Andreas Matern’s Weblog

We’re actually going to an 80s dance thing tonight and a party at a friend’s house, but damn it, man, this is my damn blog! I can put up a PJ video if I want!

A great New York Times article about flying. The Airport Security Follies. I refuse to further comment, as I have to travel a lot for work, and I don’t want to be put on some kind of list. But, come on, we all know that the TSA requirements are ridiculous.

I have about 20000 projects that I’d love to accomplish, which, of course, I never do.  One of them is listed over here:  Fun with Inform 7 || kuro5hin.org.  Remember the text based adventure games like Zork?  I really want to write one and put it on-line at DeathStarInc.  But, I also want to write a little side scroller, a first person shooter, and a simple strategy game.  When will I do these things?  Probably after the project after the metabolomics project.

The new study’s flooring is done.  Things went much easier once we got the table saw up and running.  Changing the blade on that lovely machine was a huge pain in the neck, but once we figured it out we cut through laminate like butter.  Table saws scare the beejesus out of me, though.  I did, however, fantasize about building my own furniture while ripping 1/2" strips of laminate from the flooring.  I think I’ll leave that for project number 20001.

Even though tomorrow is back to work, I am so excited I found:   Turret Defense Games - I love these games (for reasons unclear to me) and I’m so happy to have a number of them all linked on one page.

I spent the day cleaning out the study, removing the carpet and getting the floor ready for new laminate flooring.  It looks pretty good, but we need a better saw to fill in the missing space that is 1" too narrow for the planks.  Oh well, another toy

I feel like ass, hopefully tomorrow will bring joy to my immune system.  Roast chicken dinner is becoming a chicken stock as we speak.  Another Thursday, another snowstorm for Boston.  JOY!

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Image from Scott.

I’m finally back in Boston, it feels like I’ve been gone forever.  New music is up at RileySmile: Fifty One Luscious Lullabies at rileysmile

I am so behind in everything.  Work.  Presents.  Christmas Cards.

FUN!  I parked at the mall, so I wouldn’t have to clean snow off my car.

I also will be doing all of my Christmas Shopping right freakin now.

Now, this is pretty freakin’ cool.  Go to this person’s website and download the Christmas Cheat Sheet - brilliant idea, brilliantly pulled off!

Made in ENGLAND by Gentlemen New Christmas Cheat Sheets

Found it through Notcot.

Between Facebook, Twitter, I want Sandy and the other freakin’ applications I use, its nice to find some that actually connect them all together.  Today I found Outlook + Twitter = OutTwit. which lets me update Twitter from Outlook.  Twitter then updates Facebook, and I’m all good. 

Even though I didn’t hit 50k, I did restart my writing, which is a good thing.  I’m hoping that I continue to work on this, but the holidays are a pain in the … well, you know.  From NaNoWriMo:

Greetings, and welcome to the second-to-last email we’ll be sending out from headquarters this year. First off, I want to congratulate all our NaNoWriMo winners! We had 15,333 folks cross the finish line this year, which was a new record for us. Way to go, champions of 2007!

And now a word to those of you who didn’t win. If you missed the 50K goal, you might be feeling a little disappointed. Or embarrassed. Maybe you’re just reading this to help dig that guilt-knife a little deeper into your spleen. Yet another project where you started out strong and came up short, right?

Wrong.

If you signed up for the challenge and wrote 5,000 words, you did great. Successfully pulling off anything creative given our ridiculously high standards and congenitally overscheduled lives is a miracle, and sometimes that battle just can’t be won in a single month. Even 1000 words is an achievement, and more fiction than mos t people write in their entire lifetimes.  

So keep writing. Next year, we’ll be doing it all over again. The great thing about noveling is that you learn something invaluable every time you do it. (Maybe the thing you learned this year is that you need to hire a sherpa to wash your dishes and attend all work meetings for you in November.)

I learned that I really missed writing the pep talks that go out to all NaNo participants. So next year, I’ll be wielding the pep-whip again, along with the pros we recruit. This year’s pep talks, though, are going to be tough to beat. Extra-special thanks to Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Julianna Baggott, Sue Grafton, Naomi Novik, Tom Robbins, Deanna Raybourn, and Sara Gruen for reaching out and inspiring us.

The pep talks are fantastic, now I need to get to work, regretfully not to writing…

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