Magno

On a whim, playing HALF-LIFE 2, I took Dog's toy, a defused magnetic mine, along with me, just to see how far I could take it. The magnetic mines are kind of cute, bouncing along, pursuing you. This one, which I dubbed "Magno," became a kind of pet and/or sidekick for me on the game for awhile, bringing unanticipated benefits -- sure, Magno could be used as a deadly projectile by the zero point energy projector (aka, "Gravity Gun"), and would wander back to you in its bumbling way.

Magno had no problem squishing even the big toxic headcrabs.

It served as a great headcrab-squisher, as if you weren't in the area (since it always tries to come back to you), it'll track after anything else moving in an area, and it proved excellent at chasing down and squishing headcrabs.

See? Zombies that would normally
be going after me are busy with Magno!

What's more, lobbing Magno into a zombie area worked like hotcakes, as the zombies would fixate on Magno, trying futilely to pummel it, leaving you alone -- basic zombiebait. I'd lob Magno at them, and it'd roll right up to the zombies, fully occupying them.

Magno fucking up a toxic headcrab.

 Then I'd just snipe at the zombies until they were gone, then pick Magno back up again and move on. The one liability with Magno is that if it got anywhere near fire or explosions, it would blow up, too. Otherwise, Magno was very useful, and it was great fun watching it go after enemies.

You can just make out Magno in this mass of zombies.

I managed to take it through Ravenholm, where it was a huge help, and even (after some effort) found a way to get it to Father Grigori, who didn't know what to make of Magno, and would shoot at it. The Ravenholm linkup was a bit of a challenge, as there was some kind of programming firewall that kept Magno from accompanying me all the way in the gondola -- it would be repelled by something midway through. However, I was able to launch Magno into Father Grigori's "parish" (hahah, "perish") and know it got there successfully by Grigori shooting at it with his shotgun.

Father Grigori (l) clearly flummoxed by Magno.

Magno was a huge asset against the mass of cemetery zombies, as they just dogpiled the chirpy mine. I had to move Magno to the fenced-off area that advances you to the next level, just because of all the fire and explosions that occur in the main area. But with Magno happily bouncing behind the fencing, the zombies just piled up there, trying to get at it, making them prime targets.

A moment in the gondola, before Magno gets repelled.

I took Magno with me down into the mine, actually dropping it ahead of time, since that mine is packed with all types of headcrabs. It's normally a pretty horrifying place to be, but with Magno chasing after irate headcrabs, "Benny Hill"-style, it was amusing. The fast headcrabs would gesture in irritation, too, clearly trying to come to terms with their tormentor.

Magno, last seen in the mine at Ravenholm.
Note the dead headcrabs (r).

Sadly, I couldn't take Magno with me the entire way, because magnetic mines explode when they come into contact with water, and there's an area in the mine where you have to swim through a flooded part of the mine in order to escape, and if Magno goes beneath the water, it detonates. I couldn't find a way around that, so I left Magno in the main part of the mine, to chase down headcrabs and squish'em.

Magno gets in a Fast Zombie scrum, driving'em bananas.

At least other Lambda operatives could find aid from Magno, if they got down there. I hated to leave it behind, since I wanted to ultimately return it to Dog, hadn't counted on it being so useful in the game.

Snow Globe

It snowed last night, like a proper snowstorm, and looked lovely. We didn't get too much snow -- maybe three inches fell? But it was idyllic, the big, fluffy flakes. Lovely stuff. I asked the boys if they wanted to go to Zoo Lights last night, but they both balked -- B2 even ran and put his PJs on, and said "See? I'm in my jammies!"

I'm revising one of the fantasy novels, which was around 82,000 words long; while doing so, I compared it with another draft of it that was 113,000 words long, and I decided to mine that larger version and put that stuff into the draft I'm working on, so I added around 27,000 more words to the book, making it around 108,000 words long, which is a nicely-sized fantasy novel. I think it'll work better at that length. I think I had dropped the size of it in the past because one character in the story kind of upstages the hero of it, and I didn't want that to happen, but there were a lot of good sections in that longer draft that I decided to incorporate, anyway. I'll make those work.

The boys are definitely psyched about Christmas, of course. And B1's birthday is right after the new year starts, so I always have double duty, giftwise. After that, things should settle down markedly. It's kind of amazing to think that Christmas is nearly here, and 2010 is nearly over. Lordy, it went by quickly.

Leggo, Lego!

Lego's Minifigures are super-cute, but it's such a ripoff. I like this one...

The license plate is a nice touch. And this one is great, too, and comes with two additional mime heads, with different expressions, like a happy mime head, sad mime head, frantic mime head...

They're great, but Lego's got them way, way overpriced, the Danish bastards! So, I won't be getting any anytime soon, but they are cute.

Christmas Commando

I am a Christmas commando. Exene hadn't had the boys since, what, Tuesday of last week (she'd had stomach flu Friday, and balked at having the boys over, which I can't blame her for that), so I had been minding the boys since Wednesday, and so today is one of the only days I have this week to actually do any proper Christmas-stuff. I'd already gotten the boys their gifts, by and large, although I'd wanted to get a few more things, just for coverage. I don't believe in overgifting for Christmas -- in my view 3-4 gifts each is plenty for the kids (not counting stockings). So, I had four gifts for B1, three gifts for B2, and three "combo" gifts for both of the boys. That'll do'em just fine (especially since Exene's family is trekking to the city once again to dutifully drop presents off -- tough gig, I know. Were I still in the yoke, I'd be driving to the Outlaws with Exene snoozing in the car. But I'm not -- YAY!) Anyway, everything's wrapped and hidden away -- I love that I have a perfect hiding place in the closet for the gifts, and the boys never would even think to look there -- B1 because it'd violate his sense of fair play to even look for presents, and B2 because he doesn't realize that there's a perfectly good cubby in the master closet for gifts -- muahaha!)

Anyway, glad to have that all locked down, well in advance of the holiday. I never do last-minute shopping; not my style. But not having to worry about that stuff makes it even better. Especially since, with B1 on vacation, now, I only had a window of opportunity today/tonight to get that stuff all handled, because the boys would immediately suss out any Christmas stuff, if they saw it! Bahah!

Mission accomplished. Now I can relax, coast right up to Christmas. Exene's got Christmas Eve this year, since her family's in town; I'm getting Christmas Day. Important to note that, since next year, I'm sooo getting Christmas Eve.

Turning the Trick

It's a cliché about the Hooker with a Heart of Gold in Hollywood, but it's also true...

Vae Victis

I was amused by some of these Overwatch chaps I dispatched in "Half-Life 2" -- their poses...

Nice stretch, right? Flexible fellow.

This fellow I managed to pin to the billboard with a crossbow shot to the neck, and was amused to see him hanging there, since I'd only expected him to fall, not to hang there.

This guy could make the Rockettes envious.

Days of Future Past

This piece irks me, for many reasons...

http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/feature/2010/12/16/21st_century_science_fiction

SF didn't run out of things to say; it's just that people stopped paying attention to it.

Misc.

B1 is better.

Nothing terribly exciting today; just outlining and doing synopses.

Bleah.

Sickies

B1 is sick with stomach flu; I got a call from Exene this morning, asking to come get B1, that he'd been up sick most of the night with stomach flu. Poor guy. I called him in sick from school. I've got the boys for the next few days, so that'll at least give'em a fighting chance, TLC-wise.

B2 hasn't shown any signs, yet (or he may have had it the other day, since Exene told me that he'd been sick the other day). So, hopefully he's over it, since I'd not like to have two sick boys at the same time. I'll handle it, whatever comes along.

Birch Barking

I wondered what had happened to Thora Birch, since her career definitely stalled years ago. Having a bent stage dad can't help.

C-c-cold

Way cold today, although, thankfully, not windy. But still, chilly, Chicago-style.

Worked hard this morning, crafting synopses and outlines for one of the books.

Mostly what I was up to today, just because it was a hunker-down chilly kind of day.

Writing Machine

I woke up super-early for some reason. Annoying, but I'll make it work for me at the moment. I finished the edits to the book I was working on. I like it well enough -- I remember why I never proceeded further on that one: namely, because it ends on a cliffhanger, fairly demanding a sequel, and, at least at the time, I didn't want to jump right into a sequel for that one. I had originally wanted that one to be a stand-alone Fantasy novel, not the prelude to an epic, since Fantasy novels have "epicitis," basically. And since the marketing of that one will require me to likely pitch it as a lead-in to an epic, which implies that I'd have the entire thing planned out to the end, which isn't the case with something like an epic. But I'm still hopeful that I can market it, even as I'm wary of the larger implications of it. I have a "sequel" of sorts for it I could adapt, and may have to do that. And/or, I may write Fantasy books that are set in the world I created and advance the story I set up in Book 1 with a big brush, without necessarily jumping right into where I left off in the first book. Not entirely sure at the moment.

What I'm not going to do right now is write something cold, right out of the blue; at the moment, I'm occupied with finalizing every book draft I have on file -- three down, nine to go. Just working my way through the stack.

This week'll be primarily occupied with marketing those three books, although I'm also thinking about which book to finalize next. Based purely on word count, I may do Book 2 of the Fantasy (I know, after the brooding above, I'm somewhat ambivalent about that, but if I'm working my way down from longest/most finished book drafts to the shortest, least-finalized ones, it'll be the choice that compels itself). I may bite the bullet (heh, or the crossbow bolt, as it were) and just press on with that, having the first two of the epic finalized, hoping that it'll be enough to entice a publisher, without having to be on the hook for Book 3. We'll see.

Otherwise, it'll be one of the Young Adult/New Adult novels, one of which requires a major revision/rewrite I've been putting off for a month or two. I'm being very disciplined, at least for the moment.

I saw "Black Swan" yesterday, and found I enjoyed it (had "Swan Lake" in my head for the rest of the day). I thought the casting of it was near-perfect, despite not being a fan of Natalie Portman's acting -- but in this movie, it worked, she worked. The director shot it in a style that made me think of a documentary, like the use of film, which added, despite the oddness in it, a kind of reality vibe to it. The movie was laughably over the top in a number of parts -- almost operatically so, amusingly enough, for a ballet movie. There was a little missing in the characterizations, and an unreliable "narrator" kind of thing that made it somewhat disorienting, but there were some good scenes in it, too. Winona Ryder's casting as a discarded ballet star was fascinating, given her also-ran status in Hollywood, anymore -- it was hard to see her in a fairly small role as the unhinged ballet casualty and not think of how her acting life has gone the last decade or more.

And that was something in the movie that was curious -- between Mila Kunis (as the young rival to Portman), Portman herself (as the ingenue ballet star), Ryder (as the fallen star), and Barbara Hershey (as the never-was/wannabe star/mom from hell), there was a curious unity between all of these women. Like past, present, and future all contending with one another and/or represented in one movie. Again, the casting director earns props for their choices, because they resonate.

The Black Swan dance was the standout moment of the movie for me, just visually striking and dazzling to behold, a literal whirlwind of sensation. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie far more than I thought I would, even with the dramatic limitations of Portman in evidence -- the directory adroitly moved around and through them, a kind of ballet of its own, I suppose.

Huh

Firefox has a new update, this one with personalization of the browser, blah blah blah. I went with "Yakuza Paint," which caught my eye, although at the moment it keeps drawing my gaze to the upper-right corner of the browser, as my eyes are not yet used to the layout, keeping going "Huh? Huh?"

This morning, I saw a silverfish face a moment of indecision -- I saw it on the floor, was going to stomp it, and the thing was about to zig, then hesitated, contemplating a zag. It really was a moment, like "Do this! No, wait, do THAT!" I'm no fan of silverfish, but it was a charmingly mortal moment, and I actually spared the lil' stinker because of it.

I've got about one-third of the third to-be-finalized book edited, and looking to finish that up today. Then I might catch "Black Swan," which I'm still guardedly curious about. Beyond that, nothing fancier than folding the laundry I did yesterday, and minding the boys, who'll be here later today.