The Chris Casey Experience

Hey guys, what’s new these days? I’m just being my usual huggable self, living life chained to a mortgage and car payments. I don’t have much of a retirement plan, which is starting to weigh heavily on my mind especially since my beautiful wife will get to retire in a few years with a teacher’s pension. We don’t have kids, which means we won’t even be able to leech off them in our dotage. I’m already looking ahead to having to work for the rest of my natural life, then donating my organs to science to afford a funeral. Luckily I wouldn’t need much of a coffin.

So what kind of impact will I leave on this world? Hmm, good question. I’m a web developer, which is the most impermanent job in the Universe. Kids, if you want a high-paying career in web design or development, bear in mind that your best work, your magnum opus, will only be seen in public for two or three years before your corporate patron tosses it out, either for something trendier or for something cheaper. As mentioned we have no children, but I was the “cool uncle” back in the day and maybe some people will remember that. Occasionally I feel like I’m just delaying my wife from having the life she really wants, but I hesitate to call that “impactful” so much as “annoying the woman I love.” I am a pretty big influence on my dog, though, so there’s … um … that.

But I write! Yes! I’ve written two full books so far in my life! Surely by creating literature I am adding to the eternal dialogue about the human condition! One of my books is a sci-fi action adventure and the other one is sort of a … vampire book. Um. Huh. Not really where you’d turn to find true wisdom or change your life or anything. I think I was ruined by Star Wars; I’d rather write jumpin’-around pew-pew adventures than heavy literature. Although admittedly the first novel explores a heavy vein of nationalism versus loyalty and the second one is pretty cynical about human nature. The second one also has an undead guy who manages to hammer a 15-foot pikestaff all the way through his body, if you’re into that.

But what am I getting all maudlin for? I’m only 43! I still have decades of life stretching out in front of me to do great things! Never mind that my father died at the ripe old age of … 44. At which point in his life he had a reasonably successful construction company and three beautiful children (plus me, aged 18 months and therefore covered with jam, mud, or both most of the time). Death and I are old acquaintances, as it has come to visit every few years over the course of my life. The main thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t wait for you to do everything you want to do.

Aaahhhhh. This whole “woe is me” thing may just be midlife crisis. I’m not gonna toss over my wife for a new model, and I’ve already got the sleek red car taken care of, so I guess my only outlets now are fear of the future and Christmas cookies.

Merry Christmas, everybody. God bless us, every one. I mean that. Hug the people who mean things to you and make sure they know that you love them. Do what you want to do before you can’t anymore. It would be terrible if you had something you wanted to say or do or be and never got around to it.

Thanks for reading. Now make what I just wrote worthwhile.

Because I was writing furiously for a month, I didn’t get to post here much. Which is okay, because it spurred me to finish NaNoWriMo. Yes! My book Revenant is “done” at 51,455 words. What’s more, it has spurred me to continue writing. So off we go to a new book. Then another, and another, until my computer crashes through the desk with the weight of the hard drive.

Other interesting things: I got a Google Wave account on the preview box. H’ray. It’s actually pretty interesting to hang out with a bunch of people having a conversation which you can scroll back and forth through in time as well as in space. Like whoooah.

I have a few Wave invites if anyone wants one. Hah! As if anyone reads this tripe. Maybe this is just a ploy to figure out if anyone’s out there. If you are, and you want a Google Wave invitation, respond to this entry and I’ll hook a few of you up. If you aren’t out there, then you have a face like a horse’s butt AND YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK, CHACHI.

I hit 9,511 last night. I hit it like the FIST OF AN ANGRY GOD.

Edit: I’m a-testin’ something which may be cool.

[wave id=”googlewave.com!w+gIAyi8qBA”]

Edit edit: It would be cooler if it worked. Ah well.

Edit edit edit: Aaaand it works! You have to have a Wave account and be using a worthwhile browser, but it works!

Five days into NaNoWriMo and I’m over 8,000 words now. Feels good man. With some luck I’ll hit 9,500 tonight. With a LOT of luck I’ll hit 10,000, which puts me on par to “winning” NaNoWriMo (writing 50,000 words) on the 25th so I can spend Thanksgiving being thankful that I don’t have to write anything. But I wouldn’t kick 9,500 out of bed. M’just sayin’.

I’ve discovered I’m pretty good at setting a scene and roight whizzah (that’s Australian for “really good.” DAMN I have a great ear for accents, huh?) at dialogue, but getting my characters to DO anything is kind of a slog. This novel I’m not really worrying about the plot, instead starting from a cool premise and following it Metamorphosis style. But now that I’ve established the clumsy, self-loathing (but beautiful and well-liked) high school girl and the hundred-year-old high-school-age vegetarian virgin vampire who loves her, I can’t decide what happens next. Maybe somebody almost runs over her with a car and he saves her with his Hawt N’ Hunky Vampire Powers (TM). Or maybe they just go on a picnic … with a sparkly twist. Decisions, decisions.

I’m kidding, of course. I’m just up to the part where the half-giant hand-delivers the wizardry school invitation to the poor kid forced to stay under his stairs by his cruel step-parents. Good thing he ends up incredibly rich, impressing adults with his many natural talents, with good friends and magical powers by the end!

… Man whatever happened to books like A Wrinkle in Time. Too cerebral, I suppose.

I have a Google Wave account. :smug:

Wait, wait, don’t come begging for invites! I didn’t get one of THOSE accounts; I have a latecomer developer account on the dev server, and we don’t get invites or the ability to play with the other reindeer on the “public” alpha server. Instead, we desperately search for public waves and attach ourselves to them, gasping, grasping for any sort of human contact while the cool kids on the public server invite their families and learn what it’s like to actually, you know, communicate with a human being.

Devs DO get two accounts, though, one for main and one for testing. So we’re smug about that. (You can’t have my test account; I’m using it for testing, oddly enough. Put away the begging bowl.)

Anyway, what’s the deal about Wave? Well, it’s like email and chat combined; you can edit anything anybody types, even while they’re right there watching you; there are programs called robots and gadgets which can affect the wave in real time; you have a history scrub bar so you can go back and see the way a Wave develops; and Google won’t control it forever, since they’ll release everything open source when it’s done … waaaay off in the future. What’s up now isn’t your standard Google “beta,” which means essentially a full live release version ready to go and only getting better from here. No, what Google has now is one step above a description scrawled on a napkin. It’s usable, and that’s about all it has going for it.

As a result, bloggers all over have been talking about Wave with a sort of “feh” attitude. “What would I ever use this for? I had to install a new browser instead of using my trusty IE6, nobody I know is on it (not even Hannah Montana!), it actually crashed once like grody, and I can’t automatically understand how the interface works just by looking at it. I give it only one of my coveted kitty-thumb’s-up stickers out of five, for a rating of EPOCH PHAIL. Better luck next time, Googleailures.”

Well, okay, you’re entitled to your opinions, even the really stupid ones. But when the day comes, you’ll be rushing to catch up with those of us who can actually see the potential. I’m particularly excited to be in on (almost) the ground floor, and I’ve been developing some interesting things that take advantage of Wave’s unique capabilities. Once they release the server code and whole companies start getting ramped up in this, then things will really start hopping.

Some of you are probably too young to remember the early days of the Internet, when email was still amazing and Mosaic was THE browser. I’ve been an active Internet participant for 15 years and I still missed out on a lot of that “oo everything’s so new and shiny” stuff. Wave reminds me of that sort of open frontier of possibilities. The internet’s been lacking any sort of standard for real-time concurrent collaboration and nobody’s missed it because … well, nobody knew what they were missing. It’s too new to see the big picture yet, but mark me, there will be a picture, and it will be big.

And this time around, at the beginning of a whole new future, I have skills and understanding that I didn’t have 15 years ago.

Heh. Heh heh. Ha ha ha. HA HA HA HA. BWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAA

(sudden cut to darkness, ominous echo)

I’m involved in the National Novel Writing Month for the third year running. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a sort of “destroy your brain forever” activity where otherwise perfectly sane people try to write an entire 50,000 word novel in 1 month, from November 1-30. I’ve “lost” the past two years, so here’s hoping third time’s the charm. :v:

Writing for me is like taking a really enormous bathroom break after being constipated for days: painful as hell while you’re doing it but a sublime catharsis when you’re done. So I’ve pretty much signed up for a big international pooping contest. Here’s hoping I can poop out an entire novel this year. I got bogged down in “plot” the last two times. Feh, plot, I say this year with a little toss of my wrist which would not seem out of place for me to be daintily holding a lace handkerchief. I’ll just start with a vague concept for a book and see where it leads. Can’t be any worse than Twilight.

Anyway, c’mon over to http://www.nanowrimo.org. Poop with us, it’ll be fun.

(No relation to the new Hitchhiker’s Guide book, by the way, which I haven’t yet even had a chance to pick up. For that matter, no relation to my previous post. For that matter, the title is completely erroneous.)

I was just looking at what this whole Windows Live thing installed, and while this bloggy Writer deal is pretty cool I seem to recall it saying there was a movie maker. Ain’t no such that I can see. False advertising is what I say.

Sorry to follow up a gigantic screed with a totally mundane observation. I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?

Hidey ho, good Interneighbors. I’m doing some bloggin’ on the sly using the new Windows Live Writer, don’t mind me, just hanging out, ho hum.

So how about those politics today, huh? Man, it’s like you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone who hates the very concept of swinging cats. I’ve heard the following things recently, spoken by people who are, beyond all reason, apparently 100% serious:

“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” (Lesbian alternative: “… not Madam and Eve.” Zombie alternative: “… not Adam and Brraaaainsss.”)

“If they came up with a National Association for the Advancement of White People, boy people would be screaming about it!” (Ahem … the Klan? Freemasons? Late-night network TV?)

“There’s no way the world is more than 6,000 years old. Carbon dating has problems.”

“Global warming? Then why is it getting cold outside?” (universally said with a punchably smug look on the face)

“God created the banana just for us! It’s a no-slip grip that fits perfectly in the human hand! No way could that evolve entirely by chance!” (Said nearly verbatim by, of all people, Kirk Cameron. Yes. Really.)

Okay, now, look. People, please, for the love of Pete and Pete, please stop listening to pundits, advertisers, political cartoonists, or entertainers for anything other than entertainment. They don’t know any more about the problems of the world and how to solve them than you do. They’re not religious or political prodigies or pure-born philosopher-kings. They’re people with nice faces or voices who get paid to tell you either what you want to hear or to paint their opposition as evil monstrous baby-mauling boogeymen. YOU ARE IN DANGER they cry, THE WORLD IS FALLING APART, THE CHRISTIAN AMERICA YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW IS SOON LOST FOREVER. REPENT NOW LEST YE BECOME GODLESS COMMUNISTS, YEA, EVEN UNTO THE SEVENTH GENERATION. In truth, the “mythical America” they paint only existed in an ignorant bubble surrounded by crying people of other ethnicities.

Which leads me to my next point: White people in America are NOT OPPRESSED MINORITIES AND ARE IN NO DANGER OF EVER BECOMING ONE. SHUT YOUR STUPID DAMN FACE AND SIT YOUR LILY-WHITE PUSTULENT ASS DOWN. Even if we lose the greater percentage over a few dozen years, we still pretty much own the economy. We commonly live in a type of luxury unknown even to kings a couple hundred years ago. We are so high on the hog nobody else even knows what bacon smells like. Do you know why there’s a NAACP? Because without one, rich white people would still be dropping deuces on other races from the top of the Empire State Building. In fact, they’re still doing it even now, just not quite as much and at least having the good sense to seem contrite when their victims get mad about it.

Third: Hey you know what’s no longer hilarious? Photoshop! (Actually that’s not true, Photoshop is always hilarious. But the Internet got over putting Hitler moustaches on people years ago. And putting people in Joker makeup without any context is just weird. If you’re trying to be funny, at least try to be funny.)

Fourth: Did you know Jesus helped people no matter what sort of situation they were in or what sort of past they had? He even said that rich people have a heck of a time getting into Heaven, and that no matter how much money we make down here, it will be useless in the Kingdom. I know, how anti-capitalist. (Also, guess what He said about homosexuality. Here’s a hint: “”)

Sorry, I hate to rant, but I had to get all this off my chest. It’s been a weird few weeks pundit-wise and it’s just getting worse. And for the record, what the hell, let Rush buy the Rams. Five hundred years from now everyone involved will be dust and nobody living will give a rat’s ass. May as well let him reduce a number which we pretend means “worth” to do something temporarily distracting. He built that number up the same way.

Hey everybody, Chris is updating again!

Hey everybody, Chris thinks anyone gives two poops in a thunderstorm that he’s updating again!

Whatever. Facebook is fun and all but THIS … this is MY URI and you dinkleheads can never take that away from me without a court order or a DDoS attack or, I dunno, by navigating away to disney.com and deleting your bookmark.

Hey everybody, Chris thinks people have his site bookmarked!

Meh. I’m paying for the webspace, might as well rule it like the tinpot dictator I am. I hereby declare that every day will be the first day of Spring. Narf.

Oh, I’m not gonna shut down. Spammers are still stupid, but who cares. I don’t usually go off like that. Sorry, internet, it won’t happen again. :hanging head: