The Wednesday Rules

1. No parading naked about the house.
   
2. No poofdahs
   
3. Anyone caught not having fun will receive 50 lashes with al dente linguine.
   
4. No poofdahs
   
5. Bathing is forbidden.
   
6. No poofdahs
   
7. There is no rule number seven.
   
8. No poofdahs
   
9. All young men below the age of twenty shall greet their elders respectfully by dropping to one knee, bowing their heads and addressing the elder thusly:
   
   "Oh, most venerable and respected elder, bless me with thy wisdom and tell me how I may serve your most august awesomeness."
   
10. Ignore all odd numbered rules, but remember...No poofdahs!

I Think I'm in Love

Well, I am, but not really with this phone.



Toshiba TG01

Okay, so let me tell you where I am now. Several months ago, I purchased one of these.

HP iPAQ 210 PDA.


This is considered the Enterprise product, but I bought it because of the 4 inch LCD, the largest that I know of personally. Now, I am a big guy, and I really like the big screen. I have been very happy with it. I like Windows Mobile, and I like the fact that there are thousands of applications already available for it.

Now, back in December I got a new Cell Phone. I looked at a few different things, like the Blackberry Storm, and the HTC Touch Pro. Both are available from Verizon, but when I went in to look at them, I was struck by the same thing...tiny screens. The Storm might work, with a 3.2 inch screen, but the 2.5 inch screen on the Touch Pro is just to small to do anything important on. So, I ended up with...

LG Voyager


I like the phone too. It has a qwerty keyboard for text messaging, and it plays music, video too, if I can find something to convert video to the required format.

In addition to the problem of size on the available smartphones (from Verizon at least) is the problem that getting one of them will require an extra $30 a month for a data plan. Between the two, it was a deal breaker, but in a couple of years when I can get a new phone from Verizon, I want to combine the two, my phone and my PDA.

So, I set off on my quest to find a smartphone that offers the features of my PDA, as well as phone functions that my iPAQ lacks. I know others may disagree, but I am sold on Windows Mobile. I am familiar with it, having used it extensively for many years, dating back to my first PDA, a Dell Axim X5 (I don't think I need a picture of that old thing). Well, there are already a few contenders.

The Samsung Omnia has the advantage of being offered by Verizon, my present provider. It runs Windows Mobile, but has only a 3.2 inch display. It also have additional internal memory, but as far as I can tell, Verizon only offers the 8MB version. Very short sighted of them. If I had decided I was willing to pay for a data plan, this is probably the one I would have chosen.

The HTC Touch HD and Max 4G up the ante to 3.8 inches on the display. They both run Windows Mobile. The problem with them is that they are not available in the US yet. Now, remember that I am looking two years down the road, so these are definitely on the short list for the future.

But now, they are all running second fiddle to the just announced TG01, Windows Mobile, 4.1 inch LCD, sounds just like what I am looking for.

Some people want smaller, but not I. I am a big guy. I have big hands, and I do not mind a big phone, especially if it allows me to get rid of one device from my pocket. Please, Verizon, get the Toshiba TG01 when it comes to the US later this year. They can work out all the bugs and have it ready for me in 2010.

I'm Back!

I had not really expected to take such a long hiatus, but such things happen. I have been going through another extended period of depression, and while I cannot say that it is ended, I have decided to actually do something about it, rather than simply waiting for it to end.

And, what I have decided to do it write.

It is my intention to finally try to act like a writer and see if anything comes of that.

Around the age of 22 or 23 I decided that it would be fun to write science fiction stories. I was still in college (for the second time) then and I never did really devote the necessary time to my goal. Yes, I did write a couple of stories, and I did send them off to Asimov's SF Magazine. I am rather proud of my short stack of rejection notices. I consider it proof that I did more than dream about it.

After three years (well almost) at Utah State, I moved to Texas. It was supposed to be a temporary move, but after nearly 28 years, I am still here. I continued to write, a bit haphazardly at best, but I did write, and I collected more rejection notices.

For long periods I did not write very much, but I did keep a journal, and I began writing essays in notebooks. I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and this gave me another outlet for my writing. I wrote articles and book reviews for our local newsletter. Once again, my natural lack of drive hindered me. I had several articles planned that were never written.

I went to work for Dell, and after a year answering the phones, I got a job answering technical support by email. This played very much into my abilities, as I have always been very good with being able to express myself clearing in the written word. While working at Dell, I learned the importance of voice. I learned how to aim what I wrote at my projected audience. Many tech support documents at Dell were written for technicians, and I found I had a knack for turning those into documents written for the general public. I went on from email to working on the Dell Forum. Here I learned how to word bad news so that it did not cause an explosion on the forum.

The final stage of my development as a writer (so far at least) came when I began to play Neverwinter Nights (NWN) on a Persistent World (PW). I began writing stories about my characters, and then moved on to actually writing the lore, the background myths and legends of the world. I wrote prayers and stories for the first PW that I played on, and then after moving on to a second PW, I was given the position of lead writer. I wrote lore, and more stories, and I edited what others wrote. I finally moved on to a third PW, where I was given the job of lead writer almost from the start. I continued to write stories for the PW and lore, but by now I had almost given up writing anything that was not related to the PW.

I still have that job, and I intend to keep writing lore and possibly even a story or two, but now I want to move forward with my own writing again, and this is the start of that. I have not said anything to anyone. I have not made promises to myself, or declarations about things changing now. I have done that far too often in the past and I had to repeat my mistakes. I do not know if my determination will hold, but I intend to try.

I think that my history has made me a pretty good writer, and now I want to see if I can push it even further.

And it starts here.

Beyond His Wildest Dreams

Well, maybe not. I am speaking of one of the early lights of Science Fiction.

I am at present reading The Skylark of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith. Now, that would not be too unusual, though I am sure that Doc Smith would be happy and possibly amazed that someone was reading his book 80 years after he wrote it, but there is something unusual about it. I am reading it on my PDA.

In the 21st Century that may not seem so odd, especially with several generations of eBooks behind us and Sony and Amazon try to rekindle (yes, that's a joke, son) interest in electronic books. But, consider for a moment that you are Doc Smith, writing one of the earliest Science Fiction novels in 1928. World War I is passed, but the Great Depression and World War II lie in the future. Men can fly, but only at a few hundred miles an hour. Television has not yet been created, and no one has ever been into space.

Now, imagine that you could go back 80 years, and show him someone reading his novel on a device smaller than most paperbacks. Not only do I think that he would be amazed, but I think that he would be very pleased to learn that his stories have survived into the electronic age, and that they had been translated into a new medium.

Now, being a pragmatic writer (and everything I know of him tells me that he was) he might not be pleased that I did not pay anything for the electronic copy of his work, but I think he would be amused to see me reading it on my glowing little screen.

888

I had lunch today at 888. Their sign is something like 8 8 8, with the middle 8 larger. Not sure why, but it makes an interesting logo. Here is the address.

888 Vietnamese Restaurant
2400 E Oltorf St # 1A
Austin, TX 78741
(512) 448-4722‎

Now, as their full name suggests, they are a Vietnamese restaurant, but they also have a Chinese buffet. One of those in my party had suggested the place because he was in the mood for Pho, the Vietnamese Noodle Soup dish. I decided on the buffet.

First, let me start with the restaurant itself as we ate in the restaurant. It is a small place, stuffed into one of the strip malls that line Oltorf. It is rather a long way from the freeway, and east of I35. As you start down the hill past Willow Creek Drive, you turn into the parking lot. It is on the south side of Oltorf. It does not look like much on the outside, and that carries over to the inside. It is clean and pleasant, but not in the least fancy. Now, understand that I am not a huge fan of fancy, so that did not bother me.

The buffet was smallish, but it had Sesame Chicken, so I decided on that. I had Sesame Chicken, Fried Rice, Vegetable Egg Rolls, and Hot and Sour Soup. Everything was okay, but nothing was great. The sauce for the Sesame Chicken was sweet and not spicy, just the way I like it, but the chicken itself was over cooked. The Fried Rice was good, but had rather too many onions for my taste. The egg rolls were cold, not frigid, just not hot, though they were tasty and crunchy. The only real success to my meal was the Soup, which was excellent. I am a bit fan of Hot and Sour soup and 888 did not disappoint in this one department.

I did not taste the Pho, so I cannot comment on that, except to say that the bowl they brought to my friend was enormous, and it was the small size. He claimed that it was 3 times as large, and that he had it last time, which is why he bought the smaller serving today. It looked and smelled good, and he seemed to enjoy it.

If you are looking for a Chinese buffet, then I think there are much better choices. The selection was somewhat limited, though it seemed to have all the big favorites. As I said, the chicken was overcooked, which makes me wonder about other things. It may be much better on the Pho.

I cannot truly recommend 888. I would not avoid it, but I would not suggest it either.

Great Science Fiction

Recently, I started to compile a list of what I feel are the greatest Science Fiction novels of all time. I may post that list here at some point, but I am still considering the list. Starting the list was easy.

• Dune, by Frank Herbert
• Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
• The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

It has taken much longer to expand the list and considering the list brought up another line of thought.

What makes a great Science Fiction novel?

Are there any things that all of the novels above, as well as the others I added later, have in common? Well, aside from reside on bookstore Science Fiction section shelves, and winning awards?

Science Fiction is an interesting place to consider such questions, because the genre has not always been of the highest literary quality. I suppose that some might still make that claim. I never cared. I started reading Science Fiction as a teenager and I have never stopped. I like Science Fiction, and I am often bored by "mainstream" fiction. Whatever its literary value, Science Fiction is generally exciting, and at its best thought provoking, and I like that.

So, on to a list, if you will, of the things that I think make up a great Science Fiction novel. I am not going to deal, at length, with the things that make up great writing, or a great novel. You can look those up in other places. Obviously, a good grasp of language, including grammar, characterization, and plot are all important to Science Fiction, just as they are important to other fiction. My intent is to discuss those things which, while not unique, are more important to Science Fiction than to other types of fiction (though I would probably put up a similar list for Fantasy fiction).

Locale - while exotic locations are not unique to Science Fiction, I think that they are generally important to Science Fiction. Would The Moon is a Harsh Mistress be quite as good without the Moon as it's setting? Dune without Arrakis? Sometimes, the exotic locale is a well-known locale with a twist, say like New York with a massive ship hanging over it, or the United States split into 3 countries. The exotic location helps move the reader out of their comfort zone, which I feel is very important to Science Fiction.

It is often said that Science Fiction requires "suspension of disbelief." I agree, and I think that getting the reader to accept an alien (as in unfamiliar, not as in ET) environment, an alien setting helps readers with that suspension. Whether it be the sterile environment of a starship, or simply details about the moon's gravity, the location of the story helps carry us away from ourselves, and into the world of the author.

Every author must take you from your world into theirs, but this is so much easier for the mainstream writer, whose world is exactly like the readers, or very nearly. The Science Fiction writer often, but not always, has the task of painting for the reader a world that exists only in the imagination.

Extrapolation - Science Fiction is sometimes called the fiction of "what if...?" Much of Science Fiction is set in the future, where things that we dream of today are common. Even writers like Jules Verne and H.G Wells looked into the future for ideas. Looking into the future is a common exercise for Science Fiction writers.

Some books are set so far into the future that the author has no need to figure out exactly how we got there. Dune and Foundation (Issac Asimov) are good examples of this, even though, whether originally or later, Asimov did give thought to how human history led to the time of his first Foundation novels. Robert Heinlein, to give the alternative, set many of his stories in the near future and these stories are often tied together into what is called Future History.

Science Fiction is often created by taken something from the present, a political movement, social trend, or fad, and pushing it out into the future. Sometimes, this is done to look at where a movement might really lead, and sometimes, an author will provide a cautionary tale by pushing an idea in ways that seem a little absurd when considered in the light of day.

There is even a whole branch of Science Fiction known as alternative history, where some past event is changed, and then a new past, present or future is built out from that change. The Man in the High Castle shows that this is not a new trend in Science Fiction, and a case could be made for The Time Machine having certain elements similar to alternative history.

The last item is something that I think is key to Science Fiction, but I could easily make a case for it being key to all good fiction.

Makes You Think - I like fiction that makes me think. No, I should rephrase that as...I think books that make me think. I believe that is why I got interested in history. Studying history makes me think about the connections between events and how one leads to the next. Sometimes it is how a series of past events tie together, and sometimes it is thinking about what I would do were I where the protaganist is. It has to do with that "what if..." concept, but the best Science Fiction causes me to think about whether or not I think the author got his "what if..." right. It may also make me think about what I would do on a starship when it was attacked, or how I would try to communicate with an alien.

Okay, I lied. I have one more to add to my list.

A Sense of Wonder - that is why I read Science Fiction, for the "wow" moments, when the author takes me so completely out of myself that I look to the sky to see if I can see the hovering ship, or imagine what I would do in the deep desert, or how I would walk on the Moon, or maybe just how I would deal with something completely new and different.

All of these are what I think makes great Science Fiction, and naturally, my favorite books will have all them, to one degree or another.

Bored

I went through a long period of depression, and whereas I am no longer as depressed, I am still just as bored.

I have been trying to find something to catch my interest, and in fact I did get back to doing more reading, as you can see by the several books added to my was-reading list. Unfortunately, anytime I find a really good book I feel a let down when I finish it. The most recent three on my list have been that good, and I have not gotten into The Gunslinger enough for it to truly capture my attention.

I have been playing Oblivion more lately, but even that is not working all that well anymore. I reached level 32, which is high enough that most things are easy. Oblivion scales very well, but there is a limit to everything. I played Morrowind (the predecessor to Oblivion) all the way to level 80 but I do not think I will be able to play Oblivion that long.

I have been wanting to do more writing, but my personal inertia seems to great to overcome. This blog is an attempt to get that going again. I am thinking that if I can write in my blog it may help me to get writing in other areas as well.

So, here's to hoping, and see you again soon.

I hope.