Rest in Peace Lisa Kane, 1974 - 2009

I just got back from work to some really horrible news: a girl I've known for at least 15 years died earlier today; Streptococcal infection combined with a compromised immune system.

Even though we knew each other a long time and saw one another fairly often I didn't really know her THAT well; it's probably a stretch to say we were friends (though MY definition of "friend" tends to be a bit more relaxed than some people's, so I at least count her as my friend, even if she wouldn't have said the same of me), but we got along well and we always had fun talking. It's really a tragedy that she's gone, especially since she was only 35.

And of course, now I regret NOT taking time to get to know her better. I also realize that, even though I've always been very healthy, something similar can always happen to me; the young are not immune to death, as much as we'd like to believe we are.

Lisa, you died far too young and you will be missed.

The F-Bomb: The For Real True History That I Just Made Up

For some reason I got thinking about the dreaded F-Bomb today. Not really sure why, either. I've always found that term “F-Bomb” funny. It really sounds more like something out of the military's arsenal than an off-color word, doesn't it? Hmm... what would warfare be like if they strategically implemented everyone's favorite euphemism for sex? I wonder....

“Sir, I have an update on the war with Terrorist-Axis-Nation-X. We've completely repelled their air force, sunk their navy and pushed their troops back within their borders. Now all we have to do is wait for them to surrender.”

“Don't be absurd, Lieutenant. They'll never give up. Not unless they know how dangerous we are. What we need now is a show of force.”

“Sir, you don't mean... the A-Bomb?!”

“No Lieutenant. That may have worked on Japan, but we need something bigger this time.”

“The H-Bomb, sir? Dear Lord, not the H-Bomb!”

“Even the H-Bomb won't be enough to get these savages to give in. No, Lieutenant, there's only one option.”

“Sir, you can't mean...?!”

“I do, Lieutenant. That most deadly of humanity's creations. The one thing that makes all men cower in fear. Even the gods shudder at the merest mention of its name. Yes Lieutenant, I'm talking about-...”

“Don't say it, Sir! For God's sake, don't say it!!!”

“I must, Lieutenant. We need... the F-Bomb!”

And why shouldn't the word “F*ck” (this is a family-friendly blog, btw) be capable of ending wars? It can easily stop dead the parent of any four-year-old who says it.

***

This post was written while I was eating Doritos. Somehow I managed to avoid getting cheese powder all over the keyboard.

God I'm Getting Desperate

I hate the Benny Hill Show, but think "Yakkety Sax" is awesome.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I'm going to have to resort to if I plan on doing this whole writing thing daily.

What Did I Eat Before Bed Last Night?!

I didn't sleep well last night. It was mainly because I was having some pretty bizarre dreams. Not scary ones or anything, just weird. The kind that will ultimately force you awake and make you wonder if you're not at least slightly insane.

The first, or at least the first that I remember, involved bees that produced mind-control honey which they used to take over the minds of a bunch of people I know. I don't really remember much aside from that, but I know something pretty major must have happened since something jarred me awake. For some reason I think it may have involved a bunch of girls attacking me with a couch.

Sometime after that I had another dream. Interestingly, this one also involved my friends and acquaintances being mind-controlled (what does that say about me, I wonder). This time though, it was some sort of man-made tower doing the influencing rather than bees. Only a few of us managed to avoid being controlled, though how I don't know. Somehow, we discovered some sort of spray that canceled the mind-control effects and went around freeing as many people as we could.

Now, here's where it gets good. And when I say good, I mean really, really dumb.

Those of us who were not being controlled got together and, with me in command (hey, it was MY dream) decided that we had to take out the tower. And so, we marched off to attack it. Problem was, I had completely forgotten to tell everybody about the plan of attack. It was not in fact the climactic battle to end all battles as I would have liked, since, without a plan, everyone just stood around and did nothing. Not exactly our finest hour.

So I rewound my dream to a point where we were all together again. And this time I did things right! I split us into three units: a ground group that would use tanks to attack, an air unit, that somehow got a hold of these flying platforms that they would use to bomb and strafe the tower, and an insertion group that would infiltrate and seize the thing.

I woke up sometime during the attack, so I don't know how effective we were, but considering my brilliant (read: incompetent) leadership earlier on, I expect we failed.

Miserably.

Well, I Had to Write About Something

One thing I hate about trying to get myself to write more often is actually finding stuff to write about. When you're expecting yourself to write something everyday, you also have to expect to come up with a new thing to write about everyday. And, the thing is, I can write about absolutely anything: it's my blog, my time spent working on it, so I should have complete freedom to go about this however I want. It should be liberating. But, at least in my case, it isn't. It's too much leeway for me.

I've found that many of the best stories I've written have had some sort of restriction placed on them. It could be a specific word count, or theme, or, in one case, when I was writing a short story as part of an application for film school a few years back, five specific items that HAD to be incorporated into the story somehow. The conditions on that last one didn't stop there either: 250 words tops. It's not easy writing a story so short, especially when you actually want to give your characters some development as well. But, it ended up being one of my all-time favorite pieces of work.

I think I thrive under those conditions because I will approach writing as some sort of problem to be solved and much of my enjoyment comes from figuring out how to make everything work.

But to have total freedom means not knowing where to start. There's so much I could write about and, yeah, that's the problem - there's sooooo much I could write about. And a lot of it is interesting.

So, of course, I just ended up rambling about not knowing what to base this post on instead. Ironic.

I really don't want to proof-read this thing. I think it's a bit of a jumbled mess.