November Catch-up

November has been a busy month for me. Even before my Halloween candy haze wore off I launched myself into a frenzy of writing known as National Novel Writing Month. It might not have been one of my best ideas considering how busy November gets. Between Thanksgiving, my grandma's arrival from Mexico and midterms that got pushed until random times in November, plus NaNo, my month was pretty busy. Later I'll 'retcon' in some blogs posts that I never quite got around to publishing. In a meantime, my month in a nutshell.

My grandma arrived November 13 and it has been quite different around here since. I'd go so far as to say my grandma is slightly OCD when it comes to cleaning. Or else when she gets bored it's an extreme way to keep busy because the other day I saw her climb to the top of the stairs with like a little broom from a dustpan and sweep each and every step on the way down. Each step took her at least ten minutes to get to her satisfaction. That's a little obsessive in my book. Now, what keeps things interesting is that my mom hates when other people clean her house. Especially her own mother. I guess it's kind of like when my mom goes and clean my whole room- after she says she's only going to remove the one spiderweb from the corner of my room. Anyway, I get my kicks out of listening to my mom and grandma because it feels slightly like karmic justice when my grandma drives my mom crazy in the same way my mom drives me crazy.

I also started writing a story for National Novel Writing Month. For those who don't know, National Novel Writing Month is when people all over the world, in some kind of collective mass hysteria, all decide to write a 50,000 word novel. They start on November 1st and end by midnight on November 30th. This was my first year officially trying it, and lo and behold, I actually completed the task! Now, my story isn't finished, but I hit the word count so I was pretty proud of myself. Getting there involved putting off many homework assignments and word wars with a friend of mine. I had a lot of fun doing it, though!

That about sums up my November. Now to head into December and start getting ready for the holidays!

"I can't believe he's gone..."

Today the internet is buzzing with the news that the director of "The Empire Strikes Back", Irvin Kershner, passed away at his house in LA today. I know this blog will just end up getting lost amid the other blogs and websites and Facebook posts and Twitter messages commemorating him, but that's not why I write here.

It may sound odd, but when I heard (or rather, read) this news, it made me even more glad that I had to opportunity to go to Celebration V in Orlando. Sure there was a lot of general Star Wars excitement going on during those four days, but overall it was meant to celebrate the fact that thirty years later Star Wars is still going strong and to commemorate the fact that "The Empire Strikes Back" is often viewed as the best Star Wars movie. Of course a lot of that credit goes to all the people involved in its production, but everyone knows that Irvin Kershner played a huge role in its success and in a lot of ways that was one of the things that was important at the convention. Although he wasn't there in person, Kershner recorded a nice little clip that was shown before many of the panels, during which he thanked the fans and said how "The Empire Strikes Back" is his favorite movie just like most Star Wars fans. Kershner did an incredible job with the movie and I know that I for one am glad that he was put in charge of its production.

My condolences go out to Mr. Kershner's family and friends. I hope they know how important he was to Star Wars and its fans and that because of that he will never be forgotten.

May the Force be with you, Irvin. Rest in peace.



*Picture courtesy of towerofyouth.org

Rules for a Safe Halloween

Just in case you have forgotten the rules for a safe and
Happy Halloween.

1. When it appears that you have killed the monster, NEVER
check to see if it’s really dead.

2. Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a
joke.

3. Do not search the basement, especially if the power has
gone out.

4. If your children speak to you in Latin or any other
language which they should not know, shoot them
immediately. It will save you a lot of grief in the long
run. However, it will probably take several rounds to kill
them, so be prepared. This also applies to kids who speak
with somebody else’s voice.

5. When you have the benefit of numbers, NEVER pair off
and go it alone.

6. As a general rule, don’t solve puzzles that open por-
tals to Hell.

7. Never stand in, on, or above a grave, tomb, or crypt.
This would apply to any other house of the dead as well.

8. If you’re searching for something which caused a loud
noise and find out that it’s just the cat, GET THE HELL
OUT!

9. If appliances start operating by themselves, do not
check for short circuits; just get out!

10. Do not take ANYTHING from the dead.

11. If you find a town which looks deserted, there’s pro-
bably a good reason for it. Don’t stop and look around.

12. Don’t fool with recombinant DNA technology unless
you’re sure you know what you’re doing.

13. If you’re running from the monster, expect to trip
or fall down at least twice. Also note that, despite the
fact that you are running and the monster is merely shamb-
ling along, it’s still moving fast enough to catch up
with you.

14. If your companions suddenly begin to exhibit un-
characteristic behavior such as hissing, fascination for
blood, glowing eyes, increasing hairiness, and so on,
kill them immediately.

15. Stay away from certain geographical locations, some
of which are listed here: Amityville, Elm Street, Tran-
sylvania, Nilbog (you’re in trouble if you recognize
this one), the Bermuda Triangle, or any small town in
Maine (or Alabama).

16. If your car runs out of gas at night on a lonely road,
do not go to the nearby deserted looking house to phone
for help. If you think that it is strange because you
thought you had half of a tank, shoot yourself instead.
You are going to die anyway, and most likely be eaten.

17. If you find that your house is built upon a cemetery,
now is the time to move in with the in-laws. This applies
to houses that had previous inhabitants who went mad or
died in some horrible fashion, or had inhabitants who
performed satanic practices in your house.

Ok, so I got this in an email from my mom, I don’t know who wrote it, I sure as hell didn’t, and I don’t take credit, I’m just putting it up because I think it’s an awesome and I don’t feel like waiting until next year to post it because I’ll have forgotten by then. Hence the double post. Deal with it.

As an added note, remember that if you enter a dark place with no light you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

I think Stockholm Syndrome is setting in. I laughed at iCarly today. On another note, that's a good Blink 182 song...

My Top 10 Scariest Movies

As Halloween fast approaches bloggers everywhere come together with a blogger's seeming favorite pastime: List making.

There's the ever popular 'Top 10' lists, the 'Top 50' lists and of course other variations for people who seem averse to nice round numbers. Me, I am a nice round number person and because there aren't all that many movies out there that I would consider truly frightening I compiled a list of my personal favorites. I'll start with least scary and move up from there and try to explain why I think they deserve that place on my list. There aren't any specific spoilers, but if you don't know the general storyline you may not see my point of view.

Back to Spongebob. Now we're encouraging kids to move into their jobs in order to be more effective? Don't even get me started on Fanboy and Chum Chum.

Star Wars Writing Role-playing

A friend that I have online and I spend a lot of time doing online role-playing. We don't follow the typical role-playing format, though, and use dice or anything. We do it fairly uniquely, and just make up our own stories and characters and play through different scenarios. I guess it's probably more like practice writing exercises than role-playing, but we've always referred to it as such.

I started and met my friend when I was 13 and we played on and off until I was in late high school but then of course high school got the better of us and we stopped. We started again a few months into my first year of college when she was already two years into her college experience.

After that we've pretty much kept up since then, though we've been taking a break since July. But that doesn't mean I have to take a break, right?

Writing is one of my hobbies that keeps me sane. I do some writing on my own, but I have the most fun writing with my friend.

Anyway, I wrote a short story involving one of my main characters and a new character I'm planning on introducing. Thought it might be cool to stick it up here.