John Zeitler

Back in August I participated in a very brief Twitter phenomenon, which involved putting songs into code. I was just now made aware of the fact that my efforts got a little bit of attention at the time. There’s also a bunch more which are very well done.

Catch you cats tomorrow.

So, yeah… I got sick. Like, seriously sick. The kind of sick that begins with coming to on the kitchen floor and ends with three nights doing nothing but huddling in bed waiting for the NyQuil to knock me out.

I’m better now, of course. But the writing has kind of stalled. Um, completely. So that’s my big plan for the next few nights, at any rate– to get back into working on the book. Tomorrow I should have an update on where I’m at with that.

Later, folks. Don’t catch what caught me.

…yeah, so I was playing Rock Band all day. And putting together the last 40K figure I needed to for next week’s tournament thingy. All things considered, though, I came down with a severe case of writer’s block, and as a result I decided it was probably for the best if I just let the writing go for one day– and one day alone. This next week I am firmly committing myself to writing after work, no matter what. It’s a good thing that I don’t have any obligations after work this week either– my Japanese class ended last week, and I don’t think there’s anything else going on beyond the normal stuff.

Wish me luck, folks.

At 3:46p, I completed the Story Mode of Lego Rock Band for the Xbox 360. This is the ninth game cleared in 2009.

Frangible Time Update: Episode 1 is done with a total count of 17,500 words. I’m probably jumping the gun here, but instead of a post, this is a little bit of what I’m working on.

Law of Time Travel #1
If causality will be violated in the future, causality will have always been violated. The reverse is not necessarily true.

Law of Time Travel #2
If a traveler causes a paradox in another person’s life, a stable branching timeline is created. If a traveler creates a paradox in his or her own life, a fragline is created.

Law of Time Travel #3
If a fragline is not corrected within a certain amount of time relative to the traveler’s frame of reference, the traveler will be destroyed and the fragline will replace reality. This is not an ideal solution.

Corollary to Law of Time Travel #3
The universe has ways of fixing fraglines.

Frangible Time Update: 13,250 words, about two-thirds of the way through Episode 1. If I get things sorted out soon, I’ll probably have Ep 1 done tomorrow night and Ep 2 started shortly thereafter. Of course, this requires me to stop derailing my own plot.

Really, that about covers everythign of interest that happened today. Writing continues, as will the 40K figure assembly, until one or both are complete.

Sorry, folks. Rough day combined with illness loopiness means I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. This weekend I’ll get caught up on the writing and the 40K figs.

Frangible Time Update: It was a short writing day yesterday due to class and my sudden illness, so my total of 10940 words is still fairly respectable. I don’t think I’ll be writing at all today, though, because of what you’re about to read…

Well, folks, it’s happened. As soon as it becomes incredibly inconvenient for me to get sick, I manage to do so. My sense of timing is just fantastic. And this is after I’d even said “oh, I can make up the time if I need a sick day”… which is true, normally, but my presence is needed today for some testing. GAH. In any event, I’m going to drag myself to the shower, take a shot of Dayquil, and get on the road.

On the plus side, I’m sleeping much better.

Frangible Time Update: 9350 words, and I’m about halfway through Episode 1 (of 8). Fleshed out Kyle a bit more, set up a couple more arcplot elements, and progressed the episode plot to a turning point. Probably won’t get any writing done tonight– it’s my last week of Japanese class for this semester– but I may, if I find a quiet spot on campus.

Besides the writing last night, I took it upon myself to try my hand at making yakisoba, or fried noodles. I had some frozen noodles, I stopped at the store to get shrimp and vegetables, and I was pretty sure I had a monstrously large frying pan or wok-like cooking implement. Obviously, I didn’t… I don’t know where that big pan went, but it would have been perfect for this. Still, even though it wasn’t a terribly tidy affair (note for future self, you can less of a mess if you do it in smaller portions per frying session) the meal turned out fairly well.

I learned that the frozen noodles I’d picked up were not quite the right kind; they were more like angel-hair pasta, but a little thicker. They fell apart when I was doing the frying, because they were too thin compared to what I normally see used for yakisoba. I didn’t want to use the super-thick udon noodles, because I think those would have wound up a little too starchy. I had even managed to find some authentic buckwheat soba at the grocery store, but I didn’t get it because I thought that was what I had (and boiling it would have taken too long, or so I thought). I also went a little overboard on the sauces; I had found some Iron Chef sesame garlic sauce, which I felt the need to add minced garlic to when I was doing the initial vegetable frying. I also think I left the veggies in the oil for too long, or added too much oil and not enough heat at that time, though they turned out good when I fried them with the noodles and shrimp.

Overall, I definitely want to try this again once I’ve got everything properly prepared. Still, I have portions for the next couple days’ lunches, and it’s a fun and fast meal, so I’m more or less pleased with the first attempt. If this plays out anything like how I learned how to make udon and curry, my next attempt is going to be an unmitigated disaster, and the third time will be when it comes together (and I’ll have learned how to make small enough portions that it’s not a huge investment of time and resources).

Yesterday’s writing got me off to a good start. I got about 4600 words down, but more to the point I was able to finally nail down the characterization I wanted for my protagonist. Her roommate is going to be trickier to get, but I’m finding that I really enjoy writing this one.

I’ll probably be doing these “night before” posts here until NaNo’s over, so get used to them.