33 Ways to Stay Creative.

Apparently my theme doesn’t handle ordered lists so I’ve had to fudge the list the make it more readable….

I saw this and in the run up to NaNoWriMo I thought I’d run through the list.

1. I don’t really do lists, why does this count as something that makes you more creative? Lists of what!!!!

2. I used to carry a notebook everywhere, i kept on losing the note books. Now I have a notes application on my phone. It’s synchronized with the internet so my notes don’t go missing.

3. I assume free writing is just writing what comes to your mind, I do that here far too often… I guess I could do it more with a little more focus though…

4. Noooooooooooooooo…. Okay maybe this is a good idea, I think disconnecting from the internet is just as good an idea though…

5. What the hell does this mean? Host a seance? Try and have an out of body experience? I’m calling bull on this item…

6. No, I like it, I’m crap which is why I strive to be better.

7. My life is a break… I guess every now and then you have to walk away to get some perspective though.

8. Check, and everywhere else, as my workmates will attest…

9. I’m on my 5th cup of the day and it’s only half 10…

10. I think I know my roots, I guess I could know more. Is this supposed to mean you actual roots or your creative roots? Damn you vague list for being vague!

11. Last FM that is all I’m going to say. I’ve pretty much stopped listening to music any other way when I’m at work. I’ve never heard of any of the artist I listen to.

12. Does writing this this count as being open?

13. Creative people annoy this shit out of me? Or is that people who think they are creative? I’m not sure… True story I went to a party a while back where there were a bunch of “artists”, bunch of self important anti social so and sos kept on talking loudly about really obscure crap to do with their field and excluded everyone else at the party. I guess it’s okay when you have something in common with them…

14 You can read a lot of my writing on this blog… I even have a writing section… Gies feedback!

15.  I’ve tried to start a writing group but it fell apart because everyone is so busy, must try again…

16. I’m about to put myself through 30 days of mental anguish in the form of NaNoWriMo…

17. I try to make the time to practice but it’s hard, I must try harder to try harder…

18. Everything I do is a mistake… I accept this.

19. Glasgow, China, Egypt, South Africa, Zambia, Japan… Oh you mean more local? I guess I could try going to a different place to write. Recently I’ve tried writing in different coffee shops. I quite like Big Mouth Coffee Company.

20. I really enjoy foreign films, don’t watch enough, need to rectify this. Irritatingly I found a channel on Sky that did nothing but foreign films then sky replaced it the next week… I was sad… True story…

21. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9… Okay… Moving on…

22. When am i supposed to find time to rest… Sleep is for the weak!

23. Like diving in front of buses so you can sue the bus company for medical costs?

24. There are rules… (I was tempted to mimic the typographical breaking of the rules that this does on the original list, but that would be conformist of me)

25. Roger. Eat lots of burgers….

26. I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave… I’m going to have to force myself when it comes to NaNoWriMo, that’s the nature of the beast.

27. I used to do this all the time, I have a 1979 edition of the Oxford concise dictionary back home, I used to open it up and a random page and read it. Also the encyclopedia Britannica.Now I have the 1920 Oxford Concise Dictionary.

28. For writing? Not sure what to do here?

29. I’m not anyone’s perfect, not even my own, I know this.

30. See 2, My Catch Notes account is chock full of ideas. I also have an entire Category of my blog dedicated to story ideas… 

31. No No No No. Maybe. I need to tidy up my study.

32. I am.

33. I’ll try, I guess I just have.

Via Laura Kane.

My Thoughts on Vegetarians

Warning this blog post is highly inflammatory… And a bit of a rant….

I saw this on my Tumbr feed and it got me thinking about something that’s been annoying me for a while….

Think Twice About Becoming Vegan…

In today’s trendy artsy world, more and more young people are becoming vegan every single day. The reason most of these people become vegan is for the protection and welfare of animals. They encourage vegan meals, no meat, cheese, dairy, eggs etc. What most vegans do not realise is that there is a dirty underworld to the growing and manufacturing of this disgusting world trade that is kept well hidden from society.

Above is a picture taken in Indonesia of a carrot being prepared and slaughtered. The carrots are first skinned, then drowned, and can be eaten raw or are cooked in boiling water.

Also above is a disturbing picture of potatoes being ripped from their home. The preparation is the same as the carrots.

Bananas grow together in a herd. When they ripen, they are stolen from their family, and whilst they are still alive their skin is peeled back and their entire body is usually in eaten in about 6 bites.

In all honesty I think Veganism is stupid, it’s actually bad for you, any diet that requires you to take dietary supplements to remain healthy is just wrong. I’m not too hot on vegetarianism either, but if you chose not to eat meat then that is your problem more meat for me.

I don’t care what your basis for being vegetarian is unless you don’t like the taste of meat then it’s just pointlessly cutting items out of your diet, we evolved as omnivours, our digestive system is built to process meat.

I’ve heard people argue that if we want to eat meat we should be involved in the process of rearing it, and killing it. That’s complete bull crap… Do you know how much meat there is on a cow? Apparently a cow that weighed 1348 pounds yields 757 pounds of usable meat…  That would mean that ever time I wanted a quarter-pounder I’d be wasting 756.75 pounds of meat! That’s just stupid! Even if I froze all the meat that I got from my cow it would have rotted by the time I got around to eating it. The way things are the meat gets used up and isn’t wasted.

Also one of the main reasons that we evolved culture, art, and science is because we delegated producing our food to a small subset of society, they busy themselves producing food for us, which gives the rest of us time to stop and think.

SO… If your basis for not eating meat is that you disagree with people farming and think that in order to be able to justify eating meat one should have reared and killed the animals themselves, please stop listening to music, stop appreciating art, stop reading, refuse to take medicine, don’t watch TV, get off your computer. They are all the products of people who had the free time to do things other than constantly wonder about hunting for animals to kill and eat.

What gets me is people who object to eating meat on moral grounds but own pets and are quite happy to feed their pets meat, don’t they realise that the food they feed their cats/dogs is meat that has been reared to be eaten? It’s probably the least ethically sourced meat in the world, for all I know they actively torture the cows that make the beef that my cats eat. But cats have to eat meat, they actually can’t be vegetarian because they will die…

In conclusion: if you don’t approve of eating meat you hate kittens. How could you hate kittens?

Eat meat think of the kittens…

 

Via Yeahdardy

Keep Calm And Write 50K

It’s drawing closer and closer to November and you know what that means? NaNoWrimo, a month of me spamming the internet with drivel about how I’m trying to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of 30 days.

I’ve tried 3 times and failed three times, but my word counts have grown each time, i think I had about 40K by the end of last November, which is much more impressive than the 7 or thousand I managed in the first year.

This year as with every year I’m not entirely sure I know what I’m going to write about, my current lead candidates are to restart a story that I began writing a couple of months ago but only wrote 1,000 words for. The premise for the story was/is a one night stand gone horribly horribly wrong.

The other idea I have is a story following a guy who can’t die because the bureaucratic agency that runs the after life can’t seem to find his paperwork.

I’m leaning towards the second as it’s more humorous, and thus will probably be easier to write…

I know I’ve asked this on Twitter quite a few times, but is anyone else thinking of participating in NaNoWriMo this year?  If so what are you writing?

If on the off chance you are interested in reading the drivel I came up with for NaNoWriMo in previous years I’ve posted two of them in the writing section of my website:

1. NaNoWriMo 2008: Untitled

Is a near future science fiction story that never got the chance to get properly going. I think it’s quite amusing though.

2. NaNoWriMo 2009: The Cryonaught

Is the story of a guy who volunteers for an experimental military program on cryogenics.

3. NaNoWriMo 2010: Fantasy Story (Not Posted)

I’ve not put up my NaNoWriMo from last year yet, maybe I’ll think about putting it up in the run up to NaNoWriMo, it was a fantasy story that was never going to just be 50K words which was it’s biggest problem.

 

 

 

 

Kid’s Reaction to Empire Strikes Back Reveal is Amusing…

I don’t remember a time before I knew that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, in fact even though I watched Empire when I was pretty young I’m fairly sure someone spoiled it for me before I saw the film.

There are so many films I’d love to watch again without knowing what I now know about them.

Interestingly for some reason Luke’s paternal revelation affected me when I was a kid, for some reason I thought that the villain in every children’s TV show was the father of the hero. Megatron was Optimus Primes Father, Skeletor was He-Man’s father etc… That was weird…

Via Topless Robot.

Ad supported Kindle 4 let’s you disable the ads later by paying for the rest of the device

This is genius on Amazon’s end, can’t afford a full priced Kindle 4 well you can buy the ad supported on and pay the rest later. A $30 upgrade on the device will disable the advertisements.

I see this being a hit on two accounts, i you can’t afford a Kindle outright then you can buy the ad supported one and then disable the ads if they annoy you a few months later, also for people buying the kindle as a gift, they can buy someone the cheaper ad supported Kindle but safe in the knowledge that if they want to remove the ads they can just upgrade the device themselves.

Via engadget

RIP Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Image credit Jonathan Mak

The internet is awash with the news that Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. While I’m not an Apple fanboy I just wanted to take the time to say thank you and goodbye to Steve.

My first computer was an Apple Lisa, followed very quickly by a Mac 128K and a Mac Plus, if it weren’t for Steve and his vision I would probably have the interest I do in computers, I wouldn’t have decided I wanted to learn to program, I wouldn’t have gone to study computer science, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

I know I’ve bashed some of Steve’s decisions here, but nothing can take away the fact that he was a true visionary, on in a billion.

RIP Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011, you may be gone but your influence on all of us lives on, thank you for everything.

 

Custom Fallout Monopoly Board

 

Deviant Art user *PinkAxolotl created this pretty sweet looking custom Monopoly Board for her boyfriend.  The Cards look like they have lived through the apocalypse and all have perks from Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas on them.

It looks like she did it in German from the screen shots but a blank version is available to download including the board and cards so you can create your own (It’s 61.3 MB).

The only thing it’s missing is custom Fallout Money, I knew I’d been saving up bottle caps for a reason…

Continue reading “Custom Fallout Monopoly Board”

Beautiful Settlers of Catan Wooden Board


This is an amazing Kickstarter project, I really enjoy Settlers of Catan but one of biggest issues with the game is that all the tiles slide all over the place. A bunch of guys realized this and decided to make a wooden board to hold the tiles, it looks like it’s evolved into one hell of a beautiful project though with laser etched wooden tiles.

 

Via GeekOSystem via Boing Boing via Kickstarter.