Writing A Novel

I've discovered something awesome. It's at http://www.nanowrimo.org and what I'm going to do is write a novel during the month of november. I get to start at 00:00:01 on November 1, and on November 30 at 23:59:59, I have to have 50,000 words written.

I know I'm going to do it, I know a few other people are doing it.

I mostly can't wait to see what happens... I'm somewhat hoping that I can "win" (which just consists of finishing).

I have quite a few plans... I'll probably reveal some of them on this blog before long.

Cosplaying at Java

For those who might be reading this that aren't "in the know" (At Northern Arizona University), we have a 24-hour coffee shop and smoothie place. It is to be referred to as "Java" because that is what we call it. One of my favorite activities at Java, is Friday or Saturday night Smoothies, right before all of our mealplan meals are about to roll over. The best thing about this, of course, is the fun we have in the process of getting the smoothies.

For example, the first time that Jim, Justin and I did this, we became Tim, Jeff, and Corey. Then, it was Jeff, Tim and Cory. After this, we've decided just to use false names - It's a fact of life that the friendly folks working at Java don't check the ID card that you use to pay with. So earlier this evening Jim, Justin and I went under different names.

Jim went as "Drake" with his Silent Bob trenchcoat, and the sunglasses. Justin went as "Mordechai" - which happens to be the name of my D&D character from high school.

I went as Jeff, because that was a name that they had given to both Justin and Jim. I was wearing my beige khacki/carpenter pants, and my blue sweater. Quite honestly, it felt very generic. It was interesting. I have actually begun thinking of what a generic type of person like Jeff might do... I might write him into a short story. Maybe he'll be generic in Gotschland, or maybe just generic in the insane land of people who I've invented. He can live in England with "ML5" and "Joerg Berliner"

Next week, we are all going as Andy and we are all ordering the same type of smoothie. We may even be honored by Jacalynn's presence, though she said she was going to go as Jack.

Reflections on English105

Traditionally, I've considered myself to be a decent writer. In fact, I would say that I've done fairly well in a variety of English classes, involving both composition and literature, even a combination of the two. Because of this, I find it odd that a class with "English" in its title happens to be one of my least favorite this semester.

I think I know what it is, though. This class requires more, and a diferent style of. off the cuff awesomeness than high school classes did. I am used to coming to class on a regular basis (perfect attendance for 3.75 years, anyone?) but I'll admit that in high school, the accepted standard is for a teacher to stand in front of the class and essentially feed you. In my English 105 course, we are required to come to class prepared to make stuff up right away, and continue making stuff up until we have it right.

Or so is my perception. I think that the problem with this is that we still end up accepting the instructor's idea of correct, we just happen to be filling our heads with a whole lot of incorrect before reaching correct. This may help some of us who are more keen on the methods of this type of instruction, but at least half of my particular class has left the building just thanking God that they've come to a Liberal institution where they apparently (or so they think) won't have conservative stuff jammed down their throats.

So far, English 105 is both frustrating, and highly comical. With luck, it'll become less frustrating and more englightening and comical as time goes on.

New Desktop

New Desktop,
originally uploaded by Cory5412.

The desktop picture here comes from Justin's new PC. I stole the picture from it.

On the note of that PC... it's some new Compaq Presario. It's like, only the 2nd brand new PC I've ever seen from its purchase at an office supply store, to it being set up in a dorm room (Or any room.)

One thing that amazed me was how... generic it really is. Its enclosure has very few amazing identifying features, and is otherwise the same in a world of now black boxes. The box is surprisingly small... I remember the box that my Gateway PC came in being... fairly huge.

Carrying the PC wasn't a problem, we carried it from Staples to IHOP where we ate and waited out the rain, then we carried it into WalMart, where we had to explaint to everybody that he had bought it at Staples, then we had to buy the monitor (a 17" CRT). Bringing that 17" CRT back to his dorm was the hardest part.

It was an interesting day, to say the least. I decided that if I ever need a super-cheap x86 box, I might get the same thing Justin bought, it's Vista-Capable, and has a Combo drive... Maybe I should look into Pirating Vista then.

First Week Done

I am posting this on the Saturday Morning after the first week of classes at Northern Arizona University. It's definitely been an interesting week, and I already have classes which I'm sure that I love and I will do awesome in, and I also already have classes that aren't my most favorite. In the next few weeks, I'll do my best to post about my favorite classes, places to eat, etc. I also hope to begin posting more pictures (from Flickr, of course) to the blog.

ContactSheet 213

ContactSheet-213.jpg,
originally uploaded by Cory5412.

This is one of the crazy things that I do. I create contact sheets of all of my photos. This is number 213 of 215, and that's just so far. As you can see, the numbers are almost, or in excess of 6,400 - that's how many pictures I have total. Each on has its own number. Nifty, eh?

I do them in black and white, or I have done them in the past in black and white, but shortly I'm going to start doing them in full & glorious colour!

The other thing is that I print all of these - I printed 210 or so of them with an Apple LaserWriter 4/600PS, and I'm going to be printing later ones on the Xerox Phaser 6120. Fun will be had by all. I have a 3-hole punch and I actually fill binders with these. I have "PhotoBook Volume I" which is Pages 001-200, and has images 00001-06000, which is highly entertaining. I have started on Volume II, which will be Pages 201-400, and Images 06001-12000 (ish). 12,000 Photos is a lot, and somehow, I bet that I'll have that goal reached by the end of this school year, if not by the end of the semester.

I do this all on the 500MHz PowerBook G3, or soon a 450MHz PowerBook G4, my Nikon D50, and Photoshop CS2.

I need to do a whole thing on the entire method, including a tutorial and everything, because what I have found is that this is a great low hdd-space and low computing-oomph method to managing large numbers of digital photos. I simply do the thing with them that somebody might do to a bunch of film negatives, I make contactsheets and put them in a binder. :D

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.