S P Hannifin

I recently finished watching the science fiction film Serenity. I have to ponder its themes a bit more before giving it a rating (because that’s so important), but I liked it. The dialogue was a bit… unrealistic at times in my opinion, but I guess that’s why it’s fiction. Still, some characters just seemed too blunt in expressing their opinions. But, especially compared to all the other science fiction films I’ve seen, this is definitely one of the best. (And that’s from someone who has no idea what Firefly was.) Fun stuff. Makes me want to work on my novel, which I’m now too tired to do, so good night.

My sister and I saw Phantom of the Opera last night during my third trip to the Kennedy Center (it was awful driving around DC trying to find the place, but at least my sister was driving). We had great seats, and I do love the music and the… live-ness of the production. I’m surprised the conductor didn’t go deaf with the loud fire-cracker effects. Ah… what a fun time. It looked like quite an expensive production, with all the special effects, props, sets, etc, but it made the overall musical that much better, quite a change from seeing more… “minimalist” productions in which the audience has to use just as much imagination as the players on stage.

As much as I loved the performance, I must say, it does make me partly very envious of Mr. Lloyd Webber for all his success. Surely I could write catchy tunes like that very easily… anyone want to produce my musical?

I didn’t want to post while I was busy reading Harry Potter. I’ll post a review of it later if I feel like it, which I probably won’t because I’m lazy. Overall, I’d say it had a wonderful theme with a sloppy plot. But criticism is the easy part.

Anyway, as you might have been able to tell, I’ve redesigned my website with that Dragonfly CMS that I mentioned earlier. Isn’t that great? Doesn’t it look wonderful?

Also, I’ve cheaply self-published the first twelve chapter of the rough draft of The Game of Gynwig. I’m just a dork (or genius, I guess) who wants to see what it looks like bound on paper, and it was cheap: http://www.lulu.com/content/1056066

Bwa ha ha ha ha…

Chromolume #7; Putting it Together… oh yeah…

*SPOILER* … scroll down if you don’t mind …

Told you so.

http://www.wizardwalk.com/blog2/2006/10/snape-is-good.html

I missed the season’s start of new episodes of Monk last week, but hopefully I can catch the rest of the season… anyway, tonight’s episode with Snoopy Doggy wasn’t one of the better ones, and I hate how they replaced Randy Newman’s theme song with a rap version. Who’s stupid idea was it to have Snoopy guest star? I liked Andy Richter. Oh well, better luck next week.

My journeys are over for now… spent the weekend in Tennessee for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary and got to see my big family. I think I have somewhere around 17 cousins on that side of the family and more coming (my mother was one of 11 children). I can’t remember all their names and often get confused as to which ones are the oldest. So… I know what it’s like to be old!

Anyway, summer is practically two thirds over and I’ve done hardly any summer reading. 🙁 I’ve been too busy doing other work, ya know. Still, I got a stack of books at a used bookstore over the weekend, including Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and his Something Wicked This Way Comes, Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and his Hammer of God, and finally something by Michael Stackpole, but I can’t remember the title… I picked up a book of his because I listen to him discuss writing every week on the Dragon Page: Cover to Cover, so it’s about time to judge his writing for myself, eh? Yep, it is.

I’m about to embark on a seven hour journey in the car to Tennessee! I stayed up all night, so I should be able to sleep most of the way… hopefully. So I probably won’t be sayin’ much for the next few days as I’ll be outta town havin’ fun. In the meantime, enjoy my new YouTube video:

I think I heard in a talk by the prolific author Kevin J. Anderson (or some other prolific author) that is helps to do voice recordings while you’re doing other work… that way, time is more efficiently used. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it seems like a good idea, doesn’t it? I wonder how much my style would change if I tried it… what do you think?

I’ve been working on something tedious, and I’m almost done! I’ll let you know what it is when the time is right and the sun is pure and the world is perfect and we find a cure. Oops, I accidentally wrote poetry!

You know what else is tedious? Blogging! I have nothing interesting to say! All I can say for the next few weeks is that I’m working on stuff…

Oh, let me blather about some stories in the August edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction, that way maybe some people can find this blog when the Google names looking for reviews… “At These Prices” was funny, I enjoyed it… “Murder in the Flying Vatican” was entertaining, a good read… “The Mole Cure” was gross and made me thankful I don’t have moles… ew… and I’m reading the “A Wizard of the Old School” which is fun so far. Ah, see, all pretty good reviews, aren’t I nice?

Ok, bye.

We got a new water heater today! Woohoo!

Ok, who cares about that… I’m still working on that fantasy short story, wish me luck with it…

I just ordered that 500 GB hard drive… in fact, I ordered two, one for me, one for my parents.

I’ll be in Tennessee this weekend. Since we’re leaving on Friday, we’ll miss the new episode of Monk this Friday. Isn’t that sad?! Anyway, we’re going down to celebrate stuff, eat food, see relatives, and brag about how good our lives are. (Just kidding about that last one. I’m too humble.)