Month: December 2023

I keep seeing different versions of the same post about fantasy football. It goes like this: If you make it to the playoffs in fantasy football, you’re talented. If you win the championship, it’s luck. I think there might be something to that way of thinking. After all, the idea that you can predict how good your squad will be in the last few weeks of the season is silly at best–an algorithmic complexity far beyond the mathematics of the conscious mind at worst. Regardless, I didn’t even make the playoffs. My conversation with greatness ended at the word ‘if’. Meanwhile, in the family league the ‘ship is down to 4 of the boys. One has been a steady last place contender since the league started. Another is a far cockier steady second place guy. They don’t play each other this round. Last place boy goes up against his cocksure older brother while Steady Second goes up against my son who calls his team Hospital.

Hospital.

It is a fair name. He’s dealt with the most injuries in the league by a wide margin. However, those hurt players are all back and all scoring crazy points. He dropped 190+ last week on his way to his first top points week and he’s facing a guy whose recorded top points 4 times this season. All of it adds up to be huge fun come Thursday night and beyond. The games are looking like they will provide plenty of fireworks. As for me, I’m just watching to see if the Giants can make things competitive. I’m already on to thinking about next year.

I’ve been working on this novel again–trying to get back into the flow of it after several major interruptions. In a perfect life I wouldn’t have interruptions and be able to stay seated deep within the world and my understanding of the characters, but that is not the world I live in at present. There are… distractions. In addition to other projects I find that I just cannot get locked into a rhythm. That, more than anything else, is what I need in order to be successful. I have this novel coming up, and two more on the docket after that. I am stoked to have all these opportunities, but I need to do what is needed to take advantage of the opportunities and fulfill the responsibility of those same opportunities.

Some Thoughts:

1. I learned about the serious connection between weight and memory. This shocks me. I have gained a lot of weight over the past two decades and a lot of weight over the past year. I am at 242 presently and the last time I mentioned it in the blog I was at 238. That’s 4 lbs in what? a month? This needs to be turned around. Quickly.
2. Watching Voltron vehicle force again. It is not good. It lacks the lore and interesting characters of the GoLion series and feels, for lack of a better term, like a money grab through the first 3 episodes.
3. Nobody reads the blog anymore–not even my partner. I am aware of that and it’s okay. It is the truth of a writer that you are writing for an audience, but you’re really writing for yourself, because the words need to come out regardless of who reads them. It is a calling. This blog didn’t start as that. It started as a way to keep me on track with daily writing, developed into a strange form of public therapy, and now it is simply the way.

Yesterday’s blog is living proof (because nothing is ever gone from the internet) that multi-tasking doesn’t work for me. I was listening to these ghost stories, you see. I had a ten minute blog and a ten minute video and I thought that might go well. It did not. I kept looking over at the video to catch sight of the alleged apparitions. I just don’t do well with split attention. This is something I’ve known for a lifetime, but I keep on keeping on. I suppose there are things about oneself that are extremely hard to change. One of those things for me is the tendency to put health last. I probably should be in the gym right now. However, it takes longer for the gym to show effects than it does for me to write a novel, so guess where it ends up on the list?

We are not quite to the resolutions list that is sure to come, but I do think it is important to ‘pre-game’ and strategize the important changes in life. I’ve been thinking about what that looks like for me moving forward. I may be retiring soon–2025 is the closest option. So, how does that change the game? On the one hand it hurts the wallet, but on the other it gives me more time to sink into who and what I want to be with the rest of my life. I’m not really sure who that is. I’m going to plan the what with my partner, and I am learning each day that this means more than–let’s do what you want, love.

Watching ghost videos as I write this. Sometimes I want to fall into that chill as a way to lock in on mood for future stories. While I truly believe in the supernatural, It is extremely rare that I find ghost videos that feel real. I don’t know that I will ever write a ghost story let a lone a good one. I feel like the things that scare people are always going to be over the top. I stay one for subtle and subtle rarely scares without the type of intense creative connection with the audience that only writers like Stephen King can compel.

Today is a reset day. I’m moving from primary focus on one project to primary focus on another. Changing gears is tough, and like a driver with no grasp of a manual transmission trying to go from one gear to the next. I’m not prepared to say I’m getting better. I need to just keep fighting through until I can learn how to drive stick.

A few things hanging on the brain tonight, so I am going to get right into…

Some Thoughts:

1. Academia is weird. The more I spend time in it, the more I recognize how little academia values commercial success. I could write a two page pamphlet that seven hard academics love and that would net me more praise than a hit novel. That is odd to me.
2. Speaking of odd, the film Leave the World Behind hit me as being quite good. I truly enjoyed the take on a concept that is starting to get an intense amount of play. I fear it is way too timely–almost conspiracy level timely. The film talks about hacking and internal strife at a time where we are dealing with the possibility of an extremely divisive and vindictive man about to try to become president again. Moreover, some of the hacking stuff hit a bit too on the nose. The day after I saw the film Tesla recalled 2 million cars because of an ‘issue’ with the autopilot. See the film… you’ll see the issue pretty darn clearly. Then today, yet another billionaire’s secret bunker was revealed. Notably it is on an Island where many other ultra rich people have such spaces….
3. Been watching Colorado shopping in the portal. Nice stuff there. Looks like Deion is getting his O-line. This week he started shopping for a D-line. He has the skill players. If he can get the beef up front and one more linebacker, his team is in the conversation for the expanded playoffs.
4. Great day home with the lady. That is all I’ll say about that.
5. Staying on the Buffs, who is going to be the OC for the team this upcoming season? He rolling with Shurmur? Feels like he is going to stick with the guy who took over calling Sean Lewis’ offense.
6. Maybe that was enough for today. Allergies are kicking my tail and slowing my roll. Tomorrow I start rolling on TWO projects and I am excited to get after it.

I am going to go on a bit of a rant here, so if you’re not into that sort of thing, then this isn’t the day to read the blog.

I’m feeling a bit stressed tonight. It could be the home, it could be the deadlines, but more than likely it is my tendency to tune into the emotions and issues of everyone around me and feel it so strongly that it crushes any existing mood within me. I am, in a word, susceptible. This can be a good thing. If I am in a bad mood I can get lifted by the people in my orbit. However, I tend to default to good mood. After all, I’m alive and moderately healthy and I have all of my faculties and my life is, well, dope. However, when the mood is one of sadness or (especially) disappointment, it crushes me as a human. I cannot be around disappointment too long without falling victim to it. The feeling of it in the air makes me feel powerless and for whatever reason responsible for not being able to pull whomever I am around out of the terrible funk it brings. I have become more aware of it in the last few days since reading the opening chapter of Kotaro Isaka’s “The Mantis” where he equates the need to keep the atmosphere right to trying not to step on a tiger’s tail. Only in this instance I know that whomever is in my orbit is simply having human reactions and I am the one who quickly spirals.

This is a difficult thing to realize about oneself. At once I want to have everyone around me living their best and happiest lives, yet at the same time any crack in that armor sends me right off the deep end. Someone would have to be absolutely bonkers to want to be with a guy like that. Fortunately, I’ve found that one in a million. See, life is good. Even if the energy isn’t always so.

I wanted to get this done before—who am I kidding? I was writing, got stuck, and decided to spend ten minutes doing anything else in the hopes it would eventually lead my tortured soul to some actual word progress. One minute in and it isn’t working yet. When I get stuck on a project I do a lot of avoiding that project and even more looking for similar projects for inspiration. While it may seem like copying on the surface it is in fact the opposite: I want to remind myself what not to do and what has already been done well. The project I am working on doesn’t have any counterparts that I know of, but my problem isn’t really like that. No, my problem is that I am learning a serious load of information and trying to distill that into usable fiction and ‘game’ content. Without saying much about the NDA work I can say that it is taking me through a field a science I know surprisingly little about (despite it being my original major) and asking me to generate ideas for what it will look like in the future. Not an easy task.

A task made harder by my inability to think straight for long stretches of time as of late. The semester is officially over, and I am drained. Yet I am at the keyboard busting my hoop pretty regularly to get this done right by tomorrow. My reward? I get to go back to the other work. All that is to say I love it and I am overworked. I need to invest some serious structure into how and when I create and how and when I reload because the older and busier I get, the more balance becomes a serious issue.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m ready to talk a little more about Seattle. I posted a review of the place where we tried to eat and, well, it featured the roach we watched crawling towards the food prep area. Needless to say we didn’t stay for the food. It still resonates in my mind. I used to order from that place a lot. There is something fundamentally trust breaking for me about seeing roaches in places I feel are clean and safe. Makes me itch. I dreamed of it last night and it was nearly a week ago that it happened.
2. Much happiness in regards to Colorado football getting the players they need to be successful. There are a lot of people hoping Deion fails. I’m the opposite. I want him to win it all. I want him to shock the world. Go be great.
3. I gotta go try to write some more…

A quick glance at the NFL playoff standings will tell you one clear fact: The Niner’s are the only team locked for a spot. That means 6 other NFC teams have a chance. Among those are… wait for it… The Giants? Yeah. That happened. The G-men managed to stumble back into relevance after a three game win streak that, honestly, could and should have been a 4 to 5 game win streak. They have been in nearly every game they’ve played in spite of one of the most lackluster offenses I’ve seen and, according to ESPN, the second worst offense in the NFL. Yeah, the Jets are first, but we don’t want to bring that up in this blog because there really isn’t enough time to unpack that hot ass mess.

The Giants are relevant because of defense. Over the past few weeks they have posted terrific defensive numbers. They’ve schemed expertly against multiple teams — all despite the drama surrounding the so-called relationship issues between Daboll and Wink. Here is the issue between Wink and Daboll as I see it: Daboll blames shit on people and Wink says, yo, we doing our part. Even when they weren’t killing it on D he was building towards that. No comment on O though? I mean the line stuff is a pure issue, but I have to ask: How is Kafka really doing? Nobody hears from the guy. It’s like he’s in witness protection–very Jersey of them.

I will say this: The QB issue is solved. The offense can run so long as there is someone with confidence a la Purdy. They need a guy with a big arm. They need to spend the cash on a line and not a QB. Once that is truly fixed, they’ll put up numbers. This last week showed it especially in the second half.

Exhale.

I lost at fantasy. Pretty badly, actually. It points to a larger question of expectation and effort, as described before. What is it I am putting my time and energy into? What am I expecting from the areas and in my life I am not putting as much time and energy into? When I step back and really analyze it, the most consistent and time consuming task I endeavor outside of sleep is Video Games. I play more than I work! I play Starfield daily, I play Pokemon daily (heck hourly on some days) and when given the freedom of moments, I lose myself in the wonder of Madden Franchise. In truth, I am writing this blog on the plane on the way home with every intention of playing Madden or Starfield (already did hecka Pokemon, but who knows?) at some point this evening. Nearly 50 yrs into my life and the work/play balance has not sorted itself out.

It won’t sort itself out on its own, so do I have the willpower to do that myself? I have to. If not for me, for the next generation. Our youngest has his head in a phone or a game most hours of the day. He doesn’t take the time to workout or stretch on his own. He isn’t grinding when he could be, thereby bettering himself in preparation for the way of life he claims to want to live. You cannot be an NFL player and not put in more work than everyone around you. So, it is up to me to set an example.

I used to say ‘nobody can out work me.’ Turns out everybody outworks me. What I’ve been good at is living off my talent. Unfortunately I’m too old and worn out for that to work out any longer. Examples need to be set and balance needs to be achieved before it is too late for me to be good to anyone still.

So, what does that mean physically? I don’t know specifics. I know I am going to start stretching and doing home workouts tomorrow. I am going to put serious time into the project I need to get done by Friday. I’m going to start research for another project as well—30 minutes a day on that one. I am going to build out a schedule that makes sense and is flexible enough that I can do it over the vacation and not set myself up for failure.

And yes, I am still going to play games. Just maybe not so much.

Given the immense amount of fiction out there in the world, I have long wondered why the same stories get made into movies over and over again. It is a complex answer in part, but it generally boils down to two things: Ego and Security. Businesses tend to be risk averse. Film making is a business. This, accompanied by ego leads to some actual nonsense. I realized this last night sitting in bed and finally watching a bit of the 2019 Lion King. This film, which tests the boundaries of the uncanny valley, is little more than a flex. It is basically a shot-by-shot recreation of the animated story. Heck, they even kept James Earl Jones as Mufasa. The difference is in the digital ‘live action’ animation. You can see the flex in the way that certain shots are extended merely to show off how good the cgi looks. It does look good. That doesn’t warrant putting it out in theaters again.

I miss seeing entirely new things. I can only find that sort of freedom and reveal in books anymore… Heck even books seem very copycat anymore. I wonder about the creative world and why it is that so much of what we consume is a replica of what we have already consumed. I’m not wondering from the business standpoint anymore, because that is obvious. I am wondering from the creator’s perspective. What are you doing in order to create something brand new?

I am as guilty as the rest. I feel like my creative power is waning hourly. I feel like I used to have all the ideas in the world, and now I rehash nonsense and try to make it sound fresh and cool. I thought I was better than that, and I still think I can be. I ought to figure out a way to try.