Master Hunter's Iced Tea

After a long day of writing and rewriting, along with working on several website ideas, I felt like having a little liquid libation.  Something I don't do very often, and does help when it comes to relaxing.  So, I went down into my little wine wrack and realized I didn't want to open an entire bottle just for a glass or two.  With the lingering taste of iced-tea in my mouth from a days' worth of tea-drinking, I wanted to drink something that wouldn't conflict too much with that lingering aftertaste.

So what does one do?  Well, I looked around at what I had, and saw a bottle of Jagermeister.  Thought, mmhhh, might not taste too badly with tea.  Looked online, and saw there was something called hunter's Tea.  Makes sense considering Jaeger is German for Hunter and Meister is German for Master.  Master not in the sense of dominion over others, rather Master in the sense of experience and ability. 

So I mixed the two together.  Was okay ... not the best, not the worst.  Then, I saw the bottle of Absolut Citron.  The three together, WOW ... not much Absolut, though.  And you really only need to drink one!

So I'd suggest initially mix 2 parts iced (make it strong with no sugar) and 1 part Jaegermeister.  Once well mixed, then add the Absolute Citron to taste then serve over ice.

THEN ENJOY!

Mac OS X Application Recommendations

Anyone who knows me, knows how much a media-phile I am.  

Migrating a few years ago from Windows to the Mac OS X platform, I was found wanting a decent application to catalog all of my DVDs.  With over 800 DVDs, the issue of “real money” comes into play.  Examples: lending out DVDs to friends; searching for specific TV show episodes; a complete catalog in case of fire.  The list goes on.

There’s a company called Bruji (http://www.bruji.com/) that produces a suite of “pedias” (as in encyclopedia, not child).  They are quite good and a great value for the price.  Bruji bundled offers allow you to purchase three of their products for less than the cost of a single equivalently featured product from other software vendors.  I’ve purchased the bundle including DVDpedia, CDpedia and Bookpedia.

There are three minor bugs that all three products share.  After sending an email detailing the bugs to Bruji, I received a very prompt and detailed response the next day from Bruji's support acknowledging the problems and with the reassurance they are working on the enhancements.  One customer’s bug is a software house’s feature, I guess.  Regardless, I was impressed with the quick response and candor.  The response was not automated either, which I found refreshing.  Of the three minor bugs, the one I wish to describe here has to do with mixed monetary values.  One nice feature that all three share (and would assume the same with Gamepedia) is the ability to include a monetary value with purchased media.  When adding entries from online data bases, like Amazon.com, the products will seed the price field with what ever was found in the online data base.  If you mix monetary values, then the total dollar value of the library displayed goes crazy.  Not a critical flaw, but annoying.  The other two bugs (in my humble opinion) were related to navigation.  Neither a big deal and not worth going into.

Regardless of these relatively minor flaws, these products are well worth having if you posses any significant number of DVDs, CDs or Books.  One item to add about Bookpedia.  The books can be any type of printed material.  My Bookpedia data base has everything including magazines, printed sheet music, paperbacks, IBM mainframe manuals and hardcovers.

Another usage suggestion pertaining to all three products relates to their online search facility.  Works really great and really like the ability to cascade from one site to the next.  After installation, though, go the Sites pane of the product's Preferences, then select only those sites you feel are pertinent to your media collection.  You can rearrange the search order as well.  Bruji includes a very nice list, but search takes a while when cascading through the 20 or so websites listed.  Not a bug nor a complaint, rather a user specific customization action that is recommended. 

Don't forget the Plug-ins!  There's quiet an impressive set of free Plug-Ins available on the Bruji site for their products.

Lastly ...

Have you ever wanted to back-up those items you've purchased via iTunes to another hard-drive instead of being forced to create a stack of DVDs?  Or, for that matter, having to muck around with TimeMachine, which works great as long as you want to back up just a few things or everything.  As far as I can tell, TimeMachine cannot back-up just those media files contained within a playlist.  Wish TimeMachine could.  There is, though, a wonderful free application on Sourceforge called iTms-Backup (http://sourceforge.net/projects/itms-backup/).  It will copy all items in the "Purchased" playlist to a folder external to iTunes.  If you select a folder on an external hard-drive, you have your back-up.  And it's free!

Forward bound!

Everyone talks about first impressions.  Being someone on the job-hunt, I'm very much aware of how first impressions can lead to more interviews or the door.  For books, I think it's doubly true.  How many times have you picked up a book and after reading the front or back cover, put the book down.  Even if the book's genre was one that you enjoyed reading.   When I started to write Continuum, I became much more aware of how people browsed books at book stores.  Fortunately, there are a few good ones left in San Francisco.  One's not far from my house in a neighborhood called West Portal.  With so many shops in that quaint, gemuetlich SF neighborhood vying for attention, it was interesting to see how people browsed and selected books to purchase.  So, I decided to spend a lot of time and a lot of effort on the first few paragraphs of Continuum.  Not that I plan on selling many, if any, copies of Continuum, should I be so lucky as to find a willing publisher.  Rather, it's a story that is a part of me.  As I write Continuum, I've relived memories and dreams, but more importantly, I've learned a lot about myself.  Continuum springs from a set of recurring dreams I've had since childhood, therefor I'm very passionate about the story and how people receive it.  My hope is that the reader experiences some small portion of the wonderment I've experienced within those dreams.

When writing and rewriting the forward; then replaying the forward time an time again in my head, I came to realize a trick.  Replay what ever you've written in your head in the voice of an actor or actress that you admire.  Pretend that actress or actor is sitting in front of you or in front of a small group of friends, reading aloud what you have written.  For Continuum, I've chosen several people, depending on the character they play or have played, the tambour of their voice and the accent of their speech.  For me, I've chosen mainly British actors for the Shahdoan:

Matt Smith (Doctor Who) -- Forward Narrator
Helena Bonham Carter (Big Fish) -- Eschiir
Toby Jones + John Hurt -- Gamtoo
Kelsey Grammer - Gawult
?? (not me, and I'm not saying) -- Justin

There are others, but I hope you get the picture.  The vocal and acting talents of those listed above leave me in awe, for I am one of those who hate the sound of their own recorded voice.

So here is yet another (and probably not the last) attempt at the Forward or first paragraph of Continuum.  My hope for Continuum's Forward is that it both sets the stage for the rest of the  story, but also leads the reader forward to the first chapter, and on the start of a journey of wonderment and extremes.

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(C) 2011 T. Alan Tranter

Life in the universe is varied and vast.  From humble bits of matter that are slightly more than inorganic reactions to beings known simply as the Continuum Weavers.  A very ancient race with great power that live in, yet are not bound by, our four dimensions of space-time.  Little is known about them.  Very rarely do they interact with anyone, including their own.  But on occasion, when the need arises, they do enlist help with their weaving.

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A New Forward

It's interesting.  Never writing a novel before, I'm not only rediscovering forgotten rules and parts of English. I'm also discovering this new creative means by which to express myself.  The process one goes through when writing something more than the ephemeral email, text msg or twitter tweet.

It's a process, and I would assume a process that progresses for each in their own manner and pace. For a while, I've liked the general content of my Forward, but was never happy with the wording.  Frankly it was simply too wordy.  After living with it a bit, and letting it mull about in the back of my mind, a few changes came to mind.  The old adage, "less is more" seems to fit here.   So below, is my new Forward.  I think what it conveys is the same as the much longer previous Forward, but now much more concisely.  Still not 100% happy with it, but I feel it's much closer to the final content.  This is just the forward and it's taken me a while to even get it this close to how I ultimately want it.  Now I know why it takes years and years to write a decent novel.

So, whatcha think?

Tim

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Life in the universe is varied and vast.  From humble bits of matter that are slightly more than inorganic reactions to those known simply as the Continuum Weavers.  A very ancient race of beings with great power that live in yet are not bound by our 4-dimensions of space-time.  Little is known about them.  Very rarely do they interact with anyone, including their own, but on occasion, they enlist another to help with their weaving.

Continuum Forward

(c) 2011 T. Alan Tranter

Have updated the forward compared to the other blog site for Continuum.  Figured it would be a good start for blogs about writing my novel here.  Remember, I'm not a professional writer, just hope you experience at least a little bit of the wonder and enjoyment I had dreaming it.

Tim

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Life, as it is expressed on Earth, is but a small green and supple twig on just one tree in the galactic forest of life.  Some of the trees of life in the grand and vast galactic forest are very old with steadfast roots.  Some are very young and insignificant, subsiding on what ever is dropped into the forest floor.  For those higher forms of civilizations on planets who study the varied and wondrous forms of life within the galaxy, this is common knowledge.  What is not common knowledge are the other vastly different forms of life within this forest that are not part of any tree.  Just as a forest on Earth contains many different types of foliage, from tall majestic noble redwoods that feast on sunlight, to lowly lichens that subside rock bound minerals.  So to does the galaxy contain equally varied forms of both existence and subsistence.  Life forms in our galaxy range from molecules that are slightly more than inorganic reactions, to life forms that live in, yet are not bound by, the universe’s 4-dimensions of space-time.  Where the former exists in great abundance throughout the galaxy, non-sentient and without name, the latter exists in very few numbers and are simply known as the Continuum Weavers.  They are the oldest lifeforms in our universe and each tend to their portion of the galactic forest of life.  The Continuum Weavers are extremely powerful race that live billions of years, yet are not almighty nor immortal.  How they came into being is not known.  They interact with each other very, very rarely, but on occasion, do need to enlist one of those under their charge to help them with their weaving.

If you can remember old computer punch cards ....

then here’s something interesting to note.   If you took one of today's average sized MP3 songs, let's say 5 megabytes in size, then rendered the file in punch cards, it would require 49,932 cards, leaving columns 73-80 available for a sequence number.  If you are brave or stupid enough to not want nor feel the need for sequence numbers, then you can use all 80-columns for rendering  thus yielding a mere 43,690 cards.  Why a sequence number?  The sequence numbers at the end of the cards were generally included in case the cards were dropped, intentionally or otherwise.  This was especially important for card decks that were punched by the system and not by hand on an IBM 129  (or 029).  Many times, computer rendered punch decks did not include any printing on the very top indicating what character lies below.  For cards that expressed binary data, this was almost always blank.  If you ever wondered why IBM mainframe computers, displays, languages and SDKs were always so 72 and 80 column centric, now you know.

Think of it though.  If memory serves, that’s a stack of cards over 9’ in height and would take about a half hour or longer to read the deck into the computer.  All to play a 3 minute song.

Today, even with my older 5th generation 60gig iPod, I easily can fit over 2500 MP3s in the palm of my hand.  My iPod can also act as a radio, address book, picture album, calendar, stopwatch, alarm clock and VCR (plays videos).  Even IBM has grown beyond the limits of 80-bytes, but they do still support for legacy reasons.

As the Mother of a dear friend of mine in Atlanta once said to me in an especially deep southern accent, “Tee-yum, we’re livin’ in the future!”

(mostly copied over from my older blog site)

Greetings!

Decided to move my blog from iWeb and my MobileMe account to another place that might get a little more attention.

For my initial blog, before I start my day, I'm just going to link to my current blog entries my former Continuum Blog.

As a summary, I'm blogging about the adventure of writing my first novel.  The frustrations, changes in the story, tools I've tried to help writing my novel etc.

Being a software developer with almost 30 years experience in commercial software writing, I thought I'd share thoughts and opinions about various products and software products in general.  I'm an avid Apple Mac user, and will share cool apps, tips and tricks on using Mac OS X as I discover them.

Lastly, I might include the add entry detailing happenings or events in my life.

Back to Continuum.  To recap the blogs on the other site.  Continuum is an outgrowth of a set of very vivid and recurring dreams I've had since youth.  Don't have them very often, but I can remember them with great detail.  Even the ones from my youth.

Continuum is about Justin, who finds a small meteorite, takes it home and discovers the meteorite is alive.  The meteorite is grateful for being save from dissolution into the earth and thanks Justin by introducing Justin to a race of people called the Shahdoan.  Justin doesn't know that the meteorite is actually one of the Continuum Weavers.  A very very old and powerful race of beings that live in but are not bound to our 4-dimensions of space-time.  The small meteorite is nothing more than an anchor for Continuum Weaver to our simple plane of existence.  Without it, the Continuum Weaver would dissipate into one of the higher dimensions of existence.  Justin thinks he's just having another vivid dream, but as the "dream" progresses, he realizes it's more than just a dream and he's there to help the Shahdoan from making a horrible decision.  In return, Justin is rewarded something that helps all of mankind.

Please keep in mind if I post a chapter here, it's a first draft and that I'm NOT a professional writer.  What I do hope for anyone who takes the time to read Continuum, is that you enjoy it!

Tim