I will legally change my name.

I will dress in a monkey suit and go everywhere in it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I will be known as "Ai Phling Pu."

And it will be GLORIOUS.

I will run mad through the streets on all fours, knocking over apple carts and frightening old ladies while delighting small children with my zany antics.

And -- oh yes, mark my words -- the antics shall be nothing less than ZANY.

Because there is nothing people enjoy more than the ZANY antics of a mischievous monkey. Except possibly pornography. HMMMMMMMMM.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Raytheon sure loves its lasers, and it's proving so with the crowd-repelling Silent Guardian. The device, which is part of the Directed Energy Solutions program, is reportedly designed to be mounted onto a military vehicle where it can "throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile," penetrating enemy skin just 1/64th of an inch and not causing "visible, permanent injury." Essentially, the invisible beam has the ability to inflict "limitless, unbearable pain," which seems to stop just as soon as you're able to get out of the ray's path. According to its maker, the machine could be used in "various commercial and military applications including law enforcement, checkpoint security, facility protection, force protection and peacekeeping missions," and it's ready to calm the masses as we speak.
[Via InformationWeek]
Read - Silent Guardian product page
Read - Silent Guardian hands-on

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Bobby Jobs (undisclosed genre)  -- Commissioned screenplay for feature film, in restructuring/composition.
Protect & Serve (Romantic Comedy)  -- Spec screenplay for feature film, in composition.
War of Words -- (Romantic Comedy) Spec screenplay for feature film, in structuring/composition.
Offline -- (Psychological Thriller) Spec screenplay for feature film, in structuring.
Children of the Sun (Fantasy -- very excited about this one!) -- Spec screenplay for feature film, in structuring/composition
Once Bitten (Comedy) -- spec screenplay for feature film, in structuring.

A Prayer

I know we don't talk often
And I know we don't talk much
It's been some time since Your eyes saw mine
We seldom keep in touch

But tonight I'm feeling lonely
Tonight I need Your ear
Which I don't deserve, and I know I've got nerve
But I need for You to hear

This prayer needs to be spoken
And this plea needs to be heard
Because right or wrong, You wrote my song
With worlds in every word

I tried to miss the music
I swore I'd never dance
Until the day she looked my way
You sent that one last chance

And still I tried to fight it
Did my best to walk away
But when the heart speaks from the start
There's nothing minds can say

But every day's a sunset
And every night a dawn
The heat of June has cooled too soon
And now my angel's gone

You brought our hearts together
You taught my soul to speak
But without her my soul's interred
My future's bright but bleak

Though passion fades to friendship
Though all good things must end
I pray of You, this do not do
Please, God, give back my friend

What the hell?! Monsters? Should be be scared?!

Introduction

This isn't about what you think. We're not talking monsters like Chuck Manson or Jeff Dahmer here. Nor are we discussing Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees or Michael Meyers.

Well, not specifically, anyway.

We're talking monsters of the storytelling craft. The truly big stories that come out of the dark and seize hold of our culture, shaking it viciously for a weekend or a month, sinking their teeth into our collective vocabulary and then grinning at us from the shadows of popular culture for decades afterward.

Star Wars? Monster. James Bond? Monster. Citizen Kane? Ohhh, that was a beautiful monster, and more of today's generation should be made to look into the beautiful, dark and enigmatic face of that one.

Every one of these is born. The right day (or maybe night in the case of our aforementioned monsters), the right place, the right idea. Some of us are lucky enough to have a Muse, and I'm luckier in that regard than most. (She deserves to be bragged on and you can just sit there and take it, you understand me?)

I'm one of the guys crazy-brave enough to conceive them, deliver them into the world and, with any luck, set them loose upon you all. The why I do it has been covered to death by men and women better able to apologize for this profession than I.

But let's touch very briefly upon how I do it.

The Concept

It all starts with the concept. The concept is that snippet of conversation you forgot you overheard but made you lose concentration while you were dead drunk and kissing a dog-faced girl at a party. That "what-if" that kept your mind from chewing on itself and bent your lips into a smile while you sat behind a complete idiot at a green light. The indescribable lurker that lunged from the shadows at the back of your sleeping mind and shot you upright screaming and drenched in icy sweat at 3 A.M.

That's where the concept starts. Like a sieve, though, the majority of us let them fall right through - from our imaginations, whizzing directly past our wits and out our asses without so much as a ricochet.

I like to ricochet. And if you give it a try, so will you.

So how's it done? How do you put a build Rube Goldberg contraption up into your mental works to catch those laughers and screamers before they shoot right out of you and splatter across the linoleum of obscurity?

Well, your mileage may vary. Some insist on the old fashioned method, pen and paper. Well, that's great for those who write legibly and at a speed somewhere beyond that of a frozen turd rolling uphill under the power of an interested dog. I don't. For me, it goes into an online word processor -- I use Buzzword. If I don't have that handy, I use the memo function on my BlackBerry. Find what works best for you, and then work it.

But what to put on the page? Or in the phone? Or... whatever. Aw... I gotta tell you everything, don't I? It's okay, I don't mind.

Anatomy Of A Concept

The Concept has 2 basic parts: The Title and the Logline. Some say the Genre, but you know what? You're not going to know what the genre is until you get your Title and Logline pinned down anyway.

You could start out thinking you've got a Whodunit, only to discover once you've laid down the logline that what you really have is a buddy cop flick... and then, ooh, twist! The gender of one of the heroes changes and it's a romantic comedy!

Forget genre. You'll come to it, son, but you ain't there yet.

Title

Rules of A Good Title:

1. Must either tell (in fewer words than the logline) what the film is about; failing that, should make the audience burn to know more. (Ex. "Offline." Who's offline? Why? What's this about?)

2. Something ironic in relation to the subject matter. (Ex. "Protect & Serve" sounds like a straight-up cop movie; but Chani's job as a cop is to protect Toy and his role as her slave is to serve Her.)

Logline

Rules of A Good Logline:

1. Must describe the hero in three words or less. (Ex. "Online lovers...")

2. Must describe his opposition in three words or less. (Ex. "...on opposite sides of the law...")

3. Must name what's at stake, and what's at stake must be a primal human drive; ex. love, hate, survival, etc. ("...come face to face in the courtship....")

4. Must be ironic (have a twist); if possible, the irony here should be a further twist on or exposure of the irony of the title. ("...from Hell.")

That's it. Clean and simple. Easy as losing your keys, that's a concept. And that's where the monsters open their eyes and roar.

What does it mean for a man to be owned by a woman?

Most people -- in fact, everyone you're likely to ask about it (if you were likely to ask about it) would probably instantly say he's really submissive to women.

And yeah, most guys who are owned by women are like that, whether it's a Mistress/slave thing or just marriage -- and the dividing line between the two, in most cases, is just an illusion anyway. Guy pays tribute (pays the bills) worships his Mistress ("NO, your ass don't look huge in them jeans, dear!") does what he's told (Hey, the trash does get taken out eventually, right?)

But there's another way to be owned. Not from submission, or any other kind of weakness, but just the opposite -- from strength. Here are some of the basics:

1. She owns me, I don't own her. I'm not her father, her lover, nor anyone who has the slightest say in how she conducts her life. I love her enough that absolutely anything that brings her happiness is something I stand behind 100%.

That isn't an expression of submissiveness, it's a demonstration of absolute and unconditional love arising from strength.

2. Everything I do is for the purpose of making her look good -- but that's not the only purpose behind it. What I accomplish I also accomplish for myself, because it brings me joy, pride and confidence. But the joy, pride and confidence my accomplishments bring me show in my dealings, and that also makes her look good.

It's not a matter of putting on a dog and pony show to build her image, it's a matter of building pride in myself, and letting my pride and fulfillment speak to others of her ability to inspire me to great works.

3. My joy in being owned by her doesn't come from a lack of mastery or ownership over myself, and it isn't a statement of weakness or an inability to live my life as a "free" man. It's a statement of truly unconditional love and absolute trust.

And if she owns me, then she knows all this, understands it and values it for what it is. If she owns me, I'm hers. Words can't properly convey this feeling, but there is no closer bond.

There are many kinds of relationships; colleague, acquaintance, friend, family, lover. This encompasses and thereby transcends them all.

To be hers, to hold in my heart the desire to serve her wants and needs with everything I have and everything I am, to give myself to her completely and without reservation or expectation... that's a statement that few men can make with sincerity and fewer still can live up to.

I can. And if she so desires, I will. But it is not a bond for the weak.

A Second Life Gor (see previous posts) persona, Wash Rau is closest to my real self in an artificial world. Here are a few of the things I've learned and taken note of in SL's version of Gorean society:

"The Men Of Gor"
"The men of Gor," she said, "are strong. They are not weak and divided against themselves. They are not tortured. They are integrated and coherent, and proud. They see themselves in the order of nature. They see females as females, as slaves, and themselves as men, as masters. If we do not please them they punish us, or slay us. We quickly learn our place in the order of things. Only where there are true men can there be true women."

Men who can handle women on no level beyond that of livestock are nothing more than weak, insecure idiots. And the esteemed Dr. Norman needs to learn the difference between a conditional statement (true/false) and a relational value statement (superior/inferior.)

A superior man will always seek a superior woman who can stand shoulder to shoulder with him in battle, speak with him as an intellectual equal and shore his weaknesses with her strengths as he matches his strengths to her weaknesses.

A superior man seeks a partner, not an anchor.

"IC (in-character) vs. OOC (out-of-character)"
"But Daniel and Wash are totally different!"

Heard that before? It's bullshit.

Your IC persona is a filter through which you express a part of your RL self -- either a part of yourself you can't express at all in your real life (due to issues of social acceptability or legal consequences) or a part of yourself you express in the real world but taken to an extreme that would be unacceptable anywhere but in Gor.

There's no way to give conscious thought to fabricating every single choice you make, every single reaction you express. You would either have to be a PROFESSIONAL level con artist or possess the ability to trigger a full psychotic break at will and then fully and cleanly return to sanity as soon as roleplay ends. YOU can't. You're not that good, no one is. Deal with it. What you choose to play here comes from YOU.

Tell yourself different if it makes sleep come easier, but you are always you. There's just more to you than you'd like to admit.

"On Slaves"
I had something really barbed and witty in here, but you know what? Abraham Lincoln said it best:

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried out on him personally."

"Maxims of the Caste of Magistrates"
Maxim 1: Order proceeds from Justice, not from Force or Fear. Force and Fear beget only Wrath.
Maxim 2: Justice proceeds from Reason, not from Privilege or Preference. Privilege and Preference beget only Avarice.
Maxim 3: Reason proceeds only from Knowledge, not from Prejudice. Prejudice begets only Injustice.
Maxim 4: Knowledge proceeds only from Curiosity, not from Dictate or Edict. Dictate and Edict beget only Obedience.
Maxim 5: Curiosity proceeds from Strength. Be unfailingly strong in your convictions, ever curious to learn more than you know, ever knowledgeable in the lay of the law, ever reasonable in its application, ever just in your judgements, always upholding order for the honor of yourself, your house, your Homestone and your Caste.

So here's something only a few of you knew about me, up until now: I play in an online world called Second Life. Follow the link to learn more about it, I don't feel like explaining here what it is and what it isn't.

Now within Second Life, there are a lot of different kinds of roleplaying sims: I play mostly in sims devoted to roleplay based on a series of books called The Chronicles of Gor (again, follow the link.)

The role I play in them (one of the roles, actually) is that of a kajirus -- a male slave -- owned by a wild Panther woman. From early May of this year until late June, my owner and I lived in a camp in the woods outside a city called Tarnburg.

Well, this morning, having not seen it in awhile and having heard that Tarnburg had been split into two, with the old part mostly abandoned, I wandered back (under a different role) to have a last look around while the looking-around was still to be had.

I was surprised to discover a sense of longing and a touch of homesickness.

How strange is that? That a place you've never really been, a place which doesn't even actually exist, can evoke those emotions? That you can wander through a digitized landscape full of trees, waterfalls, bridges, buildings, mountains... none of which have any substance beyond that your own mind provides... and miss them? Recall adventures that never took place anywhere but in the collective imagination of the participants? Feelings that arose, essentially, ex nihilo? Yet the memories and the emotions they created are real, despite the fact that the events themselves weren't...

I really will miss Tarnburg, but maybe what I miss more is "early May to late June"...

I still don't know what to say about what happened with Georgia. I still love her madly, but I can't show it anymore.  And if I can't show it, it's just going to eat my inside until there's nothing left.

Because I know you want to know. Right?

The media joining celebrity couples at the syllable. Bennifer. Brangelina. TomKat. FuckYou. Is anyone surprised that these people behave like crack freaks when they aren't even treated like individual human beings anymore?

 So here's a question: If she has Christian, Buddhist, Hindu teammates -- in other words, teammates of any religion other than her own -- is she at all concerned about their religious freedoms? Does she want the rules changed for them, as well?

It sounds to me like it isn't religious discrimination this girl is upset about, it's religious discrimination -- in favor of herself, and by extension Islam -- that she wants.

Link to CityNews: 11-Yr.-Old Girl Kicked Out Of Soccer Game Because Of Religious Garment

How many more mother fucking YEARS are rap and hip-hop "artists" going to spend passing that lyric around like a used-up crack whore?

Just out of curiosity.

The gorramn thing won't uninstall! Pretty shady, in my opinion, sticking folks to subscribe or else be left without the ability to try a different variety of antivirus software, which is what their demo has done on this computer. Tsk, tsk, TrendMicro. Naughty, naughty. :(

I'm thinking of getting a current-generation mp3 player. My previous one was a very reliable Dell Pocket DJ -- unfortunately, Dell is "on hiatus" from producing DAPs since last summer and won't bring out their iPod killer until sometime this coming summer.
That leaves either the iPod or the Zune. I've considered the pros and cons of both, and the Zune is leading the race by a neck.
Cons:
-The proprietary Zune DRM scheme.
-Zune's WiFi capabilities are seriously underfeatured at the moment.
-Zune Marketplace (its version of iTunes) doesn't yet offer video.
-Physically larger than iPod, not quite as sexy.
Mitigating factors on the cons:
-I don't already use a music subscription service, Zune Marketplace would be the first. Nothing to transfer from another service means IDGAF about DRM issues.
-I have no interest in what anyone else is listening to, even if it is on a Zune, so WiFi issues don't raise an eyebrow, either.
-Why would I buy video, anyway, when there are other ways to 'acquire' it?
-As long as it fits in my pocket, its size doesn't much bother me. Besides, in the case of Zune vs. iPod, bigger device = bigger display.
The Pros:
-FM Tuner supporting RDS (Radio Data Service.)
-Reportedly, better display + better video playback.
-Fully compatible with PCs. Having tried to simply move files from a PC to an iPod 3G this morning... and later this morning... and this afternoon... I can say that I'm skeptical of just how PC-friendly the little fucking music-toaster actually is.
-Firmware updates can further mitigate the weak feature set of the WiFi, and the Zune Marketplace has only been online 3 months. You'd better believe those features will continue to grow, and I'd bet a testicle that a 5G Zune would beat the snivelling shit out of its fruity competitor.
And the one thing you can say in favor of a Zune that you can't say in favor of an iPod: It ain't a fucking iPod.

Story first, then my comments:

Link to Levy: Microsoft's Zune Not an iPod Killer - Newsweek Steven Levy - MSNBC.com

First thing's first: Steve -- dude -- you really need to rethink your decision to have your photo attached to your column. That's all I think I need to say on that score.

With that helpful hint out of the way, let's strike right at the heart of the matter, which Steve Urk -- um, Levy himself mentioned: The first-generation Zune is just that -- first-generation. Compared to the iPod's fifth-generation device, then, it's actually one seriously fucking impressive machine.

Apples (lolz) and oranges, you say? Not fucking hardly, son. Sure, Microsoft (maybe) could have taken a 5G iPod and reverse-engineered it to produce a Zune that's sleeker and sexier. And no, the fact that the 1G Zune is basically a Tosh Gigabeat is not unnoticed, nor is it glossed over. The reason it's Microsoft, kids, is that they're still 99.99999% a software business. Unfortunately, even their best peripherals prove this.

I forgot where I was going with that. Oh! Right, it was this: In its very first incarnation the Zune is, if not the iPod's equal, at least a decent challenger. And lest we forget, both the software and hardware only came out three months ago.

Unwad your pretty pink panties, Steve.

Bitching About Larry

For the past year and a half, I've been earning money by writing short-form fetish erotica for a website at www.lhart.com. Not what you'd call "literature," the subject matter is female muscle domination. Six to eight single-spaced pages nets me $180.00, and each story is crafted for a single reader, following custom guidelines regarding plot, characters and general setting. Now, whereas the money is good, it's very, very slow in coming. And just recently, the publisher (let's call him Larry) has been incommunicado for over a month and a half. Great. Yee fucking haw.

Waiting For No

On the subject of waiting to hear from folks in regard to my writing, I'm also waiting to hear back from a prospective agent to whom I submitted my feature-length horror/action script entitled Testament. Now call me biased -- hell, call me whatever you want -- Testament is the best horror script that hasn't been produced yet. Take the horror film elements of Friday The 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Evil Dead, add the theological theme of The Prophecy and the action level of The Matrix -- that's only the roughest possible idea of what Testament will rock on the silver screen. And here it sits... waiting. It's been my experience that the length of time you spend waiting for an answer directly parallels the probability that the answer will be "No."

General Griping

I'm out of coffee. I'm out of cigarettes. I'm out of money. And I'm out of patience.

Going Live:

This is not my first Live Space. I've tried a couple other addresses in the past, and wasn't happy with the direction they were taking. I'll try to steer clear of politics on this one, primarily because I'm a very political person, and secondarily because I'm a very not politically correct person.

Weather Bitching:

Tempe, Arizona is not supposed to look like this:

39 Degrees when that was taken. I know it's January, but for fuck's sake, let's have some moderation -- can we?

Writing software:

Sure, I'm still "aspiring," but I have some recommendations:

• Power Structure: Good for what it sounds like; taking an idea and structuring a plot, characterization, conflict, all that good stuff.
• Power Writer: Power Structure's composition cousin. Incorporates minimal structuring tools, but this is where you get the writing done... if you're writing short stories or novels, anyway. For screenplays, you want...
• Final Draft 7. This is for that Great American Film. Or maybe a really crappy American film, just depends on how good your story is.

Miscellanea:

Add me, or I'll do somethin' to ya. Somethin' bad. (Okay, not really. That just sounds funny.)