Ruination

So this morning I was in a perfectly good mood. I got up didn't feel tired, went to church, and joked around. Supposed to be a good day, no?

My parents celebrated an old Southerner Tradition last night when they invited our duck huntin' cousins over and had a fish fry! Immediately after dinner ended I packed a plate for lunch and left to go play Magic the Gathering at a friend's house. Now to do this I had to bring my cards with me that I normally leave at work.

When I left the house for work today I grabbed my cards to put up at work (for play on later lunches), put my lunch in a plastic bag and mooshed my Harry Potter book between my arm. Getting in the car with hands full was a chore, let alone getting out the same way when I arrived at work.

I looked goofy. If I had seen me I'd've laughed.

Not twelve feet in the door at work, head down trying to adjust the slipping-from-my-grasp objects, a stupid, lazy (let me reiterate LAZY; as almost 99% of shoppers at this retail giant can't do anything for themselves) woman in her mid-life crisis found it absolutely necessary to break my concentration and target me in my blue shirt and ask, "where are the magazines?"

"Well if you'd look you'd find them," was the first thought in my unusually witty mind, but the good christian boy in me was fed up with laziness said something just as bad.

"They're over next to electronics," I instead said in my most non-polite leave-me-the-hell-alone voice. I then sighed very loudly so that she knew she had made me mad, and I walked off shaking my head in disgust.

Why of all of the blue shirts that are in that place did she choose the guy with hands full of stuff that the normal employee would not carry around? In the end it all comes back around to that one word. LAZY! She saw a blue shirt (which I am vehemently opposed to because it takes away the privacy I get between time swipes) and didn't care anything at all about what that person had or might be doing and lazily asked for what helped her out.

I am not opposed to helping people out, but I seriously doubt that my insurance guy would want me to show up and ask him to insure my car at anytime before he begins his shift.

This disregardless woman ruined my good mood and day, and subsequently the day of many who interacted with me thereafter, because she refused to do something for herself.

I hope your Better Homes And Gardens was worth it bitch.

As an afterthought, it is not acceptable to get mad or be pissy with someone who helps you out. It is not my fault that you have to wait five minutes for a fabric lady to cut your fabric because she covers four departments (that's a story for another blog). Disrespecting me will get you the same disrespect in turn.

Of Magic in Shanaan

I just found this in an old blog. I love it. It just may have inspired me to finish this story.


Magic is an all-encompassing entity, a pool of power to be drawn from, given by the gods to the elves as a gift for being the firstborn. Magic can be used for anything. The first elves used it to build great empires and cities, master the elements, heal the sick and wounded, and of course changed their appearances. The only limit to the use of magic is the imagination of the user; a danger in and of itself. For thousands of years the elves, pure of heart, used it for good. With time and practice, the elves became great wizards.
Saergoth was one such great wizard, but his love for the humans led him to betray the secret of magic, and he told the humans and taught them in its uses. Angered, the gods took magic from the elves, granting its use to those who they chose; elves who bore the Mark of the Scion. Anyone who tried to draw on the power of magic was met with disasterous results. Saergoth was seen as a traitor to his own kind and outcast into the wild with nothing. For years he tried endlessly to draw from the once-present pool of magic. He grew insane. It was the only thing he loved more than the humans.
With their help, Saergoth was able to discover a way in which he and the races of men could draw the magic and focus it so that using it would not cause catastrophes. Jewels called firestones--because of the illusion of a fire burning at their core when shaped into a perfect sphere--focused the magic. The only sideefects of its use, if not used sparingly, were headaches and blurred vision because of the strain it placed on the user. Magic became commonplace in everyday society. Saergoth, knowing of its destructive results if not focused, became inspired and sought to replicate its destructive force when focused. The destructive power grew greater. Eventually humans would discover this property as well and as a result a rebellion was led by Alanon Kundark to eliminate firestones from all of human society. After years of human civil war, the firestones were taken and destroied--Saergoth was outcast yet again; this time confined to a fortress-prison for the rest of time--and magic disappeared once again. Secret groups and organizations mined firestones and secretly honed their abilities, something the humans would be happy for after a thousand years of Saergoth's captivity.

TweetDeck for the iPhone

Been a while since I posted and I'm laying here waiting for the iPhone 3.0 update.

My interest today is on TweetDeck for the iPhone. I have used quite a few twitter applications for my phone but none of them have impressed me quite as much as TweetDeck.

The application runs much like the desktop version, allowing multiple column views for tweets. Columns can also be assigned for multiple accounts, allowing a quick view of your accounts.

What really sets this application apart is it's API counter and reset timer. Heavy users of twitter commonly meet the API error that prohibits tweets until the conclusion of the hour. Knowing how much I can tweet is stupendous.

My only complaint so far is that the application oft times assumes that Internet is slow or absent and gives off an error. I am not sure why since an iPhone is always connected to the Internet. This doesn't hasn't happened over wi-fi but could easily be fixed in a future update.

Overall I am rather impressed with the application. So much in fact that I am writing a blog detailing my first impressions of it.

If you haven't already, download TweetDeck for your iPhone and say goodbye to Tweetie for good.

Secret Keys

I used to be a good writer. At least I thought so myself, thank'ee. I was working on a novel almost full time when I had free time between classes. It was mapped out and sequels and their subsequent plotlines were at least floating around in my brain. There were even chapter summaries, 43 in all, which were a paragraph long descriptions of the action, important dialogue, and the twists planned to keep my potential readers turning the pages like so many authors had done to me before.

I wrote the first four chapters in rather short order. I read and re-read them over and over. A friend even offered to proof them as well. In reading them I found that as I mentioned above, I was a good writer. Perhaps I was even the next King or Rowling. But after the first four I became distracted, most likely attributed to being a twenty year old kid who just wanted to hang out with his friends. Having a girlfriend didn't help either. Not that it was a bad thing. It was, still is, a learning experience. You never really know who you are until you have someone who's always there to give feedback and character criticisms, but I digress.

Bored with my progress, I quit writing all together.

A great writer, Robert Jordan (a man who influenced how I wrote at the time), once said during an interview that "ALL writers who are good writers are also good readers. A successful writer like myself becomes so by reading. I'm not talking about a summer book club regimen, but rather thousands. Only then will you become successful." At the time I was discouraged. Here I was trying to find tips and struggling to stay motivated and one of my favorites is saying I can't do it well unless I've read "thousands" of books. I love to read, but "thousands?" Even before I had expressed intrest in writing I read all the time and at best I had only read two hundred.

Discouraged even further, I quit all together. The ideas, as I consider myself a creative genius, continued to build up in my brain. But like Jonesy in "Dreamcatcher" would say, I keep them in a filing cabinet in my brain, locked in a secret room.

Now I am writing a blog and I notice that I do not write quite as good as I used to. I sit in front of my computer and try to regurgitate my ideas, but the story that goes on in my head, vivid as it may be, never comes to fruition when the sysnapses fire and move my fingers along the keys. Hopefully in time it will return. I now realize that like any sport, writing takes practice. A lot of practice. So hopefully, with time, it will come. These ideas are banging to escape. The door to that secret filing room is flexing, but how good of a door can it be if it were to break. It needs a key, a key only I can provide.

I'm a Freaking Hybrid

Sorry for not posting another technique in a couple of days. Work has sucked and for the last two days it has been Icy and rainy. We even lost power for a couple of hours last night. I wanted to run an idea out to all of the ninja vs. pirate fans. It's a story I want to write from time to time on this blog.

Jaques Luc Gagnon was just a child when his parent's, rich merchants from Marseilles, ship was overrun with pirates on a trading route to Japan. He was taken, as a recruit, by the Demon Captain Bronzebeard because of his fiery spirit and determination to "slay" the pirates invading the Mist Maiden. Jaques was trained from childhood to be a ruthless killer and plunderer. However, one day after his fifteenth birthday, the crew of the Demon Queen was attacked and destroyed trying to take a small ship in the North Japanese Ocean. Jaques saved himself with quick thinking and escaped as the Demon Queen met her demise in the cold waters of the ocean. A day later he washed ashore near a small village in Japan and held his own as a clan of mysterious ninjas tried to kill him. Impressed by his still fiery spirit, the leader of the clan took him back to their village where Jaques explained what had happened to him all those years ago. Manamoto, the leader, told Jaques that it had been men from his clan that defeated Bronzebeard, but also explained discontent in not being able to recover a corpse resembling Bronzebeard. Manamoto agreed to teach Jaques the Ways of the Ninja and vowed to help him find Bronzebeard and exact revenge upon the vile pirate Captain.

That's the idea in a nutshell. For the past couple of days, those following my twitter account have noticed me exclaiming that I am a Pirate trained in the Ways of the Ninja, thus referring to myself as a hybrid. I've always loved pirates and ninjas and feel that this could be a pretty cool story if I told it right. It's still rough and the names are just off the top of my head, but I think with some planning it could be a really cool Blovel (my combination of the words Blog and Novel). Let me know what you think, either with comments here or @dreyk replies on twitter and I'll work out the kinks and post the first chapter soon.

It's All in the Technique: Ryu (et. al)

Oh the memories. I used to sit with my brother and neighbors and waste countless hours of my childhood in front of the tv, hands glued to the SNES controller as I shouted words that only my parents were "allowed" to say. It was during this period of my adolesence that I fell in love with today's technique, the Hadouken.

The Hadouken is a special move in Street Fighter II (and all other subsequent reiterations of essentially the same game) used by two characters whose only difference was a head swap of the sprite that represented them in game. For years it has been referred to as a fireball, but for Japanese enthusiasts it means "wave motion fist."

The setup for the move is just the same as Sub-Zero and Goku, the user brings his hands to either the left or right side of his body at hip level. Holding the palms parallel and cupped the attacker charges and conentrates their chi into a ball of energy. At the desired level the user thrusts both hands forward uncupping their hands into a flat position effectively propeling the blast forward.

Over the years several other users have been taught to use it. Sakura, Ryu's biggest fan, learned the move from him but the move is hardly effective other than slowing down the attacker for a quick hit. Another character who tried to learn it and was refused is Dan. A kind of joke character, Dan was refused training and set out to learn the move on his own. He called it the Godouken, or self-taught wave motion fist. The hilarity is that he is a crummy martial artist and the move only travels mere inches in front of him as opposed to going nearly all the way across screen before it fizzles out entirely. Others have tried to mimic the move but only one, Gouken (Ken and Ryu's master), ever actually used it with effectivness. He could use it with one hand.

There is no question that the Hadouken is an awesome technique to use. Although it may not be as dramatic as the Kamehameha (although in Street Fighter IV Ryu charges it up close with electricity swirling all around him during his ultra combo), the Hadouken is an amazing move to behold and a easy one to do in the games.

Sorry

Sorry I didn't post a technique last night. I tend to become extremely lazy on my days off. I will post "Hadouken" this evening. And I am starting a new post called "So Geek." It's a pun on So Sheek. It will focus on geeky things such as characters and places from universes like Star Wars. It could end up focusing completely on Star Wars. So to all of my one viewers look for both this evening.

[Edit] I am starting that blog. It is going to be Star Wars based only and I am going to attempt to find something every day that is obscure in the Star Wars universe and if not I am going to post a character profile and tell you what I like about that character. I will try to keep up with it daily and I am going to call it "The Cantina."

It's All in the Technique: Sub-Zero

For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed Mortal Kombat. Perhaps it is the overt, over the top violence that has always appealed to me. I loved playing for hours upon hours even though I always lost, and all I could do was thrown a spear or ice ball at an opponent. If Scorpion had not been present in Mortal Kombat then it is likely that the subject of discussion tonight would have been my favorite Kombatant.

I guess I like Sub-Zero because his technique is very similar to both Goku and Ryu's. When he throws an Icy Blast at an opponent Sub-Zero brings his hands behind the sides of his body and holds his hands half-cupped, palms parallel while the blast of icy cold goodness forms in his hands. After it has reached it's maximum, Sub-Zero thrusts his palms outward in front of his body uncupping his hands so that they are flat. This effectively propels the projectile forward at the opponent, and upon successfully hitting said opponent, they are frozen in place allowing a free hit for Sub-Zero.

Over the last couple of years Sub-Zero has become a lot cooler, pun intended, as continued use of this blast has permanantly frozen his forearms and hands in a kind of see through way. However, what seems to make this move seem so appealing to me is because of the way it is executed. As it is similar to the other two techniques in execution, I doubt that it is the most impactful. A free hit is cool, but it cannot always win the match.

It's All in the Technique

I'm coming at you like a fireball to the face. Get ready, 'cause over the next few nights I am gonna bring all the babes to their geeky knees and make all the dudes wanna have nerdgasms.

For the next few days I am going to analyze, describe, and try (although I may ultimately be unsuccessful) to decide which of the following is my favorite, and hopefully give you, the reader, insight to make a similar decision.

I want to look at Sub-Zero's Icy Blast, Ken and Ryu's Hadouken, and Goku's Kamehameha. All three are sleek, attractive moves and in the games, have same input command. Then I will make the feeble, but needed attempt to tell you which is my favorite and explain my reasons.

Tonight we look at Sub-Zero.