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. 

Mutants

So, I’ve been on the naughty list for the last couple of days. Yes, I’ve been writing and posting my blog posts, but I haven’t been doing it the way I should be. Take today’s post for example. Cupcake gave me the topic, mutants, yesterday after I posted my discussion on April Fool’s Day. But, I’m just now (at 8:13 pm) sitting down to write today’s post. This means I’m going to be behind on getting my stats posted and that will mean a wide number of other things which I really don’t want to talk about here. It’s all just prattle.

Anyway, the topic is mutants, and I suppose I should be able to come up with a fairly decent post about mutants, mainly because I feel like one half of the time. Lol.

Cupcake was watching an episode of Face Off (SyFy reality tv show about practical effects make up and design) and the topic of the contest for that episode was mutants. Each of the contestants designed their own mutants and so on and so forth, the rest doesn’t matter so far as I’m concerned. What does is the concept, the question the challenge raises: What is a mutant and what does that mean to you?

It’s kind of a double question, but a good one none the less.

There are a couple of things that come to mind when I hear the word mutant. Most of those are pop culture references, and I think maybe one of them comes from scientific fact. That’s the one I want to talk about first.

As far as I can tell (and this is without me checking Google) a mutation is often an irregularity or abnormality n the genetic sequence. This irregularity often causes problems with the individual born with that mutation. An example of this could be a deer born with five legs, or it may have three eyes. And, there are other more common mutations. People are born blind, or they’re born with Down syndrome or something similar. This is and isn’t a mutation, it’s more like a birth defect caused by an irregularity in the genetic sequence… which is exactly what I just said to define a mutation…

Herm.

Mutations are also highly useful when it comes to evolution. First, there were a lot of brown bears, because there were a lot of temperate forests between ice ages. But, when the world got cold again, the ice caps spread and a lot more of the earth became white. Brown bears had trouble with getting food because their prey could see them miles away and get the hell out. Then there was a mutation. A bear was born with white fur (technically a polar bear’s fur is clear because it lacks any sort of pigment) and was better suited to sneaking up on its prey. This made the bears with white fur continue to survive and breed and be born, and the brown bears in the polar area slowly died out. (And, yes, I totally just stole that example from Cosmos.)

Now, the other references I can think of are right up Face Off’s alley. It’s the X-men from Marvel Comics. And, the mutant bug movies of the 1950’s. And, I’ll leave you with what I think is the most famous pop culture mutant of all time:

Ryan

4-2-14

Ragnarok

Today is the third or fourth apocalyptic prediction that I’ve lived through. And, that’s just been in recent years. The world didn’t self destruct when it rolled around from 1999 to 2000. The rapture didn’t happen in 2011. The Mayan prophecy of the world ending in 2012 was bunk, and now it looks like the Norse prediction has been busted too.

Ragnarok is the Norse prediction of the end of the world; a great battle raging on both heaven and earth with hell taking home ht losers. Ragnarok has also been referred to as the Twilight of the Gods, and the Fate of the Gods, and yes I got that from Wikipedia. It’s shocking! I actually did a little bit of research.

Unfortunately, I have an extremely short attention span, and thus didn’t make it very far into the article at all.

Instead, I decided it would be more fun if I just winged it…

That’s not working out to well, though, as my head has decided it’s full of mush.

The first time I came across the word, Ragnarok was in Final Fantasy VIII. The Ragnarok was the games airship/spaceship/plane-thingy. It followed along the lines of pretty much any anime style space ship. The lines were sleek and sexy, everything was red, and it looked fit to fly into space dock and blast the living hell out of every other ship in the fleet. I can even see it happening in my head, but… getting that onto paper would take much longer and a lot more paper than I planned on using for the post.

I’ll try to find a video of it, but I make no promises.

I know what scene I’m thinking of, but I can’t remember what anime it came from… Probably Gundam Wing…

Beyond that…

Shit… I thought this would be more fun to write about.

I mean, hell, Ragnarok is the killing joke, Loki’s revenge against Odin for eons of imprisonment. Loki’s own son, Fenrir (a giant wolf), is directly responsible for Odin’s death. The big puppy catches Odin from behind and bares him to the ground. Then the puppy proceeds to rip Odin’s spine out starting at the base of the neck.

I’m mildly disturbed by my next thought, as I wondered just how much pain would Odin experience before he died. Would it be like a human getting their spine split at the third vertebra (a nearly instant death), or would he lay there in agony until all the ichor (the blood of the gods; that which provides them with eternal life) drains out of him? And, that’s my morbid thought for the day.

And, now we come to the point my wife is dreading the most… How does Ragnarok relate to the game world? It only vaguely relates to the game world, namely because it’s part of Norse Mythology, and as such is one of the inspirations I pulled from. I even use bits of that mythology (modified of course) directly in the game. Odin is one example, he is a god of battle and he champions the cause of the barbarian, the berserker, and in a strange way he reaches out to shamans. I would say that’s mainly because of his never ending quest for wisdom.

But, yes, there’s that vague connection between Ragnarok and my game world. And, this probably takes a load off my wife’s mind. Lol.

Ryan

2-22-14

PS: That's not the scene I was thinking about, but it's a close approximation. The snippet is from the anime Macross Frontier. I'm not really familiar with it, but I like Macross Plus and Robotech (an Americanized version of Macross Plus). Anywho, enjoy your post Ragnarok Sunday. Say a prayer to Odin calling him a lying son of a b****. Lol.

Legend of Zelda

First off, I want to say that the first thing to come to mind when I hear those words are the theme to the game. I would try to recreate the melody here, but that would be ineffective since this is a text medium instead of an audio or visual medium. Therefore I shall use Youtube to refresh your memory.

And, for shits and giggles, here’s the version with lyrics.

Now, we all know what musical ditty I’m talking about and I’ve probably managed to get at least one of them stuck in your head. I consider my job well done on that part.

But, alas, the ditty is not what the topic of today’s post is going to be about. I’ve had a lot of serious crap on my mind today, and I asked Mel for a topic that wasn’t. Serious that is. And, I’m getting stuck. Lol. I don’t actually know what to say about the Legend of Zelda.

Well, first off, it’s not about humans. There’s not a single character (in most of the games I believe) that is human. There might be some in Majora’s Mask, but I can’t remember right now. Instead of humans the game is about Hylians, an elven subrace. Yes, boys and girls, Link is in some way related to Legolas. I’m not sure if that’s here or there, but yes, they’re elves.

This means they have a +2 to dexterity and a -2 to constitution. And, since Link seems to be very adaptable (we’ll consider that a racial feature) I’ll go ahead and say that Hylian Elves get an additional feat at first level. And, I would put their favored class as Ranger, instead of the elves typical choice of wizardry.

Yes, somehow this became a discussion about Link and Hylians being Dungeons and Dragons characters. Or rather how they would fit into the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder by extension.

I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Applying D&D rules and stats to things that actually have very little to do with the game.

Take Maleficent as an example: Russell and I went back and forth for an hour or two about how she would fit into D&D. I think we finally settled on her being a black dragon with levels in the Druid class that assumes the shape of a fey or sylvan woman (a fairy in other words). And, I think that’s a pretty fair run, given what powers she showed in the classic Sleeping Beauty movie, and the upcoming movie Maleficent trailers. (Most people would say she’s a sorcerer, but nah. I’m pretty sure she’s a druid. Though she might be a druid that’s taken levels in sorcerer to expand her repertoire of malefic magic.)

Then a couple of months ago a friend and I were trying to make stats up for the Headless Horseman for a Halloween themed adventure.

And, all of that has been in good fun. :D

So, yes, Link is a Hylian Elf Ranger who carries a +5 Reflective Shield and a +3 Holy Avenger.

Later Kids.

Ryan

1-29-14

Journal 6-8-13

Shazam?

So, I’m bored. Lol.

Yeah, it’s 10:15pm, I have to be up for work at 5 and at work by 6, so I’m going to be going to bed here in just a little while. I do have a few things I would like to talk about in our short time together, though.

First, I’d like to apologize. I was unnecessarily violent in my post yesterday. That’s not to say that I’m sorry I said it. I’m an author, I can see those terrible dark hallways the human mind can travel down, and I’m gifted with the ability to describe violence in extreme detail. I like being able to do that. And, yesterday, I could see the anger I felt, the bloody waves of red that fell over me while they were ridiculing the dead. I couldn’t stand it. So, I lashed out in writing.

Instead of blasting it all up over my blog, I should have used that anger to fuel a short story; something about zombies rising from the grave to punish those who don’t respect the dead. Now, I don’t know if that avenue is still open. Oh, I could write the story, but I’m not sure if it would have the same fire and passion that I felt yesterday while writing that post.

C’est la vie.

As for my next point… I’m thinking about going to school again. This time I’m thinking about psychology, Forensic Psychology and Investigation. The course is at Southern Community and Technical College, and I’m hoping to be able to 4.0 the entire thing, fixing the major screw-ups that occurred my first time through school. Well, maybe not fixing, but it will put me back on the right path. It might get me a nice little office job, and I might qualify for a master’s program. That latter is the real reason I want to go back. With my current GPA, which shall remain unstated, I don’t qualify for any master’s program. Well, I could, but I would have to go through Phoenix and the only master’s I’d want through them would be psychology. Phoenix, with its online courses, doesn’t give the clinical experience that you would need to go into practice. So, I figure I’ll do this, find a good job, then go through with my masters, and get into practice.

And, all of that is moot if my writing career takes off first.

If you haven’t noticed I’ve been putting some work in on HubPages, which is a revenue sharing site based on traffic ads and what not. Basically, it’s paying to blog. I’ve been trying to get my fiction, and my articles on writing to turn a profit. And, they’ve done a fair job. But, the one video game review I did has turned out much better, lol. So, I guess I’m going to be doing some more video game reviews.

Anybody have any suggestions or requests.

Ryan

Don’t forget to check out my latest postings:

The Black Hole’s Teeth Chapters 1 and 3

In the Morning Light Chapter 6

The Toy Wizard

And

Little Nightmares

And

Raising Kain: Diseased God

And, my debut on YouTube

Tuna For The Kitten

And

More Tuna!

Cold Lunch Project Journal #40

The Undead Novel.

Alright kids, guess what!

Cold Lunch is back. And, it’s here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and it’s all out of bubble gum.

I’ve always wanted to use that line.

Anyway, as you can see, I’ve finally gotten my head on straight enough to get back to work on Cold Lunch. Now, I’m not working on the third quarter yet, simply meaning I haven’t started writing anything in it yet, but I am going through the second quarter and doing line edits and what not. And, though I said otherwise yesterday, I believe I’m going to put it on the market when I finish with this draft. I need to get some work out to the world at large.

I’ve got a third-ish of the quarter edited, and now it’s pretty much just a waiting game until I get to the end of the quarter. It’ll be a couple of days. I got up to Chapter 30, and the quarter covers Chapters 24-46, so I didn’t quite hit the third of the way mark. Now that I realize that, I think I’m going to go back and do two more Chapters. That will get me through to the third. Lol.

On another, probably less interesting note, I’ve not been walking this week. I got injured at work last Friday (one of the managers tried to drop a box on my head -.-), and was told to take it easy. Plus the walking was making my hip hurt worse. So, my streak is broken, but only for now. Starting Saturday, I’m back on the path, and I’m going to add two other things as well. Well, I’m going to try and add two other things. One of them is a little more personal than I’m willing to share here :P And, the other is this!

That’s right guys and girls. I’m going to try and make the blog a daily thing once again. It should be easy. Do the walk, the blog post, and my other task, one right after the other, and it will be just like walking out the door. Yay new habits. Lol.

Other than that, I think my new “hiatus” project is going to be a Star Trek fanfiction. Not the one I’m talking about over on HubPages. Nah, this one is The Black Hole’s Teeth, and as you can see from the fanfiction link, I’ve already published a few chapters.  So, if you like Star Trek, or if you like Star Wars, or if you like to see it when Star Trek kicks Star Wars’ ass, or maybe if you just like reading what I like, then you should stop by and see what’s up. Then follow it. Lol. (As a side note, like In the Morning Light, I’ll be posting this on deviatnArt as well. I’ll throw those links, and the FF.net links up on facebook, and my facebook page… which you should like if you haven’t already.)

Another thing I’m going to do is post some sample chapters on deviantArt. Probably just the first few chapters of each of the things I’ve written, and have typed so far. Well, maybe not the beginning chapters of all of them. Some of those chapters I really don’t like, and want to hide from the very face of the planet.

And, one final project that I’d like to talk about. I plan on taking the Star Trek fanfiction I’m writing, both the one mentioned above and the one mentioned on HubPages, and turning them into playable missions on Star Trek Online. So, if you’re a big nerd, come and play online with me :)

Ryan

PS: I also want to start my little audio book thing on Youtube soon. Not sure when that will happen. I guess you’ll just have to wait until the motivation hits me.

Peace out.

Journal 5-2-13

I hate technology.

No, really, I absolutely despise it. I would like nothing more than to take my computer and pitch it right out the window. I know that’s how the OS got its name, but really, if I wouldn’t have to pay to replace the window I would gladly sacrifice it.

Is there a reason for this sudden violent hatred?

Yes. There is.

We all know that Youtube is a social networking site whether it intends to be or not. It’s like deviantArt, and HubPages. Blogger. They’re all equally as much social sites as they are artistic sites.

Well, since I’m trying to whore myself out, I was going to kind of make audiobooks, and post them on Youtube. Maybe make a little money off the advertising, and definitely try to sell them as mp3s on itunes and what not. Why? Because we all need a little bit more money. (Yes, that makes me sound like a hack, and I will gladly accept that term so long as I can start putting bread onto my family’s table with my writing instead of flipping burgers.)

However, I’m having a problem with this brilliant plan. The microphone on my computer has disappeared, or fried, or some fucking thing because I can’t record audio. I made three videos last night, trying to get it to work. Tried configuring my microphone for an hour or two, and it just didn’t work. It’s saying it’s not there. I downloaded the latest drivers for microphones on vista, I uninstalled and reinstalled the equipment… none of it worked.

T.T

And, beyond that particular shit storm, today just sucked. Lots of emotional problems, ranging all up and down the line. This crap is really irritating, and I’m sure it’s driving Mel insane. I know it’s already driven me insane.

And, if I can’t get this touch pad to stop reading it when I hit it with the heel of my hand while typing, I think I’m going to breakdown and cry…again. I’ve thought about trying to deactivate it, but the problem with that is, I wouldn’t have a mouse. Mel’s using my wireless because hers shit the bed, and I just don’t have the money (see above) to get another one.

Just like not having the money to get a headset to use the microphone on my Youtube videos.

Sigh.

I guess I’m just going to have to suck it up, and pony up the cash for one or the other. (Probably the mic.) And, pray that the income from everything I’m trying is going to be enough to cover the loss. Right now I’m doubting it.

So, I’m going to go to bed. If I dream about computers at all, I’m going to scream, and throw things, and cry for an hour or so.

Something like that.

Ryan

PS: If anybody has the money for it, I would really love an Alienware desktop, or something from CyberPC aimed at gaming.