Data

You would think a blog post for this topic would be very broad and kind of vague. I mean after all, just how much data is in the world? How many giggaquads or whatever? But, no, to me this topic is easily narrowed down. Narrowed down so much in fact, that it refers to one character in particular.

Lieutenant Commander Data, the android Chief of Operations officer and third in command on board the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 D and the E, and he was the captain of the F at one point in time. At least according to Star Trek Online h was the captain of the Enterprise F. The one in charge of the ship until the Andorian captain Val'kel Shon took over due to a sitation totally outside of the capacity of a fictional universe to take care of.

For some reason, CBS won't release the rights for the Star Trek androids to be used in the MMORPG. This is something Cryptic and Perfect World (the developer of the game and the owners respectively) have been working to resolve since Star Trek Online first launched. This is also a topic I could really run off on a major tangent on, so I'm going to nip that in the bud right there.

So, what else is there to talk about?

Well, Data is technically the third of his kind, and is the most perfect of the three Soong androids. B-4 was the first and most imperfect android. B-4's only appearance was in Star Trek Nemesis, the last Next Generation movie and the last one before the Abrams reboot. He was basically a plot bunny placed in the movie to make it possible to revive Data in later films. It's like when Spock touched McCoy and said remember.

Where Spock passed his Katra (life force or something like that) on to Dr. McCoy, so that he could be revived when his body was basically cloned on the Genesis planet. Yeah, and that's a tangent all on it's own.

My brain stopped.

Anyway, Data's programming overrides B-4's and he takes over as the dominant personality in the body. And, with how primitive B-4's positronic network is, Data probably erases all traces of his “special” brother.

That being said. It could be entirely possible that none of this is accepted as canon.

Why?

Not because Disney just bought it and nixed the entirety of the extended universe. Nope, it's just because of how canon works with Star Trek.

With Star Wars the canon was pretty well open, seeing as there were only three movies out when the EU started, and those movies were rather vague on what took place before the movies and what would happen afterword. So, those creative individuals who were interested took up their pens and pencils and breathed life into the EU.

When it comes to Star Trek there have been 5 television series and 12 movies. There's plenty of “official” material that out weighs the other material produced. The novels and video games, the comic books, and all the other fan made products have no bearing whatsoever on what happens in upcoming Star Trek products.

This might change, however. Star Trek: Renegades is a fan produced pilot for a new television series set to air in the fall. It's hoped that the ratings and the turnout will be enough to move Paramount & CBS into picking up the show and making it a regular series. The next Star Trek series.

But, still, none of this points towards a canon conclusion of what happened with Data. GRAH!!!

Ryan

6-6-14

PS: I didn't realize how far off topic I went... but oh well. Maybe I'll cover the rest in a later post. Lol. 

Relationships in Dungeons and Dragons Part 2

If you missed it, here’s a link to Part 1.

I should have finished writing this yesterday instead of waiting. I don’t mean writing it all and posting it on one post, I just mean write out both parts of the post. I mainly wish that because I don’t know what to do right now, or how I should continue on with the topic. In fact, it’s very tempting to pick another topic and just skip over the rest of this one.

I don’t know why.

I’m tired is probably a poor excuse since I’ve taken like three naps today. and, me sitting here and thinking of reasons as to why I don’t want to write on this topic is just stalling.

I’m going to write it.

So, get on with it.

Yesterday we talked about how a relationship might work between a PC and an NPC. Today, I wanted to talk about PC to PC interactions.

This is a lot more complex than the former, as the number of added variables is almost infinite. While the interaction with an NPC is mechanical, the interaction between PCs is very fluid it’s literally one person interacting with another. (God, I use the word interacting a lot in that paragraph.)

Now, don’t get me wrong, the same rules that govern a NPC’s actions apply to PC interactions. So, let’s go back to our rogue.

The rogue has blamed the royal vizier for the theft of the crown jewels and got the man sentenced to death while the rogue sells the jewels on the black market. But, the rogue’s friend and fellow adventurer, a paladin in service to Sol, questions the rogue about the jewels.

Not the image I wanted, but my drawing skills are kind of lame. Lol. So, yeah, totally not my art work.

The rules at this point would once again pit the rogue’s bluff skill against the paladin’s sense motive skill, plus any truth spells the paladin might have in effect. A d20 roll would be used to settle the matter, and if it was an NPC thing the d20 roll would be it.

However, we’re talking about people here, sitting around a table. The paladin and the rogue are sitting at the table, and the paladin’s player knows that the rogue stole the jewels and is now selling them. So, we run into an impasse.

What should happen is the players follow along with what the rolls gave them: if the paladin rolled higher a higher score than the rogue spills, if the rogue rolled higher the paladin will know about as much as the king did. And, in my experience this is what happens, thankfully.

The other thing that could happen is an argument that spills out of the game and into reality, with players using their out of game knowledge to choose how their characters act and react. This is called metagaming and this is often a negative thing that DMs hate.

It really ruins the fun of the game for everybody.

And, my brain is stopping there.

Ryan

4-8-2014

PS: There might be more to the topic, I just can’t think right now. So, yeah… don’t know where I’m going.

Relationships in Dungeons and Dragons Part 1

This is an interesting and vague topic for a blog post. And, I’m sure if I really wanted too, I could let this topic spill out across the blog until it was novel length. That’s how in depth one could get with this topic. It would work as both a psychological and sociological study and would be a beautiful topic when it comes to the development of fictional characters and worlds and how all of that works in tandem with the Dungeon Master’s world. And, I think I lost where I was going with this topic already.

I don't know these people, but yeah, that's pretty much what our gaming space looks like.

These people in the doctor’s office are giving me a headache. They’re talking to one another right over top of my head, and they’re across the room from one another. This is making me stabby… very very stabby.

I probably shouldn’t be talking about that in a public forum, but the absolute discourtesy these people are showing for those around them is disgusting.

Things are sort of quiet now. So, we can get back to the topic at hand. Any Dungeons and Dragons setting, even if it’s set in our modern world, is a fictional setting. All of the people that make up its populace are fictional (yes, even if Abraham Lincoln or some other historical figure is featured in it, they are fictional as well). This is because the world exists solely in the Dungeon Master’s mind and once or twice a week that world exists in the minds of his players. The relationships there are based on fictional events and fictional lives and… I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Either way… a relationship between a player character and an NPC is based on the way both act and react as well as the way the dice rolls. Say a rogue is trying to convince a king that he wasn’t responsible for the theft of the crown jewels, and even takes it so far as to blame the theft on somebody close to the king. This is a tense relationship moment (and would be one where it would be heavy on the roll-playing) and the result of the encounter would fall to the dice. The rogue’s bluff skill versus the king’s sense motive: they would roll a d20 and add their skill modifier to the roll and the highest would win. That’s a mechanical way of determining things.

Another way to see how that relationship works would be through pure role-playing. The rogue’s player would have to put on a convincing enough song and dance to get the king (the Dungeon Master) to go along with what the rogue is saying.

And, I'll blame this one on the royal vizier.

We actually had an incident like this in our last game session. A drow sorcerer was trying to convince a troop of drow soldiers that he was a priestess and that they should submit to him and let him and his friends pass. He had the bluff and disguise skill to pull it off, but he was kind of stuttering in the role-play. (The player’s new to D&D so I kind of expected it, though he did better than I did my first time trying to outwit somebody.) He didn’t pick up on the fact that drow women have no respect for males of any race, including their own. They’re a matriarchal society, and the priestesses are belligerent when it comes to ordering males around.

When he picked up on that it was kind of awesome. I enjoyed seeing that look of triumph on his face when the drow guards bowed before him and split the column in two to let him and the party pass.

Kneel before me in terror, infidel!!!

And, there’s more to cover than that, but I’ve reached the limit of what I feel is appropriate to put into a blog post. So, to be continued…

Ryan

4-7-14

Here's part two for your viewing pleasure.

Skinwalker

Not to be confused with the movie Skinwalkers. That was a fairly shitty movie about werewolf like vampires or something like that. But, like I implied, that’s totally not the point of this post.

A skinwalker in Native American folklore (this is me speaking without referring to Google, so I could be wrong) is a sort of shaman or holy man that has the ability, through a ritual, to assume the shape of a wild animal and move about as that animal. I’m not sure on any of the particulars. I don’t know if it’s a metaphorical transformation that takes place during a spirit quest with lots of peyote dumped on the fire. I don’t know if it talks about a literal transformation, as it would be in the case of werewolves. I don’t know if it’s a spiritual transformation where the skinwalkers spirit takes the form of an animal and walks across the astral plane for one reason or another.

I don’t know.

I could Google it, but I’m almost positive I’d find evidence relating to all three of the examples, and each one would be as valid as the last. (Depending on the sources of course.)

So, I’m going to take a step away from the folklore and look at something I do know a pretty good deal about; Dungeons and Dragons.

Skinwalkers bring to mind two core classes that relate directly to the skinwalkers ability to shape shift. First is the druid, which as far as I know is the official “skinwalker” class. Why? The druid has the ability to take on what’s called a wild shape, meaning it can transform into an animal of its choosing and use that animal’s body however it sees fit.

The other class that comes to mind is the shaman. Like the druid the shaman is able to assume the form of its guiding spirit, which is generally an animal but not always.

I personally feel that the shaman is the more likely of the two classes to become a skinwalker.

And, I totally lost where I was going with this post as it was supposed to have been written three or four days ago. I don’t know. So, I suppose what I’m going to do now is move on to the end of the post.

Guess what happens there.

Ryan

4-3-14—4-6-14

MIA

I’ve been out of touch for the last couple of days, and I guess what I need to do now is explain why. Well, I probably don’t actually have to explain why. I just feel like I should since I don’t like leaving things unexplained.

Monday, I didn’t write a blog post to put up for Tuesday. Part of the reason for that is because I typed my last blog post, Spring, right after I got home from work, and thus felt like I’d already written my blog post. I guess that’s kind of a trap I set for myself, because I more or less did the same thing either last week or the week before. I can’t remember. I would write a blog post for that day, and type it before I did anything else on my list.

I don’t like that I did it, but I can’t go back and change it now. And, I can’t go back to Monday to make myself write a blog post. I don’t have a TARDIS. If I did, though, I would go back and make myself do a lot of things differently, but I’m pretty sure that in the act of doing that I would create a temporal paradox and the universe would come crashing down around me.

Might be entertaining to watch.

Either way, what’s done is done.

Now, I have a better reason for not doing stuff on Tuesday.

I went to the dentist on Tuesday. Normally, that’s not such a big deal. But, this is the first time I’ve ever had to get a tooth pulled. And, I really had to get two of them pulled.

One of them they got out. It took some work, but they got it out. The other one didn’t go so smoothly. They couldn’t get it to come loose, or it was stuck on something. I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t come out. And, now the bloody thing hurts. It wiggles every time I chew something, and if I bite down on it the wrong way it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the face.

It makes me want to cry.

I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle work tomorrow, but I really don’t have a choice in the matter. That’s part of being an adult, I’m afraid.

Oy vey.

Anywho, I’m going to quit bitching, take about 1600 milligrams of ibuprofen and go to bed.

God, be with me, I’m going to need you tomorrow.

Ryan

3-26-14

And, just to throw a DnD reference in there I'd rather fight one of these:

www.conceptart.org

Than have another tooth pulled. Or maybe I'd rather have this thing being the one to pull my teeth. Then I know it wouldn't hurt for very long.

Crazy Weather

http://shop.theoatmeal.com/collections/the-blerch
This is not mine. It really isn't. It's just free advertising for The Oatmeal. 

Is it me? Or has Mother Nature suddenly developed bi-polar disorder? I’m going to think it’s that, instead of the possibility that Mother Nature is going through puberty again.

I mean, don’t you see it? The constant hormonal shifts (hot, cold, hot, cold) and the temper tantrums (the days when all of the continental United States had a temperature below freezing and the snow that fell stopped the world from running). I mean, seriously, something is out of whack with her.

Or maybe teachers everywhere cried out and offered up their candy as sacrifice for a few snow days.

Thanks teachers… >.>

I had a long stretch there, though, during the bad days when I didn’t have to get out of the house for anything at all. Except maybe the need for cigarettes, but I do longer walks then the trip to Canada’s Cash Store and back every day. It’s something I happen to be proud of.

Oh, and I’m thinking about competing in a half marathon. It’s the Beat the Blerch 10K, Half Marathon, and Marathon. It takes place in Carnation, Washington on September 21^st. Setting this as a goal for me is a huge step (as will be finding the money for plane tickets and a spot in the race). A half marathon is 13 miles, and that’s not walking, that’s running. Right now I do 2.5 miles a day walking. I’m going to have to look into an intensive exercise program to get even close to being able to do it.

Maybe.

I don’t know, that would depend on the weather too, and Washington is a really rainy state. And, I’m afraid to set any funds towards doing it as I often really get into wanting to do these things. Then I flake out, and I’ve wasted my money for no GD reason.

I’d get about a week into the training and be like this is too hard for me, and rage quit and there goes that money.

What’s worse is the participation tickets go up for sale on the 24^th, and it’s likely that they’ll have been bought out by the time I make a decision.

And, I don’t like where this is going. Instead we’ll get back to the weather.

To put it simply the DM/GM is god when it comes to their world. They control every aspect of that world, including the weather.

Since I’m the DM, if I wanted to create the weather we’ve been having recently, I can have an Epic level NPC spellcaster cast the spell Dire Winter. This creates a 1000 foot vortex like a hurricane or a tornado that deals 2d6 cold damage for 20 hours.

Or I could…

That list would go on forever, and that’s just the spells I could use to affect the weather. It doesn’t touch what the rules say about how the weather and the world of Dungeons and Dragons coexist. I need to refresh my memory on that chapter.

It might be time for the skies to rain brimstone.

Enter maniacal laughter here.

Ryan

3-19-14 

Caffeine

Ah, such an absolutely wondrous thing is caffeine. Caffeine is probably the number one most addictive drug in the United States. Hell, it’s probably the number one most addictive drug in the world. And, there’s no form of regulation on it whatsoever.

Pop. Coffee. Tea. Chocolate. Soap. It can be put in just about everything, and human beings will consume it by the gallon.

Why is that?

I honestly don’t know. I would assume it has something to do with caffeine’s effect on the body. It’s a stimulant, it wakes you up and keeps you awake. It helps you focus. It decreases the amount of sleep you need each night. Well, depending on consumption it will keep you from sleeping.

I don’t know what else to say about caffeine. I’m not a chemist or a doctor who can tell you exactly what the effects of caffeine are. Nor can I tell you what the chemical make-up of the drug is. I really just know what it is I wrote above. And, most of that was a shot in the dark.

I do know something else about caffeine. Caffeine Intoxication is a type of mental disorder caused by excessive use of caffeine. Say, drinking four or five Monsters a day. It causes sleeplessness, difficulty concentrating, muscle spasms, irregular heartbeat, and a lot of other symptoms I don’t care to mention. (I actually looked up an article about it.) And, the only reason I know about it is because I was diagnosed with it back in the middle part of 2013. It got pointed out along with my abuse of over the counter pain killers and drinking excessive amounts of Mountain Dew.

After that, I cut my consumption of soda and energy drinks down to one or two a day, and I replaced a lot of it with drinking water.

Now, however, my use of caffeinated beverages has gone back up. It’s something I need to stop, mainly because I don’t like feeling like I’ve been stretched out as far as a human sized rubber band can stretch. Still, I know all this, I can see it from the outside, but like a lot of other things, I do nothing about it. It’s pattern.

I’m not even going to go with how caffeine can work in Dungeons and Dragons, and instead I shall leave you with this video regarding Dungeons and Dragons and Mountain Dew.

  

Later kids.

Ryan

3-12-14

CM Punk

So… yeah… this last weekend kind of sucked for me, but it’s not something I’m going to get into here. I’d rather keep things light and cheery, and the weekend was filled with dreariness and pain. The only bright spot in the whole thing was our DnD game. I wrote one encounter for the game, and I prayed it would take the PCs more than fifteen minutes to plow through it. It took them two and a half hours to get through what I had prepped… and technically they still aren’t done yet. There’s one third of the maze left, but I think my little Childlike Goddess is going to fix it so they don’t have to work through it. I put them through enough hell with the last two thirds. Lol.

Anyway, that’s not what I’m supposed to be talking about. Nope, today cupcake gave me the topic of CM Punk. Well, at first she gave me the topic of the WWE, then I asked her how she expected me to work the WWE into my DnD game without getting sued. So, she narrowed it down to CM Punk. It will take a little finagling to get him into the game, but I think I can do it lawsuit free.

Anyway, CM Punk…

I don’t know what to say…

My first exposure to CM Punk was when the WWE brought ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) promotion back from the grave they sent it to a decade earlier. I watched it infrequently when it came on (I’ve always been an on again off again wrestling fan) and for the longest time, right after it premiered I believe, CM Punk had a winning streak a mile long. He was a fantastic technical wrestler who, I thought, didn’t need to add a lot of flash to his matches. I mean really, his finishing move at the time was a Cobra Clutch (a submission maneuver). And, he was good with the mic. Punk had, and has, a mountain of charisma and would have excelled at whatever field he chose to go into.

And, he excelled at wrestling.

But, he’s had problems with the WWE off and on over the years. Punk doesn’t fit the stereotype the WWE caters too. He’s a short guy, shorter than me (though since I’m 5’11” that’s not a hard thing to do) and he probably weights between 190 and 220 soaking wet. (I’m taller than he is, and I weigh more than he does, but GD he could kick my ass up and down the basketball court.) And, what the WWE thinks a wrestler should look like is 6’2” and between 220 and 300 pounds, and cut like some sort of Athenian god. Yes, a body builder like the Govenator is what they’re looking for. CM Punk is not that.

Still he jumped through every hoop the WWE lit on fire and more. He made it to the top, spent a year and four months, or something like that, as the WWE champion and they still treated him like trash. Not once has CM Punk headlined a Wrestlemania (he’s had championship matches at Wrestlemania, but he’s never been the main event, last fight of the night), he was down played when it came to The Rock, who hadn’t wrestled in nearly a decade, decided to come back and face John Cena for the WWE championship. It was The Rock Punk lost the championship to at the end of this legendary title reign.

And, now CM Punk has a new problem with the WWE. Daniel Brian. Punk doesn’t have a problem with Daniel Brian, he has a problem with the way they’re treating their fan voted superstar of the year. The WWE is treating Daniel Brian the same way they treated Punk at the beginning of his career.

So, Punk quit, and now everybody’s speculating as to what will happen next. Will he go to MMA and face off with Power Ranger’s legend Jason David Frank? One can only hope.

As for me, I’ve got a bug to pick with a Halfling. The damned little thing as come close to getting the party Cthulhu’ed twice! So, I’ve decided to work this Halfling and CM Punk into one entity. Introducing CM Puck, like the character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the one who gave the prologue, (Puck was his name. Lol.) and as CM Puck this little Halfling is a bard fighter multiclass character (maybe even a level of monk or two… er maybe not) whose been seen showing up the bigger baddies in the bare fist boxing ring. Now he’s up against Really Repulsive Ricky (Triple R), whose manager is Vance McClavical, and the odds are in CM Puck’s favor. McClavical will do just about anything, at this point, to keep CM Puck from winning, maybe even going so far as to hire the PCs to fix the match for him.

Cthulhu’ed: summoning the great old one for the explicit purpose of eliminating the player characters.

Anyway, I’m going to stop working on the next adventure and get back to my current one. The PCs might be upset if I’ve got nothing ready for them this Saturday.

Ryan

2-11-14

Random Topic #1

I don’t know what it is. Lol.

Today is one of those days where I need Mel’s brain to pick things out for me. But, she’s not here today. They cancelled school, but had a Code W (in Mingo County it’s a Code W, I don’t know what it is elsewhere) which means students aren’t going to be there, but teachers have to report. And, I don’t get it. Teachers are paid to teach, if there are no students there why do the teachers need to be there. It’s like having a full staff at McDonalds, but the stores closed and there’s not a customer in sight. It just doesn’t make sense. I dunno, it’s probably got something to do with them being on salary or some shit like that.

Also, my walk for the day was screwed up because of the Code W. Normally, I do laps around the elementary school, which is right beside my house. I do my laps when nobody’s there. Because of the Code W there were people there. Grump.

So, I had to take another route, which screwed with my normal shebang and messed up my pedometer reading because of all the snow I had to trudge through. I really need to start getting up early enough to get the mud room warmed up. Then I can use the treadmill for my walk. And, at the very least I could just do laps in there. I dunno.

And, now I’m running out of things to talk about. My brain and I aren’t getting along well at the moment.

Usually, by this point I’ve managed to find a way to include some Dungeons and Dragons reference in the post. Or I’ll swing the post around to being about D&D altogether, and I think we’re going to go that direction today too. But, we’re going to throw a little Minecraft in there as well.

I’m lazy, and I’ve been trying to figure out what my world looks like. I’ve looked online for map making software, specifically for gaming purposes, but most of it was expensive and I’m not sure if it was for gaming or not. So, I had no luck there.

Then I started playing Minecraft, and I realized that Minecraft is pretty much a random map generator. There are also addons/mods/whatever that give you a world map. I used Amidst, and I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what my world looks like now.

Now, I’m just trying to figure out how the stories I’ve made up thus far and their locations fit in with the map. I’m not sure yet, but I’ll figure it out. I know that the world spawn is going to be the location of the world’s largest city, Priasez. And, I’ve more or less picked out a location for the current city the PCs are in (Netheretia). I’ve even gone so far as to “clear” out a space to build this particular city.

Netheretia is a city situated in the Underhaven (underground) which is why the hole goes so deep. That and I really like blowing things up. Though clearing out all the left over bits and pieces is hard; that and cleaning up the lava and other things. It’s time consuming… (And, the destruction pictured above is much more widespread then what the screen capture encompasses.)

Which is something I dislike. I’m lazy and I’m impatient. I don’t want to worry about all this clean up, I want my city done now! I don’t even want to build it myself. I want it to appear all on its own. Though that’s probably about as likely as a million dollars suddenly materializing in my bank account.

Anywho, that’s more than enough out of me. Later kids.

Ryan

1-24-14

Instruments of Torture

This would be so much more fun if I was actually talking about medieval torture devices. But, I’m not. Instead I’m going to bitch about the way my head works.

It’s 10 or 11 pm right now, it’s been a little while since I looked at a clock, and once again this is the time of day I decide to start writing my blog and possibly working on my adventure, depending  on my level of consciousness. Now with getting this done, I’ve had all day. All day! I had from 8 am, shortly before actually, when I got up till whatever time it is right now to work on my things to do. And, I did get some of them marked out. I added laundry and littler to the list (and trash, which I will rush and do when I get done writing this), and I got those marked off. I got my walk marked off by five o’clock, and The Goal That Shall Not Be Named was done by nine o’clock. And, once again, I didn’t post my stats.

Great God Almighty!

I’m frustrated with this. Very, very frustrated. I mean I don’t get it. What I want to do is simple, and done in a simple pattern.

1. Walk
2. The Goal That Shall Not Be Named
3. Blog
4. Stats
5. Whatever else there is to do

I want to do them one right after the other. Mark them off the board just as fast as I can, but it hasn’t worked like that. And, I don’t know why!

Sorry, I’m letting this crap control me right now, but I don’t know what else to do. I need to vent just as much as anybody else. And, I need to learn to stay away from the computer. Lol. I’m not blaming the computer. The computer is an inanimate object, and the only thing it can do is enable my brain’s desire to screw up what I want to get done.

Blargh!!!

I don’t know.

I need to put a wall clock in here, something easy to look at so I don’t have to get up to look at the computer. I also need to put my planner in a more predominate location, that way seeing it should act as a reminder of the things I’ve got to do. That’s the thought anyway. It was the thought behind the dry erase board, but they both feel like bad decisions now. I must add them to the list of things that depress me.

Good Lord Almighty!

Anyway, I’m going to stop putting you through this right now. And, I swear, I will soon have a list of random topics that will have nothing to do with my bitch fit. Although, I can’t guarantee that the bitch fits won’t spill over into my blog posts.

Anywho… later taters.

Ryan

PS: There will be a second post today, coming out not long after this one. It’s my stats for the last week or so. I don’t want to post all that in my status on facebook. So, yeah, it’ll be here.

Jounral 7-10-13

Excitement!!!

Not really, lol. Things didn't go quite the way I expected, and we won't be spending our first night in the new homestead. I did have a revelation though.

I don't take to change well, and this whole situation has been so extremely stressful for me that cupcake says I'm not even acting like I normally do. I can believe that. So, last night, I was sitting in my new writing room, looking at the walls I painted, and I started to imagine where my things were going to be. The way I was going to orient the desk. And, the futon, and the TV (when I have the money to put one in there), the entertainment stand for said TV and my recliner, and book case, and through all of that I realized it had clicked. I was looking at this place, this new wonderful place as if it was home, and I cried.

I didn't cry because I was sad. I cried because I saw the opportunity we've been given. The opportunity to better ourselves, and to live up to the standards this place is going to demand. We will be better people for going through this move, and adjusting to this new life. And, maybe, for those of us who're depressed all the time, it might let in a little ray of Hope. The one that Pandora didn't let out of the box. Maybe that ray of Hope will bring us this new home, and the ability to enjoy it. I know I want to enjoy living there.

Anyway, enough of the semi profound mumbo jumbo. That's what it sounds like to me.

As for the daily report. We moved the washer and dryer. We learned that the dryer power outlet was fried, and that it took our power cord with it. We're going to replace the power cord instead of getting a new washer and dryer. I wanted to get a new set. We also moved the two big dressers in the bedroom, leaving only the chest of drawers and the bed to move (there's also a night stand I keep forgetting about) and the bedroom will be moved. I've been meaning to move the stuff out of the old writing room for the last four days now, but I keep forgetting. Couldn't tell you why, it just flies right out of my head when I'm thinking of the need to do list.

And, when it comes to writing... you're looking at the only thing I wrote today. It's killing me. I need to get my pen back on paper and get to scribbling. At this point I don't care if it's a Hub or a short story or a novel I just need to write something before I go insane. (Probably another reason why my stress levels have been so high.) But, things will improve. I'll get to set my new writing room up in the next week or so, and then I can bend over the desk and get to work. Maybe not even taking the time to look up as I power through whatever project comes to mind first.

Now, I'm going to go to bed. I have to be at "the most wonderful place on Earth" at five am. I hate you McDonalds. Lol.

Ryan

Journal 7-8-13

Forgot to post.

Yes, ladies and germs, I forgot to post yesterday. I even meant to get on the computer and tell you I forgot to post because I had forgot to post until after work. Anyway, that post didn't happen, so we'll just cram two days into one post.

On Sunday an interesting little thing happened. I got off work an hour early, and  Erik was supposed to come and pick me up. Well, I tried to call him as soon as I heard I was getting off at two instead of three (learned that at one). There was no answer. I asked around, well I really only had to ask one person. Shasta, the most awesome McDonalds manager in the world, lol. And, she said she'd take me home. So, I called again, this is about ten minutes before I got to walk out the door. There was still no answer.

So, Shasta's ready to go, and I hope that we'll beat Erik to the house. Hoping that he doesn't leave before we get to the house. And, the entire ride down 119 down 65 I kept watching for my car. I even had Shasta pull over once, and chase another car because I thought it was mine. It wasn't. So, we went on to my house, and my car was still in its parking spot, and I was relieved. I told Shasta I would invite her in, but the place is a mess and we parted ways there.

I also remember telling her I was going to f*** with my Erik.

When I went into the house, Erik was still zonked out on the sofa (understandable considering the time he spent conscious the weekend before). I expected his alarm to go off, and him to jump to attention and be like Oh Sh*t, I forgot Ryan. Then I would get to look at him and laugh as he stared at me. It didn't happen.

Three rolled around, when I was supposed to get off work, and Erik still hadn't woken up. So, I started to try and wake him up. Telling him he was forgetting me. And, telling him that I got off at three and I was going to be pissed. That went on for all of five minutes. He still didn't budge.

So, I went on with the rest of my day. I wanted to strangle the contractor. I worked on cleaning the living room a little more, and when cupcake showed up we went back over to the rental property and I valiantly managed to keep from strangling the contractor in front of my cupcake. (I don't like the contractor if you can't tell.) Then we went back to the house, and continued cleaning the living room. Erik still hadn't woken up.

We went out for dinner at Subway, and a necessities only shopping trip to Walmart. And, when we came back, Erik was still asleep. At that point, it was six hours past the time he was supposed to have woken up and come to pick me up.

I decided I was going to tell him I walked home.

But, after such an ordeal, I decided to take a shower. Erik woke up while I was in the shower, and Mel didn't play along. She just asked him if he forgot me, and told him Shasta brought me home. When I got out of the shower, I looked at Mel, and knew what she did. And, I was cranky, lol. We did get a laugh out of it though.

Today, with the exception of one thing, sucked.

I had to leave work early again, but this one wasn't because of labor. This time I was throwing up in the trash can in the back room and hardly able to breath. I'd been feeling sick for the last few days, I thought it was just a psychosomatic reaction to me being at work, me brain doesn't like me job. But, its never gotten so bad that I actually vomited. That proved to me that it wasn't all in my head.

So, I got sent home, and I immediately fell into two different pits of depression. One was the fear that I upset cupcake, and that got me crying. The other was the fear that I was going to be too sick to help in the move, and that got me crying. Then, just before we took Button to the vet, Mel found an article about these glass pyramids found at the very center of the Bermuda triangle. It's supposition that the pyramids are made out of a glass or crystalline building material. They believe these are to be the first official ruins of the Atlantean civilization.

That was validation for me! I had been saying for years that they should be looking in the Bermuda Triangle, particularly it's center for evidence of the lost civilization. And, now, I just wish I had the doctor who made the discovery's email address to let him know about a couple other structures I think are buried in that general area.

Anywho, sleep is kicking me in the a** and I'm going to give in. I'll post more later.

Ryan

Journal 7-4-13

Paying for it.

Happy belated Fourth of July. I feel like s**t. Yeah, and I'd be willing to bet about a million and some odd dollars that I'm not the only person that feels this way. Yeah, isn't celebrating the birth of our nation awesome.

Drinking beer and playing with fire, particularly explosives.

I didn't get to play with either fire or explosives, but I did do some drinking and I'm paying for it.

Anyway, what else is there to talk about.

Painting in the writing room v2.0 is pretty much done. I got the second coat and the detail finished, and when I started pulling the painter's tape off it took the primer and the wallpaper off of the trim. So, instead of the room looking really sharp with a nice blue shot through with white stripes, its a nice blue with crappy looking brown and yellow and white stripes. I need to go through and repaint the stripes, and there's still some detail work (where the painter's tape pulled bits of paint off with it) that I'm going to need to do with a very fine tip brush. Or finding a sharpie that matched the color of the wall. That would probably work, and it wouldn't drive me crazy. The likelihood of finding that, however, is low and I'm too lazy to do much looking into it. Instead I'll just by the fine tip brush, and a small can of white paint for the trim. It's going to have to wait for a while, though. I don't see the time to get it done right now. Not without sacrificing time working on the rest of the trailer.

Keep an eye on my facebook page, and my devArt profile. I'll be posting pictures when I figure out how to get them off of Mel's phone. Lol.

As for what I'm doing toady? I'm going to finish dismantling Cat Mountain, and take its innards over to the new trailer. Then I shall be cleaning the living room down here at the old homestead. It's going to take forever, but it's better to get it done now, then waiting until the last ten minutes off the 30 day notice. Lol.

And, I guess that's all I've got to talk about today. I might try to be more interesting tomorrow, but right now that seems like too much work.

Ryan

Journal 7-3-13

Wiped.

I am wiped out ladies and gentlemen. It is ten till one while I'm writing this, and yes, my a double s is about to go to sleep. But, like I said in yesterday's post, I really do need to set these up to post before I go to bed. I find I get the most consistent views when I post consistently everyday, and at the same time everyday. It just seems to work out.

Anyway, today was another fun filled day. I had a doc appointment, took care of that, I got to fight with the telephone people for an hour, trying to get them to change the installation date for our services. They wouldn't let me make the changes as my name wasn't on the account. Mel got that taken care of though. Now, all I need to do is call them and get them to change the address of where they're coming to install the new services. We didn't have the correct address when we set the appointment up.

As for the rest of the day, it was spent up at the new place trying to get it ready. We put the first coat of paint up in the writing room. I meant to take pictures to post, but I'll get them up tomorrow. It looks good, and it will look better after we get the second coat up. Then we can take the painter's tape off, and you can see how the white stands out against the blue. It's going to look awesome.

On a similar note, I also kind of find myself in freak out mode, even though I know that I shouldn't be freaking out. We're supposed to be out of our current rental property by the 14th, and I wanted to get moved out by the 5th. It's not going to happen. Anyway, I've been upset, and generating this all by myself, because we haven't been able to get to move our stuff from one property to the other. And, that is the reason I took this week off, so that I would have time, and energy, to get stuff moved and the old trailer cleaned up as best we can.

So, yeah, I worked myself up into a tizzy, and now my headaches in ways it shouldn't (part of that might be the paint fumes though). And, I know everybody else is right not to worry. It's only going to take a couple of days to get our stuff moved over, and then maybe a good day or so to get the old property cleaned up. So, yes, I need to chill. I just find it hard to do.

I feel bad. Not because of the freak out or anything like that. I feel bad because I haven't been keeping up with my Things To Do list. I haven't been taking my walk, and I've been slacking in the hygiene department (gross I know). Really the only thing I've kept up with is my blog. And, that might be because it's kind of cathartic, a good sort of daily purge, in trying to keep my sanity. What little of it might be left.

And, I've been slacking off on my hubpages stuff as well. I've wanted to be able to do one a day, but I've done one and a quarter since Saturday. I know it's because I've had other things to do, and I can rationalize it like that, but there's this nagging little voice inside my head going on and on about it. "You're wasting time." "How are you ever going to make this a day job?" "No Hub, no money." Not exactly thoughts that well defined, but pretty damn close. And, there's another one too, one that goes on even when I'm getting the Hub's done, like last week. "When are you going to do some creative writing?" "You still have to finish Cold Lunch." "What about that short story you were going to submit?" "Or the one you haven't finished writing? The one about the gnome." "And, those two novellas you were going to do for HubPages, where are they?" "And, your DnD adventure. You're putting a group together, so don't you need to have something for them to do when they're ready to play?" (That one is really that well defined.) And, it goes on and on, forever and ever, and I don't know how to shut it up. If I do creative writing, something else suffers. The painting doesn't get done. Or the Hubs don't get done. Or I don't get enough sleep. These negative little voices are chitter chattering all the time, and I don't know how to please them. It's no wonder I'm in freak out mode. I can't get any peace! Lol.

Yeah, I don't know. I think I'm just going to go to sleep for now, and try to figure out something to do with those problems later.

Yes, sleep is a good idea.

Talk to you kids later.

Ryan

Journal: 6-24-13

So, I almost wrote fourteen instead of thirteen for the year, and I was like, why in gods name do I want it to be a year from now!?! I mean, I'd be okay with it, if at that point in time, I was a full-time freelance/blogger/novelist/writer thing. Yup. That would be okay with me.

But, there are a lot of changes that are going to occur in the next twelve months, hell, I literally won't be sitting where I'm sitting at right now this time next month.

We're moving, the first of the changes I suspect. And, within the coming month (by July 14th to be exact) we have to be in our new place. Which shouldn't be hard. It's literally on the same property we're on. It's just owned by a much nicer landlady. She's been renovating this thing for a while, since she got her modular home in back in December. And, the work is now at its apogee. just a few more things, and the house will be livable. There will be a few things that will have to be done after we move in, such as painting, and kitchen cabinets, and... I think those are the only two actually. But, yeah, it's pretty much done.

The other change I'm sensing on the wind is my job. I plan on, within the next couple of weeks, to have a better job, either in travel time, meaning less money spent on gas, or a job that pays more than what I make right now.

And, of course, I'm going to continue to try and figure out how to make money online with my own writing. HubPages is just the tip of the ice burg. I need to find out how it ticks, then I'll take that information to another site that's similar in nature. And, another. And, another. And, another. I might monetize here, and do things a wee bit differently. I don't want to get rid of these posts. I like the here's what I did today posts that I do. The little posts that make it feel like I journal. But, what I might do is monetize the blog, and begin posting things like my fiction and fanfiction and what not on here. I don't know yet, though.

If I did try to turn this into a money making machine, what would you all suggest?

• Keep the blog as is, just add ads to it.
• Make a new blog, one for fiction, fanfiction, and advertisements while leaving this one alone.
• Add what you want, and try to use the pages system to make navigating the site a little bit more easy.
• Talk to Kristen about getting my WordPress website going, then worry about monetizing that site. Or something like that.

Yeah, I really don't know. Its frustrating. And, I'm not very good at this.

I need to do some research on this type of career, and see how other people pull it off before I get myself in way too deep.

Anywho, good night.

Ryan

Journal 6-11-13

She’s ALIVE!!!

If you were paying attention to Mel’s status updates, then you saw that Button got an emergency trip to the vet yesterday, and we are happy to report that she is okay. And, the excitement was all caused by an allergy to fleas…

Yup. Button is severely allergic to them, so allergic in fact that she breaks out all over, over grooms, scratches until the bites pop, tears clumps out, and she managed to pick up an infection too. Lymph nodes in her stomach had swollen up to the size of golf balls in what had to be a matter of hours. Those swollen nodes were what caused the freak out, which was a necessary freak out, and got Button the medicine she needs to get better. As well as a way to take care of her, and the other cats.

But, yeah, I thought she was gone. Even before we’d left for Charleston I’d resigned myself to the fact that my kitten wouldn’t be coming home alive. I gave up, and I turned off. If I hadn’t, I don’t know how last night would have gone. I’m thankful it wasn’t what we thought it was, and I’m thankful that she’s still here with me today, even if she’s a cranky little animal. And, entertaining or not, I think I’m going to make some more videos of her. That will make me feel better. Yeah, I think that will make me feel better.

I don’t have anything else to report for the day, except that I’m extremely hair brained. I’ve been trying to get ahead of where I need to be on articles so I can get some time to work on Cold Lunch. Well, yesterday, I got a wild hair up my ass to write a DnD adventure. (This was before the problems with Button.) So, I managed to spend today much the way I spent my first two semesters of college, flipping back and forth through game reference books to put an adventure together. In the end, I’ve got a town of two hundred and twenty-three people statted out, the hook and story seeds for the adventure, and one of the monsters in the first encounter done. I could have had one, maybe two articles written and typed. Then I’d be ahead of schedule. As it is, I’ll be scrambling when I wake up to get tomorrow’s typed, and posted.

On a lighter note, I read the Open Gaming/Game License or something like that. Basically, it’s a law that allows content creators to publish content relating to such and such game without getting explicit permission from the copyright holder, or trying to get the material published through said copyright holder’s company. That means, after a little bit of game testing, you’ll be able to buy a Ryan Smith original 3.5 edition d20 fantasy role playing adventure. I think I’ll try to come up with a shorter description for it. Like a Ghost Co. Games adventure, or something like that.

I dunno.

Anywho, I think it is past time for bed. I’ll talk to you cool cats later.

Ryan

PS: I know I’m a nerd.

Journal 5-18-13

Things to do.

Well ladies and gentlemen we have reached the end of a new day. A day that has been the dawn for a trio of habits, rather, things I plan on making habits out of. One of them is a habit already, sort of.

The first of this list… walking.

Yep, still doing it.

I took a week off due to the pain in my hip, which has more or less gone away now, and I’ve returned to it. I was afraid I was going to allow myself to find an excuse not to go. It was too easy for me this last week, just letting it go by. Though, I actually thought about walking every day, and when it was time to go back I picked it right up, like it was a natural part of me. I guess that’s the point of it being a habit. Something that happens automatically. And, that sort of brings me to my next habit.

I’ve had problems, for the last several years, with personal hygiene. It’s a struggle I’ve faced every day, and failed on more than I want to say. That’s what I was talking about being really personal the other day (I realized that trying to hide it for too long would make it seem more and more like sexual euphemisms, and, while I am embarrassed by this admission, I’m not a particularly modest person and I’d feel like I was lying by hiding it). So, personal hygiene is second on the list of habit building. I will be taking care of personal hygiene every day right after my walk.

Then the third… well, you’re looking at the third. I think I’ve said that before. But, yes, the third thing on the list is blogging. Like my walk, and my personal hygiene, my blog will be written every day as soon as I finish with the other two tasks. I try to walk around six o’clock, so the blog post might not cover everything I’d managed to get done in that twenty four hour period, but I’ll be fine talking about the rest of it on the next day’s post.

Like last night… well, I really didn’t do anything after my blog last night. Except snore. There was a lot of that. Not enough. But, still a lot.

I also had a really shitty morning. And, I was really moody up until my walk. But, yeah…

So, you all know I have some anxiety problems, and have been to the doctor a time or two about said problems, and I try my best to avoid situations that would lead to a massive complication with my anxiety problems. Work isn’t always the best way to avoid anxiety.

I went in, and there was this guy who’s relatively new and he was running the grill. I’ve ran the grill every day, every day, every day, EVERY DAY since I was hired. And, when I got there they didn’t put me on the grill. Instead they had me do prep for changeover. I was okay with that, I’ve done prep before, I don’t mind it, and it’s a nice and calm activity. So, I did prep. Then when it got time to do changeover, I figured I’d get put on the grill… I wasn’t. Instead I was told to walk him through changeover on the grill, while I prepped the table.

Ok.

I did that, walked him through it, got my job done ten minutes till, and stood there and watched while he finished on the grill. Kid didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

Anyway, we get done with changeover, and I figure they’ll put me back on the grill now. I know how to run it, and have been running it—I feel like I’m repeating myself—every day since the day I was hired. I was the more experienced grill person. No, they put me on the table…

a.       I’ve had no more than ten minutes of training on the table.

b.      It creeps me out to mess with other people’s food.

c.       I’ve had no more than ten minutes of training on the table.

So, there I am, not knowing what I’m supposed to be doing, trying to make sandwiches. I was doing my best, and that’s not very fast. The orders were piling up beside me. The runners were bitching because I was slow. Then one of the managers started to tell me something else to do.

I couldn’t process all the shit. My mind went into overload, and I started to shutdown. By shutdown I mean having a panic attack. I stepped away from the table and grabbed my head. I calmed down for a minute, long enough to process what she wanted me to do. Then I went right back to having my panic attack while doing what I was asked.

I thought about asking to go home, but the manager in charge of the floor at the time was a total b***h, and would have asked me why. I would have told her I was sick. And, I guarantee she would have said: “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with you.” At which point my ability to control my mouth would have vanished, and I would not have a job right now. I would also have a pissed off wife.

Instead, I suffered through the panic attack, wondering when I was going to curl up in the corner, cover my ears, and rock back and forth going “la la laa la laa la.”

Now that I think about it that might have been a good tactic to get them to send me home. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

Anyway, yeah, that was my morning, and I’m sorry if my bitching put you to sleep. Unless you like sleeping. In that case, you’re welcome.

But, as for other progressive things, I’ve got a really good start on a new Hub. It’s a continuation of the snowflake series about Star Trek: Assimilation Nation. And, when I get done with that I’m going to type some of The Black Hole’s Teeth. After that, I’ll probably go to bed, mainly because it will be close to one in the morning at that point.

Anywho, I’m going to check out now. Later taters.

Ryan

Journal 5-15-13

Decisions: AKA a huge pile of shit I don’t want to deal with.

Today has been a whirlwind. It might be because I haven’t slept since 9am yesterday morning. It might be because I’m generally unable to control my emotional level. Or it could be some other unforeseen force at work. I dunno. But, I do know that I’m really tired. Lol.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about doing a post like this for a while (two or three weeks, as an example of how fast I keep up with my mind), and since then I’ve kind of been digesting things, looking at the parts of my life that need to be looked at. The review wasn’t good.

Basically, the best thing in my life is and always will be my wife. Mel is the absolute best.

Other than her though, I’m not doing so hot.

I guess I could go with a long list of all the things that have gone wrong, but I’ll skip that. Well… I’ll give you the truncated version.

Degree: useless.

Job: sucks.

Career: nonexistent.

Publication: a far off dream.

Ambition: ?

(I’m probably going to get a tongue lashing about this post. Lol.)

But, yeah, there you go. What I see is wrong with me in one simple list.

And, now I should moan and complain about swirling around in a vast pit of despair. Rolling from one dead end job to another. Living between the mood swings and the obsessions. Just really letting myself soak in all the negative crap that I feel pours out of my ears and eyes and mouth. Yeah, I don’t think you want to listen to that. And, though it goes against how I’ve felt almost all day, I’m feeling kind of upbeat right now. (It might be the fact that I’m getting ready to go to bed.)

I feel the need to try and be positive. And, maybe give a thesis statement or something like that. I’m going to change my life by doing xyz. I’ll talk about all the different plans I have, and blah, blah, blah.

The problem with that is I don’t know how to change my life. I don’t know what path I need to walk down, and I can’t see the road signs. I don’t know what leads to what.

But, then, that’s life isn’t it. We all wander through the fog like that. There’s no instruction manual, no snowflake method to living a life. (And, I really don’t care what anybody says about that.) So, the best thing I can do, I guess, is look at the options and see what puts me where.

1.       Publication: I hate to say it, and to all the people who will disagree with me, but right now I feel like publishing a book is a shot in the dark. I’m halfway through the second draft of my longest and latest novel, and I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out. Calculating the word average from what I have now it’s going to be 20-30k longer than I planned on it being. And, that probably means another draft.

 Which means more time away from getting it on the market.

More time away from getting it published.

 And, so on and so forth.

So, depending on the gods of good fortune in getting a bestseller right off the bat is probably not a good idea. Not only that, but it puts undue stress on the author. I feel like I have to produce a bestseller, because this is the only thing I’m hanging my career on, the welfare of my family, and my ability to put food on the table.

Frankly, luck is a bad idea for that sort of situation.

2.       Going into business: Might sound silly, but I’ve thought about it over the years. Opening my own bookstore, or maybe running a lawn care business (a recent idea), but there’s several problems with that. I don’t have the funds. I don’t have the necessary skill set. I don’t know how to write a business plan. Nor do I know how to run a business. None of the details.

 I think I might, and when I think about my store or service it’s always a huge success. That’s like depending on luck though. Starting a business is hard. It’s uncertain. And, it takes a while to see anything come to fruition (two to six years from what I’ve read).

So, an option for the future, keeping my eye out to learn those necessary skills, and learn how to place value on an object I feel is invaluable or something like that. A future option is viable. A cure for the immediate situation? No. Probably a bad idea to dive into in the current state of things.

3.       School: I’m thinking about going back to school. And, I’m thinking of trying to teach school. Lol. These are actually things I’ve been thinking about for… well, since I got out of college.

The first problem is money.

The second problem is location.

The third problem is time.

The fourth problem… I can’t make up my mind.

Who knew?

There are options, a wealth of options, some might say.

Right now I’m thinking about trying to get into a certificate program or two to learn Medical Billing and Phlebotomy (both pay better than McDonalds, and well, any of the jobs I’ve had in the last five years). So, I’m looking at these programs, and it’s going to be about a year, year and a half before I finish. Not an immediate solution. It’s going to cost somewhere between 20 and 30 grand figuring in tuition and travel and a whole list of other things. Not sure where that money would come from. And, I’d have to drive to Pikeville and back, plus working, plus studying. The thought of the gas prices alone kills me. Yeah, dunno about that one.

I also want to get a Creative Writing MFA. This is accomplishable. I could do a low residency program so that most of my studies would be online and at home. But, a Creative Writing MFA isn’t a guaranteed ticket to publication and international bestsellerdom. That’s going back to shooting on that luck thing.

Then I could go for other masters through an online institution like University of Phoenix. This I could see being doable as well, except for the fact that the two options I’ve looked at are about as sure of a job thing as the MFA. I would like to study psychology, and I could. But their online program encompasses none of the practical and clinical experience. So… that would be almost impossible to find a job in. And, I thought about their education program, and nixed it the first time I talked to one of their reps. They don’t offer that program in West Virginia. Awesome huh?

And, one other problem with the masters. Money. A masters degree is expensive.

So, I’ve thought about skipping the going back to school thing altogether, and using the Transition to Teaching program offered by the West Virginia Board of Education. That one hits a rut too. I graduated from Concord with a 2.1 GPA, and the BOE requires, by law, a 2.5. Doesn’t sound so bad does it?

Well…

I managed to mess myself up so bad in school (through a serious set of circumstances I don’t want to relive in this post) that I’ve got more negative points than positive points. I talked to the registrar at Concord yesterday, and it would take 45 credit hours with a 4.0 GPA to raise mine to the 2.5 I’d need. Basically, if I take the certificate courses (about 48 credit hours) and aced them, I’d have the GPA I’d need to go through with Transition to Teaching.

Lots of fun there.

I was going to try to keep this positive but that went straight to hell. Didn’t it?

4.       Ambition: I don’t know where it went.

I wanted a lot out of life. In college I had a quadruple major, and it fell to pieces. I’ve tried to sell a novel before, and short stories, and I’ve seen nothing out of that. And, we’ve already talked about the business and school things.

It’s like I’m wading in this pool that I can’t get out of.

I’m stuck. And, I don’t know what to do to get out. (The whole point of this post.)

I want to do a lot of things. I want to sit at home and tip-tap the little keys on my keyboard, making up stories that would scare the pants off the strongest man in the world. I want to play video games all day long, and not have to worry about where the money is coming from. I want to feel better, both physically and emotionally. I want to be able to understand and coexist with what is wrong with me. And, I want to get rid of the stress all these decisions are bringing down on my head.

Realistic right?

But, I think I might have a plan. I just need to light a fire under my ass to get it going.

The internet is the ninth wonder of the world (right behind Andre the Giant), and it is filled with opportunity. One just has to be able to see that opportunity, and understand how to make it work to turn a little bit of a profit.

I can see that opportunity.

I can understand how to make it work.

I can whore myself and my work out. I can write blogs, a personal one like this, and then a couple on those sights that specialize in ad sharing or whatever it’s called. I can do the same on youtube, though since I’m not funny I’d probably have to stick to making homemade audio books. I can even self-publish some of my work for free through amazon, ibooks, and smashwords. I’d be able to set the prices to what I want, and use my blogs and other social media tools to sell them.

I can build an audience! And, that’s what I need. I need to get my work out there, to build an audience. To make myself look good to the companies I want to publish my books.

I understand all of this.

But, I’m lacking something.

Follow through.

As you can no doubt tell my blog has become something that is infrequently updated. Insert another example here. I just don’t know why. But, I’m trying to work through it. I’m trying to build good habits. Walking. Writing everyday no matter what it’s about. Meditation and the study of Zen Buddhism to clear all the clutter out of my brain. These are the habits I want to establish.

But…

It’s just like with school.

And, with the businesses.

None of it’s an immediate solution. Everything I talked about takes time, and I feel like I don’t have the time. I need it now, because I feel like I’m detracting from the quality of life my wife should have. That’s why it’s hard for me to make these decisions. I can’t see which one is going to be the fastest route to success. So, what I really need to decide to do is understand that there are no immediate solutions. I need to understand that these things take time, and I have to be willing to give it that time.

Mel tells me to live one day at a time. And, I like to make a joke about writing; you write a novel one word at a time. But, I’m not willing to allow that line of thought into my head.

My decision needs to be to let that idea in. I need to learn patients. I need to learn discipline. Thus the study of Zen Buddhism, and the habit building. The door has to be opened somehow.

Anywho, I’m going to bed. G’nite taters.

Ryan