So NYU cancelled classes today and tomorrow. This is particularly wonderful since I'm kinda behind on my homework this weekend (A Joss Whedon Appreciation Club meeting, a swing dance party, and a spontaneous 11pm movie and walk to Times Square does that to you). So that's awesome. And because just text is boring, here is a picture of what it looks out my window. More on this story as it develops.
Essays, Not Rants! 032: Storytelling and Parables Remember: This post is about storytelling, not the veracity of any religion Doesn’t matter what you think of Jesus, gotta admit the guy could tell a story. Or the people who recorded them spiffed them up. Either way, Jesus often communicated (religious and otherwise) points through stories in ways that were not heavy handed yet still managed to tell a good story. See, Jesus knew his audience. He knew that some people were inherently opposed t
Y'know that thing where you're offered everything you wanted? Something you've wanted for a long long time that embodies just about all you hoped for? Know what I mean? But you know you can't take it? That as much as you wish you could you can't? That you have to do the right thing and say no? And step back out alone, without what you could have had? And even though you did the right thing you feel like #### and it haunts you? So you talk it out, you pray it out, you write it out, you get
LET ME BUY MY TICKETS. Seriously though. Looks fantastic; seems to be what oughta be the next step for the story (and character) to take. And, yeah. Well. Time to wait. ...nooooooo
Essays, Not Rants! 031: Time Doesn’t Flow Linearly Well, actually time does go linearly in real life. But this is fiction I’m talking about. Y’know those stories where events are told in the order of the sequence of events? Well this isn’t about that. Lost’s early episodes followed a basic format: focus particularly on one character on the Island all the while showing us flashbacks to their life before. We see Sawyer’s escapades as a con man while we see him attempting to pull a con now. Ch
Essays, Not Rants! 030: The Consistency of Continuity The way reality (and by proxy, stories) works is that if one thing happens then something else does. Because of this, we have a natural sequence of events that happens. It’s a consistent sequence of events that have bearing on each other. Man, describing continuity is difficult. Basically, if something happened, it happened. Events that happen influence the next one. Yet how much this affects the story depends on, well, the story. Let
Well. That was awesome. The Lego booth (floor area, more like it) was pretty cool. Saw the new Batman and Spiderman sets. Got a pretty neat Hobbit poster too. They were also building a mosaic of the turtles: Went to a couple panels about stories, that was cool. Saw some Assassin's Creed III gameplay, got an inflatable tomahawk and a pretty epic exclusive shirt. Played a bunch of Play Station All Stars (as Drake, duh). Game's fun. Very different from Smash Bros, I'll probably buy it, budge
New York ComicCon. Anyone else going? I'm going Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Renting my ticket to the roommate so he can go to the MLP panel on Thursday. And yes, I will be dressing up.
029: Go For The Heart Does anyone remember the movie Eragon? That horrible movie based on an alright book? It was a movie so poorly made and objectively bad we could ignore how lousy an adaption it was. But what about when it’s a lousy adaption too? M. Night Shyamalan cost himself his credibility when he put out The Last Airbender. Let’s ignore the lousy script, acting, and direction for a second. The movie was pretty. The tidal wave at the end going towards the ship was absolutely gorgeou
NYU's campus is spread around Greenwich Village in NYC. So while going from lunch to another building today, I walked past where Person Of Interest was filming. I don't watch this show, but I know that Michael Emerson (Ben Linus!) is in it. So I stayed around. And this happened: Yep.
Essays, Not Rants: 028: The Hero and the Antihero The Avengers came out on BluRay (and DVD, but I’m a BluRay person) on Tuesday. Naturally, I have it. Now, stop your groaning: this isn’t another post just about how good that movie is. Well, okay, it kinda is, but not only. Trust me. See, Iron Man and Captain America embody two distinct archetypes. Cap’s the hero, Iron Man’s the antihero. But neither Steve Rogers nor Tony Stark fall into the abyss of dull stereotypes. Typically, these stere
But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a Home.
C'mon ya'll! PM me your questions for the powercast! About anything! New York, South Carolina, Singapore, the ship, heart disease, the Singapore military, BZP, Lego, Bionicle! C'mon people!
So I need to write a short story for my Creative Writing class. It's due by mid-October. What to write? Well, I could write another episode/chapter of my science fiction serial. Thing is, I will for my science fiction class anyway (and yes, that is a thing. I'm studying science fiction for college credit. Current reading assignment is Ender's Game.). Alternately, I could brush off this old story about a couple running away that I never finished and actually finish it. Probably rewrite it. It
Essays, Not Rants! 025: A Series of Arcs I decided to sit down and watch some old How I Met Your Mother episodes once, and by old I mean Season One. It was weird to watch since everyone was well, so different from where they are in the more recent seasons. It’s jarring in light of where they end up. This, of course, is one of the great things about TV shows: character development. When you have a couple dozen episodes per season you can spend a lot more time with the protagonists and working
Today was my first day of class at New York University. I graduated from high school back in 2009. Since then, well, army, heart disease, Singapore, blah blah blah. But hey! I'm a college kid now! In New York City! At NYU's Galltin School of Individualized Study! Let's hope my education gap doesn't make me suck!
What's that you say? You have $2.99 lying around an a device capable of running the Kindle app (that is, any pc, mac, smart phone, iPod touch)? Why not help two aspiring writers pay for college, food, and other such necessities? You, yes, you can help! And not only will you get the satisfaction of doing something good, but you'll get a collection of no less than SIX short stories! They're stores about being in airports, about that weird feeling of in between you get when traveling. Some du
Essays, Not Rants 024: Imply, Don’t Show Every aspiring writer is at one point treated to the ancient adage of “show, don’t tell”. The idea is that rather than telling us that Sam is an impressive diplomat, it works better if the writer describes her being a great diplomat. It gets boring (and annoying) if a writer keeps on saying that a character is a certain way but never actually shows them acting according to said characterization. That’s well and good for characterization, but what abou
Essays, Not Rants 023: In Between Most stories are about going somewhere. The quest in The Lord Of The Rings is to get to Mordor and destroy the ring. In any Indiana Jones movie he’s trying to get whichever artifact it is he’s after this time. A New Hope is about getting the princess and defeating the Empire. But sometimes a story’s point isn’t actually the destination or the goal or whatever. The MacGuffin is negligible to the point of being unimportant. The characters’ goal is either arbit
Essays, Not Rants! 022: One Kind of Folks in the 'Verse. Folks. A quintessential part of an American High School education is reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Well, most educations. It’s presented as a classic coming of age tale set amongst racial tensions in the south as seen through the eyes of a young girl. Cool. Except that’s not what it’s about. To Kill A Mocking Bird is about people. It’s about how people are just people. Most chapters highlight one person, be it Calpurn
Essays, Not Rants! 020: The Avengers > The Dark Knight Rises You read that title right: The Avengers was better than The Dark Knight Rises. Man. Always fun to stir up some controversy. Why do I think this? So glad you asked. But let me preface all this with something: I’ve loved Batman for as far back as I can remember. I loved The Dark Knight, heck, it was one of the first movies I added to my BluRay collection. I’m not some Batman hater championing The Avengers because it’s not Batm
