This weekend, other than eating almost-turkey on Thanksgiving, I will begin mulling over the primary candidate for next month’s contest, which is:
Time Enough? (working title) A Stage 4 cancer victim acquires an object/device that lets him slip through time. He tries to use this to rid himself of his cancer.
I’ll also be doing a final look over all of my various and zany ideas, to see if something else grabs me like that girl’s hand at the end of Carrie. If nothing does, I’ll spend next week doing an outline on Time Enough? and see how that goes. If it founders, I’ll spend another week looking at other ideas, pick one and outline that one in the fourth week of October. If that one founders as well I will spend November writing 50,000 words of haiku (that’s 2,941 haikus).
While I am still well ahead of where I’d be at this time in years past, I must admit to feeling a bit nervous with 26 days before the writing begins. But still reasonably confident I can do this.
I’m going to write about the spring cleaning I did in September in October.
It all makes sense. Mostly.
Last weekend I went to fetch some dirty clothes from the spare bedroom and it was…untidy (it’s usual state). I noticed a crate had slipped from the bed (don’t ask) and was leaning hard into my bike, which was leaning against other stuff. This didn’t look good for the bike. I straightened the crate and wheeled the bike out to the living room (which is really very clean now, actually).
And then I got hit by spring fever, four months late. I’d been meaning to start going through a lot of my old stuff–the things packed into boxes and bags that travel from one move to the next and never come out of their boxes and bags–and finally start tossing them. I’d read that shedding possessions is liberating. And I’m a liberal guy.
I started with the clutter surrounding my “nightstand.” I put that in quotes because my nightstand is six artfully arranged storage boxes with a blue towel on top. This actually works reasonably well as a nightstand, and it hides a lot of storage in plain sight. But surrounding this was a collection of old tech boxes (iPad Air, etc.) that I had no reason to keep. I gathered them up into a cloth grocery bag. I had some small piles of notebooks and photos I wanted to keep and stashed them in a temporary holding space in one corner of the room. I then moved to one of the “closets” in the bedroom. I put that in quotes because there is no door and without a door I’m not sure this counts as a closet, but it’s a nook with a bar for holding jackets on hangars, so I call it a closet. This one is filled with all kinds of junk, including many old books, a bunch of unsorted coins, a Boggle game from the 1970s (really) and more. I tidied up the coins and put them into a box (labeled “Heavy” as it is), then worked on the books, dividing them as follows:
books I would keep
books I wouldn’t keep
The latter was further divided into hardcover and paperback. Some of these books date back almost 40 years, having followed me from Duncan to the dozen or so homes I’ve had in the Lower Mainland, ending here in New Westminster. Most books I’ve read. Some are in near-mint condition, though the paperbacks tend to be yellowing due to the cheaper paper stock. The books I kept were a small handful, hardly enough to make a single volume of a Steve Erickson novel. I also found a giant stash of old game manuals and had no hesitation in turfing the lot, with a few sentimental exceptions, including:
Doom II. The manual is actually nothing special, but this evokes real nostalgia for me.
Tribes. Full color and reflecting of a game that never was, thanks to skiing. Again with the nostalgia, too.
Fallout. Spiral bound and includes recipes. A classic for the (atomic) ages.
I also kept a few GTA maps, though I’ll never play (or buy) another Rockstar game again, because the maps are kind of neat. They’ll probably go in the next cleaning, though. The attachment is not strong.
In all, I ended up clearing out nine bags of stuff, plus boxes for an Xbox 360 and Xbox One. This is a lot of boxes.
And you know what? I do feel liberated! And I can’t wait to tackle the “nightstand” (and get a real nightstand), empty out my dresser, toss a bunch of old clothes, then get a new dresser that looks like it was made in this century instead of 1919. After this, I’ll move on to the computer nook, the bathroom cabinets and anything else I can find (the spare bedroom is Jeff’s task, though I will probably help once a safe passage is carved through the space).
All of this started because I was looking for dirty socks. It’s like some variation on the butterfly effect, but with stinky clothing and fewer butterflies.
I should note that this is not a review of the full book, so keep that in mind, as I only made it 20% of the way through before abandoning it.
It is rare that I pick up a book and then not finish it. I will usually push to the end just for the sense of completion, but I could not keep going here.
The last few years I’ve been taking advantage of sales to explore new authors and I’ve found a few new favorites, some I’ve enjoyed but don’t necessarily feel compelled to keep following and a few that I’ve made a point to never investigate again.
Unfortunately the latter is the case here. Mateguas Island feels like a project where someone misread what not to do in creative writing and did all of those things instead of avoiding them.
There are pages and pages of backstory for every character, even to the point that the first meeting between the wife and husband is played out in separate chapters from each character’s perspective. Exposition is lengthy and explicit, the characters thoughts are carefully laid out for the reader in detail, often bracketed by even more exposition. Motivations are not revealed through actions or dialogue, but through the author stating them.
On top of this, all of the characters are unlikable, either shrill and manipulative, or weak and fumbling, or “flawed” in ways that make you kind of hate them. And they are always so very transparent to themselves (through those endless internal monologues) and to everyone else. Maybe the big reveal later is all the characters have telepathy.
In the first 20% of the story, nothing happens. The “precocious” twins, who speak more like pod people than actual children, find a slim locked box. One of them has a vague bad dream. It rains. There is alleged tension in the relationship of the husband and wife, but the characters are so unpleasant I was hoping the mouth to Hell would open and swallow them up, but no such luck.
If the author had started the action a lot sooner I probably would have kept muddling through to see what happens, but after my 20% investment it was easy to close the book and not give a whit.
Today it was sunny. But it was also windy. And the wind felt cold.
Now I must truly admit that summer is over. The summer wind doesn’t feel bitter, it feels playful, except when it’s whipping up forest fires that burn down half the province. But still, it’s at the very least pleasant to feel against your skin. The summer wind, not the forest fires.
What I’m saying is I’m glad I wore my hoodie today.
A side effect of taking lots of nature-type photos is I’m paying a lot more attention to seasonal changes, so I’m noticing things like the leaves on trees changing color, or flowers starting to fade and die a lot more than I did before. Some things, like so many chestnuts on a sidewalk it feels like the sound stage of a slapstick comedy, are harder to miss even without my new heightened awareness.
I swear the next post will not be about the weather.
You may accuse me of being cynical, to which I would offer:
The pricing of the MacBook introduced in 2015
The pricing of the redesigned MacBook Pro in 2016
The pricing of the iPhone X in 2017
The pricing of the iPhone XS Max in 2018 (also candidate for Worst Smartphone Name 2018)
All of these products saw hefty price increases or were introduced at high prices.
You might counter with a few examples, like:
2017 iPad dropping from $499 to $329 vs. previous gen iPad Air 2
AirPods at $159 being priced competitively with other true wireless ear buds
Apple Music for $9.99 a month
Mac Pro got improved specs at the same price in 2017
To which I would counter:
The iPad was cost-reduced to create an artificial distinction between it and the “Pro” line of iPads, with several features made worse than the previous $499 iPad Air 2, notably the 2017 model being heavier, thicker and with an inferior display. The base line iPad may cost less now, but it’s also worse than what Apple offered as the base line previously.
AirPods is valid. I think Apple really wanted to carve out market share here. They will offer upgraded AirPods in 2019, with an upgraded price. The original model for $159 will go away.
Prediction: In two years Apple Music will be $11.99 per month, eventually rising to $14.99 in five years. Every other streaming service will match Apple’s prices.
The Mac Pro is still overpriced and outdated
The rumored improvements to the iPad Pro seem to be extremely thin bezels and Face ID. I don’t find the bezels overly big now on my iPad Pro 10.5″, but sure, make them a littler slimmer if you insist, as it makes the display larger without bumping up the physical size of the unit. They’re also said to be adding Face ID. This also seems like a step backward. On the iPhone I rarely unlock it without also holding it up. I often unlock my iPad when it is laying flat on a desk, a situation that will not work with Face ID.
And that really seems to be about it. Neither of these will dramatically change what an iPad Pro (or any iPad) can do. It’ll still have the same OS, the same limited multitasking, the same everything else, just a little faster and shinier than before. And I fully expect this to cost at least $100-$150 more U.S. I would be willing to bet the iPad 10.5″, rumored to be morphing into an 11″ device with the slimmer bezels, will go from a base price of $869 Canadian to a starting price of $1099. Maybe more, especially if they dump the 64GB model and start at 256GB.
As the total sales volume of iPhone and iPad have flattened (or in the case on the Mac, declined significantly), Apple is shoring up its revenue by raising prices across the board, offering lower prices only where they are deliberately seeking to gain market share or to further justify price differentials between lines, as is the case with the iPad and iPad Pro (the iPad pricing can also be seen as Apple trying to make inroads to the education market and an attempt to shore up a shrinking iPad market). As I mentioned when the iPad Pro was first introduced, this is not sustainable, as Apple will reach a point where people will not buy. The danger there is if they go too far–even by just a little–they risk having sales plummet as people look elsewhere and begin removing themselves from the Apple ecosystem. This wouldn’t happen quickly, of course, but it has the potential to upend the company.
Mostly I don’t mind paying a premium price for a premium product, but I think Apple is starting to trade a little too much on the supposed Apple tax. They don’t need to make that much money. Some would say “let them charge what the market will bear” but the problem with that is a lot of people fundamentally lack common sense. Yes, that is cynical, but the evidence is abundant. I wish it weren’t.
If Apple raises the price of the iPad Pro 10.5/11 inch model by “only” $100 Canadian I will make a new post loudly proclaiming I AM WRONG AND ALSO A BAD PERSON.
This is the first time I’ve hit 50+ posts in a single month. Sure, a bunch of the posts were photos, which feels a bit like cheating, but I still had to go outside to take the photos and all that junk, so there!
Speaking of, here’s a photo. When I went for my run yesterday at Burnaby Lake, I found they had done a clear-cut of the trees near the dam. I assume they were dying, damaged or dead. Or maybe they just hate trees. Anyway, these three are now giant stumps. There are several other ex-trees not far from these ones as well.
This is one of those books that sets out to do one thing, in this case guide you through using voice dictation with Nuance’s Dragon software to improve your writing output. And author Scott Baker succeeds in providing a concise, clear and confident set of advice, covering everything from set up to hardware recommendations, the common pitfalls to avoid and more.
A lot of the advice also applies in general terms to using any kind of voice dictation, though Baker as much admits that Dragon is the only credible option for the best results (and is more expensive now that the Premium version has been discontinued in favor of the pricier Professional version). Dictation has the potential to dramatically improve your writing speed on first drafts–Baker advises against using it for editing, as do other authors I’ve read who are otherwise strong advocates of dictation–and Baker encourages the reader/writer to use it whenever they can.
He also addresses a problem people generally have with voice technology, whether it’s dictating or just speaking a command to your smart phone–it can feel somewhat embarrassing to do in public. Baker gamely insists people won’t care and my transit rides suggest he may be right, but he provides solutions ranging from dictating in your car on the ride in to work, to dictating as you leave the train and head to the office. With the increased speed of dictation over writing, even 10 or 15 minutes can yield great results.
Baker’s website also includes video tutorials for buyers of the book, as well as a blog where he regularly reviews microphones and other hardware, as well as provides a useful bunch of links to resources ranging from books, microphones, software and other accessories.
In all, this slim volume is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with Dragon dictation software, but more than that, it’s a good primer on why dictation is worthwhile to begin with, full of practical advice and good tips.
I’ve gotten feedback from three people on my seven story ideas and so far the results are:
Time Enough : 2 votes
Wake Up: 1 vote
Mean Mind: 1 vote
Lost youth: 1 vote
Time Enough is Stage 4 cancer person using time travel to get rid of the cancer.
Wake Up is the guy living another life in a coma as doctors and family try to reach him.
Mean Mind are psychokinetic good and bad people trying to use their powers to change the world or keep others from changing it.
Lost Youth is the other time travel story, with someone going back 20-30 years in time, but with all of their memories left intact.
I’m still discussing the ideas, so the winnowing has not begun, but I’m only extending my deadline by a week. That will still give me three weeks to work on an outline and, if need be, jettison the story for another likely candidate. This is why it’s good to have seven of them instead of one. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
More soon, though I am giving Stage 4 (alternate working title) some thought now.
On a side note, I am still deciding what tool to use for the writing part, though I am still planning on working on mixing in voice dictation. I’ll be trying that out more extensively this week.
My quest to get below 160 pounds remains elusively out of reach, with my weight in a holding pattern, completely unchanged from August and barely changed for the year to date. I am really good at neither gaining nor losing weight, it seems.
Several times I started getting close, dipping down to 161.5 pounds, but my weight trend ticked upward in the second half of the month, due to less exercise and unchanged snacking.
I did continue to stay donut-free, so yay for that.
Last October I was 153 pounds. It was then I began to gain weight, bloating up past 170 pounds. My main goal is still to get below 160 first, then down to 150, but my super-secret goal is to not see my weight start getting out of hand and into fat as it did one year ago.
To quote Dan Rather, Excelsior! (I think he actually said that once or twice. Maybe.)
September 1: 162.9 pounds September 30: 162.8 pounds (down 0.1 pounds–basically a rounding error)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 162.8 pounds (up 0.5 pounds–unchanged from August)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
September 30: 17.9% (29.1 pounds of fat (down 1.1 pounds)
