Scroogeistic Pessimism sucks!

So there I was, trolling through the Absolute Write web site when I found a thread about Santa Clause. Apparently this guy doesn't believe and asks people why they keep teaching about Santa.

Well, I'm not going to go into that right now, but reading so many pessimistic people's opinions on that thread just made me mad. I know, I know, they have a right to cram their depressed opinions down our throats. So this morn I was checking out Raving Toy Maniac's site and there are people dissing the movie Polar Express.
When I watch it, the movie fills me with a great uplifting feeling.

Am I gullible? Am I stupid and my simple brain filled with too much glitter? Maybe I should stumble around, mumbling about every little thing, casting good messages of hope and love for my fellow man away? Maybe I should just ignore any positive uplifting stories and ideas and instead embrace apathy or a pessimistic attitude?

So if being positive and optimistic is foolish, and being negative is logical and correct, then where do all the dreams go? Where does the creativity go? If you can no longer hope, why try? If you don't try, nothing wonderful will be created.

Why is it so popular to think in a pessimistic way? Do these sad, lonely, depressed, self loathing people even know the definition?

pessimism
pes·si·mism [ péssə mìzzəm ]
noun
Definition:
1. tendency to expect worst: a tendency to see only the negative or worst aspects of all things and to expect only bad or unpleasant things to happen.

There is more than one side to everything. You can't focus on just the negative on concepts like Christmas (commercialism, crowded stores, etc). There is good too (helping others, child like faith in people, putting differences aside and sharing a loving feeling).
There are good things in movies, art, school, work, LIFE! You have to see the good side too, even if all your peers think it's cooler to grouch about everything.

OK, rant is done.

Fantasticar!

And speaking of geeking out, we finally can see the new Fantasticar!

What is a Fantasticar you may ask?

It's only the Batmobile to the Fantastic Four!

The new movie comes out June 15th of next year. Between Spidey 3 and Harry Potter 5.


USA Today; First look: Fantasticar flows onto film

So the FF get thier main ride in the film. I can't wait to see this movie. I liked everything in the first film except Dr. Doom.

Geek Week #5!

Geek Week is a video put up by fans of comics, figures, games and shows. They're a lot like me. Or I'm a lot like them?

A couple of them post at RTM (Raving Toy Maniac) too.

Anyway, last Spring was the Comic Con International. That's where all the cool new figures for the coming year are displayed.

This Geek Week took place back then and the guys just barely updated.

Here is their You Tube broadcast.


And here is their site.

ARRRRRGH!

All day I tried to get on here and edit. All day I could not. Here at home I wanted to edit. Here at home the net did not work.

GAAAAHHHH!

Had to get it out of my system.

That is all.

NEW LAYOUT!

As you can see, I just updated my blog layout. What do you think?

Any thing a problem?

Is it hard to read?

animal cruelty vs animal friendship

Y'know, I'm sitting here on the web doing my thing and one of my cats is just lying here beside me, as calm as can be.

Back in the day (yes, I'm an old foggy, I say "Back in the day". Sheesh) I used to tease my pets like crazy. Nothing hurtful. Just putting tape on their feet, shoelaces just past their whiskers, that sort of thing.
I had my fun.
But the animals always looked at me with apprehension.

Today, I never tease these creatures. I play, I pet, I treat and I walk, but I never tease. Now these animals look at me with trust and love.

It's a good feeling.

email fun

There is something to be said for passing back fun email banter between writer friends. I just had a blast doing that. A writer friend of mine had her characters meet my characters. It was so fun!

I also was able to come up with ideas on where certain characters are "now". This will help me to project them there when the time comes.

I sure love letting the characters on my novels come out and play.

architect

The guy on the van share ride always calls me "architect". I'm not one, but I am working on architectural plans lately.

So maybe he's closer to the truth then he knows. :)

nothing new

I really have nothing special or new to type. It was a quick four day weekend. We kept the house clean, had a good Thanksgiving and talked to family.

I didn't get any writing done but I'll just try harder through out the week.

All in all, a plain ol' weekend.

Nothing new but maybe later this week. Watch this space.

(Can this blog BE any more boring?)

I hunger!

The smell of that turkey, covered in my wife's stuffing, is too much to handle.
I awoke to crave that wonderful scent, much like a young, sweet vampire child craves her first drop.

Come to me turkey! Come to me!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I'm very thankful to the Lord for ALL His blessings. He's given my so much!

I'm grateful for my wife, who is both long suffering and supportive. ;)

I'm grateful for my children. I'm so glad they're healthy and sane (even if I'm not sane).

I'm grateful for the ability to write. I'm grateful that I had help from above to finish this novel, get it beta tested from the right people and then edited, and finally to have the burning desire to bang on agents' doors with it. I'm grateful that I know the "end of the story" even if I don't yet know how I get from here to there. LOL

Anyway, I'm so grateful for my life and all the things in it. I hope that my Friends and the mysterious lurkers out there each have a good Thanksgiving Day, even if it's not Thanksgiving where you are!

Some words

314 words.
Not a lot, huh?
That's all I've been able to add to my WIP today, but HEY! It's progress!
Hopefully I'll get more down this weekend.

I did come to a realization about my famous pirate cameo. The reason it doesnt feel right is becuase it belongs in book three! I'm pretty happy about that.

Harry Potter, the Order of the Phoenix behind the scenes!!!!

OH MY FLIPPIN COW! I... they had... they're going to use...

*starts to cry*

It's so beautiful! It's the book! They're doing all the great things that are in book 5. It's going to be so perfect.


It's the HBO behind the scenes look at the 5th film. So beautiful.

*Sniff!*

I'm getting perklempt.

Talk amongst yourselves. In the film When Harry Met Sally, how come Harry didn't have a scar? Discuss.

My figure want list

As I've said before, I have a weakness for action figures. Particularly, figures of DC Comics' Justice League and Justice Society, Marvel Comics' Avengers and Fantastic Four and assorted heroes and villains from both companies.

When I get a better sculpt or better articulated version, I pass my earlier ones to the kids. DC Direct's new Powergirl figure will be arriving this week. I wont get her till Christmas and that suits me just fine. When I get her, my old one goes to my daughter "K".

This is a picture of the figures I still have to get. Some are out now, some come out soon and some wont be out until next year.

What's up with me

My friend Jay posted a question, asking all of us at the Parodyverse site to tell about how our lives are going. I replied and now I figure it would be great bog material so here it is...


Lets see,
Well, things are in a holding pattern, pretty much. I feel very strongly like this novel will hit, but until either this New York agent from PMA finishes it and wants me, or some other agent wants me, I have to carry on and try to focus on other things. That particular agent was very interested in the concept of the book. She wanted the entire thing by the weekend of the 4th. She got it and she’s reading. Agents take a while so it’s a painful wait.

I was called into my bosses’ office Friday afternoon. I got the same lecture I’ve gotten at other jobs. I’m apparently “not bringing enough to the table” in regards to my skills and knowledge. I can see where that’s true, but I also find that my brain seems to have a hard time focusing on work.

It’s not the novel or anything like that. After a few months of drafting, I just seem to have a hard time thinking things out clearly. So I need to redouble my efforts and try to focus. Try to access my memories of working this stuff for over ten years. It’s hard because in some ways Friday’s meeting hurt. It wasn’t like the painful abuse I had at Stantec, but it still hurt. I’ve lost any positive feelings for this place. I can’t go looking right now either because no one hires during the holidays and I am not allotted the time to miss.

Family is good. We’ve still got a lot of cleaning to do before Thursday. We’re going to have a lot of family over for Thanksgiving, so we need to make sure the house is ready for that. Friday in our cleaning, I ran across those cards I promised you Jay. I’ll try to get them n the mail soon.

That’s about it. I’m in a Harry Potter mood because I just saw the preview for the next movie and I’m currently reading that book so that I remember everything that’s supposed to be in the movie. I’ll move onto book 6 next because book 7 comes out next year too.

I’ve slowed down my participation at Absolute Write because if I have time to go there, I should be working on my WIP. A WIP is the Work In Progress. So that’s book two. I want to jump back in and write like a crazy man, but this work bump kind of shook me up. I need to get back at the novel.

As for TV, I’m excited for more ‘Heroes’ and ‘Dr Who’, waiting on more ‘Stargate SG1’, ‘Ghosthunters’ and ‘Eureka’, and trolling through ‘Smallville’ just to see how that disappointing mess eventually ends.

That’s everything on this end.

Kinda Busy Weekend

The weekend started out at light speed. The wife and I marshaled the kids to help us clean two rooms in preparation for Thanksgiving. We cleaned and organized the heck out of it and for the most part have kept it that way.

We also set up Christmas. I sure love the lights and decorations. It's nice that we're all set up for that season, instead of having to do it later.

We have three more rooms to clean. We'll get to them in the evenings and my sweetie will be catching them during the day as well.

Finished off the weekend with our niece's birthday party which consisted of the usual fare followed by going to Happy Feet.
The movie was OK. It was cute and got me feeling the groove. The animation was of course incredible. I think they used real people footage instead of animating the people. Our nephew Steven thinks the humans were animated too. I could research, but it's not important.

Saw my preview. What preview? THE preview. Harry Potter 5! It was great! I recognized some scenes from the book. It's great to finally have this movie coming out. There is SO MUCH they HAVE to do to make the overall series make sense. I hope they have time to do it all.

Saw Steven (our nephew) tonight. It's always fun to see him. I was hoping he was going to come out for Thanksgiving but it looks like their visit will be horribly short.

Well, the weekend is done and I need to settle down for bed. Tomorrow it's back to work. The job has lost any flavor it had because of that stupid meeting/lecture on Friday. I'm not looking forward to it.
One day I will be working here, at my home, letting the story flow like water and producing entertainment for people. It's going to happen, but for now it's back to "Can't-measure-up" Land.

At least it's not like the last firm I worked for. THAT was Hell.
Sorry. "Heck"

I should be depressed this weekend.

Well it was bound to happen. After my first seven months my boss had me in his office for a closed door meeting. I'm apparently not giving as much as my résumé says I can. I need to try harder and put more effort into it.

I know I've been greatly distracted. I know I could work harder. I will, of course.
But this has happened before. Maybe I'm not confident as a drafter. Yeah, I suppose that's it. I'm very confident as a writer, but when it comes to the day to day grind "be a grown up and don’t screw up. Ask if you have questions, but don't ask because you should be able to do it now", well I never quite measure up.

I'm so sick of this crap.

Alright, so this brings us to the title of this entry.
I should be upset and depressed, but I'm not. When those feelings of doubt and frustration, fear of the future and the deep questions about my own self worth, when those feeling start to rear their ugly heads, a calm feeling comes over me. A feeling that tells me that this is all a temporary situation. Wait for something very big and positive that's around the corner.

So I will work and schedule my time better. I'll get more done and try to think through my day job to improve. All the while I'll listen to that little voice that has been right so many times in my life and has never been wrong.

Instead of despair, I feel confidence. That's not normal for me but I know enough to trust this external prompting of hope and forge on.

*Hides under blanket* Doctor Who Spoilers

Wow! THAT was a great episode! For all intents and purposes, it looks like those guys woke up Satan. Once again, the show has me reeling. I sooo can't wait till next Friday!

He Who Shall Not Be Named

YES!

My fav Harry Potter site, Mugglenet , has revealed the first movie poster for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

It looks great!
Voldemort!

I CAN'T WAIT!

Slow of speech

Yesterday I typed a little thing that offended a very important person in my life. That shook up things and so, in trying to make things better for that important person, I wrote an email to a freind. Then, after I apolojized to the important person we were able to talk. Then I sent another email to the freind, apolojizing for how he first email might have sounded.
Turned out my freind never recieved that first email and was hurt from my second.

I screwed up, again!

In the Bible, Moses (I think it was him) called himself "slow of speach". I see that as he goofed when he spoke. How many out there do the same? Come on hidden lurkers, I KNOW you do! Yeah, you in the back, on the right! You've said or written things one way but didnt mean it in the way it was taken.
We all have.

Anyway, I messed up bad. I've apolojized again for my screw ups. All I can do is carry on and do everything I can to not make those same mistakes.

Sigh.
Life.