flotsam and jetsam

Cat has my tongue

2008-04-24T22:54:05Z

Just want to invite everyone to Comicon this weekend, where there will be an extra-special sci-fi comic extravaganza written by Mav and drawn by me. Also, if you come at the right time there will be babes in tiny silver skirts.

If you can't make it, you can still check out our website or buy the book at Indyplanet or the superspecial edition at Blurb.

and small cracks begin to appear in the fabric of spacetime

2007-10-30T22:33:51Z

Steelers Release Colclough

more than meets the eye. less that meets the ear.

2007-07-15T05:25:38Z

1. I hate to rag on a small neighborhood theater that I can walk to...but the Squirrel Hill Theater is a relic of the dark ages that needs to be upgraded or demolished or something. Broken air conditioning is one thing (broken air conditioning that causes the theater to close on the hottest day of the year when I was really looking forward to chillin' with some giant robots). Calamities like that happen, and I'm willing to forgive. But that sound system is unacceptable. And unforgivable. What was that, eight bit 22khz digital sound? Why bother? Might as well put up subtitles and have someone playing a piano in back. I imagined myself as one of the (genius) sound designers for that film, being forced to see it here, with this hideous mockery of an aural sensation. Pure hell.

2. Movie's better the second time. Fewer people in the theater means less applause and laughter, less communal experience but fewer distractions and more involvement in the story. Better for me. Also easier to follow what's going on the second time through, and things that were absurd on the first viewing seemed less so. Everything made a lot more sense.

3. Frenzy still rocks, and totally isn't dead. His remaining eye was able to say "oh shit" after his decapitation, proving it can live without the rest of him. I'm sure he transformed into a used shotgun shell and got taken out with the trash. Frenzy will be back.

4. Speculation continues to center on how Megatron will be revived for the sequel. Why bother? Frenzy's clearly the most effective Decepticon and should be the leader.

5. The All Spark is clearly some sort of hypercube. Most likely, only the bit of it that currently existed in this dimension, after Bumblebee folded it up, was destroyed. It'll be back too.

6. I really need to go see it again in a theater with real sound.

7. Harry Potter sucks. See Transformers!

drawing!!!

2007-07-14T03:07:30Z

And not a moment too soon.

This girl is actually very cute, but her face is challenging to draw. I left out the ones where I made her look really ugly.

On a completely unrelated note, I have a headache and a strong desire to burn things.

naked friday!!!

2007-07-11T00:00:11Z

Not sure yet how or if I'm gonna integrate drawings into the new website which is really more about music...

Transformers movie!!!

2007-07-03T05:15:55Z

The wait is over!

If the Autobots learned English from the worldwide web, wouldn't they be all like, "O RLY? Ya RLY!" and "ROTFLMAO!!!"

max1975 @ 2007-06-26T00:01:00

2007-06-26T04:09:54Z

I have a new musical website. Sort of. Still have a lot of work to do. To make it less than completely pointless, I've uploaded a new song, which features the lovely voices of theadana and sundaygray and seems to be popular among ultimate frisbeers.

Check it out.

pirates

2007-05-26T15:26:50Z

Blahrr. That was so not as good as it made me think it was going to be. I blame Orlando Bloom. Last night I was writing an in-depth review in my head, recounting all the ways in which the movie could have been but was not awesome, but this morning I don't really care.

Oh well. At least Naomie Harris is still hot (black teeth and all). And there was a pretty sweet trailer attached.

sleeeepy

2007-03-29T00:08:18Z

mountains
Originally uploaded by max1975.

Jenn and I have returned from New Zealand, and pictures are starting to trickle onto flickr. Check 'em out.

Attention Citizens of the Internet

2007-02-14T23:49:01Z

There is no such thing as "Facism."

It is not a real word. And if it was, it would likely mean "hatred or intolerance of another face or other faces" and not "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."

Kindly learn to spell.

max1975 @ 2007-01-30T00:59:00

2007-01-30T06:03:48Z

Before they execute Baltar for crimes against humanity, could they just let him be president again for, oh, sixty seconds? There's a couple death warrants I need him to sign. Four characters, of whom two need to die. I don't really care which two. I would prefer that Anders be spared, because Anders is awesome, but really at this point, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Dammit. This show's supposed to be about Cylons and space battles. And crazy Gaius.

lightning rants

2007-01-24T09:19:17Z

Pittsburgh Sports Media: Shut up about Mike Tomlin being black. Everyone knows he's black and no one cares. You're only pretending it's an issue because you can't find the answer to the question everyone's really asking: Is he actually planning an eventual and obviously insane switch to a 4-3 defense?

Battlestar Galactica Writers: End the lame boring love-square soap opera plot before i start looking for more eyes to gouge out.

Smithsonian Global Sound: Rock on.

Sculpey: What's the deal with not packaging black Sculpey III in 1.75lb. boxes? That'd be really handy.

giant robots! yay!

2006-12-21T00:28:22Z

Happy birthday to me!

I'm pretty much committed to liking this movie now, mostly out of spite. Optimus Prime having flames on his paint job (unlike, say, Greedo shooting first) is not "raping my childhood." Michael Bay may or may not be a good director, but he doesn't deserve death or even death threats just because Starscream looks kinda like a monkey. Really, people, get a grip. The movie might still suck (in fact odds are against it doing otherwise, just because that's the way things tend to go), but if so it will probably be because of bad writing, not because the Decepticons have insectoid features.

Also, I enjoyed the two Bay movies that I actually saw (Armageddon and Bad Boys). So I am optimistic.

max1975 @ 2006-12-04T04:09:00

2006-12-04T08:09:47Z

I just learned that if you hold an empty pop can up to your ear, you can hear the ocean. I didn't try it with a full pop can, because that woulda been messy.

I should go to bed.

shameless self promotion

2006-11-05T05:19:26Z

I'm disappointed in the number of views I'm getting at my flickr page, so I thought I'd plug it here. A couple new paintings and many a naked friday. Plus my blinding halloween costume and a robot or two.

I painted for seven and a half hours today. My legs and back are kinda sore.

For best results, watch this first.

EDIT: Fixed the link, thanks to my brother for spotting the error. In my shameless self-promotion, I accidentally promoted shortpacked. Who is not my self. I don't mind promoting shortpacked, but that was not my intent.

my favorite vikings are back!!!

2006-10-03T18:40:51Z

In gorious quicktime!

And also a new album, yay!

confession

2006-08-24T01:50:08Z

Sometimes when I'm making music with a lot of chord changes, it starts to sound like smooth jazz and I want to kill myself.

answer to a frequently asked question

2006-07-30T16:18:36Z

My guitar is the one on the lower right.

max1975 @ 2006-07-29T17:55:00

2006-07-29T21:58:05Z

Woohoo, three hours till music!

Stewie at 9, I go on at 10, the Gladstone Ruckus at 11. Unless I'm confused. Don't be late! Also, don't hit your head while going down the stairs. I did that twice during sound check and it was unpleasant.

max1975 @ 2006-07-29T00:12:00

2006-07-29T04:17:45Z

I may, in the past, have spoken kindly of trains. I may have even recommended them. I have memories (very vague now, and I'm wondering if they were planted there by hypnosis) of a very pleasant train ride to NYC to see a Dream Theater concert about eleven or twelve years ago.

I was wrong. Amtrak sucks. Really sucks. Sucks like few things suck. Taking Amtrak is about as smart as getting out of the boat. Don't do it. Not if your life depends on it. They will let you down.

Ow, my back.

max1975 @ 2006-07-18T20:38:00

2006-07-19T00:44:44Z

11 days till my first gig in ages. The music will be an eclectic blend of experimental electronic hip hop drum and bass dance punk trance funk, and will include some wigglific synthy bits as requested by Jill and a secret surprise song for Connie, whether she believes me or not. Fragile back and sleepless nights notwithstanding, I'm having lots of fun.

Also, my hair is short. Do not be alarmed.

Sentence of the Week

2006-07-13T03:01:14Z

from IMDB:
David Hasselhoff owes his life to a London hotel clerk who literally swooned at his feet seconds after he accidentally slashed his wrist in a shaving accent.

The cats are up to something

2006-06-20T18:32:45Z

Last night I had another dream with a bunch of cats. There were only five or six this time, not a thousand, but this nonetheless is further confirmation of my suspicion that the cats are up to something. And it's not only happening to me. Jenn recently reported a dream of many cats, as have others. See that one issue of Sandman.

The cats are invading our dreams.

Maybe large quantities of cats are something people just dream about, some ancient archytypal symbol, but I don't think so. Looking through my library of such things, I can find no reference to the phenomena, except (and this is really stretching) for the idea that cats have nine lives. There is more research to be done, but it's looking to me like this a relatively recent phenomena, possibly first evidenced in The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath.

All of which begs the question, what are the cats up to? I have a feeling it's not good, as Jenn's cat Midas is currently walking on my keyboard trying to prevent me from completing this post. But I need more data.

So please, if you have any dreams, hallucinations, obsessions, etc. involving large quantities of cats, kindly describe them and send them to me. If you have three cats, and your dream is about your three cats, then it's probably nothing out of the ordinary. But if you see two or more cats that are unfamiliar, I'd like to know about it. Maybe we can figure out what they want and make peace with them before we're all being batted around like mice by colossal feline god-kings.

Help Max decide what to paint!

2006-04-21T02:22:49Z

I'm going to start a painting Saturday, based on one of these drawings:

Anyone wanna vote?

I'm too lazy to make a poll, so just leave a comment. Thanks.

on the mangling of words and the ethics of fiction

2006-03-19T09:15:23Z

Am I a bad person for making up words?

I don't make them up out of thin air. But I'm writing a story in which there is a windowseat, and microsoft tells me there is no such word as "windowseat", and suggests "window seat", which looks and feels wrong to me, as does the alternative "window-seat." I don't like hyphens in general. To my mind a space or a hyphen puts a gap in the word that really shouldn't be there. It angers me and I defy Microsoft, and in so doing I also defy Merriam-Webster.

Given a strong argument and perhaps some strong liquor, it is conceivable that I could be persuaded to insert the demanded space in my windowseat. But I would not budge on "menfolk" if the gods themselves were to demand it. Hmm. Turns out, according to Merriam-Webster, menfolk is indeed a word, and there is no need for me to budge, so the gods can rest easy. Damn you microsoft for making me doubt myself!

On to a trickier one: Superstitiousness. Microsoft says there is no such word. Merriam Webster says there is no such word. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else use the word, and I actually dislike the word because it is rather cumbersome. I have struggled with this one for a long time. It has been suggested that I instead use "superstition." But the two words do not mean the same thing. Superstition is "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance," whereas superstitious is "of, relating to, or swayed by superstition" and so superstitiousness would be a the condition of being of, related to, or swayed by a belief or practice resulting from ignorance. It's not the same thing, dammit. The word may not be in the dictionary, but it's quite obvious what the word should be, so I'm gonna use it.

(It is an ugly word, though, with too many syllables, so if someone knows a good synonym, please share.)

Part of me believes that the spelling or existence of a word should be based not on what any dictionary says, but what the fictional narrator believes the dictionary says. Although if I ever habitually mistake "it's" for "its" please smack me, and if I ever habitually mistake "they're" or "their" for "there," please shoot me. (Mistaking "their" for "they're" is a lesser offense, in my opinion. At least those two are forms of the same word. There should certainly be some form of punishment attached, but probably something less drastic than shooting.)

Speaking of superstition (as I was before I got sidetracked) my next issue is being mean to my characters. Now, it's not really an ethical dilemma so much, because I believe it's pretty clearly not only my right, but my duty to be mean to my characters, if the story calls for it. And it usually does. I would say the biggest weakness of my own writing is that I'm not mean enough to my characters (which results in little conflict, little tension, little plot, little motivation for me to actually finish the damn story.) And I am rather proud of myself for just having been very mean to one of my characters, and not chickening out as I've done on at least one occasion in the past. (That was a crappy story anyway, so I don't care so much that I never finished it, but still I suck for having chickened out).

Anyway, I was mean to my character, and all depressed about it.

The difficulty here is that I believe my characters are real people, existing independently in an alternate universe, and I am actually discovering the story rather than creating it. The literal truth of this belief is of course highly dubious, but it is indispensible to me. If I don't believe they're real, I don't care about them, and if I don't care about them, why should the reader?

So actually it's not me being mean to my character. That would require me to be a sort of god in their universe, which would lead to a crappy story. I didn't make up what happened, it just occurred in my imagination, and it made more sense than any alternative, so I had to write it down. Could other, less terrible things have happened? Yes, in other alternate universes, but if I chose to write about those, I'd be sort of abandoning the poor girl who got the shaft in an independent reality that proceeds whether or not I write it down.

So, no real ethical dilemma. But I still feel crappy because that shit happened to my character. She got stuck with my worst nightmare, and she totally didn't deserve it.

Wonder how other writers feel about their characters...