NaNoWriMoNoGo

Okay, something tells me I'm not going to get this novel finished by the end of the day. I find I write at a pace of about 1000+ words per hour at my best, so it would take me about 37 hours of nonstop writing to actually get to 50000 words, and since there are only 8.5 hours left, I don't think that's going to work.

At least I got a good start on it though, and that's what I was hoping for most. And I'm not going to stop writing it either, I'm just going to work on it at a much more leisurely pace (read: when I feel like it). You can't force creativity, that much I know.

A few things really hampered me from getting this done:

1) Final Fantasy XII, I've spent time playing this game that I should have spent writing.

2) The 2 and a half week stretch that I spent not doing any writing at all. Had I done a reasonable amount during that time I probably could have finished.

3) I'm not willing to sacrifice quality when I write. One of the important things the NaNo people say is that you shouldn't worry if what you are writing is good, just keep writing. I simply can't do that. I do a lot of technical writing and I've trained myself to write at a reasonable level of quality at all times. If I don't like it then I'm not going to write it, and I ended up spending way more time refactoring my novel than I did actually writing new content. It may take longer, but I'll be much happier with the result.

4) I like to practice word economy. What most people need a paragraph to say, I say in one or two sentences. This goes against the whole "write a lot of words" philosophy. I also get right to the point, if a character in a story enters a room I don't need 4 pages telling me what shade of green the plant in the corner is. It's green, be done with it.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't finish, but it was an insane goal to begin with. I will finish it though, it's a great way to hash out the story for the game version :)

Why Canadian Politics is more interesting than American Politics

Actual (abbreviated) transcript from yesterday's question period in Parliament:

Bill Graham: "Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Prime Minister on his photo op. He was spectacular in that gown he was wearing."

Stephen Harper: "I can add in terms of photo ops that there is a tradition at APEC to do pictures in traditional garb. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I had to wear the silk on the outside."

Bill Graham: "Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Prime Minister that I have just as many embarrassing pictures of myself as they do on that side."

Stephen harper: "Also I can say in regard to my well-known agenda to control the press, I will work closely with the Leader of the Opposition to keep those photos of him out of the media."

Seriously

I'm not making this up

Canada's awesome.

Originality at its Finest

Imagine being the DJ for this station. "And now here's the new one from Walk Away, called Walk Away. You can hear it on their new album Walk Away."

And now, a gratuitous cute cat picture:

Me Brain No Worky

So it turns out that when you completely shut your brain down for an entire weekend, it's hard to get started on Monday.

Frankly I'm surprised at the amount of work I've accomplished today in my pseudo-sleepwalking state. Let me give you a rundown of what I "did" this weekend:

Friday night:

• 5:30pm: drove out to Wheatley
  
• 7:00pm: Watched Buffalo vs. Pittsburgh (that Sabres team is scary good)

Saturday:

• Slept until almost 11am
• installed a ceiling fan (with a remote!)
• 12:00: Minnesota vs. Iowa
• 3:30pm: Michigan vs. Ohio State (damn that was a great game)
• 7:00pm: Leafs vs. Devils
• 10:00pm: Red Wings vs. Edmonton (I made it through the second period before I damn near passed out)

Sunday:

• 1:00pm: Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland
• 4:00pm: Detroit vs. Arizona (the Lions are freakin' terrible)
• 6:30pm: Grey Cup: B.C. vs. Montreal
• 9:45pm: Drive home from Wheatley

That might be a record for me, watching 8 whole games (with some slight overlap) in just over 48 hours...no wonder I'm tired.

Happy GIS Day!

Okay, so it's not exactly a holiday, but it's time for geography geeks like me to celebrate!

We spent the day at City Hall putting on presentations from both the City and the University, and we had the council chambers decked out with posters and whatnot describing our work. The chambers were actually standing room only for the whole day, with visitors from Walkerville High School and St. Clair College. There were also people there from CBC news and A-Channel, so watch for us! (I'm sitting in the front row of the gallery)

Geography Awareness Week

Aren't you all excited? This week is Geography Awareness Week, and at the U we're celebrating GIS Day on Wednesday November 15th. We'll have posters and speakers at the City of Windsor all day, it's a joint effort of the University and the City of Windsor.

So everyone, be extra aware of geography this week!

I done been tagged!

1. If you were a muppet, and had to pick ANOTHER muppet to be your best friend, who would you pick?

Beaker (only since I didn't want to copy Scott), but I'd have to have Dr. Honeydew translate for me.

2. Would you rather live on Sesame Street, with the Muppets on the Muppet Show, or down at Fraggle Rock?

Muppets!

3. If you were forced to date a Walt Disney Charcter (human or animal), who would it be?

This is tough, but I've gotta go with:

4. If you could only eat one vegetable ever again, what would it be?

Mushrooms.

5. Do you have any recurring dreams?

I still have the occasional dream where I work at Shell, only there's triple the number of pumps and I'm working alone. I still get through it though, I was the best gas jockey ever.

6. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

I'd say flying, but with my luck I'd get hit by a plane or something. Let's go with shapeshifting, that way if I needed to fly, I could just turn into a bird.

7. Did you rename your Cabbage Patch Kids, or keep them with the name Xaiver Roberts gave them? What were they called?

No cabbage patch kids here.

RANDOM FACT: Scott and I used to make parachute men out of GI Joe's using twine and shopping bags. We would throw them out the 2nd floor window in my bedroom and watch them glide down. There are probably still one or two stuck in the tree in the front yard. We also learned that you had to wrap the parachute properly otherwise, well, things don't end quite so well.

8. First Concert you ever went to?

Our Lady Peace, early 2000.

9. Does it bother you that Sebastian Bach from Skid Row was acting in Gilmore Girls?

I have no idea who that is. I do know who Skid Row is though. I'm aware of the Gilmore Girls.

10. What are the Best 3 Simpsons episodes?

1. Na-na na-na na-na na-na LEA-DER!

2. Homer smokes weed. ("We have a kitchen!?")

3. Stonecutters.

11. BONUS QUESTION (since Sara didn't include a #11). What was the last book you read?

Treason by Orson Scott Card (not as good as Ender's Game, but then what is?)

12. Who do you tag?

Jonathan, Dani (since she never posts to her blog), and anyone else who might read this.

White Poppies

It's been a while since something's made me want to "sound off", but here we go.

White Poppies anger Edmonton veterans

I first heard about this story yesterday evening when one of the local radio stations was interviewing someone who was supporting this white poppy idea. For those who have never heard of this before (which included me up until hearing this interview), the white poppy was created by the "Pledge Peace Union" and the "Women's Cooperative Guild" as an alternative to the traditional red poppy.

The idea behind it, and this is directly from the woman who was being interviewed on the radio, was that it symbolized both a remembrance of those who have been killed in wars, and as a symbol of hope that we will someday live in a world without war (this was supposedly what separated the white poppies from the red ones).

Now, maybe I'm crazy, but isn't that exactly what the red poppy stands for? Isn't that the whole idea of "We will remember them" and "Lest we forget?". I fail to see the difference.

After some poking around on the PPU's white poppy page, I saw this:

The Guild stressed that the white poppy was not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War - a war in which many of the women (from the Women's Cooperative Guild) lost husbands, brothers, sons and lovers.

So it's not intended as a replacement for the red poppy, yet as far as I can tell it has the same message as the red poppy. The part about the women who lost people in the war was pretty much quoted verbatim in the radio interview I was listening to, and when she said that it came across as a "women's rights" issue, but I might be reading too much into it so I should probably leave that one alone. After all, it wasn't just women who lost people in the war, and it wasn't just men who died in the war. (This is one of those language pet peeves of mine, like when you hear about people trying to "Stop violence against women"...why not just "Stop violence"?)

On a page about the red poppy, it talks about all of the trouble that the red poppy has caused:

... a growing number of people have been concerned about the poppy's association with military power and the justification of war.

I know I only speak for myself here, but never once have I ever heard of anyone using the poppy for this purpose. I know I certainly don't associate the poppy with anything other than remembrance, and I would think that the vast majority of Canadians feel the same way.

I have no problem with people selling or wearing the white poppies, it's a free country after all (which is kinda why we wear these things to begin with), but I just can't wrap my head around what the difference is.

NaNoWriMo Update

Yeah, so this whole writing 1667 words a day for a month thing isn't going as smoothly as I had anticipated.

It started out great, I wrote 1500 words the first day and came to a logical place to stop, anxious to keep the momentum going. Since then, however, I've written another 1500 words...in six days. So that leaves me at ~3,000 words when to keep pace I should be at 11669 by the end of the day.

The sad thing is, I've got the majority of the story mapped out in my head, I just haven't sat down and put it on paper yet. That's the only thing that makes me think I can still get this done in time.

Nonetheless, I will persevere...though next year I may follow in the footsteps of Scott and Sara et. al. and do NaBloPoMo instead :)

Oh, and I'm aware that writing this blog post is time I could have spent increasing my word count, but I'm still at school and have a lab to teach in half an hour...during which I plan to be increasing my word count :)