Racing Entropy

Missing Games Night (leads to strange thoughts)

2012-02-02T11:24:00.002Z

I had to go away for work this week; the workshop was good, great to get back into the groove after a month of working from home, but it did mean that I was away for two nights - and ultimately meant that a weekly games night was cancelled. So who knows what has been happening in Soviet Cyberpool? Which mission will our characters go on? Will our team's leader see reason (and not send us to the Isle of Man)?

(probably not) (if you read this, just kidding P.!) ;)

During my last OU course I really loved the term "Magic Circle" to denote the space/place/time in which the game exists and matters. For a game like the one we are playing, what that magic circle is, and where it comes from is quite fascinating to me. Because if one of the players steps away to get a drink, the magic circle still potentially exists. If we all get up for the mid-session break then it feels like the magic circle is being left at the table. But I don't think that the circle is bound in the dice and character sheets, which are left at the table.

And who knows if magic circles even apply to tabletop RPGs; I'll have to try and find a link, but there are certainly some ludologists who believe that they don't quite qualify as games in the first place...

Misc, January 26th 2012

2012-01-26T11:18:00.000Z

OU module: have been and had a quick look around the micro-site for my latest module. As the module is finishing this year they have decided not to update the aesthetics and navigation; a pop-up appeared to tell me that the site was designed for IE5 or later, and that my browser might not be able to see everything. Considering I am running Firefox 9 this seems to be a curious oversight on the part of the site maintainers.

Wedding: a friend of mine is getting married this weekend! Which is really nice, and so I am trying to make sure that I don't forget my camera. I'll remember everything else. The camera, I will forget. Or I will forget to charge the battery. (excuse me a moment...)

Reading: I'm reading a short story/novella by Adam Roberts on my Kindle called Anticopernicus, which is pretty good. I'm plowing my way through Getting Things Done by David Allen (something I have meant to do for a long time but have only just got around to). Already this is starting to blow my mind. In conjunction with another book that I bought recently for the Kindle called Discardia this could be just the wake-up call I need to get things on track and productive.

(and I just had an Amazon delivery in the last two minutes of two books that I ordered with my birthday vouchers: the final Joe Pitt novel and A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster! Things to look forward to)

Finally: I've been noodling around with numbers about dice rolling ever since I mentioned it the other day. And there is the beginnings of a tickle of an ideas. At least for starting to get a regular kind of expression for probability distribution with an AdN kind of situation (where you have a certain number of same-sided fair dice). Give me time...

Midweek Excitement

2012-01-26T07:30:00.000Z

The area on the OU website for my next course has gone live! Admittedly at the moment there is not much there, but pretty soon there will be details on all the various things that one can do to "start writing fiction" (the name of the module).

I've taken part in National Novel Writing Month several times, and if you look for things with the "flash fiction" label on here you will see some of the little short stories that I have written. I'm hoping that I will get two things from this course - no, actually, three. First, I want to be one step closer to the BSc; second, I want to feel like I have some kind of integrated thought pattern on actually writing fiction, which is, after all, what the module is about. But probably most importantly, from this module I want to build up the habit of writing. I want to want to write - whether that's fiction, or blogposts, or letters, or things on my workblog, or even just things which are for work.

I want to want to write.

So: let's see what happens.

Games Night review

2012-01-25T12:10:00.000Z

Last night's Cyberpunk game session was good; my GM was amenable to me switching in my Fixer, who in some ways is a bit more capable for the scenarios that are unfolding. We have three ongoing conflicts that need resolving.

Firstly, we have been asked to "provide" a person from a certain organisation to P's character's corporate masters. We have had some dealings with other shady individuals related to this, and some limited successes against to them. The extraction plan for this is alright, but perhaps there are things that we could do that would make success more guaranteed.

(incidentally, we have a strong motivation at the moment as P's character has incurred some sizeable debts at the expense of his corporate masters; some of those debts can be laid at the feet of mine and D's characters, some can not)

Secondly, we've been asked to assassinate someone on behalf of their rivals. However, the assassination/disappearance poses huge risks. We have also discovered some materials that could be used to blackmail the rivals in some way. Is this a better way to make some much-needed money?

Finally, we have been asked to smuggle some contraband across the Irish Sea and into Soviet Liverpool. Huge risks, but a big pay-off. The plan so far is going to get us killed, I'm sure of it. If we smuggle it ourselves we take enormous risks. If we get someone else to smuggle it our risks are lessened, but we lose control. The plan at the moment is to have someone unknowingly smuggle it (a Party official whose car would not be searched anyway) and then steal the contraband back. Hugely risky.

What to do, what to do?

Last night was a lot of fun because we did lots of planning and brainstorming, lots of researching too. Previous weeks, which have involved violence and sneaky legwork have been good, but for most of yesterday we were throwing ideas around to try and come up with good plans of action. Roll on next week!

Games Night

2012-01-24T13:35:00.003Z

So tonight is games night! We are currently playing a hacked Cyberpunk 2020; the setting is a parallel 2011, a Soviet Liverpool of Russian corporations, cyborgs and dirty dealings.

I am thinking about switching in a different character; I've contacted my GM (who was also the best man at my wedding) to see what he thinks. My current character is a kind of take on a Nomad. His "Family" is a digital one, in some respects he is more of a private investigator/freelance spy than anything else. I tend to call his "Family" skill "Network" or something similar. It then becomes more of a skill based on what his "Network" can offer or provide.

I'm not sure entirely how successful he has been in terms of his character class - given that, actually, I've not defined "Network" very well - but he has been pretty good at getting himself into and out of sticky situations. Given that the other two players' characters have all been knocked out of play (no-one has died but several have been benched in-game for a couple of weeks), it seems like it might be good to switch out Simon Anderson, freelancer, and switch in, Davey Smith, fixer.

Oh, and another thing: I need to get a 12mm handcannon like my fellow players have kitted their characters out with! I haven't thought much about weaponry in-game, tending to hope that I won't need more than a simple pistol. After all, how crazy would it be to see people running around a city with huge automatic weapons? But this 12mm pistol does 4d6+1 damage!! You only need 8 points of clear damage in a single attack to completely mess-up a body area, and for an NPC/enemy that is usually a knockout.

Anyways, just some thoughts ahead of the weekly game. Come back tomorrow (if you're interested) for what happened!

The Fourth Degree

2012-01-24T08:30:00.000Z

I started a degree with the Open University last September under their Open Degree programme. I have a long term goal of completing another degree by the time I am forty (nine years to go!). So far I have finished one 10 credit module, which leaves me with 350 credits to make up. There are some restrictions to what I can study, but only in that I need to get certain numbers of credits at certain levels.

My first module was on computer games, and while I enjoyed learning about the industry and development I was much more excited by the philosophical side of things which was covered in the first few weeks and the historical side of things. In a few weeks I will start another 10 credit module on writing fiction, and I am currently planning to take a module on the "story of maths" in May.

I already have a BA in Maths and Philosophy, and MSc in Mathematical Sciences and a PhD in Maths (all from the University of Liverpool), but after three years away from the learning side of higher education I decided that I needed more. I want to keep learning all through my life; I know that I am anyways, outside of the OU, but doing what I have come to call my "BSc in Interesting Stuff" has really given me some motivation.

After my "story of maths" module I will have a break for a few months, and then most likely start a big module on creative writing for the autumn. I'm currently trying to build a good writing habit (after years of "wanting" to do it) which I think will help all the things that I do work-wise in lots of ways. Creative writing definitely comes down on the Arts side of academia, but so long as I do plenty of maths and tech modules in the years following I will definitely come out the far side of the OU with a BSc.

And who knows... Since my original BA lead to an MSc, maybe this will be a BSc leading to an MA...

Tabletop Games and the Odds

2012-01-23T10:36:00.000Z

I have been thinking for a while about probability in tabletop role-playing games. Mechanics that determine actions influenced by chance make for interesting times, but a few things recently have had me thinking seriously about what the odds are of things happening in games. The first thing that has taken my thoughts in this direction are the influences of the OU module that I took on games (mostly on computer games, but there was a good chunk of time spent on the philosophy of games). The second was playing Apocalypse World.

In Apocalypse World, virtually every action that has a chance element is determined by rolling 2d6. Without any modifier, one needs a 7 to get a "hit" (at least some kind of success), and a 10 or better to get a high hit. There are 11 outcomes (2, 3, ..., 11, 12) for rolling 2d6. The probability of getting a particular outcome is not evenly distributed though - you have to get 1 on both dice to get an outcome of 2, but there are six ways of making your required 7 minimum.

Without modifiers, any chance situation has a 21 in 36 chance of working out (at least somewhat) in the player's favour. More than half, actually, 7 in 12. This makes for quite a balanced sort of game mechanic (I think). But by the end of the campaign my character had a +3 modifier for whenever he tried to do something involving aggression or violence (my character's class was "Gunlugger"). So then from a 4 onwards he was going to get a "hit" - maybe not totally get his whole way on a situation, but he would be successful. What does that mean? Avoid a 2 and a 3 and I'm home free! (well, OK, more or less). Suddenly I have an 11 out of 12 chance of some success. Quite a jump. And the chance of me getting a high hit is more than 50/50.

So OK, enough of all that: this has lead me to thinking that there must be a simple way of qualifying the odds of getting X or more on 2d6. Or Y on 3d8. Or Z on AdN (arbitrary integer A, N (and X, Y, Z)). It is simple enough to draw some tables, noodle some numbers down and do it case-by-case. But my gut says that there is a formula. If this screams "Obviously!" then for now please don't tell me, I want to see if I can get this from working some examples and then generalise. More to follow on this, when I have time to work it out.

Dog Days

2012-01-20T12:21:00.003Z

I have recently got into tabletop roleplaying games. I have read about the hobby for years and years, but never known how to break into it. Last autumn a friend suggested that I come along to a game that a mutual friend was going to GM and see what I thought.

After three hours of play my thoughts were mostly, "Wow."

We were playing Apocalypse World, a game by D. Vincent Baker, and there was a lot about the game that I really liked (I have written some blog posts about it before, here, here and here; I'm sure I will write some more on this blog as well). Recently our group has shifted games to an alternate present setting that is being run with Cyberpunk 2020 rules, which has been hugely entertaining - the mechanics of play are quite different, the setting is light years away from Apocalypse World, and our party has an unfortunate tendency to get severely injured (although not my character, I am happy to say!).

Over the last few weeks I have been reading through the mechanics and setting for another game by D. Vincent Baker, Dogs in the Vineyard. Again, vastly different to both games I've mentioned so far, but keeping the real streak of relationships and consequences of both games that our group have played recently.

I've never GMed a game before, but with some more re-reading and assimilation of the core of Dogs, I think I'm going to put myself forward to GM a campaign later in the year. The setting just calls out to me: gun-slinging missionaries whose word is law; travelling from town to town to keep the peace, calling the Faithful and casting out demons. Really, what's not to like? There are lots of dice used, but the emphasis with them is the random nature of the dice supporting the storytelling; it's really about a great unfolding collaborative narrative that is stitched together by the GM and the players (rather like the distinctive coats that the game's Dogs wear).

So anyway: I expect that over the coming months I'll be posting up some notes on here, as and when I get some ideas in place - although there won't be spoilers for the players who will be taking part!

Birthday

2012-01-18T22:44:00.000Z

That was today. And it was great.
Lots of thoughtful and lovely presents from my wife and family, a quiet morning at home, a nice afternoon out in New Brighton, a visit with my mum and sister, and then returned home for a simple couple of hours with the internet on and Sleepy Hollow in the background.

I've started thinking and writing several posts connected with my OU degree and with games (of various types), and with any luck I'll get one or more of them up tomorrow. But now I'm going to go and look through my presents again!

Today

2012-01-16T14:20:00.001Z

There was a time when this was a blog about a man who was trying to do 101 things before he was 30. And something even more fantastic than those 101 things happened: I got married. And moved house, travelled across America, went to Japan and then went back to the US for my honeymoon.
I have continued occasionally blogging on my "work" blog. But nothing really personal or about my interests. I'm 31 in a few days, and over the last few weeks I've been thinking more and more about writing and what I want to write.
I'm starting an Open University short module about writing fiction soon, and so returning to blogging proper seems like a complementary thing.
All of this is quite a long and round about way of saying: I'm blogging again. I'm blogging about things that I've been thinking about, things that I might be working on, things that really interest me. I might go back to some of my 101 things. I hope to talk about maths things from time to time.
So, in short order, things that interest me:

Books
Games
Writing
Learning
Maths
Life

I used to go by the handle of zero_zero_one, but now it is NathanRyder. And that's all to say about this!

Trillions

2010-01-03T21:39:00.003Z

My sister got me a book for Christmas that I've not read in nearly twenty years, and yet as I was reading it I could feel it all coming back to me. Trillions by Nicholas Fisk is a book that captivated me when I was in primary school, a sci-fi story that grabbed me before I ever really knew that I was in to sci-fi.

The book was a lot slimmer than I remembered, and was over and done with in 120 pages (I'm not sure where my sister got it from, it's been out of print for years I think). It's a slow build, and then the ending appears in the space of comparatively few pages - but it's a book that dazzles thanks to the brilliance of the ideas in it. A small and sleepy coastal town in England is the first place in the world to be visited by tiny jewel-like things from space, but it's not long before they appear all over the world. The 'trillions' are mimics, and make shapes, bracelets and even building-like constructions - and it's not long before people in positions of power come to see them as a threat.

The novel is nearly forty years old, but is quietly timeless in a way. It's a children's novel, and the way that some things are explained and brought up reflect this; the ideas on display are fantastic though, and in reading it one thing screamed out at me: "The BBC should be making this into a mini-series."

Track it down if you can, and give an hour or two to thinking about some big sci-fi ideas.

Thing 68: Done!!!

2009-12-30T15:38:00.002Z

Apologies apologies, once again, blah blah blah, same old story, etc etc.

But look at the title of this post! I come with interesting news!

Less than two years into my 1001 days I have read 101 books! Fabulous, what?

That makes 23 things done, and so many still left to do. I became resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get them all done some time ago, but am still determined to get a lot more of them completed in the next year, just as I am to eventually pick up the pace with this blog and get it somewhere near a regular thing again.

See you in the New Year?

Things Completed

2009-11-28T11:28:00.002Z

In my all, "being lax on blogging because I'm doing engagement and wedding related stuff" I have neglected to mention that I have recently completed two more of my 101 things.

Thing number 12
I filled my Terramundi finally! In case you don't know, a Terramundi is kind of a piggybank. And after just under two years I filled it up with one pound and two pound coins.

Thing number 70
Finally watched 30 films, and so will keep an ongoing list of the films that I'm watching.

Sorry I'm not more chatty with the post, just got so much to do today! More soon, I promise.

Once again, time slips

2009-11-16T10:06:00.002Z

Sorry to anyone who continues to check this blog! I have been lax of late, since my return from Japan, not because I have not been doing anything towards my 101/1001, but because I have been doing so much else besides as well that it has been difficult to update this blog. I need to build some time into my day/week in order to do this more. In fact, I have some half-written posts about the end of my US Road Trip that I should finish soon, and lots and lots of pictures from that trip to upload to Flickr too.

Why has it been taking me a long time to write? Well...

...I got engaged!!! So my time has been invested instead in thinking about engagement party planning, wedding planning, life planning, work planning - lots of planning! It's all good, and sooner or later I will establish some rhythm to my life - at the moment there is not so much rhythm to my days, hours and weeks as there is freeform happiness.

Life is very good, and I hope to continue sharing that in the near future. 'Til then, take care, and do check back.

Oh, hello!

2009-10-11T11:06:00.002+01:00

It's been nearly a month since I wrote on here, and so much has happened, as I'm sure you can guess from my last posts. I went back to Japan! So I have a lot to tell you about regarding that, details of the trip, the wedding that I went to, the culinary delights (and others) that I tried, and so on and so forth. I had a really great time, and am still feeling slightly tired from it all.

I still have to finish writing about my time in America, which I think I need to do soon in order to make sure that I get everything down. I want to have finished writing about both trips before Nanowrimo starts, and October and November are going to be quite busy with work as well. Busy busy busy!

In the last few weeks I've read a couple of books and seen four films as well - and just like that I am within a stone's throw of completing two of my goals - to read 101 books and see 30 films at the cinema. I now have only seven more books to read and one more film to see at the cinema! I want to read those seven other books before the end of the year (which sounds immediately doable, but remember that I won't be reading anything during Nanowrimo, and I have a stack of magazines that I subscribe to I need to read), and it's entirely possible that I will go to see that final film some time in the next week or so.

(not that it will be the last film that I see until I am thirty! You know what I mean)

Anyways, this post is an update and a prelude: in the next few days I am hoping that there will be a deluge of posts that will hit this blog. That's what I am planning for anyway. So, you'll hear all about my trip very soon I hope!

Thing 39, Japan, about to begin

2009-09-15T13:25:00.002+01:00

I know that I haven't finished writing up my American Road Trip (or even uploading the pictures to Flickr), but time has rolled around, and tomorrow I leave for Japan! In fact, I leave home tonight as am staying at girlfriend's this evening as she lives closer to the airport.

It may be three weeks until I blog again, unless I get something down while I'm travelling. As with the USA trip I will be writing notes as I go, so there will be a series of posts when I get back.

So, until the next time I'm back, I hope you take care, keep well and do amazing things!

Thing 65: Done!!!

2009-09-09T16:28:00.002+01:00

It's only in completing this goal that I realise just how straightforward it was, I mean, 101 pictures is not very much, right? But consider: before this I would only ever take my camera with me on a holiday. I would never think to take it on a night out, and I certainly wouldn't think to take it out with me during the day time, what would the point of that be?

Now my camera is part of my mental checklist, part of the kit that I try to remember to have with me when I am going out. It doesn't mean that it is always in my bag or my pocket, but I am getting better. And I'm really excited about sharing photos with people! I'm not sure that I would ever get so far along as to have a super-fantastic amazing camera, but I think that I will be taking photos more and more as time goes on. Perhaps for my next 101 things my goal will be to take 1001 pictures and share them on Flickr?

Enough about the future, I still have to try and accomplish as many of these 101 things as I can. For now, I hope that you enjoy my photos over on Flickr, my photostream can be seen by clicking here.

That makes 19 things done!

Road Trip: Colorado to Nevada, Part 2

2009-09-09T12:29:00.002+01:00

It was a few moments after the fact that we realised we had crossed the border into Arizona; we had started the day by breakfasting on corn dogs and other savouries that we were able to get from a nearby gas station, and so neither of us was feeling in a particularly great mood - perhaps that is why we were suddenly so surprised to be in Arizona. As we realised it we tried to rack our brains, but neither of us remembered passing a sign announcing the different state.

No matter though, we were headed for Flagstaff, our old friend the I40 and Historic Route 66!

Like Utah, Arizona surprised us with its beauty. How did we not know about the beauty and majesty of the deserts and rocks before we left? Were we that clueless, or was it that we were so fixated on the "landmarks" and "destinations" on our trip that we really hadn't thought about the places that we would be driving through? It's a shame to say that due to our lack of knowledge, we spent many drive days just chatting along the way, stopping every few hours to stretch our legs while walking around a shopping centre or outlet mall, when there were probably many lovely natural attractions that we could have seen but for our ignorance.

Once again, our supply of coupon books helped us out when we arrived in Flagstaff and we found a good price at a Howard Johnson. It was a nice room, but we hadn't paid as much attention to our surroundings as we perhaps should have. Why was the restaurant next door (which incidentally served a great dinner and breakfast) decked out with so much train stuff? Again, we were clueless, and the answer made itself known loud and clear half an hour after we checked in, as a cargo train went past on the trainline not thirty metres from the motel. The trains that ran on the line were so long that we stopped counting the cars after a few minutes. At least they stopped running through at about 11pm...

...only to start again shortly after 6 the next morning...

Oh well. After a hearty breakfast we set off along Route 66, trying to soak up the atmosphere of the many travellers who had gone before us. We stopped in Seligman at the Roadkill Cafe for a quick drink and two games of pool (both of which Dave won easily), and then went on to Kingman, our goal for the day. The motel was basic, but comfortable enough, and although we could find nothing noteworthy to go and see in the local area there were plenty of shops! (of course)

We passed the afternoon looking around various malls, and Dave spent a happy half an hour in a 'Boot Barn' trying to decide just how cowboy he really wanted to go. Again we rested up in the evening, because although the next day had comparatively few miles for us to drive we would be spending some time at the Hoover Dam before heading on to the number one place that we had both been looking forward to on the whole trip, Las Vegas.

The day started well with a delicious IHOP breakfast, and though Dave and I might have disagreed about quite a few things on the trip there was one opinion on which both of us are agreed and will not be swayed from: we need International House of Pancakes to establish itself in the United Kingdom. The drive to the Hoover Dam was fine, although of course it was very busy when we arrived there. The size of it, and reading a lot of the information at the visitors centre, one can appreciate just how incredible a feat of engineering it really is. Sixteen tons of cement dropped every ninety seconds for two years!!! Wow. We stood and gawped with the masses for some time, but the siren song of Las Vegas was calling us, and so we set off again.

Traffic was busy, and I know that it took a few hours, but it seemed like no time at all that we were hanging a right on to the Strip, and driving past all of the sights and sounds that we knew so well.

We had arrived.

TO BE CONTINUED

Road Trip: Colorado to Nevada, Part 1

2009-09-09T12:25:00.002+01:00

Fort Collins had been a lovely stop for both of us, but we were both eager to get on the road to Las Vegas, and our proposed stop for the day was Grand Junction - no short distance from Fort Collins. After a hasty breakfast and a quick jaunt on the internet to book something very special for the end of our time in Las Vegas we were on the road south to Denver again.

The changes as we were driving through Colorado were sometimes abrupt; one minute we were headed towards this city sprawl, a sudden right turn to get on to the interstate that we wanted and we were going past mining areas; ten minutes more and we were headed uphill, uphill, uphill... The scenery was quite literally breathtaking at times - mind you, the altitude that we were at might have had something to do with that impression. At the highest point that was marked with a sign, we were at 11,000 feet above sea level, and at that point we noticed that the car was struggling to do over 40mph; for a moment we were very concerned, but then looking around we noticed that many other drivers seemed to be having similar difficulties.

Winding our way along with the Colorado River, me frequently nervous about cliff faces and Dave frequently moaning about not having the opportunity or time to go rafting, we saw so many amazing rock formations and areas of natural beauty that it made me wonder why I had never ventured into the USA before. Already we had seen so many amazing and wonderful things on the trip, that I knew (sadly) I would never be able to remember them all, and yet there was still so much before us.

Grand Junction was a great place to stop at for the night, not far from the border with Utah, not least because we had had a long drive that day (over 300 miles). Once again we were blessed as the motel had a restaurant (meat loaf, mashed potatoes, beans and gravy, served with their 'famous' - and delicious - flowerpot loaf), and breakfast was included in the cost of staying at the motel too. We were exceptionally lucky the next morning too, as shortly after breakfast the power went off in the area. From our room we could see people wandering around the street outside to different gas stations, trying all of them to see if they had power, and looking increasingly confused when the answer was "No" every time.

After the previous day's wonderful scenery, we were really just looking forward to making our way to Bluff, Utah, our proposed stopover point for the night, We thought that desert driving would be pretty, sure, but nothing compared to the wonderful mountains and rivers of Colorado. How wrong we were...

The deserts of Utah, long hot roads and incredible valleys, were totally different from Colorado, and beautiful, indescribable in comparison to the sights that we had seen the previous day. And Utah had mountains too! And rivers! We were spoiled for choice that day in our drive down to Bluff; the scenery was so spectacular that we cut short our afternoon in Moab so that we could take our time driving from there on.

I don't know which one of us noticed it first, but after a time we noticed some storm clouds ahead. The road veered this way and that, but it soon became clear that we were going to be driving right through the middle of it. Ah well, no matter, it didn't look that bad, not like on the TV with all of the hail. It was, however, to be one of the strangest moments of the trip... Utah is really hot, and the digital readout on the car had been sitting at about 105 degrees since late morning. I happened to glance at it.

"Look Dave, we're down to 95! The cloud cover must be really thick..."
(remember, dear reader, that we had the air-con maxed out here, so we couldn't feel the external temperature)
And a few minutes later, after we had been talking, I happened to glance, did a double take and exclaimed:
"Dude! The gauge is down to 80!"
Dave and I looked at each other, both of us had said only a few days earlier how much we liked The Day After Tomorrow.
And a minute later:
"70!!!"
In the space of ten minutes in total, the temperature gauge dropped over 40 points, eventually settling on 59 degrees for five or ten minutes as we cleared the rest of the cloud cover, before steadily climbing back up. The rain itself wasn't even that heavy, but the incident made quite an impression on us, and was something that we were both still talking about when we got to San Francisco.

Bluff is a lovely town, small, but with a lot to offer. The Desert Rose Inn was not cheap compared to many of the motels that we stopped off at on our journey, but its log cabin style and wonderful setting made it one of the nicest places that we stopped at on the road. Dinner was taken care of by the Cottonwood Steakhouse just up the road, and we felt great at the end of the night.

We slept well and rested up: the next day we would head on into Arizona.

TO BE CONTINUED

New Moon & Eclipse

2009-09-08T19:44:00.004+01:00

The second and third books of the Twilight saga took me four days to work my way through, which is a strange way of putting it because at no time did it feel like a chore or hard work to be reading them. Not that the books are "easy to read," as Meyer is doing some quite interesting world-building in her books, mixing a real world setting which jumps out at you as real with supernatural characters that walk off the page just as naturally as the Washington State setting.

Romance is the order of the day, and in case there is someone reading this who hasn't read the books and is spoiler-phobic, I'll try to stick to plot points that don't give too much away. As with Twilight, Meyer continues everything from the first person perspective of Bella, and for the most part this works wonderfully; Bella is a real person, full of passion and emotion and contradiction - she changes her mind, she wants one thing one moment and then the next her mind is in turmoil as she realises what that means. In some ways she is not a very likeable character, and it's to Meyer's credit that you continue to feel so engaged by her heroine.

New Moon and Eclipse build to a love triangle between the lead and her two beaus, Edward and Jacob, who are on opposite sides of a feud started long before Bella was born. This has developed some way in New Moon and by the start of Eclipse you can see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon, and know that someone is going to end up hurt, no matter what happens. Running parallel to this, and for my own taste perhaps not shown enough, is a conflict that is brewing all the while; it takes a long time to come to a head, and even then I was left feeling perhaps that not enough was done with the continuing plot thread from Twilight regarding the vampire Victoria. But as I said at the start of the previous paragraph, romance is the order of the day; Meyer doesn't neglect the action and suspense, but you are in no doubt from the start as to where her focus lies.

Books two and three of the Twilight saga in no way diminish from what has gone before in the first book; Eclipse especially is a fantastic read, really drawing you further into the supernatural world that Bella has found herself belonging to. I don't have the fourth part, Breaking Dawn, but I know that I will read it before too long. Given the ending of Eclipse and the plot threads left dangling I have absolutely no idea where the story is going to go, or what is going to happen, but I am sure that it will be an entertaining and interesting read whatever happens.

Haiku, early September 2009

2009-09-08T19:44:00.001+01:00

And finally haiku from the last week; this takes the total up to an even 50, halfway through my personal haiku goal. I've decided to put them altogether into some kind of pdf or something at the end, and maybe there'll be between six and twelve that are half decent!

The difficult choice,
To do it on the morrow
Or to stay up late...

The rain keeps falling,
Vanish, like my tears, an
Evaporation

We preen and we pose,
For what? Life comes to its close
And nobody knows...

Evil moth sits and stares,
Pretends not to notice that
I have noticed it

Dumb dickhead chav kids,
Riding bikes and swearing lots
Because it's 'clever'

Funny smell on train,
Oh, but it's not me again;
Hmm, what is that stain?

As the train pulls in,
I think about pulling out
And what that could mean

I catch the train (just)
All out of puff, and shiver,
Then count my blessings

Haiku, August 2009

2009-09-08T19:42:00.000+01:00

All but the last of the following were written while I was in San Francisco; a particular group, easily identifiable by their content, were written while I was waiting (momentarily frustrated) in the lobby of the Renoir Hotel.

I sit deflated,
Tired; am I sick? Hope not!
Have lots still to do.

And you lie to me,
And I let you, sweet smile,
Heart still skipping beats.

I circle your mouth,
Gently stroking and touching
With my fingertip

your hand is in mine -
I feel it - over here
in another land

In San Francisco,
I wait for the computer.
My sunburn tingles.

I know he's paying
But does he have to type slow?
And print out so much?

He left it at last,
But shut it down! Sigh - and sigh! -
The log off is fine

the power to change
how others make me feel
mine, and mine alone

Haiku, June and July

2009-09-08T19:38:00.001+01:00

It's some time since I have shared haiku that I have been writing, actually since before I went on my road trip; but that doesn't mean that I haven't been writing them, far from it. In the next few posts I've collected together some of the haiku that I've been jotting down in my Moleskine over the summer, and eventually ending up in the first week of September. As ever, let me know if you like them! I'm not always sure that I do by the time I come to share them, maybe one in ten stands out at me as something neat or interesting.

A note: some of these are quite specific, and were obviously influenced by things going on around me at the time, so I think I might add some commentary in the comments at a later date (but one not too far in the future).

June

She always teases,
Pointing out my shortcomings.
I laugh, but she's right.

It is not a dream;
I never want to forget
This wonderful day

July

The mirror cracks wide,
I can't see myself inside,
The old me has died?

Fingers go walking;
It's spring down in the valley
I can't help myself.

Your nails rake me,
The sensation makes me gasp!
Your soft lips delight.

So... The Blue Man Group?
Or David Copperfield?!
But... Jerry Seinfeld!

An Angus Burger
Is dirty, but Taco Bell
Is really much worse...

(the latter two were written while I was in Las Vegas)

District 9

2009-09-08T14:38:00.003+01:00

It seems like only yesterday since I said that Inglourious Basterds was my second favourite film of the year after Star Trek (oh wait, I think it was yesterday, and if I didn't say it in so many words that was what I was thinking). But that was until yesterday evening when I saw District 9, a film whose premise had captivated me since I first heard of it earlier in the year.

I didn't see much of the viral campaign for the film, although when I was in the USA I saw plenty of signs (especially in Los Angeles) on bus shelters advertising the fact that they were for humans only, and by this point I knew a bit more about the film's story. Nearly thirty years ago a spaceship stopped over Johannesburg, seemingly broken down and unable to move. The aliens onboard were relocated to the ground, and now all of those years later are being forcibly relocated to another settlement camp, while they and their technology are being exploited by a shady multinational...

District 9 does many things that one might expect from a sci-fi film if you have narrow expectations of the genre: there are aliens and ray guns, explosions and technology - but there is so much more. It's a story of a man, genuinely changed (physically and spiritually) by what he sees, when he is forced to look at the world that he now lives in. It's a story of oppression, and how both sides view that. For a film with a fraction of the budget of something like Star Trek or Transformers 2 it has special effects which go beyond being special - the alien creatures never fail to convince, never fail to not seem real - and the bonus that it has over many of the summer blockbusters that I've seen this year is that it has a genuinely fascinating, original and brilliant story.

Star Trek is still warping ahead of the other contenders in the field, but District 9 is a great film, highly recommended from me to you, and well worth your time and money to see.

Update

2009-09-08T14:18:00.003+01:00

There are several of the goals on my list that I'm actively working towards, or at least have stuff getting ready in the wings. A big one of these is my Japan trip, but I'll write about that separately soon - now I'm just going to concentrate on a few others.

Thing 9: Address Book
I bought an address book a while ago, and have slowly been populating it with names and contact details; I dropped the ball before I went away by accidentally deleting someone's address when they sent it to me and not writing it in the book, so I don't think I have the right to claim number 9 as completed yet. But soon.

Thing 12: Fill Terramundi
The piggybank, which I've been filling with one and two pound coins is really heavy now, and getting quite full. I'm not sure how much there will be in there when it is done, but it feels good to have been casually saving this money by putting the odd pound in every few days.

Thing 44: Sci-fi Convention
I don't think I mentioned before I went away, but I booked tickets to go to the SFX Weekender in February next year! Very excited about this!

Thing 45: Ico
After the memory card failed I did start to replay this, but then got sidetracked with working on the Career Skills Workshop in June, and of course I then went to the USA. I'll have to get back on to this soon. But now that I think about it, soon might not be until after I get back from Japan.

Thing 65: Flickr
I've been uploading pictures from my USA Road Trip to Flickr, and consequently that brings the total number of pictures that I've uploaded to Flickr to a total of 94. It won't be too long before I upload more pictures that have been taken since I started my 101 things, and so I don't think it will be too long before this goal is achieved.

Thing 95: BookCrossing
I signed up with BookCrossing a while ago, but never got around to leaving books anywhere! I have lots and lots of books in my own personal collection, so there's no reason why this can't be done some time soon. Perhaps I can combine this with thing 101, spending a lazy afternoon in a bookshop with friends...

Thing 99: Done!!!

2009-09-08T14:15:00.003+01:00

Quite a simple one this, but the occasion never really presents itself, you know? And I forgot to report it a week ago! But anyway, on Saturday 29th August 2009, while enjoying a day out at Lyme Park I completed Thing 99 on my list of 101 things, namely to have a picnic.

And it was lovely, even if it was a bit windy.

So that makes a total of 18 so far, with a few more nearing completion! Time to pick up the pace, but I can and I will. Just over halfway through the 1001 days, but I've never felt so energised and ready to do stuff as I have lately. So just watch this space!

Road Trip: Fort Collins

2009-09-08T10:24:00.003+01:00

We were almost at the mid-point of our trip, and it was time for a day of rest and relaxation. For myself, that meant walking around the small-town charms of Fort Collins, talking to local people and writing postcards in the sunshine; for Dave that meant over four hours trekking around a golf course, burning his head in altitude sunshine, but having fun.

He left early, and so I had a lazy start, writing in my journal and texting my girlfriend, before setting off in a taxi to Fort Collins; I had thought about walking, but realised after getting the scale right on the map that we were quite some way out of the city. The taxi driver was really friendly, and dropped me off near to the local tourism centre. They were also great, and gave me some pointers to where I should go - more than anything I needed stamps and postcards, as I had decided that that day was going to be one for writing to people, so my first stop was to find the local post office.

As I walked around and saw all the local businesses something started to occur to me, there was something about the area that was trying to grab my attention and I couldn't figure out what it was. And then there it was, really obvious: in the centre of Fort Collins there were no chain coffee shops or fast food places. There wasn't a Borders or even a Subway (which really are everywhere in the US), the city was bereft of chains.

I loved it. As much as I love a good Starbucks tea, it was brilliant to find one place on the trip that seemed to be untouched by the creeping horror of the 20th century. I stopped in several shops which sold art and jewellery made by local artisans and picked up quite a few pieces for family. After lunch and a call back to the UK I stopped off at an independent bookshop, Old Firehouse Books, where I bought some science fiction anthologies that would have cost me a lot more in the UK; I then went to the fabulous independent comic shop Hailley's Comics and had a good long chat with the owners (a middle-aged couple who had been high school sweethearts) an bought some comics as I was missing my weekly fix of comics.

The end of the day, after a lovely walk, was slightly weird, but also very good. The local tourist centre were really helpful in giving me details to call a taxi to take me back to the motel, but then the taxi never showed up. I waited for a long time, and had a really good long chat with Dave, a hot dog vendor, about travel and the world. As I walked away to try and rendezvous with Dave my travel companion I realised that I had not taken a single picture in Fort Collins, I had simply sat back and let the relaxation of the city-that's-a-small-town wash over me; walking down the small streets and residential roads to meet Dave I realised that I had found somewhere very special.

Both of us were very tired, and one of us was quite burned from playing golf in strong sunshine, so after a quick wander around a local mall and Walmart to pick up supplies we went back to the motel to relax. Both of us had had a great day off, each according to his own preference, but we would need our sleep.

The next day we would be starting another long five day drive, to the one place that we were both eager to reach: Las Vegas.

TO BE CONTINUED

Road Trip: Tennessee to Colorado, Part 2

2009-09-07T11:59:00.002+01:00

Heading into Kansas was nice, and while people talk about endless fields they neglect to mention just how beautiful the country is. It might get a bit tiring after hundreds of miles of the same, but it is beautiful all the same.

On our first day in Kansas we stopped in Wichita for lunch, then spent a long time trying to get out of Wichita. Lots of detours and not much to see, we were a bit perplexed by Wichita, like perhaps we had missed something. We drove on to Salina, where we stopped in a lovely motel, a Quality Inn; I was able to get my laundry done, and we had a great sit-down meal thanks to the motel having a restaurant as well. A massive burger patty served between two pieces of rye toast, with cross-hatch fries and salad: I ate it all and felt by the end that perhaps I had eaten far too much. We chilled out watching Poker on ESPN, and all-in-all had a fantastically relaxing evening.

Our second day of driving in Kansas was a long straight road to Goodland, past seemingly endless fields of wind turbines and crops. It was a lovely day though, and there were two reasons for that. The first was "Prairie Dog Town", which we started to see adverts for more than fifty miles before we reached it. "The World's Largest Prairie Dog!!!" As the miles ticked over we started to wonder what we might see. How big could this prairie dog be? The size of a dog? A pig? Of course, all was not what it seemed, and the prairie dog was an enormous statue! However, Prairie Dog Town was quite charming: lots of animals, although the rattlesnakes (boxed though they were) did give me the jitters, and kind of quaint. Given the kind of jobs and businesses that my family have had several generations back, it felt kind of right (more on that some other time maybe).

The second reason that the day was good was the fab motel that we stayed in, fifty dollars plus tax, exercise equipment and a Chinese restaurant. As soon as we checked in we thought, "Score!" Dave went for a swim, I worked out and we had dinner, while a storm that bordered on the apocalyptic raged outside. Televisions kept cutting out as the emergency weather broadcast came on to report tornadoes that had been sighted less than twenty miles away, along with "baseball to grapefruit-sized hailstones". At least we had a delicious meal to eat, and after working out I felt fantastic.

I had a workout again the following morning, which really set me up for the day; we were heading in to Colorado, and weren't far from the border. The plan was to stop in Denver for a few hours before heading to Fort Collins, and we had a mostly uneventful drive, apart from getting into Denver itself. We had a surplus of maps, but these hindered as much as they helped, as we were constantly shifting between different versions to find the streets that we were after. Denver was lovely, and reminded me of Manchester in some ways in terms of its layout, and while we had a pleasant afternoon there we left late and it was nearly 7pm by the time we reached Fort Collins.

For the first time on the trip we had problems in finding a motel room for the night, and it was only at the fifth motel that we tried that we were able to get a room for the two nights that we would be staying in the area. Most of the motels that we tried were quite apologetic that they had no rooms free, although at one place - which wasn't in the best condition - we were faced with a particularly snooty woman who looked down her nose at us when we asked if there was a reduction for staying multiple nights (the price was quite steep). As she turned away I was amused to see a prominent love-bite on her neck, and for the life of me I still can't understand why it amused me so much.

After settling into another Days Inn, we relaxed over a McDonalds dinner (Angus third-pounder with mushrooms and swiss cheese, they do them better in the USA) and talked about what we would each be doing the following day. Dave was bouncing off the walls at the prospect of playing golf, and meanwhile I was looking forward to a lovely day strolling around Fort Collins.

TO BE CONTINUED

Road Trip: Tennessee to Colorado, Part 1

2009-09-07T11:18:00.002+01:00

After a good night's sleep in our rundown motel, we set off early into Arkansas (after a brief diversion to a post office; I sent over 50 postcards from my trip in total) and headed for Little Rock. We had originally thought about stopping there for the night, but it was only 145 miles from Memphis to Little Rock, and we had some days coming up which had some serious mileage attached, so in the end we decided to spend the afternoon in Little Rock before moving on.

Little Rock was a lovely city, and we only saw a tiny part of it. The attraction for the day was the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, which was an amazing archive describing all of the great things that he did while in office. Dave and I mused on this afterwards, that President Obama is touted as being a great man and someone who will get things done, but somewhere in that I think people are forgetting just how much Bill Clinton did while in office. We had lunch in a lovely food court nearby, and I picked up a souvenir Air Force One tshirt from the library gift shop, and then we set off again, eventually settling in Russellville for the night at a Budget Inn. Very basic, pretty cheap but it did the job.

Like many places that we visited along the way, Russellville was like one big street near the interstate with lots of shops and fast food places. There was a Walmart, and we went once again to have a look around the cookie-cutter shopping experience; dinner was our first taste of Taco Bell, which can't be good for you, but was just too tasty not to repeat later on in the trip (cheesy potato and bacon burrito with tacos, yum!).

The next day we set off again, detouring from our original itinerary to head north via Oklahoma City instead of Tulsa; there wasn't anything in particular we had been looking to see in Tulsa, and once again by detouring we were getting ahead of ourselves so that the mileage in days to come would not be so severe. We stopped at an honest-to-goodness independent business for lunch that day, Robertsons Ham Sandwiches, which was delicious, two pieces of bread with a big wedge of thin-sliced ham inbetween. Dave's sandwich was even bigger, even more meat! A lovely place, run by two older ladies, and sadly, as we drove off, I couldn't help but think that in a few years it would be gone, replaced by a Subway when the ladies could no longer manage running it.

We stopped for the night in a regular motel, nothing special, nothing terrible, but the laundry room was busy, and I had to really search my case to find clean clothes for the following day. Things were getting desperate... But not me and Dave, we had settled into the routine of travelling quite well after a week on the road, and were keen all the time to keep pressing on. We were looking forward to reaching Colorado and enjoying the road inbetween, but at the same time we were also quite conscious that Las Vegas was the destination that we were both looking forward to most, both eager to reach. Dave had booked a round of golf at Fort Collins, and I was really happy to spend a day exploring there - but first we had to cross Kansas...

TO BE CONTINUED

Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-07T10:50:00.002+01:00

Since Jackie Brown I've seen all of Quentin Tarantino's films at the cinema; it's always great to have them on DVD to watch afterwards, but given that the man is so in love with cinema it's always great to watch on the big screen. In a way, you know what you're going to get when you go to see a Quentin Tarantino film: you know not to take things at face value, you know that you're going to get some astonishing dialogue and you know that you're going to be entertained.

Inglourious Basterds did not disappoint. I've been meaning to go and see it for a few weeks now, carefully storing up the pleasure that I knew I would get from it. It's difficult to know where to begin... It is a brilliant film, a fantastic piece filled with great performances, the greatest being Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, the 'Jew Hunter', a really wonderful, charming and evil creation - a performance that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up every time that he came on screen. Brad Pitt is hilarious, his accent and delivery as the leader of the Basterds is pitch-perfect. The plot is faintly ridiculous, and as time goes on we realise more and more that this is not quite the real world - more than being a fiction, it is not a fiction set in the real Second World War - but the dialogue draws you in more and more, the tension in many scenes being so high as to be near unbearable (a scene where two of the Basterds and an undercover British agent try to evade the suspicions of an SS Officer is a high point).

The best film of the year for me is still Star Trek, but Inglourious Basterds now runs a close second for me - I'd been looking forward to it since Tarantino first started talking about it years and years ago, before Kill Bill came out I think - it wasn't what I was expecting, but a new Tarantino film never is. The first viewing of a Tarantino film is a rare and wonderful pleasure; while his films always reward repeat viewings, there is nothing that beats that exhilaration of seeing them for the first time, and if you haven't seen Inglourious Basterds yet then I would urge you to see it soon.

Road Trip: Tennessee, Part 2

2009-09-06T11:36:00.002+01:00

The drive to Memphis was fairly uneventful, although finding our way around to a motel was a bit of a difficult prospect. Before we even got to our destination we found ourselves humming "in the ghetto" more than once, especially as we searched for a motel. The coupon booklet lead us to a chain that we had visited before; previously we had had a good experience, staying in a fantastic motel that was well set out and had many good points.

This iteration of the chain was, well, shall we say, slightly lacking by comparison... But no matter, it was a room with two beds and AC, shower etc, and who cares that the included breakfast was the worst on the whole trip? We were in Memphis, and we were here for one thing and one thing only: Graceland.

Graceland was really easy to find, and we had already decided in advance that we were going to purchase VIP tickets so that we could see everything that it had to offer. We had no other plans for Memphis, and from what we had heard it definitely wouldn't hurt to put all of our eggs in one basket. It was a rainy day when we set out to the former home of Elvis, but the VIP tickets meant that we went straight to the head of the queue for buses that were going across the road from the Graceland visitors centre to the house itself (our guide, on hearing that we were from Liverpool, informed us that one of her best friends in the world was the 'fifth Beatle'; we were just happy to be recognised as being from the UK, something that not many people had understood the first time that we had spoken to them, or the second for that matter), and so we were out of the rain fairly quickly.

If a timeline of photos taken against time was laid out for my trip, then by far and away the greatest concentration of images would come from that one morning spent walking around Graceland: considering that one of the prevailing images in my mind of Elvis is his Vegas residency, I expected Graceland to be a bit gaudy. Instead I found a perfectly preserved, tastefully decorated mansion from the 1970s. I knew Elvis previously from his music, but this was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the man, and the sort of style that he had, and what came through - from the audio tour and from the way that the house was furnished - was that he was a man who loved his family and his friends, and would go out of his way to make them feel as comfortable and at home as possible. Considering that today we see so many "celebrities" on television with their hangers-on and false friends, it was really beautiful to see in so many exhibits and pictures just how close Elvis was to his friends, and that they really were his friends as well and not just out to make a quick buck off of his celebrity.

By this point we were a week and a half into our trip, and while the constant travelling around hadn't become a feeling of normality yet, the surreality of what we were doing had faded somewhat. Graceland and its many exceptional exhibits and snapshots of one of the greatest icons of the last century in some ways helped me realise again that what Dave and I were doing was something quite special, that not everyone goes and travels as we were doing.

Something that was less special to us was downtown Memphis itself; we followed some of the directions from the various guidebooks and tourist leaflets we had picked up, and this lead us to a mall that was only half-open, many of the shops empty. A walk through the surrounding neighbourhoods had us heading back to the car after only half an hour, which then took us back to our motel. Memphis itself might have been slightly disappointing, but the day had been a high point of the trip so far, and in our minds would come to be a high point of the trip as a whole.

We headed back to our disappointing motel, and got some sleep; tomorrow the open road was before us, as it was for several days after. We were headed for Colorado, and had many, many miles ahead.

TO BE CONTINUED

Road Trip: Tennessee, Part 1

2009-09-02T13:55:00.002+01:00

Crossing the border from Virginia into Tennessee, it was like we hit a wall made of heat: the humidity began at the state line, I'm sure of it. Shortly after that we spotted a sign for a state visitor centre, so thought it might be a good idea to stop there and see if there were any cool things we could go and see or do.

Stopping at the visitor centre was good for two reasons:
1). We found here - and found subsequently - that many state tourist centres give out free booklets of vouchers for motels; we think we saved a small fortune in using those booklets for the road trip.
2). Had we not stopped, we would never ever have thought to go to Pigeon Forge for the night, where we saw Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.

The Dixie Stampede was cheesy, but brilliant, watching a horse show and being fed large amounts of food (a whole roast chicken!). Dave and I rolled our eyes at a lot of the over-the-top patriotism that was on display at times, but watching the stunt riders and the theatrics was really entertaining.

From there, after a very good night's sleep we moved on to Nashville for two nights. The motel we stayed at was fantastic, a really great, well-situated Quality Inn which was the first place to offer a cooked breakfast and which also had a great Italian-influenced restaurant just around the corner. Dave took off for a few hours to replace Betsy the Second (whose tracking was wrong) with the sportier Betsy the Third, a car who served us well for the rest of the trip.

Nashville was a beautiful city, and we immersed ourselves in the history of music in the city. The Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Theatre (original home of the Grand Ol' Opry), the new Opry Mills Mall and new Opry - none of it disappointed, and this was after starting the day by taking a tour around the State Capital building and then the Frist Art Gallery. The history that we learned about at the State Capital was very interesting, tales of divison and re-union, of shots fired and people honoured. The Country Music Hall of Fame was brilliant, incredibly interesting and a home of research for country music today. The Ryman Theatre was a lovely place, and one can see right away why it means so much to so many bands and music lovers around the world.

Opry Mills Mall was nice as malls go, but still just a mall: we had a look around a small museum about the history of the new Opry, but it didn't have the charm of the original Opry. After going to see Bruno (amazing to see a woman leading two small children out after five minutes; I don't understand the thinking behind the US movie certificate system at all) we headed back to the Quality Inn to sleep after what had been a fun and full day. We would need our sleep, for the next day we were driving on to somewhere that would prove to be a highlight of the trip for both of us: Graceland.

TO BE CONTINUED

Road Trip: Washington DC

2009-08-28T13:23:00.003+01:00

We arrived in Washington by train, the Amtrak living up to the good things that I had heard about it before the journey (I had heard some bad things as well, about long queues, late trains and so on, but all of that proved unfounded; in nearly every way Amtrak was better than the best national rail journey I've had in the UK). Union Station was beautiful, and the taxi ride to our hotel in Arlington was short and sweet, taking us past the Pentagon and giving us glimpses of distant monuments that we knew from news stories and political thrillers.

I was still feeling ill at this point, so I took myself off for a few hours to an urgent care centre to get checked over, while Dave went off to explore the local streets and see how well connected we were to the capital. As it turned out, the Doubletree Hotel was just a few minutes from a metro station that took us straight into our first tourist stop the next day, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Dave and I were like kids at Christmas walking around there, just gawping in wonder at things that quite literally are incredible. I haven't been able to convey this to my family, who smile bemusedly at my proclamations: "...so we walk in and there, right there in front of us is the Apollo 11 capsule that brought Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins back from the Moon!!! Can you believe it??? And upstairs was the 1903 Wright Flyer!!! How cool is that???"

They didn't get it. But no matter, we were happy, and the whole morning passed by in a state of bliss looking at fabulous and wonderful things.

After lunch in the Smithsonian Food Court (brought to you by McDonald's!), we set off for our long walk around the Mall. Maybe it was a placebo effect, but I was already starting to feel better, and so the long trek wasn't too bad. We started outside the Capitol Building, looking down the Mall past the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial and the pool, all the way to the distant building of the Lincoln Memorial. It was a pleasant walk, really nice and really beautiful actually. The World War II Memorial gave us pause for thought on our way down, but the real breath-taker for the day was the Lincoln Memorial.

There is something incredibly powerful about the Lincoln Memorial; even before we went to the USA I knew that it was something that I was really looking forward to seeing, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Of course, the impact of Abraham Lincoln on history couldn't not have effected me in some way - but I'm just a 28 year old guy from the UK, born nearly 120 years after he was assassinated, so why should it matter all that much? Because the Lincoln Memorial is not just 'another place to tick off' on the list of tourist attractions... There is a power to it, the eyes of the statue follow you, stare at you and through you, and the wording above the monument is so beautiful:

"In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever."

I still can't find the words to explain just what it is about the Lincoln Memorial that has put a pull on my heart and mind, but nor can I dismiss it. Maybe the simplest thing that I can do is to encourage you to go and see it for yourself if you have never seen it; I hope that it has the same impact on you that it had on me.

From there we moved on to the Vietnam Memorial, and then from there we made our way out to Arlington National Cemetery. This was also quite a powerful place to visit, especially the grave of John F. Kennedy; from there we went on to the Iwo Jima Memorial, which was awe-inspiring to look up at. The shadows were lengthening, and we were both feeling the length of the day on us, so it was time to head back to the Doubletree Hotel (which, by the way, I highly recommend to anyone with plans to visit Washington DC; just over in Arlington, superbly located for taxis from Union Station and easy to get to on the Metro as well, and which is just stunning inside - and was really, really good value) and a good night's sleep.

We would need it: the next day we would begin four weeks of driving.

TO BE CONTINUED

Some Films!

2009-08-26T16:01:00.003+01:00

I saw quite a few films while I was in America, and one since I've been back, and it dawns on me as I sit here that I have been extremely remiss in not saying something about them. So then, join me in this condensed review post!

Bruno
A bit more scattershot than Borat I thought, but oddly with a more cohesive story that doesn't break the fourth wall (where was Borat's cameraman all the time that he was poor and penniless? How exactly did that work?). If anything many of Bruno's exploits are even more sensational than Borat's, and it's a wonder that people didn't realise what was happening before their eyes more often. Bruno's sexual escapades are crude, but quite clever in getting a laugh, and his attitudes and lack of intelligence do make for some fun moments. It doesn't quite reach the heights of Borat, and Bruno is not as likeable as Borat, but it is still quite funny in an oh-my-gosh-I-can't-look-what-is-he-doing-with-that-midget sort of way.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
A good effort, and possibly the best adaptation to date in the Harry Potter films, but once again falls short by removing important plot points that feel key to the overall book (if not the series). Visually the film has never been better, and finally Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe have caught up with Rupert Grint in the acting stakes, turning in performances that finally capture the young people that Hermione and Harry are growing into. The major death and betrayal lack the punch that they had in the book, but hopefully the two parts of Deathly Hallows that are to come will be a good (if probably not great) conclusion to the movie adaptations.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
The occasional decent action sequence cannot make up for the plothole-ridden terror of the story. Special effects seem as if they haven't moved forward for years. Otherwise good actors give career-low performances and the only thing that saves it from being a one-star movie in my back are the sometimes incredible martial arts/sword-fighting scenes between Snake Eyes and the other ninja (see, I can't even be bothered to remember his name).

The Time Traveler's Wife
A good adaptation, brilliant performances, and beautiful music. The film lacks some of the power of the book, and as with Harry Potter there are changes or omissions which don't make sense to me (but of course, I've never adapted an acclaimed book into a feature film, so what do I know?), but I would say that this works even better than the adaptation of Harry Potter does. Every now and then there is a flash of brilliance in something that it manages to convey and in those moments you sit in wonder at what has been achieved: a genuine romantic fantasy.

Road Trip: New York, New York

2009-08-24T15:04:00.004+01:00

We spent two full days wandering around New York at the start of July; it's a city that fascinates, from the outside looking in, arguably the city that people think of first when they are confronted with the idea of the USA.

We started on our first day of sightseeing by heading for Times Square, where we both were faced with mammoth breakfasts and people trying to rip us off (at least I only ended up with two rap CDs by young stars, one of who gave me the 'rap name' N-Banga; Dave paid over the odds for a battery charger and complained bitterly about it for days); from there we wandered down Broadway more or less, heading downtown. Grand Central, Macy's, the Empire State Building and more, we looked for the New York that jumped out of the collective unconscious, the New York that we were told was waiting for us.

Hustle and bustle doesn't begin to describe the movements on the streets, but away from the main crowds there is a lot of space and quiet in New York City. The promenade leading to the Staten Island Ferry (which is perhaps the greatest free tourist attraction/public transport I've ever heard of) was lovely and chilled out, the occasional runner or roller-blader, and the ferry itself gives spectacular views. Central Park too, is utterly glorious, an oasis of calm in the centre of a fractured metropolis, itself a patchwork piece of quiet (reservoir, lakes, gardens, paths, so much quiet, so much space, so much beauty).

The memorial centre for the World Trade Centre was a very difficult place to visit; it almost felt as if I was trespassing on the grief of others, as if I had no right to be there because I hadn't been present when that awful day eight years ago happened. The Guggenheim was a joy, a celebration of what it means to create - from the amazing collection of famous art to the incredible explosion of talent on the top floor with works by school children, this was perhaps the highlight of the city for me.

Looking back seven weeks or so, New York remains a difficult place for me to reconcile in my mind. In many ways beautiful, in many ways quite challenging with its constantly shifting boundaries and areas, it was a shock to the system from stepping off the plane to when we caught the train to Washington DC, at once familiar with language and culture and at the same time very alien.

TO BE CONTINUED

Thing 41: Done!!!

2009-08-21T16:46:00.003+01:00

I have been meaning to write for so, so long, that I just have to write something and then that will get the ball rolling again on writing here!

So yes, I have completed possibly one of the biggest things on my list, to visit five US states. In the end I visited eleven states, and passed through several more eastern states when I took an Amtrak train from New York to Washington (but that doesn't really count as "visiting" in my book, all of these I actually spent time at). I kept a journal as I was travelling, but I'm not going to write that up here, instead, over the coming days and weeks (hopefully not months!) I'm going to be writing some of my musings on each state that I went to. Some will be longer than others, as I spent longer in some states and cities than others; some states we passed through in a day, but all of the ones on the list, and the cities, are places that we stayed in on our five weeks of travels.

I've got some films to write short reviews on, and some books, and they should come soon too. I'm also going to be pulling some pieces of flash fiction from my experiences I think. As a run up to this year's NaNoWriMo, I think that I am going to make September and October a warm-up exercise, to write a piece of flash fiction at least every other day. Because I will be away in Japan for three weeks during that time I might not be able to post them on here during that period, but I will definitely be writing. And I'll be experiencing more and more that I can plow right back into my writing.

Although I had promised myself that this year I would be writing non-fantasy/sci-fi for NaNoWriMo I can feel myself at the event horizon. Different ideas are pulling on me, and they're all connected, all of them part of the story that is seething away behind my eyes. I might start writing before NaNoWriMo, and write something different then, because these ideas are pulling on me so strong.

But anyway, I digress: America was fantastic, I'm happy to be back and I'm also happy to be off travelling again soon. I will be writing again very soon, and this blog will become a hive of activity again, I promise.

Thing 76 Done!!!

2009-07-02T15:21:00.002+01:00

This morning I finished reading Bone by Jeff Smith, which I've been working my way through for the last month since getting the complete collection in one volume. With planning and preparing for my road trip I don't have the time to say too much about it now, other than to say that I thought it was utterly brilliant from start to finish. I really believe that the work as a whole is on a par with The Lord of the Rings.

The road trip begins on Monday; I'll be making notes and taking lots of pictures as I'm going across the USA, but not sure if I'll be on email or internet very much. In case I don't get back on here until the middle of August when I'm back, I hope that your summer is great and happy and full of good weather.

16 out of 101 things done... Time to pick up the pace!

Thing 92 Done!!!

2009-06-21T21:20:00.002+01:00

For my US Road Trip - which is now only two weeks away!!! - I bought myself a wind-up torch yesterday... And then it suddenly dawned on me that that was one of my 101 things, Thing 92.

I guess that there's not much you can say about it apart from that. It's a nice little torch. And it's powered by me! So yeah.

I fly to New York two weeks tomorrow. Where did the last ten months go?

Terminator Salvation

2009-06-15T16:31:00.003+01:00

The absolute best thing about Terminator Salvation is the flawless digital cameo towards the end of an actor who was associated with the first three films but not with this new franchise.

I say new franchise, because there is absolutely no way that I will ever think of it as being part of the original franchise (I have a hard enough job considering Rise Of The Machines to be canon sometimes). Previously the films - especially T2, my personal favourite - were about fantastic sequences and special effects welded with interesting, dynamic ideas and plot. Salvation had the effects, and at times it even had the ideas but the plot and script let the whole affair down with huge gaping chasms of logic and some terrible, terrible dialogue.

I wasn't even going to write about the film (the old adage, if you can't say anything nice...) but watching the magnificence of T2 yesterday really threw Salvation's shortcomings into stark relief.

Haiku

2009-06-02T11:27:00.001+01:00

It's been some time since I posted haiku, but it doesn't mean that I've not been writing them. Here are the recent ones from the last month or so, which takes us up to 27 in total now.

A trick of the light,
The smile I thought I saw
Was not meant for me

We gambled our love
For the sake of a bad debt
And came up snake eyes

The end of the world
Is different for each man.
A personal fate

Your reassurance
And then my ego is maxed!
I can play outside

Faster and faster
And faster, resulting in
Your own disaster

Star Trek

2009-06-02T11:25:00.003+01:00

Three weeks after I saw it, I finally get around to writing my thoughts on Star Trek. I've not been to the cinema as much as I would have liked so far this year, which means that when I say Star Trek is the best film I have seen so far this year it doesn't really have the impact that it should.

From start to finish, I really enjoyed it; I've seen it twice now, and on both occasions it was just a total joy to watch. The casting is very strong, and I think that the characters in the main roles all hit the bullseye when it came to performances, none of them straying into caricatures or impersonations, but still delivering what the audience expects and remembers in terms of the qualities that make up the characters. Zachary Quinto, in particular, excels as Spock - as does Leonard Nimoy, who binds together the franchise with an appearance that is more than merely fan-pleasing.

Criticisms can be made about the plot, particularly about the effects of red matter - whose properties could be helpfully summed up as "doing whatever the plot requires" - but in some ways that misses the point of the enterprise (pun intended). This is Star Trek, not hard sci-fi space opera - a criticism levelled at plot holes in the film also hits the many, many occasions over the years where Star Trek has put the story and the people ahead of the plot holes, and which have been successes because of it.

If it doesn't quite hit the emotional highs of Wrath of Khan or The Undiscovered Country it is certainly not for want of trying. This is a bold, primary colours, optimistic view of the future, a rebirth of a fantastic franchise and could very well go on to be my favourite film of the year.

The big question for me now is whether or not I can squeeze in a third trip to the cinema to see it again...

Three Weeks!!!

2009-05-27T11:07:00.004+01:00

I don't really know why it has been three weeks since I've posted; have entered a bit of a holding pattern I guess. Planning for the USA trip is going well, and the trip is only 40 days away!!! Crazy stuff.

I've not been able to make the progress I wanted on some of the other things I was thinking about doing in May. I thought that June was going to be really quiet as well, but have now got a pretty big project to work on as a Course Manager for a Career Skills Workshop which is at the end of June. Lots of prep over the next four weeks. Am beginning to realise that this is a huge job, and there's plenty to do right now. Problem is that it is heavily contingent on me being given information, and the information is not forthcoming at the mo...

Stress! But oh well. Things are moving on... As they always are. Am thinking of starting a new blog just to post little bits and pieces of writing on. I like that I write about my 101 things here, but want to write about other things too.

Anyways. Am going to post more in the next few days. My belated thoughts on Star Trek and some haiku I think. Maybe other things too!

Eastern Standard Tribe

2009-05-05T09:27:00.002+01:00

As any regular reader will no doubt have noticed from my reading list, I am a bit of a Cory Doctorow fan. I like the kinds of things that he champions on Boing Boing, and while I think I first heard of him through the short story When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth it was reading Little Brother for the first time last year that really made me like his work a lot. Little Brother is a really great near future thriller that young adults can really get their teeth into and get something out of since it deals with such interesting ideas as civil liberties and digital freedoms.

If Little Brother is a mini-masterpiece then Eastern Standard Tribe is an early sketch, a rough drawing that shows a lot of promise but which ultimately falls short for the reader. The ideas - derived from circadian rhythms and being culturally connected to people not physically close to you in the digital age, as well as a slew of well-handled ideas on things like new media and a more bureaucratic society - are cool and interesting, and no-one can doubt that Doctorow has a great ability for taking interesting ideas and dropping them into stories. However, in this earlier work it shows in the plotting that he is still developing as a writer. The build up of the story is interesting, but the end appears so quickly and happens so fast that you have to blink in case you miss it (much like in Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom).

I've just realised looking back over my first two paragraphs that I've not really told you much about the plot, but I think that's OK, that's something that you can discover for yourself. As a springboard for an interesting future that has some well thought out ideas playing in the foreground, Eastern Standard Tribe does not disappoint. The plot is fast-moving, and though I felt a bit cheated at the sudden end it is a great ideas novel and well worth reading as an example of an author with a brilliant mind for speculating about the future.

Eastern Standard Tribe is available to download for free under a Creative Commons license.

Coraline

2009-05-04T10:09:00.002+01:00

Yesterday evening I went to see a preview of Coraline in 3D, and while I was fairly certain that I would enjoy the film being a fan of the book I really did not expect to come out of it buzzing about it as I did. The animation is simply wonderful, inventive and fabulous with an impressive eye to the smallest of details; the script has been sensibly adapted from Neil Gaiman's book, nothing lost or added that doesn't make sense and with a superb voice cast.

I've been to see a film before which had 3D elements, but none that were so carefully integrated as in Coraline. No red and green filters on the glasses, no tacky effects - Coraline was shot for 3D and it shows. Foreground elements stand out boldly and show the depth of the world that Henry Selick has created; the tunnel connecting the two houses stretches away and makes you feel as if you could be about to go through it for real; a needle sews in a button eye and comes out of the screen towards you... I'm sure that Coraline wouldn't have been a disappointment if it had not been in 3D, but the fact that it was transformed it from being a great film to being an outstanding film, and an amazing cinema experience.

So I heartily recommend that you go and see Coraline, and see it in 3D at the cinema if you can. Children will love it, and won't find it half as scary as adults do - we overthink things too much - and if you have a fear of buttons... Well, you should still see it! Definitely. Do it. It will help.

Yes, I'm talking to you.

Haiku

2009-05-04T10:06:00.001+01:00

I dress for summer -
A vain hope, I must admit,
Days with you are cold.

Be yourself! they say,
But how can I? I can't be,
Not so easily.

Script & Flickr

2009-05-03T11:32:00.004+01:00

The end of Script Frenzy was slightly anti-climactic for me, because I finished over a week early. Going along to all of the write-ins after that point were good, and even though I was working on various bits of writing I felt like a little bit of an impostor, that maybe I was disturbing people who were trying to get things done.

It did give me the chance to get some photos taken as well, and a couple of those along with some I took at the start of the TGIO Party can be seen over on Flickr here!

Script Frenzy has been good for me, but not, perhaps, in the way that you might think. It's given me a lot of motivation, a real creative kick up the arse, a real hunger to get things done. I enjoyed writing scripts, but not as much as I enjoyed being sat down with my Moleskine and just getting stuff out. Sometimes frantically so. Sometimes just needing to write and feeling free to do so and to just see what happens as I write.

I've made new friends, become closer to people I've known for a while and am feeling... I guess I'm feeling pretty happy all in all. April was a good month. I wonder what May will bring?

Japan!

2009-04-30T11:02:00.002+01:00

This is just a short note to say that Thing 39, to revisit Japan, will be coming around much sooner than I had originally been thinking. My plan was to go back to Japan next year, after I had had a chance to recover from the mindblowing awesomeness that's going to be my summer in the USA; then last week my friend Dave (also known as noisms, go and read his great role-playing game blog here) sent me an email to let me know that he and his wife are having a traditional ceremony in September.

I ummed and ahhed for a few days; and then after completing my tax bill on Monday (in the UK there is a TV advert which claims "Tax doesn't have to be taxing" - following my tweets on Monday a friend quipped "Tax doesn't have to suck the life out of you and make you want to kill yourself, but it probably will") I looked at what was left from the money I had put aside and thought, "You know what? You only live once."

So yeah! Japan in September! I loved my visit there in the summer of 2006 (some pictures of which you can see on Flickr) in and around Tokyo and Yokohama, but this promises to be something a little bit different than last time. New sights and sounds, and at the same time I want to go back to Kamakura, to the Kinokuniya bookstore, to Harajuku and Akihibara and scorching days wandering around Chigasaki without a single care in the world. Hopefully I'll be able to make time in the trip to do some of those things. And the Studio Ghibli museum, please, fingers crossed...

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

2009-04-30T10:56:00.001+01:00

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

I've perused a few parody novels before and found them to be pretty lacklustre thing: someone injecting 'funny names' and abbreviating the sequence of events that was present in the original work, while the reader supposedly chuckles at the antics. Nothing wrong with that per se, everyone's got to earn a living, but not my cup of tea.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is different, because it quite literally takes Jane Austen's classic as the starting point, complete with love stories, deceptions and characters, and then weaves in the story of an England under threat for half a century from zombies. Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters have been trained in the mysteries of Shaolin, all the better to beat back Satan's armies. They are great warriors, but their heads can still be turned by more than the moan of a 'manky dreadful' and soon we have the familiar story of Messrs Collins, Wickham and Darcy, all familiar and yet all cleverly re-interpreted in this parallel England.

When I heard about the book I laughed out loud, such a simple idea, the title alone could probably have sold many copies even if the story had been badly written. The great delight of it all is just how well it works, the balance that Seth Grahame-Smith achieves in juggling the original storyline and prose and the descriptions of herds of zombies and the fate of poor Miss Lucas.

Finally, a nice 'Easter Egg' at the end are questions for book groups, which start off funny and slightly off-beat (as with the rest of the book) and culminate in this fantastic final question for readers:

"Some scholars believe that the zombies were a last minute addition to the novel, requested by the publisher in a shameless attempt to boost sales. Others argue that the hordes of living dead are integral to Jane Austen's plot and social commentary. What do you think? Can you imagine what this novel might be like without the violent zombie mayhem?"

Haiku

2009-04-29T11:35:00.000+01:00

You laughed, so tickled;
High summer, beach, sandcastles,
And me in my scarf.

It's a cold sunshine,
These days without you; you know
That the nights are worse

Departure clock ticks.
My watch was set fast, and I,
I wish you away

Holding my breath in,
I was desperate to know
What your answer was.

Maths Papers

2009-04-27T14:00:00.003+01:00

A few days ago it dawned on me that I had completely overlooked one of my 101 things that I had made some progress on, namely thing number 61, to get three papers/preprints from work in my thesis. As it stands my supervisor and I have two papers based on material from my thesis, both of which are available to view online at the arXiv, and you can find links to them here.

One of them is currently being reviewed for a special edition of Topology (which will cover some conference proceedings) and we are still deciding on where to submit the more recent paper, which was loaded on to the arXiv in February I believe. The earlier paper was put up last August! I can't believe that I totally forgot about it.

I might try collecting some thoughts for a preprint on a polynomial time method for calculating polynomials invariants of knots presented as plaits. If that makes any sense to you, please get in touch!

Earth Abides

2009-04-24T11:14:00.001+01:00

Earth Abides is one of the books that I read when I think I really started to get into reading, when I purposefully set out to read science fiction and expand my mind. It's tough to explain what I mean by that. I guess up until about the age of 16 or 17 I just read whatever I came across, whatever seemed to take my fancy in the bookshop. It was only after I started reading the science fiction magazine SFX that I began to think, "Maybe there are books out there that I should be looking for."

Around that time a publish (Gollancz I think) started the SF Masterworks imprint, and over the course of about two years I built up a collection from the line which almost fills a bookcase. Earth Abides was one of the first that I got (after I Am Legend and The Stars My Destination, more on them some other time); I'm trying to recall whether I had heard about it in SFX or whether the story just jumped out at me when I read the synopsis on the back, but in any case it was a book that just resonated with me when I read it, and has done every time since that I have re-read it. It is a book that I want to tell everyone about, but which by reading it becomes a book that I wish had been written only for me.

A plague wipes out nearly the entire human race. Isherwood Williams, a graduate student in the middle of nowhere on research survives and begins a trek across America to see the country now that humans are gone. He meets a few survivors and they settle and start a community over the bay from San Francisco, and time moves on. The story is divided into three stages: his life immediately after the plague, two decades after when the community is now over twenty strong, with children and even young grandchildren living there; and then some time much later, when Ish (as he is now known) is an old man, the Last American. All points of the story are written with such care, with such attention to detail, and with such a focus on what might be and how humans would react that it always surprises me when I see on the back cover that it was George R. Stewart's only work of science fiction.

It is certainly among my top twenty favourite books, and possibly makes it into my top ten (there's a thought, when I finish these 101 things I should compile a list of my top twenty books); it is a book that I would recommend without reservation to anyone. It is a book that makes you think about the future, and at the same time makes you realise that what we hold dear today might not be so important in years to come.

'Men go and come, but earth abides.'

USA Trip

2009-04-24T11:11:00.001+01:00

Just thought that I would give a quick update on my American road trip plans with my friend David! Organisation for this has been quite difficult at times, as I'm in the UK and David works in the UAE; he came home for a week over the Easter holiday break, and so we sat down for a day to iron out some more details. A bit closer to the time I'll post our proposed itinerary, but what I can say is that we've booked a couple of hotels!

We've got our accommodation for New York sorted, which is a Howard Johnson in New Jersey, but just over the bridge (for the benefit of any UK readers, it looks like Howard Johnson is the equivalent of a Travelodge). This gives us a bit of a saving in terms of price, but also means we are pretty close for getting into the city. We're not picking up our rental car until we get to Washington DC; so far we were planning to take the train - which I'm informed is a really nice way to travel between the two cities but can be pricey. If anyone has any thoughts on train travel please let us know.

We also booked our hotel for Las Vegas, and so we will be staying at Circus Circus for four nights towards the end of July! That is unless I do really well on roulette on the first evening, in which case we may be moving over to the Bellagio or the Wynn Las Vegas! Just kidding, although I am planning to play a little roulette according the system used by James Bond in the novel of Casino Royale...

Checked out Graceland online for when we're in Memphis, and also done a bit of Googling to check motel rates; the most expensive part of the trip really is going to be the car rental and paying for fuel. The pound has taken such an almighty tumble against the dollar since we started planning last August... If only, if only... Oh well. We will cope.

So, plans are moving along, which is all well and good because we are less than two and a half months away from the start of it all!

One Year On

2009-04-22T10:17:00.000+01:00

It's crazy to think it, it really is, but a year ago today is when I started this mad journey of doing 101 things in 1001 days. A year??? Where does the time go? I met a friend on Monday who had been off travelling the world for nine months, and it was amazing to me that it had been that length of time.

So what have I done? Well, as one of my updates yesterday mentioned I've done 14 out of my 101 things. Not bad. Some of the others are being worked on constantly (haiku, flash fiction - although I need to pick up the pace on churning the latter out) and others are being worked on and planned (Flickr, travel plans), but I think that I need to get some more things done before I go away to the USA in a few months time.

In fact, I'm thinking now that I will make it my aim to have completed a total of 20 things on my list by the end of May. What things could I do, what jumps out from the list?

45. Replay and complete Ico.
62. Confirm the number of stacked 4-tangles.
67. Sell five things on eBay.
84. Get my back waxed.
95. Release five books into the wild with BookCrossing.
101. Spend a lazy afternoon in a bookshop/café, drinking tea, reading books and hanging out with friends.

I've made a start on 45 and 62, and got a certain way with both of them. I've also realised that I have totally not kept up to date with letter writing! By the end of May I will try to get back on track with that, so that on average I will have sent one a month. Which is not great if I am honest, I should have kept up with that, but c'est la vie, we learn, we grow, we adapt.

And that's what this 1001 day project is all about. Looking at the list now, I wonder if - in some places - it is a little too ambitious. There are things that I am beginning to think might be impossible to get done within the time left.

(a short animated film? Really???)

By the end of it all though I will have become a different person. I'll be changed. Hopefully I'll have got some good habits!

I'm certain that I'll be ready to start another list of 101 things, or some other great creative project.

Haiku

2009-04-21T15:08:00.000+01:00

The problem is mine,
I don't trust myself with you.
We dance; I tremble.

Script = Frenzied!

2009-04-21T15:02:00.001+01:00

On Sunday the 19th of April 2009, at approximately 1:30pm, I finished the main challenge of Script Frenzy! 100 pages, typed, let loose from several cubic inches of tissue behind my eyes. The idea to switch to several shorter scripts when my original film wasn't working out did wonders for my creativity, really freed me up.

My method of writing out notes for several days in a Moleskine and then sitting down to blitz out an act of script was a good one too I think - for me at least - in order to get a draft out fast and after thinking through what it would look like filmed. What's crazy as well is that my pilot - for a genre show, which, due to the plot and circumstances might be HBO rather than FOX - has a beginning, middle and end, and it feels like I have actually put down some teasers as well, laid out the ends of threads which could be developed if the series was picked up...

...what am I saying??? I wrote a pilot for a TV show in the space of about a week, and I'm already planning the first season's arc! A piece of fun, something to stretch me and provoke me in April, and my mind can't quite stop thinking about where it could go next, the people that the characters could meet, the situations that they could get in.

Being part of a good, supportive group of writers has definitely helped. In particular, our magnificent and marvellous Municipal Liaison Anna, who has been our coordinator and cheerleader and a great one too. And the month's not over yet! Today is the 21st, and there is still over a week to go. I'm taking a few days off from working on scripts in order to think about some other things; however, although I've finished my Script Frenzy challenge, I am not done with Script Frenzy itself! I think I still have a few short scripts in me, and now is as good a time as any to get them out and written. For now though, I am very, very happy to write

19. Complete a Script Frenzy. - done! 19/4/2009

Casablanca

2009-04-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

A film I should have seen years and years ago. A film that has a fantastic cast and a fantastic script. A film that still seems fresh today, undiminished by years of misquoted lines and riffs on the themes or scenes.

Bogart is just wonderful: a no-nonsense guy, but from the instant he sees his lost love you begin to see the armour crack, fall away. Even when he learns the circumstances of why she left him in Paris... It's the perfect example of loving someone so much but knowing that you have to do the right thing, that you have no choice but to let them go.

This will be a very short piece, because I just can't find the words to express how great I thought the film was. I'm 28, and I've only just seen Casablanca... What other truly great films have I missed?

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe

2009-04-21T14:59:00.001+01:00

In my previous review I said that I could confidently say (having read Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe) that volume four was my favourite of the series. This isn't because volume five is inherently bad or flawed in some way. Once again Scott and Ramona and their friends are flung into a crazy little adventure as more of Ramona's evil exes show up to challenge Scott. The difference this time is that, while Scott is holding his own against the robot minions of the twins, his relationship and social life seem to be drifting away from him.

Knives Chau tells Ramona that Scott cheated on them both (which he technically did way back in volume one). This leads to Scott and Ramona fighting, which seems totally wrong. But then Ramona doesn't seem to be herself really. What's with the glowing head? It's book five and we don't know why that happens?

The band are falling apart since they're not practicing, they're recording; Kim decides to leave; Scott gets drunk! Has the whole world gone mad? The artwork is as great as ever, although for the most part the fights (between Scott and a series of cool looking robots) take place mostly in the background. O'Malley seems to be incapable of putting a foot wrong with the artwork. I don't think the plot of book five is a severe mis-step either, it just seems a bit heavy after the all out brilliance and lightness of book four. But then, I think, in the background of the last few volumes there has been an undertone that Scott has to grow up, that despite the fact that he lives in a world where experience points and boss battles are real things, he also has to face up to the real world, being responsible and taking responsibility in his relationships with others.

Who knows where volume six will take us. The final pages are certainly ominous enough! Although Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe doesn't pack the same emotional high for me that the other books have, it is still a great read. I can't recommend the series highly enough, it's just a joy to read (start at the beginning!) and I'm now slightly sad that there's probably a wait of at least a year for the next book.

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

2009-04-21T14:54:00.002+01:00

I'm writing my thoughts on Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together with the hindsight of having read the next book in the series as well. With that knowledge I can confidently say that it is by far and away my favourite book in the series. Seeing Scott receive experience points for getting a job (and later for getting his job back) was great. His likening getting a job in the kitchens of a restaurant as "something like a job system in a game" was hilarious. Pulling a sword from his chest after he has levelled up and gained "the power of love" was just magical.

The book is longer than the others so far too, and the extra length really helps the book to flow well. There's plenty of room and time for support characters, and no one is lost along the way. Having Scott actually start to pull his life together - getting a job, saying 'I love you', moving in with Ramona - is a really cool storyline. Expanding on some of the other elements of the world that he lives in (where people can travel through subspace and possess baseball bats which have +1 bonuses against blondes) increases the charm of the whole series. As crazy as it can be at times, no explanation is required, because it all kind of makes sense really.

After reading this I had a big silly smile on my face - even bigger than after I read the first book for the first time - and I was desperate to have a life where text appears in midair to tell me that I've levelled up or received experience points. This book has a +10 bonus against all other forms of literature.

Script Frenzy Check-In

2009-04-14T17:17:00.003+01:00

53 pages in total. Not bad. But have had those 53 pages since last Friday, and not written a single page since. However, that's not to say I've not been busy. I guess my approach to Script Frenzy has changed a little to what I thought it would be, and may be quite different from how other people in my region are doing it.

Since, in my previous post, I decided that I was going to abandon the thing that I had started writing in favour of doing something - or some things - that I actually liked, I have written three short scripts, all a bit different, and written notes on several other projects that I might try at some point soon. But in writing all these notes I got to thinking about a few short stories I've written - pieces of flash fiction - and trying to decide if I wanted to adapt one or more of those as part of Script Frenzy. In the end I decided I would leave them as they are for now, but instead I would try my hand at writing a pilot for an American style genre show.

I've spent the weekend expanding on my notes for that, trying to figure out who my characters and writing at least half a page for each of them in my Moleskine, as well as a little back story for where things take place. I've watched several episodes of Buffy to get a feel for where the story beats fall, and also how long the parts are. I'm going for a 42 minute episode, so hoping to get things worked out as neatly as possible to the genre show formula while at the same time writing something new and fresh.

So tomorrow I sit down and will try to hammer out the first couple of acts! I might get to 100 pages as a result of the pilot, but will still be using the Moleskine to get ideas down, and if possible my plan is to get 100 pages of things on top of the aborted 32 that was my beginning of a film script.

Really loving doing Script Frenzy again. Great to be part of a good group of people doing it!

More soon.

A Frenzied State!

2009-04-08T15:08:00.004+01:00

So. Script Frenzy. 32 pages after seven days. Not bad.

What is bad? My script. And not just in some aesthetic sense - which it is - but in my own personal enjoyment. I hate it. I got to 24 pages and realised that it was just ridiculous, and wasn't going to go anywhere. I decided to take an out, thought about something that had happened in an early scene which might give me an escape clause and I started re-writing reality.

All of a sudden, who is this guy? When is this happening? Who are those other people?

Except... After eight pages I hated that. It was pointless. I had ideas, but as soon as they started getting put down I realised that it was just drivel.

I came close to hitting the big DELETE button. Anna and Sarah talked me down from the ledge. I thought about stuff a bit last night; now decided that I am going to just write scripts for short films, little vignettes, and just keep writing and writing them until I'm over the 100 pages! I haven't deleted the 32 pages I've already done, because Anna and Sarah were right, that's something I've achieved during Script Frenzy. However, at the moment I am hoping that I can get 100 pages of these short scripts between now and the end of the month.

So. Things are not as I imagined they would be a week ago (and that applies to many more things than Script Frenzy), but maybe that's not a bad thing in terms of creativity.

Classic Film: Tron

2009-04-08T12:28:00.001+01:00

I found it quite amazing the number of people who expressed astonishment when I told them that I had never seen Tron. Of course, I was familiar with the light cycle sequence - who isn't? - but I had no real idea of what it was all about. Programs, some guy getting scanned somehow into a computer, lots of neon...

I had no idea that there was such a great film behind all that. OK, sure, some of the ideas about what computers can do is a bit out there, but then this is a piece of science fiction. Positing a belief structure for programs is a small point in the film, but actually it's a genius idea: knowing "who" you were made by, which User is responsible for you, is a fantastic little idea and probably underplayed too much in the film.

The story is quite simple and neat, but then in some ways one can think that it's amazing the story is as coherent as it is - unlike many special effects driven films today there actually is a story that isn't just gluing all the set pieces together. The special effects themselves still stand up I think, they're a bit rough around the edges perhaps, but the design - especially of the characters themselves - is superb and the film feels a bit too short really; I really want to spend some more time getting to know these programs and Users!

Here's hoping that Tron 2.0 or whatever it will end up being called does justice to a film that is a little gem.

Entering the Frenzy

2009-04-01T15:00:00.000+01:00

Things are going well I think. Am trying to keep the script as light on detail as possible, but I can see some of the details in my head, and want to get them down on paper. I don't want to jinx things (either by calling down the Inner Editor or Writer's Block) but I've had a good session this morning when I started to write.

I got my opening sequence, which I think was needed in order to set up where the protagonist had come from. Also I thought - even though audiences would see trailers for this and know where it was going to end up - it would be nice to have a bit of a reversal. I love how Psycho and From Dusk Till Dawn set you up to thinking that they are very different films to what they actually are. Or how at the start of Terminator 2 you don't know for certain who is a good guy (well, I guess that's only true if you have no idea at all about the plot and haven't seen the trailers). I didn't want to have a huge lead up to the change over, and I wanted to keep it moving along a fair old lick if I could.

That might change. I want it to be a bit noirish as well. Space opera noirish.

Times like these that I wish I could draw so you could see some of these characters...

Have first write in this evening; still umming and ahhing over taking the laptop. I'll definitely get pages done, but perhaps it will be better if I just take paper and plot out the broad strokes of where it is going.

I had hoped to wrap up the opening in about four pages. Have gone slightly more than that, but maybe the credits sequence can be wrapped up quickly with a minimum of description to show what's going on. By page 12 Jacob needs to meet Ares, and know why he is there.

Page 13 is the reveal of the location for the rest of the film, a special effect shot that I want to have the same resonance as the opening of the first Star Wars film.

By this point you might be thinking that I am losing the plot a bit myself. I just don't see any point in not aiming for the stars with it!

Anyways, back to it I think!

Script Frenzy! Tomorrow!

2009-03-31T15:43:00.002+01:00

I've been looking forward to Script Frenzy for the last few weeks; it's been great because I'm part of a group who are all looking forward to it too, so we've been letting ourselves get quite excited about it all! Now it's only a day away, and I'm slightly panicking, just as I always do before NaNoWriMo - what if I don't have an idea that will actually spin out to the length it needs to be? What if I just don't have the time to do it? What if life gets in the way? What if it just isn't good enough?

Well. The last question isn't a problem, because Script Frenzy isn't about quality, it's about quantity, and writing towards a goal: that goal being to write 100 pages of script in 30 days. Not 100 good pages. Not 100 finished-send-it-to-Warner-Brothers-or-maybe-Fox-if-WB-don't-pick-it-up pages of script. Just 100 pages. That's only a problem if I don't spend time.

What if life gets in the way or I don't have time? One of the truest things I've discovered through NaNoWriMo and through work in general is that busy people can always fit in "one more thing" - April looks like it is going to be quite busy. I've taken on another workshop which is in a week's time, and have to prepare an introduction/welcome for it, and that's something I've not done before. I've taken on two more students for private tuition. But I'll find the time, I will.

Which just leaves the question of whether or not I have an idea that will actually make it through to 100 pages. And that is something I don't know. I don't even have a title. At the minute I have the pre-credits sequence more or less completely in mind. I have the overall plot I think, what I think happens.

It's a murder mystery. I think. I know whodunnit. I need red herrings. I need other problems. I need to get a handle on the protagonist, who he is, what he is like, how he would respond to the situation that he finds himself in.

Here are some words about my script that I'll leave you with:

Screenplay. Whodunnit. Noirish.
Sci-fi. Far future. Deep space.
Future shock. Changing attitudes. Transhumans.

Tomorrow: GET WRITING!!!

Thing 65: Flickr

2009-03-31T15:39:00.001+01:00

I finally pulled my finger out and signed up for Flickr this morning! Someone was telling me that I don't have enough pics on Facebook, and this set off my thinking about 101/1001 and the fact I hadn't started on Flickr yet. Now, Thing 65 says that I will sign up and upload 101 pictures. This morning I uploaded 30 pictures, but I'm tweaking the idea of Thing 65 so that I'm uploading 101 pictures that I take or make AFTER signing up.

I've only used the site for about an hour or so, but already I love it. Registering was a bit of a chore, having to get a Yahoo ID first, but after that it's all good. The interface is beautiful, it's totally pain-free to use.

So. Time to take more pictures!

Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness

2009-03-29T18:46:00.002+01:00

Bionic arms. Vegan psychic powers. Survival challenges in value stores. Insanely good artwork. Brilliant, three dimensional characters that you care about. Jokes referring to the fact that this is taking place inside a comic book. Jokes making reference to the video game like nature of Scott Pilgrim's world.

I want to say that I will wait, but if my local comic shop has volume four in this week then I am buying it. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness not only raises the bar on the previous two books, it pretty much blows them out of the water - which is saying something. The world is getting more and more fleshed out, while at the same time retaining a strange sense of mystery to it (it's the modern world, but full of curious little touches that none of the characters bat an eyelid at).

Scott Pilgrim books: GO AND READ THEM.

Thing 78 Complete!

2009-03-29T18:28:00.002+01:00

I decided to re-read Scott McCloud's three books on comics now as I was trying to decide whether or not to write a script for a graphic novel/series of strips during Script Frenzy (starting Wednesday!!!). I've had a great time re-reading them, and it's certainly given me a lot to think about in terms of telling stories with sequential art. However, after a bit of reflection I don't think that I am quite there yet in terms of being able to write something like that. I have ideas which I am still trying to draw together - and they are coming together, slowly but surely - but I think for Script Frenzy I am going to go in the direction of a film... More on that in another post.

One thing that the three books have done is to make me realise that I definitely do want to do some kind of comics project in the near future. The ideas I've had might not be in a shape where I feel ready and able to do something with them, but I know that I want to achieve something.

And I will. Watch this space.

Making Comics

2009-03-29T18:25:00.002+01:00

The final book in Scott McCloud's trilogy on comics is more of a follow-on to his first book, but also finds time to expand a little on webcomics and digital delivery without making the speculations about the future that I found a bit problematic in Reinventing Comics. Some of the practical things in the book go into maybe a little more detail than I would possibly have liked - it is his longest book of the three - but then that would be really useful to someone who is seriously interested in going into the field and looking for good places to start and exercises that would be helpful to get them going.

The sections on composition and differences in approaches to showing things greatly expands on some of the basic "philosophy of comics" that he talks about in Understanding Comics. The sections which cover webcomics and talk about things that online creators are doing go into a good amount of detail, without going overboard. While he mentions a few times that he now largely uses digital methods for producing comics this is no call to arms to just leave behind pencil and paper.

I really liked the mini-essays towards the end of the book on Japanese comics, genres and thoughts on comics culture. Once again, as I re-read it I was struck by many examples of books which make me think, "Ooooh, I really need to read that." The first time I read it this lead me to Black Hole by Charles Burns, Blankets by Craig Thompson, Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware and eventually to Maus by Art Spiegelman: all of these have something amazing to offer the reader, and there were many more which have stuck in my mind this time as books I need to track down.

Making Comics does make me want to make comics, but also makes me want to go and read comics - no bad thing.

Reinventing Comics

2009-03-29T18:10:00.001+01:00

While Understanding Comics is considered to be a bona fide classic, I get the impression from what little I have gleaned from the comics world that Reinventing Comics is seen as a sophomore slump in Scott McCloud's trilogy (well, a trilogy so far, who knows what he has planned for the future) of books on comics. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it that, but in some respects it hasn't aged well compared to Understanding Comics. Whereas that is still thought of as a definite work when considering comics and comics theory, there are aspects of Reinventing Comics that have lost some of their impact in the decade following its publication.

That's not to say that McCloud doesn't make a number of interesting points about the potential for comics. We do need to get away from thinking that comics are either

people in spandex
or those funny strips in newspapers

and we certainly need to get away from the a priori condition that comics are for kids. The truth, of course, is that for a long time there have been many instances of material that were comics but which satisfied none of those conditions. The problem of course is that there was kind of a collective consensus among people who don't read them that "that isn't comics... And in fact to call it comics is very dangerous indeed."

(although, seriously, let's not have any more newspaper stories with headlines like "Pow! Comics Not Just For Kids!" going on about how comics have grown up... Seriously)

The areas where Reinventing Comics falls down is when McCloud speculates about the future. Anyone with more than a passing interest in webcomics might have heard about micropayments - an idea which has a lot to offer in some respects but which is difficult to implement from what I have understood in the past; it's an idea for revenue generation which doesn't seem to work nearly as well as other models for generating income from webcomics (such as selling adspace on pages, and selling t-shirts etc).

Also, on this, my second read through (or is it my third?) I'm still not 100% convinced on the idea of using laptops/screens of some description as "windows" to look at comics: McCloud's thesis on this is that there are examples of comics which are hundreds, even thousands, of years old, from the Bayeaux Tapestry through to Egyptian paintings; these older examples were not bounded, but all through the last 150 or so years we have done just that, and bound comics within paper and borders on pages, breaking up the continuous flow of sequential pictures and words. A return to the possibilities of the past then could be done using a computer screen as a window on to a larger sequence, no four panel strips, no standard American/Japanese page size... I don't quite see it. Because at the end of the day, a person is still limited by the screen, this is now the border. Sure, you move along, but is this really any different than if we printed a comic as a concertina arrangement of pages?

Reinventing Comics is still a great read though, and where it might not succeed in my eyes it might be a wake up call and a brilliant idea to others. Even given what I have read about micropayments, there is part of me that still wonders if there is something to it. But more than anything, people working in comics and people reading comics need to be open to new ideas and new expressions of comics - and we need to share our enthusiasm with others.

Thing 45: Ico

2009-03-23T14:55:00.000Z

Ico was not my first gaming love on the PlayStation 2; I think that by the time I got around to playing it I had already sampled Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X, both of which still have a strong pull on me in terms of the storyline (if not necessarily by their gameplay at times), but there is something fabulously haunting about Ico that has drawn me back in as I start to replay it.

Ico is a boy who is different: cursed with horns he is taken to an ancient castle and imprisoned so that the people of his village will not be cursed as well. Freed from his prison by an earthquake he wanders the castle, finding Yorda, a strange and fragile girl who is pursued by shadowy creatures. Together they travel through the castle, looking for a way out...

...which does nothing to describe the beauty of the game. Essentially a puzzle game, it would be an interesting thing if it were just about this one solitary child trying to find his way out of the castle. By adding the dynamic created by the character of Yorda, who is not under your control, cannot fend for herself, is too physically slight to perform some of the tasks that you can - something else is created. You are not equals, you are her protector, and very quickly you get into the mindset of thinking, "OK, I can do this and this to get to the doorway; how am I going to get Yorda there?"

And the puzzles are fiendish at times! I've played the game once before, and while things are exactly the same on a second play through I've already reached a point where I'm thinking, "And what do I do here?"

I'll write again when I have finished replaying the game, but will probably focus more on the emotional impact that Ico has than on the game mechanics. It's a beautiful, beautiful game... I'd go and play it some more now but I'm supposed to be working!

(which clearly isn't what I'm actually doing, as I'm blogging, oh well)

Thing 78: Understanding Comics

2009-03-23T14:49:00.004Z

In an effort to try and generate some creative momentum for myself I'm pushing on with a few different things at the moment. My broad idea for Script Frenzy - the first time that I've taken part in it - is going to be something comic-related. Kind of. More on that soon.

To try and get some of the philosophy of comics going through my veins, apart from reading them on a daily and weekly basis as I do, I thought that now would be a good time to tackle Thing 78 on my list of 101 things, to re-read Scott McCloud's three books on comics, Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics.

I'm currently reading Reinventing Comics, I finished reading Understanding Comics over the weekend. It was just as interesting as I remember it being when I got it some years back. I can't quite remember when that was. Within the last five years probably. The central points of it (in my opinion) are that:

comics are not a new phenomenon, although they are taken that way because of the various genres that adopted comics as a framework for telling stories in the last century;
there is something very special going on when people read comics - which isn't to say that there isn't something special going on in your mind when you read a book or watch a play or film, but there is something about comics that is universally understandable - paradoxical since so many people partition off comics as being just for kids;
comics are an artform, comics have a value.

It's certainly given me a lot to think about again, and following hot on the heels of it are the ideas of Reinventing Comics, which focuses a lot more on the ideas and situation as it was in the 90s, as well as pointing out what might happen in the future.

(of course, Reinventing Comics was written in 2000 or so, so we are already seeing whether or not some of McCloud's predictions or ideas are coming true)

Hopefully this will give me some inspiration as I sit down to map out my Script Frenzy; it's not a graphic novel - well it's only going to be scripts in any case, not illustrated except in my own notes maybe - and it's not intended to be a comic strip in the traditional sense. The working title is "Emergence" - and that's all I'm going to say for now, I've got off topic!

Understanding Comics is a brilliant piece of work, presenting in a simple way some really complicated ideas about what comics are. If you have any interest at all in comics and what they can be, you should give it a read.

A Couple of Classics

2009-03-22T10:20:00.002Z

My friend Cyran was asking what my definition of a classic film was recently, and I realised that I don't really have a definition that I was using for Thing 71. In my mind I was thinking something like "a film that is considered by many to be great" and for the purposes of Thing 71 it had to be something that I hadn't seen yet.

Well, the two films that Cyran loaned me last week certainly fit the bill. On Friday I watched The Maltese Falcon which I vaguely knew of (I knew Bogart as Sam Spade and that was about it), and then yesterday I watched Citizen Kane, which I thought I knew about but clearly I didn't. I didn't know just how much of it I was familiar with from a Simpsons episode (the one where Mr Burns misses his old teddy bear), and as I didn't know that much about the story - other than it being the life of a wealthy man, and it beginning and ending with "Rosebud" - there was a bit of a disconnect for me as I sat down to watch it.

That's not to say that it wasn't enjoyable: the framing device of having the journalist trying to figure out what Kane's last word meant was brilliant, and the jigsaw puzzle story that this results in is well put together and well told. It's by no means the perfect movie or the "best" that I've heard many critics call it, but it's brave and it doesn't do anything by half measures. From what I've read about it before, there always seems to be a focus on Welles the writer, Welles the director, and his performance always seems to come last in his list of accomplishments (indeed, in the closing credits he gives himself last billing as a performer). It's a very clever performance: starting off extremely big and larger than life, but becoming more and more subtle I think as Kane's life becomes a greater excess (the opera house, Xanadu).

The Maltese Falcon was my favourite out of the two films though; a genuine mystery, perfectly executed and with stunning performances from all concerned. I've only ever read one story by Dashiell Hammett before, The Thin Man, and I knew nothing about the core mystery - though I vaguely knew that Peter Lorre was in the film as well, and Sydney Greenstreet, both excellent. The film is brilliant precisely because it is a mystery, and remains a mystery until the final moments. Many thrillers and mystery films today have their secrets revealed halfway through the final act, to leave some kind of action sequence/chase for the final reel, whereas this keeps the suspense going and you know that there is some final revelation to come... Bogart is brilliant, an absolutely perfect performance; his sly smile, his confidence and the seemingly out of place music that accompanies him through the film - only turning more dramatic as the mystery begins to unfold towards the end.

I have a few classic films on DVD that I haven't watched yet, and should do soon. Yojimbo, The Godfather Part II, and when I get the chance I think I would like to buy some westerns starring Clint Eastwood (especially Unforgiven). And watching all of these great films stands me in good stead for Script Frenzy which is just around the corner...

Flash Fiction: Gone

2009-03-16T17:17:00.004Z

Gone
Nathan Ryder

I met Lisa through WhoKnowsHowLongWeveGot.com. I had stumbled across the site while chasing data and studies to look at and comment on, and it seemed like something I should sign up to.
We started chatting online, first by email and then by IM. She told me a little about her family; about her job as a secretary for one of the few banks that hadn't collapsed in the chaos of the previous six months. She seemed interested in my own work when I told her about it; she was the first person I had met socially who seemed to get it.
She asked me challenging questions about my research. Who's going to look at your site in five years' time? I didn't have snappy answers for that then – I'm not sure I do now – it's just something that I felt I had to do. She understood that drive, and I was grateful that she did. I still haven't answered that question for myself about why I sift through the data, collate and look over the reports and statistics, searching for a pattern.
She didn't mind either that donations through my site (FadeStatistics.org) were paying the bills. I liked to believe that I wasn't tapping into just the layer of desperation that was building up over the global population. I felt better about it that way.

It felt like there was a real connection between us.
We decided to meet.
“After all,” she said, “'Who knows how long we've got,' right?”

We're on our second drinks when she steers the conversation towards our personal theories. She looks really beautiful, I've told her that once already and want to tell her again, but don't want to seem too eager.
She tilts her head to one side when I pause to think about it, try to put my complicated thoughts on the Fade into words. A smile plays across her lips, a smile that carries to her green eyes. Her skin is pale, a fragile beauty, slightly aged before her time – unsurprising, given the circumstances, it's hit us all – but still gorgeous.
“Don't tell me you believe in the ideas coming out of the Bible Belt?” she eventually laughs playfully as I put my thoughts in order.
I smile back and take a sip from the overpriced house red. The bar isn't the nicest place; it was probably alright a year or so ago. The really nice places are now all too expensive for the likes of me and Lisa. The quiet local we might have gone to last year will have closed.
“Well,” I say, “I'm an agnostic when it comes to faith... But no, they can't have their cake and eat it, insist that this is it but 'oh no, we're not going just yet, sir, praise be, it's all part of the plan.'”
“I don't believe that either,” she says, reaching over and squeezing my hand.
“I don't know what it is,” I reply, squeezing her hand back, “I'd like to figure it out. Or at least be a part of solving it. The way I see it, we have to keep looking.”
The other inevitable question came up a few minutes later. I think I brought it up, but I don't remember too clearly. I remember what she said:
“Where was I? I don't know. At home I think. My sister...” She pauses and looks away for a minute.
“My sister was at home with me, she was over for dinner and she called me in from the kitchen. The newsreader was shaking as he spoke; I remember sitting down next to Kate and just listening to the announcement, and to the President and everyone else as they said we had to be strong, that plans were in motion, that 'we' would figure it out.”
“I'd seen it more and more over the month before that – missing persons, suspected abductions – but that was the first time it was really real. Do you remember that thing the other year with the bees? And those feet washing up out of those rivers in Canada? There's always something going on, something in the background and I would think, 'That's weird,' and go on with my life.”
I nodded without saying anything.

We decided to leave the bar. The atmosphere was oppressive and strained in there, people compulsively glancing around the crappy sheen of class every few minutes – just to make sure I guess, though whether they were checking for themselves or on other people I don't know – and so we walked for a while. I tried to keep the conversation on relatively safe subjects: the latest re-runs on TV; the revised property statutes that were being rushed through by the government; Z-list celebrities arguing in the headlines and on the glossy magazines over who had been most traumatised by it all.

We're walking side-by-side.
We're holding hands.
She's pressed in close to me, head resting on my shoulder.

The skies are clear as we walk slowly around the outskirts of a park. It was late July, and not too late at night; we felt fairly safe despite what was being said on TV about the breakdown of society. I hadn't seen too much of that, no signs of looting or rioting or anything that the media had been warning about. Just the usual scaremongering – it doesn't matter that we're all scared anyway, someone has to whip that fear up even more.
Outside her apartment building we pause, chatting about nothing because it's easier than talking about the thing that we both want to know. We smile, both admit that it's been a lovely evening and that we should do it again. We smile some more and beat about the bush, kiss, hug, kiss some more.
Then with her arms tight around me she whispers in my ear, “Stay.”

We both agree that there's no pressure, and in an effort to prove this Lisa puts the TV on, before heading into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
Her living room was nice; family pictures on the wall, a bookcase filled with Tom Clancy and Stephen King, and really neat and tidy. I remember making a mental note to clean up my place before I invited her over.
She comes back through and sits next to me, taking my hand and squeezing it. For thirty seconds we make a pretence at watching a sitcom; almost simultaneously we look at each other, smile, and then start kissing.
We're interrupted by the kettle whistling on the stove; she smiles, kisses me again and jumps up.
“Do you want some help?” I ask.
“No, it's OK,” she calls back, “Do you want tea or coffee?”
“Tea please.”
Ten seconds later –

I wonder, I'm sorry, I know I said I would write this out straight, but I can't. I wonder, I wonder if we had just stayed together, whether...
I know it doesn't make any difference now.
What ifs don't make a damn bit of difference.

“Dan, do you take milk and -” Her sentence was broken off suddenly. I heard something fall, a clang, a rolling; instinct kicked in and I was up. The kitchen was only a few feet away, but my heart was pounding and I was breathless as I stepped up to the doorway.
I didn't expect... Despite the news and what we knew, I didn't think it could be. All that I did, my collection of studies and data, compiling every shred of news on the Fade, and I just – my mind didn't really grasp it until then.
The kettle was rolling a little, rocking slightly on its dented side. Hot water steamed away from pitted grey lino. Poetry fridge magnets. Simple countertops and generic white goods. Obvious Ikea mugs and utensils. More family snapshots pinned to a cork board.
My eyes focused on all of that, barely able to look at the pile of clothes, the black pants and red top that she had been wearing, settled halfway between her black shoes.
The shoes had little silver bows on them.
I hadn't noticed that when I met her.
And her shadow, a dark outline, Fading.
The edges remaining defined for a few seconds longer than the core, the Fade at work.
I didn't mean to, I tried to keep my eyes open, but I suddenly blinked.
Her shadow was gone.
I sank to my knees and just stared at the clothes and the space that she had occupied. Some time later I called the free phone number that you were supposed to use to report a Fading. Lisa Woods ceased to be a person and became a statistic, another string of 1s and 0s that would be used to try to figure out a pattern to the Fade.

That was two years, seven months and four days ago. Eight months ago I began stockpiling. Six months ago I left the city. I hated the feeling of constant scrutiny from other people. I decided to leave after the first time someone tried to break into my apartment. I found a small farming community in the country; we just work to survive and look after each other. We have a big fence. Others come out this way, but they leave us be mostly. I write, sending letters any way I can to other researchers; I can't break the habit. I spend most of my time helping with the crops and the livestock.

Populations are starting to dwindle, clustering together, coping as best they can. The official statistic is that every second between twenty and fifty people around the world Fade. Some think that the true impact of the Fade could be greatly underestimated.
People still die of natural causes of course, and children are still born, but it doesn't matter now. Millions have committed suicide since the Fade phenomena were confirmed by the United Nations. Several countries have decided that now is the time to test their nuclear neighbour's mettle.
No one has reported signs of any other species Fading.
It isn't the Rapture, it's not war or terrorism or aliens (well, that we know of). CERN was discounted. Theories involving disturbances between consciousness and interactions on the quantum scale, while interesting, are untestable.
The world gets larger every day. Remnants of governments try to keep the peace.

There is no pattern.

I don't want to know what happened to Lisa. I don't want to know what's going to happen to me, or when. Time is running out, for all of us.
I hope that it doesn't hurt when I leave my shadow behind.

I hope you're reading this, whoever you are. It's a selfish desire, and while I am still a confirmed agnostic I have one prayer that I make regularly:
Please God, if you're out there, I don't want to be the last to go.

This short story is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License. Feel free to repost and share it with others, so long as you credit me (Nathan Ryder, 2009) as the original author and link back to this page. It would also be nice if you dropped me a comment!

The Club of Queer Trades

2009-03-16T17:09:00.001Z

Having read some GK Chesterton before, I was mildly disappointed by this book of detective stories. The book starts off so well, setting up the main characters and an organisation of individuals who earn a living doing things that no-one else does. The first few mysteries are genuinely strange, and are always resolved with a note that the persons involved are connected with the Club of Queer Trades. However, the fact that these stories are linked together turns out to be an extremely wafer thin twist at the end, and for me the conclusion was quite disappointing.

The characterisation, the trades that the various individuals engage in, and the way that the story makes you feel like you are there - living and breathing in Victorian London - all conspire to make you fall in love with the book. Ultimately though, while the individual strands of the six stories are enjoyable, the resolution of the book left me quite nonplussed. Read The Man Who Was Thursday instead.

Watchmen

2009-03-16T17:04:00.002Z

I've been a fan of Watchmen since before I read it, since I first looked through a book on comics and saw Nite Owl's costume and Rorschach's mask. The first time that I read it I loved it, and then each time since I've taken something else away from it. The film version could never be as good for me as the version that played out in my head as I read it.

That said, the film version of Watchmen is much better than fans of the graphic novel might have been expecting. Yes, there have been some changes; yes, there will be many parts that you think should have been kept in; yes, while some parts are very true to the graphic novel others have changed quite dramatically.

I thought that it was a really enjoyable film: despite being over two and a half hours long I never felt like it dragged once. Patrick Wilson was excellent as Nite Owl, absolutely spot on in terms of look and character, and Rorschach was spot on too; the special effects work for Dr. Manhattan is superb, and there was a real attention to detail throughout the film, getting as many stylistic parts from the graphic novel in, while still making new interpretations as well.

Is it the perfect Watchmen adaptation? Perhaps not, but perhaps every fan of the source material would disagree with me on the things that they really wanted to see. Is it a good film? Yes, it's enjoyable, action-packed and still deals with some of the big themes of the graphic novel. One to watch on the big screen.

Thing 93 Complete!

2009-03-15T10:49:00.002Z

ACROSS
1. All-out, intense (12)
7. Woman's undergarment (4)
8. Physical effort (8)
9. Stimulant (6)
10. Tennis bat (6)
11. Attempt (3)
12. Whale food (5)
14. Rocky projection (5)
16. Upper limb (3)
18. French brandy (6)
20. Enthusiastic (6)
22. Plant scientist (8)
23. Hideaway (4)
24. Tiny scurrying animal (6-6)

DOWN
1. Coal-miner (7)
2. Himalayan kingdom (5)
3. Excuse (6)
4. Speculative idea (6)
5. News item (7)
6. Run away and marry (5)
13. Ancestry (7)
15. Earth's attractive force (7)
16. Sharpness (6)
17. Call to duty (6)
19. Aroma (5)
21. Subordinate to (5)

It always seems to happen when I try to fill in a crossword that there is one answer that I just can't get. Well, that's if I get that far. Sometimes I just stare after the first half dozen answers are filled in... Which is why I decided that this would be a good challenge for my 101 things. I've tried about twenty so far, maybe more, and was beginning to think that this might be something where effort alone was not going to win the day, I needed a bit of luck.

I had two pieces of luck today: one was that this crossword started me off with a good few answers; the second was that the final clue I needed to answer was "9. Stimulant (6)" and I had "_I_L_P". This in itself was not lucky, but the fact that the only word I could think of that would fit that was "FILLIP" was a bit fortuitous. And it was right! I have no idea where I saw that word, possibly in some classic novel.

In any case, another one down! I can switch focus to another one of my goals, onwards and upwards!

Every Last Drop

2009-03-09T17:03:00.002Z

Every Last Drop is the fourth book in the Joe Pitt series of novels by Charlie Huston. It's not a good place to jump into the story, as in the previous three novels there have been so many double crosses and switches of allegiance a beginner would struggle to know exactly what's going on and who knows who.

However, the Joe Pitt novels are a series that are well worth getting into, fusing classic noir fiction themes with a compelling vampire mythos set in present day New York. In this installment he finds himself even more on the outside than usual, everyone who he's ever allied himself with - and a few he hasn't - all trying to play him against the other vampire organisations in New York, while he just tries to survive and take them down a peg or two for the trouble they put him to.

I'd recommend the Joe Pitt novels to anyone with a love of good noir: start with Already Dead and work your way through them all. Four books in the series so far, one more to go - I'm hoping that the final book will be out before I finish 101/1001, so I can give a review of the whole series. 'Til then, without wanting to give too much of the story away, I will just say that I love these stories, and I think you will too.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

2009-03-09T16:47:00.003Z

I was going to wait. I was going to give it a month or so before buying book two. At least.

But then I was walking around Worlds Apart last Thursday, and I happened to glance at "S" in the graphic novel section. And there was Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I had had a good morning, been to a meeting about a workshop I would be tutoring on this coming week... Well. Since I am writing a mini-review about it, you can guess what happened.

The opening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World goes off in a different direction given that book 1 focuses on Scott so much; it threw me a little, but then I was back in with it and hooked right through to the end. O'Malley's artwork is just as fresh and sparkling as it was in the first volume, and the story continues to twist and turn away. The blurring of the edges of reality are great, you never quite know how far things could go in it - when Scott defeats Ramona's second evil ex-boyfriend and gains a "power-up item" as a result I started giggling.

When it turned out that he couldn't take it because he had chosen a different skillset at an earlier levelling up opportunity I laughed out loud.

As with volume 1 I read the book in one sitting, just before bed one night. Volume 2 is brilliant, a fantastic continuation of the story; I know that not all of the series has been released yet, and I am hoping that I can stretch out the pleasure as long as possible before I reach the end of the volumes already released. But I just don't know if I can. I might have to see if Worlds Apart has volume 3 when I go there this Thursday.

Don't read Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World if you haven't read Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. Do go and read them in order at your earliest opportunity.

Classic Films

2009-03-08T13:14:00.001Z

My friend Cyran (who is also doing 101/1001) recently mentioned that I hadn't actually made a list of classic films for Thing 71; I started off with some in mind - My Neighbour Totoro was one of them - but since then I've kind of meandered with it. I knew of some films that I wanted to watch or had provisionally pencilled in as a potential, but I hadn't really done anything about it. I'm not suggesting that the following list of films is in anyway definitive - and Cyran and others may disagree with my idea of "classic" - but these are some films that have sprung to mind recently while I have been running the idea around in my head of what I had in mind.

The Seven Samurai
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Vertigo
Yojimbo
The Godfather, Part II
The Godfather, Part III
Forbidden Planet
Blood Simple
Godzilla (the original)
Metropolis
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
North By Northwest
Gone With The Wind (?)
The Big Sleep
Sleeper
Near Dark
Withnail And I (?)
The Sound of Music
The Conversation

So, what do you think? Do you agree with what I have listed? Anything essential that I am missing? Bear in mind, these are classic films that I feel I really ought to have seen but haven't. You're not psychic (probably), so you don't know what I have or haven't seen - so tell me, what is a classic film that you would recommend?

Recent Books

2009-03-08T13:10:00.002Z

With Script Frenzy approaching I am winding down on reading books at the moment and trying to turn my mind to writing more, but I have a few books out from the library at the moment, and so feel that I should get them finished before I start writing my breakthrough screenplay.

Or graphic novel. I haven't really decided between one or the other yet.

Earlier this week I finished End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood; I've been meaning to read something by him for a long time, and vaguely had an idea that he had written a sequence of books (or maybe more than one, I don't know), so when I saw the book on the shelf my first instinct was to check that it was not "Book One of..." End of the World Blues centres on Kit Nouveau, a British ex-pat living in Tokyo. He runs a bar with his Japanese wife, a famous artist, and teaches English to a woman he is having an affair with.

A series of events leave him convinced that someone wants him dead, and so when his dead ex-girlfriend's mobster mother visits to ask for help in finding out whether or not his ex really is dead, he leaves Japan pretty quickly and begins investigating. Neku is a Japanese teenager who tags along with him; she is also one of the last humans from the far future and her presence in our time is as much a mystery to her as it is to the reader. The novel alternates scenes from now with scenes of a strange feudal future in the last years of Earth, and while this makes for an interesting novel I'm not entirely convinced that it makes for a totally satisfying experience. The disconnect between the two eras is quite profound, not least because there is very little crossover between the two storylines. Neku isn't out to change the future or perform some desperate mission - which quite refreshing, a time traveller not out to save the world in some way - but at the same time the expectation at the start that she is there to perform some vital service fizzles out (especially since she is dramatically introduced into Kit's life).

End of the World Blues is an interesting novel, and an engaging read; for me, it's main flaw was that the scenes in the far future could have been skipped without effecting the enjoyment or understanding of the parts of the novel set in the present day.

Dr. No is the sixth James Bond novel, and while it's not one of my 101 things to read all of the Bond books I have a feeling that I might have managed that by the time my 30th birthday rolls around. Fleming's genius is taking us on a real escapist journey, and making the reader feel as though they really are there with James Bond as he tangles with the henchmen of the mysterious Dr. No, or that we are living the high life as a double-0 agent.

I don't want to spoil any of the story at all; it's as well-crafted as any of the Bond stories that I have read so far, with a mix of glamour, danger and excitement, bound together by the paradox of cold-hearted killer and ladies' man that is James Bond. I'll keep my eyes peeled for Goldfinger once Script Frenzy is over and I am back to borrowing from the library.

Haiku

2009-03-04T16:10:00.001Z

While I've been solving maths puzzles, reading books and working on pieces of fiction, I've also been throwing a few little haiku around. Here are three.

Your smile dies out,
A memory taken now.
A fading picture

*

"I can wait," she says,
At Winter's Edge. I decline;
I know her too well.

*

I watched a while,
Then realised, too late - BLAM!
You knew where I was...

Thing 82 Complete!

2009-03-04T10:56:00.004Z

82. Solve twenty-five of the problems on Project Euler. (25/25) - done! 4/3/2009

Very pleased with this, feels good to get something else accomplished. So many of my goals are things that I have to chip away at - read 101 books, write 101 pieces of flash fiction - it feels good to have done this and for it to be done. It doesn't mean that I won't be doing any more of the problems, but I can put them to one side for the moment while I concentrate on other things.

The thing that has come out of working on this and on Thing 62 is that it has made me realise just how much I miss doing maths as part of my regular routine, as part of my life. I've been enjoying what I've been doing in terms of work recently, but lately it's come to me just how important maths was - and is - to me. So I need to start thinking long term about how I can make it part of my day-to-day life again, or how I can work that into my long term career goals.

But that's a thought for another day! Thing 82 - done!

Project Euler, Problems 10 and 17

2009-03-04T10:53:00.001Z

Problem 10
Calculate the sum of all the primes below two million.

I was thinking about this for quite a while; it's extremely simple to write something which checks if a number is prime or not, and it's just as simple to put together a loop to check all of the primes below two million (start with 3, go for all the odd numbers up to 1999999, add the contribution of 2 at the end). The problem is actually summing all of that, because the basic C++ construction can't handle it with simple integers (which is pretty much all I can do at the minute!).

Then, late last night I had my idea: check what the limit is for integers, and then have it sum up to somewhere just below that limit, then output the sum and start from 0 and keep going, summing and outputting all the way up to two million. This gave somewhere in the region of seventy 10-digit numbers. Ouch! Except I could then copy the output, import it into OpenOffice Calc and get that to sum them all. Problem solved.

Problem 17
If the numbers 1 to 5 are written out in words: one, two, three, four, five, then there are 3 + 3 + 5 + 4 + 4 = 19 letters used in total. If all the numbers from 1 to 1000 (one thousand) inclusive were written out in words, how many letters would be used?

NOTE: Do not count spaces or hyphens. For example, 342 (three hundred and forty-two) contains 23 letters and 115 (one hundred and fifteen) contains 20 letters. The use of "and" when writing out numbers is in compliance with British usage.

For a little while I thought - for some reason, I don't know - that this was much more difficult than it actually is. It's quite easy. Work out the number of letters used to write the numbers one to nine, and then ten to nineteen. Now, for twenty to twenty-nine the total letters are going to be 6*10 (for all of the "twenty"s) plus the total letters for writing the numbers one to nine. Repeat for thirty through to ninety-nine, take the total and you have the number of letters for one through to ninety-nine.

Then, for example, from one hundred to one hundred and ninety nine we have 100*10 (for all of the "one hundred"s) plus 99*3 (for all of the "and"s) plus the total letters for one to ninety-nine. Repeat for all of the other hundreds, and add 11 at the end for "one thousand". I thought this was so much more difficult than it was, but after the idea came to me it took me about twenty minutes with pencil and two small pieces of notepaper, all worked out by hand.

*

And that my friends, is twenty-five problems done for Project Euler. Blog post on completing Thing 82 to follow!

Project Euler, Problems 11 and 30

2009-03-03T16:49:00.003Z

Problem 11
In the 20×20 grid below, four numbers along a diagonal line have been marked in red.

08 02 22 97 38 15 00 40 00 75 04 05 07 78 52 12 50 77 91 08
49 49 99 40 17 81 18 57 60 87 17 40 98 43 69 48 04 56 62 00
81 49 31 73 55 79 14 29 93 71 40 67 53 88 30 03 49 13 36 65
52 70 95 23 04 60 11 42 69 24 68 56 01 32 56 71 37 02 36 91
22 31 16 71 51 67 63 89 41 92 36 54 22 40 40 28 66 33 13 80
24 47 32 60 99 03 45 02 44 75 33 53 78 36 84 20 35 17 12 50
32 98 81 28 64 23 67 10 26 38 40 67 59 54 70 66 18 38 64 70
67 26 20 68 02 62 12 20 95 63 94 39 63 08 40 91 66 49 94 21
24 55 58 05 66 73 99 26 97 17 78 78 96 83 14 88 34 89 63 72
21 36 23 09 75 00 76 44 20 45 35 14 00 61 33 97 34 31 33 95
78 17 53 28 22 75 31 67 15 94 03 80 04 62 16 14 09 53 56 92
16 39 05 42 96 35 31 47 55 58 88 24 00 17 54 24 36 29 85 57
86 56 00 48 35 71 89 07 05 44 44 37 44 60 21 58 51 54 17 58
19 80 81 68 05 94 47 69 28 73 92 13 86 52 17 77 04 89 55 40
04 52 08 83 97 35 99 16 07 97 57 32 16 26 26 79 33 27 98 66
88 36 68 87 57 62 20 72 03 46 33 67 46 55 12 32 63 93 53 69
04 42 16 73 38 25 39 11 24 94 72 18 08 46 29 32 40 62 76 36
20 69 36 41 72 30 23 88 34 62 99 69 82 67 59 85 74 04 36 16
20 73 35 29 78 31 90 01 74 31 49 71 48 86 81 16 23 57 05 54
01 70 54 71 83 51 54 69 16 92 33 48 61 43 52 01 89 19 67 48

The product of these numbers is 26 × 63 × 78 × 14 = 1788696. What is the greatest product of four adjacent numbers in any direction (up, down, left, right, or diagonally) in the 20×20 grid?

I thought for a while about whether or not I should approach this one, whether it would be something that could be done in a reasonable amount of time. I also struggled with how I could do it simply with my limited amount of C++.

Eventually I decided that the best thing to do would be to do it myself - after all, there were only 400 entries in the grid. The simple thing with this was to cross out numbers as they became irrelevant. Initially my criteria were for just plain low numbers, anything below 10. Then, as I found a sequence of four numbers which produced a higher value, z, than the previous high, it hit me that I should find the largest number x such that the cube root of z/x was greater than 99. That way, I would then be free to remove every number less than x which remained in the grid. As numbers were blanked out, opportunities to "connect four" were reduced, and new sequences became apparent. This gave a new high z, and a new x, and so on. This approach probably took around 40 minutes to give the correct answer, much less time than it would have taken for me to program something to search the grid in C++ (had I even known how to encode the grid).

Problem 30
Surprisingly there are only three numbers that can be written as the sum of fourth powers of their digits:

1634 = 1^(4) + 6^(4) + 3^(4) + 4^(4)
8208 = 8^(4) + 2^(4) + 0^(4) + 8^(4)
9474 = 9^(4) + 4^(4) + 7^(4) + 4^(4)

As 1 = 1^(4) is not a sum it is not included. The sum of these numbers is 1634 + 8208 + 9474 = 19316. Find the sum of all the numbers that can be written as the sum of fifth powers of their digits.

Following the previous problem that I solved which involved the sum of factorials of digits this was quite straightforward to solve. With a little bit of thought looking at multiples of 9^5 I was able to establish quite quickly what an upper bound would be; then I simply adapted the routine I'd used previously, and it arrived at the correct answer in next to no time.

*

Two to go!!! Maybe by the end of this week? Keep your fingers crossed.

Vegetarian Month I Final Update

2009-03-03T16:45:00.001Z

My first month of vegetarianism is over; it was pretty good all in all; I don't think that I used it to its full potential all in all, I should have looked at more different recipes than I did, but it did feel good to have a change.

I did miss eating meat and fish, but I didn't crave it at all - except on one occasion when my family were having bacon - and now that I'm back eating meat and fish I don't feel any great compulsion to eat it. I had a nice trout fillet on Sunday and some cottage pie yesterday, but think I will be eating less meat and fish from now on.

The best thing that came out of the month was my discovering homemade soup. So simple, so tasty and I just loved making and eating it. I'll be doing that more often.

April might be veggie month II, not decided yet. Veggie month III will probably be next February. Stay tuned for soup recipes!

Project Euler, Problems 34 and 39

2009-02-28T18:27:00.004Z

Two more problems solved!

Problem 34
145 is a curious number, as 1! + 4! + 5! = 1 + 24 + 120 = 145. Find the sum of all numbers which are equal to the sum of the factorial of their digits.

This was pretty straightforward. When we consider that 9! = 362880 we only have to do a few sums to get an upper bound on the numbers that we must consider. Then it is a simple case of putting together a loop which gets the digits of a number, sums the factorials of the digits and compares it with the number. There is a similar problem which I hope to have coded a routine for by the end of the weekend involving fifth powers of digits.

Problem 39
If p is the perimeter of a right angle triangle with integral length sides, {a,b,c}, there are exactly three solutions for p = 120 - {20,48,52}, {24,45,51}, {30,40,50}. For which value of p ≤ 1000, is the number of solutions maximised?

I solved a similar problem to this a few days ago; this was a bigger problem because of searching through a large set of perimeters. However, with a bit more maths it wasn't difficult to get conditions to impose and then search through - for example, we can deduce with only a little work that p/3 < c < p/2 and that p must be a divisor of 2ab. The program took no time at all to find the p which had the most solutions (incidentally, the perimeter value found had 8 solutions!).

So that leaves... Four problems to solve? Really? Am I actually that close to finishing another one of my 101 things?!

The Man Who Smiled

2009-02-27T20:22:00.001Z

I really like Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries. My friend Dave got me into reading them a few years ago when I first started getting interested in reading crime stories and noir, and The Man Who Smiled is the third Wallander novel I've read. I think that the brilliant thing about reading these stories is the setting and the atmosphere that Mankell creates. The crimes are well thought out, as is the description of the way that Wallander and the team in Ystad eventually solve them. The main draw for me is the way that you feel like you are there with him as he follows the clues and makes the deductions that lead him to the answer.

When he is on the job, Kurt Wallander eats poorly, sleeps little and gradually becomes more and more dishevelled. His personal life is an endless series of thoughts to call his family - which he invariably puts of to later - and reflections on why he became a police officer (he can't remember any more). In The Man Who Smiled, he begins his journey even more lost than usual. Wallander has taken a leave of absence that has lasted over a year, ever since he had to take a man's life in self-defence. On the day that he is to officially resign he discovers that a friend of his has been murdered, and in an instant he decides to return to work, and so the cycle begins again for him.

The Man Who Smiled is a good mystery story, although perhaps not the best place to start for people who've not read any of the other Wallander novels. You should definitely try One Step Behind if you get the chance, which is a fantastic mystery story, again permeated by the brilliant atmosphere that Mankell expertly builds up.

Project Euler, Problems 9 and 28

2009-02-26T12:29:00.002Z

I was just thinking the other day that I hadn't done any Project Euler problems in a while, and having a look down the list of problems a few jumped out at me as "do-able". Both of these required very little computing - in fact I did the second mentioned here with just a calculator once I had done some thinking.

(as a side note, I've also been working on thing number 62, to find the number of stacked 4-tangles; I've proved a few things which my previous assumptions had relied on, made it more concrete, and am at the point where I need to use a Maple program in order to find things and split things up. Not quite there in my C++ knowledge in order to be able to do that!)

Problem 9
Find the only Pythagorean triplet {a,b,c} such that a + b + c = 1000.

From this we can take a few bits of information:

a^2 + b^2 = c^2
a + b + c = 1000
a < b < c and a, b, c are all positive integers

By manipulating the two first lines there, we can arrive at the expression

ab = 1000(500 - c)

This is a good line to get to! It tells us that c is less than 500 and that the product of a and b is divisible by 1000. Also, as a < b < c < 500 we can deduce that 334 < c < 500. These conditions, combined with the main Pythagorean triple condition, are enough to impose a range of conditions for a simple search in C++, in order that we arrive at the answer.

Problem 28
Starting with the number 1 and moving to the right in a clockwise direction a 5 by 5 spiral is formed as follows: (looks better on Project Euler site, here)

21 22 23 24 25
20 7 8 9 10
19 6 1 2 11
18 5 4 3 12
17 16 15 14 13

It can be verified that the sum of both diagonals is 101. What is the sum of both diagonals in a 1001 by 1001 spiral formed in the same way?

I didn't need C++ to solve this. I extended the spiral out to 7 by 7, so I could get a better feel for the numbers in the diagonals. I split them up, and obtained (in the end) three sequences of numbers. From these I arrived at three quadratic relations that you could get the three sequences from, and then by summing the series I got the answer. Simple really - big numbers though!

This takes my total to 19 now, six more to go. I have a list of a few that I might try next. I was originally aiming to get my 25 done by the end of February. I'm now aiming for the end of March, and also hoping to get thing 62 done by then as well (or at least, to have the answer and be writing it out from all of my rough notes).

The Shack

2009-02-24T17:01:00.002Z

A few weeks ago my mum said, "I've got a novel for you to read; it's called The Shack and... Well, I'm not really enjoying it, but I want someone else to read it so I know I'm not crazy for not liking it."

"What's it about?" I asked.

"It's about this man, and his young daughter is killed by a serial killer, and then a few years later he gets a note from God saying that he has to come to the shack where his daughter was killed - "

"O-kaaay..."

"- yeah, and then, when he's there, he meets God. And God is three people: an old black woman, a thirty-something Middle-Eastern man and a young Asian woman."

"Shall I just read it?"

"Maybe you'll like it more than I did," she said, "I skipped the last quarter to go straight to the end..."

So, once I had finished a stack of library books I borrowed it and started reading. The basic outline is exactly as my mum described it, and one would think that that opened up a lot of possibilities for an interesting story. Instead...

I'm going to be as concise as possible about the experience; from the front and back cover heaping praise on it, and the two pages of people giving quotes inside it - and in some ways throughout the story - it smacks of being a book that is going to desperate lengths to get itself noticed. At points it does this to the distraction of the story itself. There's a covering story, that the person who has written it is a friend of the person who all this happened to; this device bookends the story. The (fictional) writer has done a disservice to his friend; the narrator often refers to the protagonist's grief as The Great Sadness - italicised every time and always with capitals - and as strange as it seems at those (frequent) points it becomes absolutely ridiculous when the protagonist refers to his grief as The Great Sadness when talking to others...

My mum says that she hated the book; I don't know if I would go that far. I couldn't recommend it to anyone, I really couldn't. Some elements of the story challenged my own personal faith, but not in a positive way - in some ways it made me think, "Am I foolish for having religious faith?" One of the themes that runs through the story is that humans by and large don't really understand that faith (the Christian faith) is not about rules and religions, but about relationships. But then, why should we believe the message of the author? What does he offer apart from an argument that "other people get it wrong"?

Fundamentally, I didn't enjoy reading the book. The pacing is weird, the writing is quite strange at times and to my ear the dialogue rarely rang true, as if it had been written for two people sat on a chat show couch having a staged conversation. The denouement was the final straw, offering with one hand proof that the man had experienced everything that he said he did up at the shack and then taking away with the other what little internal logic the story had by summing up the consequences of this in a few lines.

As I said, the covers carry many endorsements and facts about sales - New York Times #1, a million copies sold - and the inside back cover asks people to blog about the book once they've read it, get the word out, etc. Well, here's my review: "Don't read The Shack. It's a frustrating, poorly written thesis on faith dressed up as an Oprah/Richard & Judy novel of the week."

Vegetarian Month I Update 3

2009-02-24T17:00:00.000Z

Only a few days left to go; I'm not going to rush back into eating meat with a big steak on Sunday - I'll probably have a piece of fish or something - but I am looking forward to eating meat and fish again. I didn't do this out of any big moral imperative, but rather to try and eat differently, possibly more healthily; this has also meant that I have cooked a lot more over the last month, and while my family might claim that I have been quite limited in the range of foods that I have eaten, at the same time I feel quite good for having tried a range of recipes with them. Things definitely got better for me when I started to follow recipes as well, rather than just make them up as I went along (as I have noted previously).

I'll take next February as one of my two remaining vegetarian months I think, and try to have this April as my other one. Somewhere amongst all this I'll do my thirty days of five-a-day as well - probably; at the moment I'm looking into the whole five-a-day thing due to something a friend told me about the health benefits of following that being a myth (not that I want to excuse myself from eating five-a-day, but if there is no benefit I would rather add something else to the list).

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

2009-02-21T17:16:00.003Z

I've been meaning to read Scott Pilgrim for a very long time; recently, I don't know why, that feeling has been building up in me, a desire to find out what it's all about. I had an idea of the basic story - that a guy has to face the seven evil ex-boyfriends of the girl of his dreams - but had no idea of the specifics of it. I'm not sure I have ever read anything else by the creator of the series Bryan Lee O'Malley, but whenever I have come across a Scott Pilgrim illustration I have smiled at how cool it looks.

(I have seen various things recently about volume five being released, and had heard that Edgar Wright and Michael Cera were in the process of making a film based on the first few volumes; maybe that's why it has been sticking in my mind so much)

I've been economising recently, cutting down on what I do and where I go (credit crunch plus slow work period as a freelancer over the last few months) but last Thursday when I was in my local comic shop (Worlds Apart, near Lime Street Station in Liverpool) my regular order came to less than a fiver. A slow week for comics. And I thought, "Hmmm, maybe, maybe now is the time to see what Scott Pilgrim is like...?" I had a look around and finally (after asking) found volume one (it had been placed with manga due to the style of the artwork).

Normally, when I go to the comic shop I go immediately to the train station after that and get the train home, maybe read a few comics on the way, and read the rest after dinner. On Thursday I was going to meet my writing group, and then we went on for dinner. I read the two comics I had bought, and thought, "I'll read the first chapter of Scott Pilgrim before bed." (it is a graphic novel, broken down into chapters inside)

Well.

I couldn't put it down. The combination of artwork, story, technique, romance, humour - if I hadn't been lying back in bed, it would have floored me. This first volume was released back in 2004, so I'm playing catch up on the cool curve I guess; I had no idea just how absolutely brilliant it was. I like all kinds of comics and graphic novels, but apart from some of the webcomics I read I very rarely go for series that have a humourous focus. To say too much about where Scott Pilgrim gets its laughs from would spoil the surprise - the final twenty pages or so had me alternating between laughing out loud and literally gasping with delight. The dialogue, the story, the artwork - it combines to make a perfect entertainment.

I've looked over the last five paragraphs and realised that really this is a terrible review: aside from the one line synopsis, which is based on what I thought I knew about Scott Pilgrim before I read it, I have told you nothing about what happens or anything really. All I have done is gush about how I came to read it and how fantastic it is. Oh well.

(by the way, if anyone reading this has ever read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, it struck me that Bryan Lee O'Malley understands comics - the various things that he uses in it that McCloud talks about in the book just jumped out at me, and not in a distracting, obvious way, just the way that he framed things, used motion lines, drew characters and everything...)

I'm economising, but I am going to put pennies and pounds to one side over the coming weeks and months so that I can get the other four volumes that are currently available. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life is a fantastic slice of pure joy, a wonderful piece of sequential art and a bloody good story.

Recent Books

2009-02-21T17:10:00.002Z

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
I've read a few novels by Charles Stross since I've started 101/1001, and while I'm not always blown away in the same way I am when I read something by, say, Peter F. Hamilton, I am always left entertained having read something of Stross's. Saturn's Children is a good mystery story, and has as its backdrop the society of robots living in the solar system after humans have become extinct.

The central mystery itself seemed to unravel in a fairly obvious way as time went on (so, for example, you know who the mysterious aristocrat really is long before you have her identity confirmed) but the background is so well thought out and put together that you just find yourself carried along for the ride. The central character being an obsolete sexbot makes for an interesting perspective, as do the observations about how ridiculous the robots' creators were (a human's frailties compared to a robot's resources).

So far, I'd recommend everything I've read by Charles Stross, and Saturn's Children is no exception; he has an amazing imagination and head for all of the little details that go into making something that feels like a real world. If you're new to Stross though, I'd start with The Atrocity Archives or Halting State, I think they're better stories.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
It should be obvious by now to any regular reader of this blog (all three of you) that I am a sucker for a good mystery story. I read A Study In Scarlet years and years ago, but have never read The Hound of the Baskervilles until now (although I was aware of the mystery and what the solution to the mystery was).

Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant creation; far better writers than myself have described how fantastic he and Doctor Watson are. Doyle really makes them jump out of the page at you as fully three-dimensional characters. The fantastical leap in the story is not connected with the ghastly hound of the title; as with every Holmes story the fantastic thing is Holmes himself, and the speed of the deductions that he makes, the evidence that he bases them on. While he is always right, and the explanation matches up, it makes for an excellent read on the strength of Doyle's creations and the mysteries that he conjures up. You suspend disbelief that a man could be that intelligent and go along with it because Holmes is such a fascinating man.

The 100 Classic Novels app I have for my DS has some Holmes stories, I'll have to give those a look some time soon.

Flash Fiction: On Charles Bridge

2009-02-16T20:54:00.003Z

On Charles Bridge
Nathan Ryder

To Sophie Barnes' blue-grey eyes there was no more beautiful sight in the world than the view from Charles Bridge. She had visited Prague several times, both on business for Grover & Macmillan and on holiday; normally she would have to contend with several thousand other people streaming across the bridge, but it was dawn, and she was able to appreciate the beauty of the city by herself.
She pulled the coat tightly around her, warding against the chill in the wind that was tugging slightly on her pale blonde hair. Sophie tucked a stray strand away behind her ear, and checked her watch. Sunrise was in ten minutes, and already she could see the pale light creeping up from further down the river. Her flight was in two hours, but it was only a short taxi ride to collect her bags from the hotel and then on to Prague-Ruzyne International Airport. She had time, and she let her eyes gaze towards the coming sun, drinking in the colours as they started to spread.
“Hello Sophie.”
Angelo Mori's accent always surprised her; there was a slight trace of his childhood in Pisa, but this was more firmly dominated by the New England business colleges that he had attended on his way to becoming one of the biggest property developers on the East Coast.
Sophie knew every inch of him, and yet still her eyes lingered as she looked at him now, tracing every detail of his expensive coat up to his perfectly chiselled face. Once, she had fallen in love with his eyes, pools of calm that radiated warmth to the rest of his face. He had let his raven black hair grow slightly longer since she had last seen him, and there was a slight greying at his temples that hadn't been there before. She felt that old attraction surfacing again, and with it a shiver as she realised how shallow the grave of that buried feeling had been.
“Well, aren't you going to say anything?”
It was only when he spoke again that she realised that she had just been staring at him and she had no idea how long they had both stood there. Sophie struggled to keep her voice under control, as a wave of emotions passed through her: sudden delight at seeing Angelo again, surprise at how quickly she found herself falling in to those brown eyes and shock as the memory of how they had parted that last time swept back in to her mind, becoming as clear as the breaking dawn.
Finally, she spoke.
“What... What are you doing here Angelo?”
She immediately felt foolish for asking, but if any trace of it crossed her face Angelo showed no sign of having seen it.
“Sophie,” he said, stepping towards her, smiling the same tender smile that he had shown her on their first date three years earlier, “Sophie, is it not obvious? I am here for you.”
He stopped two feet from her, and she continued to just look at him, unable to find words after what she had said the last time she had seen him.
“Do you have nothing else to say?” he asked after a moment.
Sophie felt her heart racing, and she tried to get a hold of herself as she asked, “How did you find me?”
“Carter told me you were here,” he replied, smiling lightly, and Sophie swore mentally at Carter Macmillan, for revealing the information. He might be her godfather, he might be her boss, but for the longest time he had been the most insufferable wannabe Cupid when it came to her relationships.
“Don't be angry with him, Sophie, he only wants the best for you – as I do. I should have known where you would be when I heard you had taken a short leave of absence,” Angelo continued, stepping closer and raising a hand to touch her arm, “You always said that Prague was your favourite city in the whole world.”
“And I suppose you just flew here in your private jet when you found out where I was?” she said, feeling a small flush of anger hit her cheeks.
Angelo did not respond to her tone of voice, saying simply, “I had to Sophie. Had you been in London at work I would have gone there; had you been on business in Melbourne I would have followed. I had to see you, I had to tell you - ”
“Tell me what?” she asked, her heart fluttering wildly. All of the control that she had had just moments earlier had evaporated, and she felt her heart and her head struggling for ownership of her body.
“Sophie, you must know. I could not say those words before. I am so sorry... I was a fool; we had both been hurt, but I failed to see – no, I failed you. I should have been a greater man than I was for you. I think... I think I can be that man now. If you will let me.”
“Angelo,” she said, after a moment's pause, shaking his hand from her arm, “Angelo, I can't... I can't - ”
“Yes, yes you can Sophie!” he said, taking hold of her with both hands and drawing her close to him, his accent breaking down as he became more animated. “Us together... It is what we have both been looking for all of our lives! You know it, I know you do. I let my past get in the way, and you let yours trap you, unable to feel that which you know you want to feel, that you long to feel.”
“Please, let me go - ”
“Sophie, I lo-”
“No Angelo!” she sobbed, “Don't! Don't say it!”
“Sophie,” he said, composing himself and fixing her with his large brown eyes, “Sophie, I love you.”
Her head was awash with thoughts as he continued, “I know you love me Sophie, I know you don't think that you deserve happiness – but you do! You're beautiful, and you're brilliant and you could be happy if you would just let yourself!”
She struggled for a second to escape his hold, but then he pulled her closer and kissed her. Her lips responded to his kiss, gentle at first, and then stronger. Her hands snaked around his muscular body and embraced this wild, passionate man who she has loved since the moment she first saw him.
A few minutes later they stand there holding each other. Sophie felt more secure than she had felt in her whole life, her head resting on the chest of the man she loved, together as the sun's first rays hit Charles Bridge.

Vegetarian Month I Update 2

2009-02-16T09:46:00.002Z

So. I found it increasingly difficult to stick to five-a-day (which I know, I know, I shouldn't really, given that I am not eating meat this month) but have found it easier this last week eating as a vegetarian. This is primarily because I started looking for and following recipes, rather than just saying, "Hmm, a big flat mushroom baked in the oven with some red onion? Yeah, that's kind of like a burger!" when clearly, clearly, it is not.

Have made soup twice this last week, relatively low in calories and very satisfying, and have also tried a few veggie delights such as nut roasts and meat free burgers - the latter taste nothing like meat, but oddly have a satisfying burger-ness to them. I'm still not convinced that I would ever want to be vegetarian long term, but it's not bad.

And the good news is that between the 2nd of February and the 14th I lose four pounds! If I can keep that sort of weight loss up over the next two weeks I would be very happy indeed. Hoping to carry over good cooking habits (I would have never thought to make soup from scratch before) into the next few months, combined with more walking and exercise, to try and shift a stone before I go to the USA in the summer. Perhaps April will be my second veggie month.

So. I'm quite happy. Onwards and upwards.

Vegetarian Month I Update

2009-02-09T20:39:00.000Z

So I have totally failed at getting my five-a-day consistently, due to a couple of days where I just didn't feel much like eating, but I am still on track with my primary goal of eating vegetarian for February. Have been cooking a lot more in the last week, but due to my own stupidity have not made many things which I would honestly like to eat again.

Until today, when I decided to make soup. I looked in the recipe book which my friend had got me for Christmas, and saw two recipes which seemed attractive, one for leek and potato soup and one for a creamy spinach soup. However, I didn't have any leeks for the one, and I had no cream or lima beans for the other. So I decided to try and make a half portion of a fusion of the two, substituting some red and baby white onions for the leeks and adding the spinach.

And you know, it turned out alright. Sure, the soup is a disturbing grey/green colour, but it is tasty. My only complaint with myself is that I didn't trust myself to make something nice, and so in making a half recipe I ended up with only two servings. That's OK though, next time I'll make a larger recipe, enough for half a week at least.

The recipe from the last week which I definitely won't be trying was for a lunch that I made last Thursday. My sister put it best when she said (through tears of laughter), "At one point did you think, 'giant flat mushrooms stuffed with red onion and baked in the oven, served like burgers on batches - that'll be lovely'???"

As my family have pointed out, the key to all of this is preparation, thinking ahead to what I'm going to have (since a. I'm cooking all of my own meals - good practice for living alone - and b. I'm limited by what I eat - not that I am very fussy - and what is available). Tomorrow or Wednesday afternoon I'm going to make a pan of some tomato-y, Quorn mince-y, bean-y chilli that'll last for a couple of days, and for which I can just cook some carbs each day to go with it.

And next week will be soups galore I think (especially since I have three separate appointments at the dentist for fillings, for some reason the three teeth couldn't be done together or even combine a few of them).

I am missing meat and fish a bit, but have had no real temptation to break the "diet". All in all, going well!

The Chronicles of Narnia

2009-02-09T20:37:00.000Z

I've spent the last nine or ten days re-reading the seven Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. I last read them when I was much younger; I really can't remember how long it must be. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it must be over ten years. I had only a few vague ideas about the plots of them - apart from "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe", both of which were quite clear in my mind - although I could still recall the names of most of the principal characters.

I was quite surprised, in re-reading them, just how well the books hold up. I feel as if there has been a bit of a backlash against C. S. Lewis in recent years, and that there is an idea he just wrote seven religious instruction pamphlets disguised as children's literature. While it's certainly true that there is a lot of Christian symbolism throughout the novels, I never felt that it was there at the expense of the stories.

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" was my favourite having re-read the novels, and that said I am nervous about the proposed film. In some ways it is quite an episodic story, as the protagonists sail from one place to another searching for the seven friends of King Caspian's father, but all of these incidents are vital to the story; will the film be able to keep them all? At the same time it has no episode which can really be built up to a large battle, and set piece battles were big parts of the previous two Narnia films.

No matter your age, if you haven't read the Narnia books before you should give them a go; if you have read them before then I'd suggest you make time for them again, on the whole they make for a really interesting and engaging fantasy sequence - certainly the most spiritual I've read, and that in itself was very refreshing.

Two Sentence Story

2009-02-07T17:51:00.003Z

It's not one of my 101 things, but I have submitted a Two Sentence Story to TwoSentenceStories.com!!! I would be very grateful if all five of my readers went and read it, and if you like it please give me a good vote!

The story is called "Timing" (with big thank yous to Sarah for the suggestion!) and you can vote for it by clicking here.

Thank you!

Road Trip Update!

2009-02-04T20:52:00.000Z

This is just a bit of a shout-out really asking for advice from US readers or readers with a greater knowledge of the USA than me and my friend David.

As I said a few weeks ago, we booked our flights for our road trip; we're now looking to book hotels for the beginning, middle and end of our trip, i.e., in New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco. We have some ideas for Las Vegas, and are currently trying to figure out whether or not we want to go for something simple but cool like Circus Circus or whether funds will stretch to four nights at the Wynn Las Vegas or the Bellagio.

What we don't know about yet is New York and San Francisco. We'll be spending three nights in New York starting the week after the 4th of July weekend, and three nights in San Francisco over the second weekend in August. Has anyone out there got any good ideas for nice areas or hotels in New York and San Francisco?

One suggestion we're looking into for New York is not to stay in Manhattan - the person who made this suggestion to my friend was a little light on facts, but we think they might have been talking about staying in New Jersey and commuting in for sightseeing. Anyone out there think this would be a good idea? How long would it take to get in to the city each day?

(if it's helpful to know, at this point we might not have picked up our rental car, and would be using public transport to get around)

And how about San Francisco? Where's a good area to be looking for staying for in San Francisco? I should add, that we are looking for hotels/B&Bs rather than hostels; we're motelling it for most of the trip, so think that we can stay in hotels for NY, LV and SF - though of course, unless there are some very special offers, not in the likes of the Hilton!!!

(and on the motel front, what chains should we stay in?)

Any advice that anyone can offer would be very greatly appreciated!

Project Euler, Problem 27

2009-02-04T20:48:00.003Z

Had a bit of a slump in doing these, as I had more or less reached the limit of what I could do with the skills that I had in C++. Then had a look back through the notes that I made about the problems that I was looking at, and noticed that there was one which I could probably work on further.

Problem 27
Euler published the remarkable quadratic formula n^2 + n + 41. It turns out that the formula will produce 40 primes for the consecutive values n = 0 to 39.
Using computers, the incredible formula n^2 − 79n + 1601 was discovered, which produces 80 primes for the consecutive values n = 0 to 79. The product of the coefficients, −79 and 1601, is −126479.
Considering quadratics of the form:
n^2 + an + b, where |a| <>
find the product of the coefficients, a and b, for the quadratic expression that produces the maximum number of primes for consecutive values of n, starting with n = 0.

There's a lot of possible quadratic expressions to be considered for this, but a bit of thought soon lets you realise that b has to be positive, and has to be a prime. I had a reasonable suspicion as well that the magnitude of a has to be smaller than b, but I didn't put that in the routine that I put together.

After this it was just a case of putting something together that would check and see if the various expressions produced primes. I decided that putting in lots of loops and checks to find the expression that produced the longest sequence of primes was going to be quite time-consuming, so I started generating if statements to weed out those expressions which would be more likely to be the right answer (basically by looking at what elements generated primes for various values of n). Analysing the few that remained from this gave me the final answer.

Again, this one wasn't the most elegant solution, but it felt good to be using my analytical skills to do it rather than just brute-forcing something without any consideration.

Onwards and upwards!

Update, Thing 33

2009-02-02T14:24:00.001Z

As I noted recently, I realised that one of the things that I had listed was a duplicate! This left me with having to find something else cool and creative to do. This last week I've been looking over some old things that I've written (this is as I've been sorting out my room). I found some notes to do with my 2005 NaNoWriMo novel, and this got me thinking.

From 2006 I've written a novel every November that has been a complete story, but in 2005 I came very close. I got those 50,000 words written, but the story wasn't finished. I'll write a little bit some time soon about what the general plot was and the structure. One of my 101 things is to work on the novel from 2006, which I finished, and to redraft it and edit it - and now I think I am going to use my spare challenge (rising from the duplicate) to finish the novel from 2005. And not just finish it, but edit and redraft the parts that I had done. I'm not interested in just finishing the last few chapters unless I go back and work on the whole thing.

So there we go, thing number 33 in my list of 101 things is now:

33. Complete my NaNoWriMo novel from 2005.

That novel was set in Liverpool (more or less); just had a thought, might actually go out some time while I'm working on this - though not this week due to the snow! - and take some pictures in and around the suburbs of Liverpool and in the city, see if I can't get something there to help me with the mood of it.

Am I beginning to think like a proper writer???

Recent Books

2009-02-02T14:19:00.002Z

For my birthday my sister got me the Nintendo DS application "100 Classic Novel Collection", which is something that I thought was quite exciting when I first heard about it just after Christmas. To give it a go I decided to re-read a novel that I thought was really interesting when I first read it a few years ago, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

I'm not going to say too much about the novel itself - you should definitely check it out, whatever your views on classic literature, it's a fantastic story and really effective - but I wanted to say a word or two about the presentation medium. Given the price and restrictions of some ebook readers, it's quite nice to see something simple like this for the DS. A hundred novels (for around £15 if you shop online) all on a little cartridge and the interface is a piece of hardware that is relatively cheap compared to the current generation of electronic readers. The display isn't quite big enough, as even the smallest text it displays is quite narrow on the screen, almost like a newspaper column.

There's a big homebrew movement for the DS, so I'm sure there are people out there who have put together some kind of ebook reader, but this is something that Nintendo should definitely get on to - nevermind classic novels and plays (the application for the DS at the moment is a collection of out of copyright works), I want to be able to use my DS to read ebooks that I've downloaded, or even pdfs I've produced! Nintendo, get on to it!

From the library I got Something's Down There by Mickey Spillane; I got it in lieu of being able to get one of his Mike Hammer novels (I'll check the online catalogue soon, see if they have any). It was a pretty interesting thriller, as gritty as his Mike Hammer stuff, but I didn't find it quite as interesting as, say, My Gun Is Quick. Haven't read a good piece of noir for a while; I'm currently re-reading the complete Chronicles of Narnia, but think I will go looking for some more noir when I'm done with that, maybe something by Raymond Chandler.