A friend of mine sent this to me just as I was finishing the day’s weight lifting, and right before I sucked down supper on the way to karate class. I showed up at the dojo pumped up and ready to go.
Someone once told me I was too old for martial arts, and later that weight lifting is a young man’s game. Bullshit. Bring it on.
Back to writing and other stuff soon, I just had to share this. Too much running around the last couple days and tomorrow.
I haven’t done my weight lifting yet this week. My Fitocracy account mocks me.
Friday and Monday I was on airplanes. Over the weekend, I had hoped to at least get a dumbbell or treadmill workout in, but I was too busy catching up with friends. Yesterday I rested. Today, I didn’t have time to lift after work and had a special night of karate class. It pisses me off, but I’m going to swap my Wed/Fri lifts to Thurs/Sat and get back on track next week.
I beat myself up over workouts the same way I beat myself up about writing. I need to regroup and remember my motivation, and just get back to work as soon as possible.
Funny thing is, there is no shortage of motivational videos out there for weight lifting or body building.
Writing doesn’t quite work the same. Beyond opening a box of books hot off the press, there’s not a lot to get writers pumped up to spend hours behind the keyboard. Yes, we do it because we have to, or want to, but it’s still hard work, and motivation can, at times, be hard to come by.
Until you visit something like Sundance.
It’s not so much being part of the scene or the promise of big Hollywood bucks as it is the simple energy and excitement of it all. It’s contagious. I would be more than content to make a living off writing. Yet even if I never see a movie made, I can still push forward and build upon what I’ve written. I can expand my fan base and, ideally, increase sales to earn a steady wage.
Now we come back to my lifting, where my goal is similar. I don’t want to big as Jay Cutler. I have no aspirations to be Mr Olympia, or even to get on a local stage (I’m not especially interested in the fake spray tan and shaved chest, either). I just want to build upon what I have, get into better shape. I want to increase my strength and endurance and feel better.
We should aim high, but not call it defeat if we land in the middle. Day jobs and family and life in general is going to get in the way. It’s inevitable. Just take care of the disruption and then get back into the rhythm.
It was a great weekend at the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals, especially the opportunity to catch up with friends. The Twitter posts showed up late on the blog, but as you can see we faced a blizzard and had several adventures while waiting to see the premiere of Brian Keene’s Ghoul.
The Twitter stream on the blog is caught up to my last flight home, so I’ve turned the feature off. I’ll have a separate blog post and some photos up soon. In the meantime, here’s a shot by Mark Sylva:
Brian and I at the Egyptian Theater at Sundance
Mark has several more photos, which you can check out here.
If you feel you missed out on the opportunity to see Brian Keene’s Ghoul, don’t sweat it: the film will be broadcast on Chiller on Friday, April 13th, at 9PM Eastern. It’s a good flick, and it stays true to the novel despite a change for television. Here’s hoping Chiller keeps the originals coming.
I see my Twitter feed is actually showing up on the blog this time, even if it is very late. Excellent. Later today we’ll get into Park City and I should have some more interesting, actual Sundance-related things to show you. Yesterday was all about getting everyone here despite the weather, catching up with friends, and resting up for the weekend.
The photo attached to this post was taken from the balcony of our condo. Nice place. The snow’s falling and accumulating, but not fast enough to deter us. Besides, Mikey’s 4×4 pickup should climb over the snow as easily as it did the Porsche that got in our way last night.
In just a few hours, I’ll be heading out to the airport to catch a flight to Utah, where I’ll be visiting the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals to catch the premier of Brian Keene’s Ghoul. I’ve never been out there before, so I’m looking forward to an exciting weekend.
I’ll be putting the blog into travel mode. I may or may not blog from the road, I will probably post a few mobile pics, and if all works properly this time, my Twitter timeline will go onto the blog around 10pm central daily. The plugin which handles this hasn’t worked in the past, but maybe it will surprise me following the various updates to both Twitter Tools and WordPress over the last several months.
I should be sleeping right now. Instead I’m up doing laundry. I’m going to attempt to write on the plane, but I suspect I’ll end up passing out instead. Our group will probably all be worn out tomorrow night anyway, but that gives us all day Saturday and Sunday to cause chaos at the festival.
I’m also practicing my ninja packing skills. I’m not paying bag fees, so everything goes into a carry-on or it doesn’t go. The TSA says my knife and my Zippo stay home, which is going to feel weird. My workout clothing may be the first to go, because who am I kidding? I’m going to be too busy hanging out with my buds to get a workout in. I’m better off packing an extra sweatshirt for the cold.
Less than four hours of sleep before the trip. Yeah, that sounds about typical for my con trips. Tomorrow’s going to be rough, but the weekend will make up for it.
If you surfed the Web Wednesday, I’m sure you ran into a SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) blackout somewhere. If none of that made sense to you, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s one-page summary of the problems with SOPA.
This means posting copyrighted clips to YouTube violates the spirit of the law, but not the word of the law. In other words, someone can upload pirated crap to YouTube and get a free pass. (Or, more likely, it’s a matter of “We’re afraid of Google’s lawyers.”)
Make no mistake, this is not about protecting the little guy, it’s about protecting big corporate bucks in the guise of protecting the little guy. Do the Hollywood unions like the WGA, SAG, or the production support unions support these bills? Not the general membership. In fact, most creators oppose SOPA, but the bill’s sponsor, Rep Lamar Smith, says they don’t count. It’s all about the lobbyists who are protecting their own interests.
As a creator myself, I’m not a fan of pirates. In fact, I would prefer to deal with pirates like this:
Whoops, I guess that would get my site blacklisted! No, wait, the video is on YouTube. Guess I’m golden after all? Brain hurts. Moving on.
No, I’m not a fan of piracy. But I’m also not convinced they’re doing as much harm to me as some think, and I’m sure as hell not convinced protecting my meager income by destroying the very network I’m leveraging to make a living is going to do a damned thing to help any of us.
The worst case scenario? We end up with a censored, restricted Internet that countries like China and Iran have. We rally behind freedom of speech and condemn other countries for blocking their citizens from access to information, yet we’re attempting to pass legislation to give corporations the same capabilities to shut down websites that China and Iran have. It’ll be a new age of digital McCarthyism, where Hollywood will point a finger and someone will get blacklisted.
It just boggles the mind.
Here are the 67 pinheads (as of this writing) who think $$$ trumps freedom. SOPA may be “shelved” for now, but that’s not good enough, and PIPA has to die with it. Make sure these people understand the damage they’re trying to do, even if it’s just by taking a few seconds to sign petitions like Google’s.
UPDATE
Khan Academy has posted an excellent video explaining SOPA and its problems, as well as outlining some of the scarier provisions of the bill.
Very cool. Hook one up to my standing desk so I can get all Minority Report up in here.
It also leads me to a bigger question: can we turn the same panels or use similar technology to turn any window into a solar panel for power generation?
A common complaint about solar energy is the surface area required. Yet if you look at the surface area of a single skycraper, multiplied by the available surface area of an entire city full of buildings and skyscrapers already made of glass and on the grid, then what does that yield us? If nothing else, it’s that much less surface area that needs to be taken from land.
I’m sure Samsung and other manufacturers already looking at facing this stuff outward and turning any building into a giant billboard, but how about more practical purposes? Most of downtown Chicago shuts down before the daylight hours are up, so imagine if all of these buildings could be come partially or fully self-sufficient by covering them with solar panels that double as windows, skylights, etc.
Has this been attempted? Is it possible? Beats me, but it seems like modern science should be able to find a way to make this happen.
