with the super learning ability he found he could not. The rule
established, once an event enters the past you cannot go back and
change it. This was a great rule, it prevented the go back and stop
the bad guy situation, and the time has changed so why does this guy
still exist. It explains why future Hiro did not become directly
involved in what happened in the first season. He told some one who
was still in the past and therefore able to change it.

In season two Hiro went back in time by accident and ended up stuck
there. Did he change the past? I don't think he did because of the
stories he remembered. He did manage to make an enemy, but he did not
change the past. I guess. I was alright with this, because I really like the Hiro character, and it seemed that he could not reliably control his power.

Now in season three the rules have been throw out. Now I even begin to think that the rules never existed.. Peter has traveled
back in time to prevent some future where he is hunted and the world is going to be destroyed.
The problem is that it is out of character for Peter. He loves his
brother so why shoot him instead of talking to him and warning him
about what happens if he tells the world about their powers. Now do
you see the problem? If not my next post should clear things up.

Sent from my iPod

The sleeper has awakened.

I have always been an avid tea drinker. Usually I would enjoy a glass of sweet tea anytime. Then last October I went to an ASCD conference in Atlanta. Before the first session started there were pastries, coffee, and tea. The coffee was prebrewed, but the tea you had to make yourself. The tea available was TAZO Awake. It being early in the morning I decided to give it a go. I brewed the tea and it was great. Hot tea in the morning became a habit with me after that. I continued with the same brand all winter. I cut back some during the summer. Hot tea and hot weather is not a good combo.

While I was looking at one of the packets I saw that in French the ingredients included melange. For those of you who do not recognize that reference then you might know it as the "spice" from Frank Herbert's Dune. The mind altering, space warp enabling drug in that novel. That in and of itself is kind of interesting. Then consider the quote, from the movie, about Paul Atreidies when he overdoses on melange and he becomes super Paul. That is right the quote is, "The sleeper has awakened." The name of the tea is Awake. Coincidence maybe, but who knows. If I develop any space warping powers maybe I won't have to worry about gas.

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

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RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

It's talk like a pirate day! I have looked forward to today for a while. Dave Barry first talked about it in one of his columns. Since then I have thought it was a great fun idea. This year Kelly had a pirate themed party for my 30th birthday. She bought me Clara, Lindy, Charlie, and herself talk like a pirate day shirts.

Some of me hearties! arrr

Me convers'n with some pirate mateys.

Pirate Joke
Q: Did you hear about the pirate who took up boxing?

A: He had a killer left hook.

For some more pirate humor check out this site.

For some pirate fonts go here.

Fringe Vacation

I went on a trip to the beach last weekend with my family, Pat, Linda, Katie, Becky, and Leilani. We went to Edisto Island. It was very nice. The girls loved having Leilani there and playing in the ocean and pool. I think they liked the pool more. The ocean was filled with a great deal of plant matter from the marsh. The most fun I had was playing Phase 10 at night after the kids went to bed. I think we were all a little wacky in the evenings, because we were laughing most of the time. It was good fun.

The Sunday we got back Fringe was on. Kelly and I watched it. It had an X-Files feel to it, but with a harder edge. Much more action than the X-Files. Kelly made the best comment at the end. When the guy who they had been trying to save the entire show died she suggested they use the weird brain wave thing to find out what he knew. I was a little surprised that they did not, but considering they are the good guys. I guess good guys would not use a dead body that way. Then at the end they showed the cyborg lady (I cannot remember the character's name) asked how long he had been dead. Only five hours, one hour less than you need to use the brain wave weirdness. She said question him. Freaky stuff.