Oh, my poor neglected blog. Has it really been nearly 3 months since I last updated here? Well, I did start a new job in January, and that is always distracting. So I guess that will be my excuse de jour for not blogging. But now it seems that podcamp london is kicking into high gear, with all the tickets selling out already! It sat at “40 tickets remaining” for months, and now, poof! all gone! I’m glad I signed Christine and myself up early. I wonder what caused the rush. They’ve been mentioning podcamp london every week on the Canadian Podcast Buffet, but they’ve been doing that for over a month now. Hmm. Anyway, with all the activity I figured that I should put up something fresher than 3 months old here when people swing by. I certainly look forward to meeting all the local tech geeks and new media enthusiasts. It’s gonna be a blast!

Coming Out of the Geek Closet

I have a video to share with you. Now, before you watch it, dear reader, please understand that it took a lot of soul searching for me to be able to post this. I believe it is well made and funny and anyone who shares my sensibilities will enjoy it, which is why I want to share it with anyone who hasn’t seen it. My concern is that based on this recommendation, any thoughts of me being at all “cool” will be fully and completely abolished, and my absolute nerdy-ness will be made abundantly clear to all.

But I can’t hide who I am, nor do I want to. I am a nerd, a geek, a dweeb, and I’m proud! So please, enjoy the following video.

Chruchill and I drink the same brand of scotch, which is where the similarities end.

Once again I’ve ignored my blog for far too many months, and this time I dropped off right after getting a wonderful comment on my last post. I actually had a reader who wasn’t a friend or family member, and I completely dropped the ball. I guess I’ve just been really busy with work, and when work takes over my life I quickly run out of enthusiasm for writing. It’s a bit sad, but all I want to do when I’m not working is relax and do passive things like watch tv or watch videos online. I guess I need to shake that habit if our grand plans for the new year are going to work out (hint hint).

I decided to write up a quick how-do-ya-do to sort of explain my long absence (if there’s anyone left who cares) and throw up a few recommendations for your consideration. So let’s get started!

I’ve been reading a very interesting biography about Winston Churchill over the last week. It’s called Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: a Brief Account of a Long Life by Gretchin Rubin. It’s a really quick read, just over 200 pages not counting the notes, but it’s an excellent introduction to the life and personality of Chruchill. I highly recommend it for anyone who is a bit of a hobby history buff like me. The really neat thing about this book is the way the author sort of deconstructs the art of biography throughout the book. As the title suggests, she looks at Churchill’s life from forty different angles, many of them contradictory to one another. She makes the argument that Chruchill was a drunk, and then follows that with all the reasons why he wasn’t. I would recommend that anyone who likes biographies check this book out, even if Churchill isn’t of great interest too you, just for the unique method of examining a persons life through multiple lenses.

I’d also like to recommend an awesome history podcast called Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, which is where I originally heard about Forty Ways. If you like history at all, or just like a good story and don’t mind learning some history along the way, then this podcast is a must-hear. Carlin is a wonderful story teller and is great at turning historical facts into an interesting story that keeps you hooked from beginning to end. My only beef with Hardcore History is how few and far between the episodes are. I understand that it takes a long time to do the research for a history show (especially for one that often runs around the one hour mark), and I understand that he’s doing it all for no money (even though he’s always asking for it), but one to two months between shows is a looooong time. To be fair to Mr. Carlin, he’s getting better now with smaller episodes coming out in between main shows, but it’s still a long wait. That being said, if you’re picking it up for the first time there are a number of shows in the archive to listen to and enjoy before you’re stuck waiting for a new one, so download and enjoy!

Well I guess that will do it for now. I really hope I can get off my ass and post some stuff here more often. It’s fun and kind of cathartic, even when I’m just talking about easy stuff like what I’m reading or what I listen too. If you’re interested, keep your eyes on this space for future updates, as well as a possible announcement about a new project. A little hint: there may be a couple of familiar voices added to the pod-o-sphere in the new year. I may have said too much…

The Power of Podcasts

I love podcasts. I really really do. They’re the greatest thing to happen to the internet since email. They allow regular people to express their creativity through media that was, until recently, completely dominated by corporately owned media outlets. There are really talented people producing and distributing thousands of hours of quality entertainment at no cost to their audience. It’s entertainment as a hobby! Who’d of thunk it.

I’m a fan of most types of podcasts, and I like to try a bit of everything (plenty of space on the ‘ol iPod for variety), but I have to admit that audio podcasts will always have a special place in my heart. They remind me of a simpler time in my childhood, listening to the CBC as they had a discussion about some obscure yet inexplicably interesting curiosity. Besides, I consume most of my podcasts while walking to work nowadays, and watching video dramatically increases my chances of being smooshed by a Mack truck while crossing Talbot St.

Getting even more specific, my favorite type of audio podcast is those that focus on a narrative of some kind. These shows remind me of story time in elementary school, and I have always loved story time. Now, when it comes to stories in podcast form, nothing even compares to Escape Pod, one of the best podcasts I’ve ever stuck in my ears. Escape Pod consists of a weekly reading of a sci-fi short story, and includes in it’s enteries some of the top writers in the genre. I’ve been a faithful listener for about a year now, maybe more, and the show has yet to disappoint. Even when they tell a story that I don’t particularly like in the end, I still have a good time on the journey. The show has introduced me to some truly great writers and some even greater stories as well.

All this leads me to this story on io9.com (a comprehensive, if sometimes snarky, sci-fi blog). Despite my extreme nerdy-ness, I’m still pretty new to the world of modern sci-fi writing, so the list of Hugo winners in this article was full of unfamiliar names and titles. That is, until I came across the Best Short Story category. “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear was a story most familiar to me as a remarkable episode of Escape Pod from a few months ago. I really enjoyed it at the time and can say now with a good deal of certainty that it indeed deserves to win the Hugo. I guess it’s all thanks to podcasting that I can now have a nearly completely uninformed opinion about a prestigious literary award.

So please, if you enjoy podcasts or sci-fi, please give Escape Pod a try. I highly recommend “Tideline” as a fine place to start, but you really can’t go wrong with almost any episode in their archives. And if you don’t like what you hear one week, next week will be an entirely new story to explore.

Boldly Going

I thought I’d just take a second and direct your attention to this video:

It’s a bit lengthy running almost a full hour, but it’s well worth it if you’re at all interested in the so called ‘Web 2.0′ phenomenon. I’m glad that academicas are seriously studying the online world like this. There is a great deal of potential in websites like YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, etc. I’m especially excited about this potential after reading Vernor Vinge’s latest novel, Rainbows End. It’s set in a near future world where everyone wears computers integrated in their clothing which allows them to live in the real and virtual world simultaneously. The idea of being able to alter perception on a whim and being able to call up any information with the twitch of a finger, no matter where you are, is awesome. And I feel like were living through the beginning of that world now. All we need to do to complete my childhood dreams is to get started on transporter and warp drive technology, throw it all on a spaceship and hire Patrick Stewert to say ‘engage’.

Freshly Squeezed

Over the last three weeks, I haven’t posted a single thing online. No blogs, no tweets, not even a witty comment; I’ve lived completely off the grid. I wish I could say I did it for some deeper reason, perhaps to reconnect with myself, or to take a break from the online rat-race, but I can’t. The simple truth is this: work drained my juice. You know, my internet juice? OK, that sounds a little gross, it’s metaphorical juice, work with me here!

Working at this new job has drained me of all my extra energy (juice). Maybe it’s the ten hour days 4 times a week that are just a bit too much for me to handle, or the stress of learning a bunch of new skills while trying to calm down grouchy credit card customers on the phone that just keep calling. Either way I’m finding I have very little energy for other activities like reading and writing blogs or even twitter.

And my web 2.0 personality isn’t the only thing that’s suffered; I haven’t been to the gym in weeks! So I think it’s time to get back on track in all things. I’m going to resolve to do more internet stuff like this on my days off, and going to the gym after work. I don’t want my day to consist of work, tv, sleep for the next 12 months.

To make a long story short, I’m back baby!

I can’t believe how long it’s been in between posts, but work has sucked up all my time and energy. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I will write a new book post soon, but first I really need to rant a little. And what are blogs for if not to allow people to vent their frustration through words to friends and total strangers.

So I decided to sit down and read for a while tonight (an almost unheard of occurrence lately) and I went searching on my local FM dial for a classical music station. Before I could search very far across the spectrum, I came across something that stopped my dialing fingers in their tracks. The local Christian radio station was playing a show dedicated to “discussing” intelligent design and Ben Stein’s epic of ignorance, Expelled. I only caught the end of the second part of a four part series that seems to spend more time talking about how absolutely wrong the theory of evolution is and how all the answers are in the Holy Bible. Blech! I can’t believe this dribble was coming out of my speakers. I mean, this is Canada! A recent survey showed that nearly one in four Canadians openly don’t believe in god. We are a rational, well educated people who usually turn a distasteful eye towards fanaticism in any form, and yet this radio show, consisting mainly of misinformation and misleading half-truths, is being broadcast freely over our air waves. I thought we were better than this. I really did.

I suppose, if I were to play devil’s advocate for a moment, it could be said that this show was on a Christian radio station, and we rational Canadians would probably dismiss most of the information that comes from such a source pretty easily. But it IS an established radio station, which means someone in my area is listening in and possibly being taken in by this illogical hogwash, and that makes me sad and nervous. Sad for the people who either refuse or are unable to think for themselves and just swallow whatever their Christian leaders tell them, and nervous for myself and my loved ones as these victims of fanaticism are out there somewhere in our community, possibly working in some sort of job that requires clear and logical thought to ensure the safe operation of an essential service. OK, perhaps I’m exaggerating the issue a bit, but it’s really not a very big step from people believing in Intelligent Design to wanting it to be taught in public schools along-side evolution. And that’s a path from which there is no coming back.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m working on a few personal projects over the summer, most of which I’m sure will fall by the way side once I start working full time. The most important thing I’m trying to do this summer is read more. I started this year with the goal of reading 50 books this year, but that quickly fell apart. My new goal is a bit more open ended; I’m simply going to read as many books as possible by the end of the summer and decide where to go from there.

So with that goal in mind, I’m going to run through the books I’ve already read so far this summer, list the books I’m currently reading, and talk about the books I already have on my reading list. First of all, I’m going to write a little review of the book I’ve already read this summer.

Plots and Characters: A Screenwriter on Screenwriting by Millard Kaufman

Another of my goals this summer is to begin work on a screenplay I would like to someday film. I know, it seems a bit silly and random, but films and the idea of making films has always interested me. I’ve always sort of fantasized about writing and directing my own movie, much like Kevin Smith. So I decided that, if I want it to happen, I have to do it myself. It’s not really that serious a pursuit at this point, more of hobby really. But like any other serious hobby, I’m doing a lot of research about how it’s all done before I get started, and that’s where this book comes in. There are a couple of other books like this on my list, but this was the first one I picked up for the simple reason that it was the best book on the subject available at the public library. The London Public Library actually had a larger section on writing for TV and film than I thought it would. Unfortunately all the really helpful books were already out. So I picked this particular book after reading the first chapter and finding it pretty entertaining, with interesting stories about the old Hollywood Studio system and executives that made life for the writers miserable for no other reason than their own fragile egos. And it continued to entertain right up to about the half way point, when the chapters turned away from amusing anecdotes and towards “helpful” advice for new writers. It’s not that the advice was necessarily bad, it was just delivered in such a meandering and round-about way that it was nearly impossible to follow his train of thought. His setup for the points he was trying to make in each chapter seemed unnecessary, with no real flow from one paragraph to the next. It was such a struggle to finish this book that, in an attempt to forget the boredom brought on by the experience, I’ve tried to lose all memory of having read past the hundredth page. That means, of course, I don’t remember any of this advice, but it’s a small price to pay in the long run.

In conclusion, even if you have an interest in this subject, steer clear of this book. There are better written books out there that offer the same, if not better, advice on screenwriting. In fact, I’ll be reading some of them a little later on in the summer! Which leads me to the next section, books I’m currently reading.

Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made by Alex Epstein

This is a book that was lent to me by a friend who has a great deal of experience writing and actually filming movies, and it’s been a pretty good read so far. I can’t go into too much detail yet, but it seems to be much more straight forward and logical than Kaufman’s book. It’s already helped me work out the hook for my story and start to plan out the details of the plot.

Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett

This is another book that I picked up as a sort of last resort in the library, although I have wanted to read Dennett’s work for awhile now. I was looking for another book by one of the Four Horsemen of atheism, but they were all out except for this one. The popularity of these books is great because it means people are reading them and, hopefully, questioning some of their own beliefs. It does, however, make it pretty tricky to get a copy to read. Breaking the Spell is a little older than most of the other books out right now, though, so there was a copy available, and I must say it’s been very enlightening so far. Dennett is a philosopher, so he approaches the questions of religion and faith from a very different place than Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, and Hitchens, a journalist. I think this will be the first of the two books I’m currently reading that I’ll finish first since it will need to be returned to the library far too soon, and also because it’s such a fascinating read up to this point.

Anyway, I think I’ll leave that here for now. I’ll put up a full review of each book as I finish it, and I’ll try to keep this space updated with my current reading selection as I go.