Been a while, Mark II

I always seem to forget about this blog for a while until suddenly someone posts a comment or WordPress sends me an email, and I remember about it.

I’m still working for BAH and still writing, but in April I’m starting on a new task, helping out with BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure). We’re managing the relocation of Ft. Monmouth (NJ) to Aberdeen Proving Grounds (MD). Ft. Monmouth is where our client is currently based out of.

Not sure if I mentioned this in a previous post and I’m too lazy to go back and read through them, but I’m married now and have been since July. We got a puppy at the beginning of February the day the massive snow storm started. She’s an Australian shepherd named Lucy and is quite a handful. I can’t wait till she stops bitting and her bark deepens (the high-pitched yelp she shoots out should be a finishing move in Mortal Kombat).

The puppy eats up a lot of my free time, but it’s all good. She’s a great addition to the family.

I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for quite some time. For a while I had been working on a new novel, but I’ve sort of abandoned that. I tend to start writing something without any real direction so then it goes down the tubes. I just don’t feel I have the attention span for a novel, but that’s why I love short storise and one-act plays. I have been toying around with writing a screenplay and have a few general of what I want it to be about, but again, I can’t figure out the ending or the over-arching plot that’s needed to write something like this. I’m hoping it’ll come to me soon so I can start writing. I think this time around I’m going to do things properly and create an outline before starting to keep me on track. It’ll be interesting: I’ve only ever written an outline when I was forced to for a class and have never written one for one of my creative works.

On another note, I think Twitter is going to destroy the world. Screw this 2012 apocolypse bulshit. Kids nowadays have poor enough attention spans as is, but now we’ve got Twitter limiting people to only 140 characters so kids won’t want to read more than that. Pretty soon all knowledge will be lost because if you don’t have the attention to read more than 140 characters, you sure as hell won’t have the attention to listen to someone pass on vast quantities of information, Plato-style.

And this Chatroulette thing, yeah that’s real smart. Video chatting with random people. I saw a screen grab of one conversation that was between a high school-aged kid and a 5-year-old. The teen said, “Does your mom know you’re on the internet?” And the 5-year-old responded something like, “Does your mom know you’re a faggot?” /mind boggled/ What is this world coming to? Fuck Afghanistan. We need help on the homefront.

I’ve yet to see Avatar (but want to), though there are a lot of “great” movies I haven’t seen (at least in ful): The Godfather and Good Fellas, to name a few. No, I’m not trying to compare Avatar to The Godfather, just grouping them as “great” movies. (I put “great” in quotes because it’s purely subjective.) I’m not, however, big on this whole 3D TV thing. I think it’s a waste. Who wants to put on (non)reading glasses to watch TV? I used to wear glasses (have contacts now) and trying to watch 3D movies at Disney World was a pain.

I’m all for new technologies, but I think some are pretty absurd. Like those interactive “hampster balls” that let you “travel” to another country without leaving your house. Americans are fat and closeted enough; don’t give those people another excuse to become reclusive. Motion-controllers for video games (like Microsoft’s Project Natal) are getting old fast. They’re all trying to compete with the Wii. At least the Wii’s motion-control is bad-ass. Things like Project Natal will make you look more ridiculous than someone playing “Barbie Girl” on DDR in public.

Back to writing though (don’t you just love how I jump around with little to know transisitions?), I think there needs to be one standardized writing style (MLA FTW). Instead, we have a bajillion different styles, and most don’t make any sense. Take BAH for example: their internal writing style is APA (American Psychologists Association), but the government uses their own style that’s based around MLA. We’re not pyschologists; why are we using their writing style? At least we’re not using AP. /shudders/ I’ve never seen a more wanton disregard for commas. What did they ever do to you? *looks at AP style* Come on, no comma between the penultimate item and the and in a list of three or more items? Seriously? What if you’ve got a list with compound items, like peanut butter and jelly? What then? Hmm?

Okay, I’ll hop off my soap box, for now.

By the way: yay for warm weather!