Thanksgiving, a time to remember...

the conquering of a native culture! Right? Oh...wait, that's right...people try and forget that part as they stuff themselves full of turkey and cranberry sauce. Don't worry, I'm not going to preach at you today about my misgivings about the history of certain holidays in this country. I'll save that speech for Columbus day. Instead I'll jump right into talking about something more important.

Black Friday.

When I woke up this morning at the sunlit-hour of 7am I thought two things; holy crap I have to pee AND man it's nice to be inside and warm on this first bitterly cold day of the year in Chicago. Don't get my wrong, in some cases I certainly see the value of the Black Friday experience. It promotes 4th quarter growth for the retail industry and helps people (who are willing to freeze their ass off) save some money on presents they're probably spending too much money on anyway. As I told Matt this morning when I arrived at his place to do some work this morning, this was the first year I ever put any thought to potentially going out to a Black Friday sale. I was looking to make a rather large gift purchase of a television. I was saved from the freezing cold and annoying crowds though. I did some research and found that the current special price for the same Tv is $50 cheaper on Amazon than the Black Friday specialty price at Best Buy. Suck on that electronics monopoly!

So, you ask, how did I celebrate this victory against climate and society? By laying comfortably in bed, watching Battlestar Galactica and eating a piece of pumpkin pie topped in whipped cream. It was a symbol of my victory; a tasty tasty victory.

But, now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is looming and that's troubling. Not specifically because of the requirement (however small at this aged point in my life) of gifts but because in exactly 7 days I will be turning 30. Granted I still feel young; listening to my punk rock music and getting all excited about Duck Tales coming on my netflix, but it's still a pretty big age. I can still remember being 18 and knowing people who were in their late 20's and thinking...man, that's such a long way off. And here it is, on the near horizon and I'm really not trying to get nostalgic (not today...though surely it'll come up sometime this week) but I wonder where a lot of the time went. My late teen years are a blur of hanging out with all the best friends of that time in an unfinished basement, listening to loud music, playing pool, watching terrible horror movies, going to run-down bowling alleys to watch unheard of bands and feeling like my life was all ahead of me.

I look at the life I'm living now and I feel pretty damn good. I'm a published writer with more on the horizon. I'm in love with a great girl who supports my ridiculous aspirations and was as excited to see me published as I was. I have some really great friends. My future is once again bright. Ok, end of nostalgia for today.

Updates, updates...let's see. The green lantern trailer looks AMAZING. Ryan Reynolds was, from what I can see, the perfect choice to play Hal Jordan. I still haven't seen Deathly Hallows...was supposed to go Wednesday but that fell through. Hopefully this weekend or next week. I'm OK with not fighting a huge crowd to see it...another sign of my old age. Tron Legacy comes out pretty soon, and every time I see another trailer or clip on it I get more and more excited; it looks soooo awesome.

Scripting is coming along. My new project needs an overhaul which I am continuing to work on...right now actually.

Peace

Friday's are for music and dancing!

Good Morning my faithful readers! Also a happy morning to you whom are new to the game. I hope you enjoy your first experience. I had intended to start off with a bang today but…it was more like a whimper. I had to go into work, on my day off, for two hours and deal with some stuff. Now I know what you’re thinking…boohoo two hours, shuddup! But it takes me away from the precious time I try and spend dedicated to my writing every week. Fridays are like…mecca. Yes, I realize how blasphemous that is and no I don’t really care.

But I feel like I can make a strong comeback and it all starts here. So since no one commented on my previous blog about Baseball I feel confident that all of you are in 100% agreement and that baseball should have a shorter schedule and thus should implement my scheme in order to do so. But also to that end, I will probably not post anything specific about sports again for a little while, instead I feel compelled to talk about music and writing again…much more in line with the interests of my readership I believe.

So on the music front I have to tell you that a) the new Jimmy Eat World is pretty damn fabtastic, seriously. If you have EVER liked ANY Jimmy Eat World songs/albums there’s something for you here. They have really grown up and gotten to a point where they can utilize all of their talents and make a complete album. That’s not at all to imply that their earlier works weren’t really good, but this one brings everything together. I highly recommend checking it out. On another note b) Bad Religion put out a new album which was…a typical BR album. So if you enjoy their work and just want more of it, take a listen, but if you were hoping for something new and exciting to get jazzed about, I’d say stay away and instead dive back into their classics or just pull up All Ages and enjoy all their best early works. I’ve been getting back into some music I haven’t spent much time listening to in the last year as of late, specifically Face to Face and The Format…truly diverse musical styles to be sure but both equally awesome. Combined they manage to bookend my current obsession of The Lillingtons and Stephen Egerton quite well. If you don’t know any of these bands, feel free to comment and I’d be happy to make album/song recommendations for you.

Now, on to writing. I finished the first draft of the new script I’m working on by the deadline I had set for myself. I had and my lady friend review it to make notes and see if there were any weaknesses or gaping holes in the plot. Luckily for me there were neither. They both had several good notes about pacing and some of the plot points I touched on. But overall for a first draft it was a pretty solid script. I mostly attribute that to knowing the characters involved pretty well and the fact that I seem to have hit my stride as a writer and I can pull together a story from idea inception to written outline and script with a strength and conviction I hadn’t had previously. This could have come from the confidence of having my first published work come out or it could come from the fact that I have been honing my craft for the better part of two years (the time I have been really seriously trying to write comics) and all my innate skills are coming together…yes I realize how that sounds, no I don’t care. Hah.

On a more personal note my birthday is coming up…gifts are unnecessary, your readership is present enough…and the plan is to spend my birthday Friday December 3^rd the following day in downtown Chicago with my girl. She’s booked a suite at some schmancy hotel and we’re going to be hitting up museums and having a wonderful dinner together. I’m super excited and honestly can’t wait. There is another trip we are planning but until that’s finalized I’ll just leave it at…it’ll be a long plane ride.

Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You just came on my iTunes…man I love this song. His voice is amazing. Often times it is the singer’s voice more than the music or the lyrics that can turn me on to a band and with Band of Horses it’s a really great combination of all three, much like At the Drive In/Mars Volta (basically the same band).

Well, that’ll about do it for me. I hope you all have a great day!