Resolutions for 2008

Well, it's that time again. I need to think about what I'd like to do in the next year. To start, let me perform a little bit of a recap from my previous post on this topic.

I said I'd like to do NaNo again, progress on the CraGNo, play with Poser 7 more often, and make a movie. Needless to say, I did NaNoWriMo again, I even won! I did not progress too far on the CraGNo, but I could potentially work on that more this spring, if I don't decide to go crazy and edit my NaNo Novel. Unfortunately, I feel short on my Poser 7 and Movie making goals. I barely touched the camcorder, and now that I've got Leopard on the iMac, I don't even know if Poser 7 runs. Smooth moves, I'd say.

So aside from 1280x800 or 1440x900, what are my resolutions for 2008? Well, for starters, I resolve to do NaNoWriMo again. That one worked out pretty well for me last time, so it's kind of a freebie.

Lame as it sounds, I'd also like to do my best as a 68kMLA forum moderator, a position to which I was very recently appointed. I've kind of been moderating in spirit for a long time, so it's not too different for me. I just have actual authority now when I suggest that people calm down or when I say that something might be a good idea.

Another thing I'd like to do is make sure that I keep on updating UeberWiki, which is recently back from the grave, hosted on my decTOP. The main thing here is to just keep finding random things I like and loading 'em in. UeberWiki is cool because I can just make a page for about anything and drop it on there. I'd also specifically really like to revamp the Gotschland section of the UeberWiki, especially because of the new novel I wrote in November, which kind of changes a lot of things about how Gotschland works.

Something else I've got is a specific idea I've had for awhile, something I need to start planning for very soon, which is the photo-comic. I will probably display it using a PHP webcomic script for the decTOP, or maybe just a series of static pages on my dana site. I've got a few ideas for people I'd like to be in the comic, and I've got a few ideas for situations, mainly involving some things Glenn and I have spoken about in the past. I've got a few other ideas too, but a lot of them depend on me being able to get all of the "cast members" in the right place, at the right time, with my camera. A project for weekends, to be sure. I will have another blog entry about this at a later date.

I would also like to start posting blog entries on a regular basis. If at all possible, I'd like to have a new post ready every Monday. This one's even scheduled to come in before noon on Monday, December 31st.

Publishing Schedules

One of the things I've noticed about some of my favorite web logs, even personal ones, is that they come out on a fairly regular basis. One of my intents for Strapped to a Desk has been to publish it on a fairly regular basis, my original plan for that was just to always be writing, and then I'd always have something to post to the blog. What ended up happening was a bit different. I kept writing, into a document called NaNoNovel 2007, and so I didn't have anything to publish during November. Between that, and not really having a dedicated blog-writing time, not only has my publishing schedule been sporadic at best, I've somewhat slowed down in my writing.

So one of my goals for 2008 is to start publishing my blog more often. I'm going to achieve this by just writing more, plus I intend to use a calendar, which will help me keep track of when I've started to write things, and when I intend to finish them. I've already started the calendar, I'm using Windows Calendar on my ThinkPad R61i to keep track of when I start writing things, and when I intend to publish them. My intent is to have something fairly major ready for publishing every Monday, and I've already started filling in Mondays in 2008.

One thing I've definitely noticed is that I think to my blog a lot, or at the very least, I think in things I write that could potentially end up on my blog. Another thing I suppose I would like to do is write some more things that don't get published to the public weblog, but that do get written, primarily as a personal record. It's a need I have because there are a lot of things I see and hear and experience that most people don't need to know about, but that I'd like to have in the future. I may just start writing Word documents into a separate folder for that.

Wicked Avenue Rent Express-- The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical.

If you could create a musical, and/or your life (or your ideal life) were a musical, what would it be called, and what kind of music would it have?

My musical (maybe not my ideal life, but my ideal musical. :P) would be called Wicked Avenue Rent Express , and would have the subtitle "The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical." It would basically be about junkie wizards and witches who live in a cheap, run-down apartment building in New York, Oz. They'd also conduct train (or trainwreck) races -- in which magic, talking, quite-snarky trains race around quite uselessly. (because it's somewhat dangerous to ride the train, given how fast they go.)

I'm actually not yet sure what the musical of my life would be though. I need to work on that a bit.

It should be a bit obvious what I've been listening to recently.

Also, I've been reading the Gregory Maguire novel "Wicked" subtitled "The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West." It's very good. I've actually got the sequel here too, a Yanni CD, and the first LoTR novel. I intend to catch up on some reading and whatnot. I found out too that I can place holds online, and (in theory, though I've yet to test it) have them make their way to a specific branch of the Mohave County Library System. In this way, I intend to make fairly regular trips to the now-walking-distance Valle Vista MCLD location. Summer of Reading! Yaay!

It's also worth noting that I recently discovered the "Indoor Walking Machine" aka the treadmill. Quite a nifty device, which I'm taking advantage of by using it. I found that after an hour or so, I can work up quite a sweat on it, which is cool because I think that means it's helping me achieve my lofty goals of losing the "Freshman Thirty" (Come on, you can't think I've been denying the fact that I'm a bit chunkier than I was at the start of the school year.) The Treadmill also (niftily enough) can be attached to an audio device (such as my iPod) to provide a form of entertainment (midis converted to MP3s by iTunes) while I'm walking (but not actually leaving the house.)

My goal is to return to the weight I was before I started at NAU. Unfortunately, even if I do, it may not do me any good, as I'll just be back at NAU again next fall, probably following the same eating patterns. Though, I do admit... my food intake patterns probably didn't hurt my GPA, so for now I'm not complaining too bitterly.

Playing DDR

During a Target run today, I decided that for some reason, it would be nifty to use Dance Dance Revolution as a method of exercise, so I got one of the Konami kits that has DDR Extreme 2 and a bundled dance pad. I'd have to say the only unfortunate thing about this kit is that the dance pad only works with playstation II consoles, but that's okay, for now I've just borrowed Justin's playstation II.

DDR Extreme 2 has an interesting mode, it's called exercise mode, unfortunately I've discovered that exercise mode kills me. However, this could be an advantage, because I need to do some working out and losing some weight anyway.

Anyway, here's to the revolution of the Double-Dance!

Last Post of 2006!

Oh my goodness! I can't believe it's my last post of 2006! I've had 60-or-so posts on this blog since January, probably more than two thirds of which hve been since August, so I think I'm getting better at this blogging thing. Also - it helps that there's a bit of a reason to use this blog - every other piece of software I've tried on almost every other hosting service has been massive fail, plus now that blogger is out of beta, it integrates with my Google account quite nicely, and I can compose posts in Google Docs, or just email them from my gmail page.

Well... enough about the wonders of blogging, eh? What exactly do I want out of 2007? Well, hints from the gifts would say that my family wants me to go jogging or walking or something, so I might say that one of my resolutions is to go jogging.

Of course, year-round, my resolution is 1440x900.

Another thing I'd like is for working at the TV station to go well, or for me to find an actual paying job somewhere on campus. Naturally, I'd also like for my application to become a residence assistant to be accepted, and to get into that - it'll help tremendously I think.

I've got a few creative projects I want to work on more in 2007. Given that I now have a super-fast computer and a legal copy of Poser 7, I think that it is necessary I start working on such creative projects as 'A Man and his Mac' (the necessary props can be created with Shade LE or something.) I'd also like to start on more ueberfriends projects, including writing some episodes of the anime, and possibly starting to come up with the characters of it.

Another thing I'd like to do is work on my ideas for CraGNoWriMo, and NaNoWriMo - I've got a few interesting ideas, but I am not totally sure how they'll go over. I want to start making notecards of the plot for at least my NaNo idea, and see how far I can really take the plot. My next NaNo novel will really depend on the ability to create compelling characters that, if introduced in the right order and in the right way, that they can create their own compelling storyline. I have at least one idea that is somewhat feasable for my writing needs, but I've got ten months to come up with some things, right?

In 2007, I'd like to make a movie. Luckily that's been made possible for me by way of an old camcorder and a DVD recorder, so digitizing analogue video will be fairly easy. In addition, there isn't much of an excuse not to at least use iMovie for sequencing shots, and I can use GarageBand for the audio portion of my film, if that's the direction I am going in. (Though, Final Cut Pro is much more impressive, and I think it offers more options for me.)

I'm sure there's more I have to say, but I got caught up in a project helping mom, and I want this blog post to show up before 11:30 so that it has a chance show up on facebook before the new year.

Sayonara, 2006! I'm ready for 2007!