This is by far one of the best stories of adventure I have ever read, and it just so happens that I read it when I was about 11 years old and it changed the way I read books from then on.

But in my fifth year now, I've seen myself through a lot of different things: relationships, friendships, finances, jobs, living situations, parties, and everything else. So, in my fifth, and not so final, year I've decided to change the way I think and act. I've gotten tired with being near miserable out of fear of failing. I'd rather try go back to the way of thinking when I was 12 and I could only try everything because I had no idea what I was good at and have no fear.

Of course, back then, I found a computer and held onto it for dear life.

Now, I'm a completely different person and my interest are spread over so many different things, I wonder how I have the ability to process it sometimes. (I had a cool metaphor about blankets and circus tents, but I figured I'd save you the time by not typing it up)

The reason for me having this strange realization and recognition that I've been at GVSU for so long comes from a meeting I had last night with the executive board of the Comic Book Club. We were discussing the yearly Campus Life Night held on campus and how it's changed in the last three years and it hit me: I've been a student here for a long time. I have enough experience to notice major changes in this one event (and probably many other things) on campus.

It was just a shocker for me and it was another reason for me to come to realize that I need to stop--pardon my French--fucking around.

So that's my goal for this year and until I finish school.

photo via fortphoto

Yeah, that title is a bit odd, but it fits.

I've been in a strange place as of late. A combination of working my part time job, getting more web projects to work on, personal issues with some things, and just not sleeping too well has put me into a weird funk. I've been sleeping enough (~7-8 hours) but not well and I can't pinpoint what is causing that to happen. I could name off some stressful things in life, but this doesn't seem to be related to stress... I don't know. I hope it clears up by the time school starts.

Even with that, I feel like a reset button has been pressed on me. I'm no longer just about computers and logic and reasoning. I have this mix of creative understanding and mathematical reasoning built into me now that's half confusing and half liberating. Though, this can sometimes really screw with my head as to how I should approach situations and understand people, I think it will be beneficial for me in the end.

On top of all that, it seems like this summer has been split into two sides regarding the two halves of my brain. I talked about this before when I was in a "transitional phase" between right and left brain. Thinking back, my right brain was in control for a while there... damn Jeff & Mike.

Again, I've been in a strange place. I feel like everything is grey and there's no black and white. I don't know if it's my job to make black and white decisions, or if I need to just deal with the grey in hopes that taking a stab somewhere will make things end up okay.

We'll see.

Let me just say... damn. People have been responding. I'm not trying to brag, but I've taken a few jobs on and it's become a list of sites I need to build. Some have extra features (for extra cash) and some are plain and simple because businesses and people want a good web presence.

So I'm up to my neck in this, on top of work, and D&D and life. It's strangely awesome.

To add to things, Nick Nelson and I have decided to take on an endeavor to redesign a personal project we started a two years ago. It's a 100% rewrite/redesign of the site and we want to go public with it. My goal is to have it ready for initial beta testing by January. We'll see. I have approximately three weeks to get the first part of my portion done  (1 of 3) and then comes the testing phase of that with Nick. It's gonna be a fun ride.

I've been doing so much coding lately... this is my counter to  my creative bout I've had for the last... 8-9 months. I like this. Of course, my hopes of being a web developer in the future may shift this wave of creativity to lean more towards coding, but nonetheless, I like this.

Comic-con is upon us and I'm stuck in this feeling of loathing for my favorite medium of entertainment.

There's the big 4: Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse.

Marvel has sold out, DC has become a series of continuity confusion, Image is there but almost bland, and Dark Horse site in a corner throwing merchandise to the world that 90 people will buy.

And I'm at a standstill.

Indie comic are a hipster's paradise, Manga has faded from popular demand and more comics are being made into mediocre films that I can barely stand.

I don't know how to feel about all of this. Is this what comics have become? A bland and boring pass time? Have they come and gone as a "great way to tell stories?"

Are comics turning into another piece of shit market? Is the point just becoming to sell enough comics to get a mediocre payoff?

When I went to Wizard World Chicago back in 2009, I had 12 issues of the third volume of Squadron Supreme on hand--written by Howard Chaykin. I absolutely loved that series. From start to finish, it was amazing. Then it was cancelled. I had no idea why, but these things happen; could have been sales or Marvel simply didn't like way things were going. I don't know. But I talked with Howard Chaykin briefly as I asked him to sign my comics and I said this to him:

" I really loved this series. You did a great job on it."

And he responded:

"Thanks, so did I."

Thinking back on it, the way he said that was just sad sad. The tone in his voice was a hard hit for me. This project was one of his babies. He was able to write in a world where he was could build from a previously established set of rules and go anywhere, and he did exactly that, yet it died for whatever reason.

It's things like this that make me worry about the comic industry.

As a fan, I want to see new things. I want something that can compel me to buy every issue no matter what. This is obvious: boring comics do not sell. But at the same time, I don't want to see the same characters be put through hardship after hardship with little or no repercussions.

And this is where the challenge lies for the industry. I don't want to be marketed to, I want to see the true passion behind a comic book. I want to see the love for each character shown in every word and pen-stroke on each page, because, frankly, a lot of the leaders in writing I read seem to just be banging out comics left and right making a quick buck. They may blame it on the corporation who writes their check or on an editor or even on the head(s) of the company, but I'm sick of mediocrity.

There few comics that truly tell good stories nowadays. I don't want to name names, but I can count them on one hand, and herein lies another big problem in the industry. Comic books seem diluted. Each comic book out there has something to offer, but everything is so stretched thin, there doesn't seem to be much out there.

The only solution I can see here is to simply cut back. Cut back on things. Sit down and think: What makes a good comic? Do we have to follow a formula? Are these characters interesting and will they be interesting for another fifty comics?

We have to question everything. A massive overhaul seems to be needed in every stretch of the industry. Something needs to change to make comics great again, not just some piece of merchandise to make a dollar off of. I feel like comic books used to be about something greater than money. They were stories told by people who had surreal ideas and put them down in ink for those who appreciated them.

After the decline in sales of comics of the 90s, the industry picked itself back up by putting a modern edge on things. Greatness was reborn and slowly it turned into shit. It rose too quickly, things developed too prematurely. It hit it's peak exponentially quicker than it did 50 years ago. And I have to wonder if comics are dead. Has their time passed?

I like to sit on the side of the thinkers out there who say comics are a true other medium; one that can not be duplicated any other way than by words on top of pictures telling a story. Which is I why I can't say comics are dead, but I can and will say comics aren't special any more. They've been bastardized, just like every other medium of entertainment and this bastardization kills the creative process. Being able to put things together by formula, like TV or a movie, building acts and not questioning possibilities of forming new structure; using industry standards and forcing to hold things by copyright or by some other restraint set down in a contract. There's no free flow of ideas, just pipes directing the ideas and diluting them from full spectrum to monochromatic representations of what was originally created.

For now, I'm waiting for some major change to revolutionize things in some hope that comics will become special again in some way. TV became special again when web TV shows began, movies became special after anyone with some chump change and a camera put together their own home-made film, and comics... I'm not sure where the change will be, but it has to happen; it needs to happen. I'm simply waiting and maybe trying my hardest to make that change.

"Man, what a funny guy."

Everyone is singing along with "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

"His D&D games were the best."

All sorts of stuff about the ridiculous things I think I'm good at is what it comes down to.

photo via ScienceIllustrated

No. This has nothing to do with that Straight Edge fad from back in the day.

This is about keeping my mind sharp.

I recently installed a version of Ubuntu onto a PC I was "gifted" by my room mate's brother. But let me preface this story/series of thoughts with this: I had installed Windows Vista onto this PC first.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who's very capable with computers. I've been fiddling around with computers since I was in 6th grade doing all sorts of terrible and ingenious things with limited and free hardware and software. Today, I was simply stumped and, after figuring out the solution, it's made me realize that I need to keep myself sharp in multiple facets of my mind.

I've been blogging a lot lately about creativity and writing, and in doing these things (being creative and writing) it's made my logical/computer related mind duller than I'd like to admit. It's a strange feeling.

To tangent this before I've really began, I remember reading Chuck Palahniuk's book Diary back when I was a junior in high school, and there was one phrase in that book that struck me and has held strong in my mind since then:

"It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace."

And I've found this to be so true. It's sad to base your mode of creative inspiration around one quote or idea or theme, but when it's true to you in your mind, it's true always. The last few months for me have been just... outlandish, but I haven't been this creative in a long while. The pain of frustration and stress and boredom have fueled me in ways I didn't think were possible.

All of this, I believe, is what has caused my logical/computing mind to dull. I haven't been concise and concrete, I've been fluid and abstract; it's all different ways of thinking.

So, tonight, when I was sitting on this PC, I was thinking of how to solve this problem and I felt almost lost. I dug deep into my memory banks trying to remember how I solved a situation like this before and after a short while I came to the logical conclusion. My first instinct was to blame Windows Vista. When dual-booting a computer, when you run into issues booting back into any version of Microsoft Windows, it's a safe bet to blame Windows--especially when going about installing Ubuntu after installing Windows.

So, I scoured the internet looking for quick fixes to this. BAM: Use the Vista DVD to fix it. Of course! It was so easy! But no. Not the issue.

Back to square one.

Stream of consciousness--

Maybe it's the bootloader. I think I saw some UbuntuForums threads about the bootloader not working and having some issues with cylinders on the hard drive. Let's open up GParted. Maybe there will be some clue in there... Okay. It's open. Man there's quite a few partitions in here... but Linux needs two, maybe three, then there's the windows partition... and these Dell partitions? What are these... whatever. Let's try editing the Grub config... okay... this must be a newer version. Oh! Here's the config--Okay.. everything looks okay

Two hours later after playing around with GParted and grub.cfg

Aha! THE ISSUE IS WITH THE DAMN DELL PARTITIONS. I'm removing them. Screw it. Grub just needs to see the Vista partition and--damn it. Didn't work. Let's research Grub. Oh. OH! OH! This new version needs... okay. Running update. Restart. AHA! IT'S FIXED

End SoC

So. After two hours, I figured things out. Call it me being blind to the obvious (sda1 != sda2), but it was really off-putting for me to have a seemingly simple computer issue take that long to fix.

Which is why I'm trying to mix these two ways of thinking or alternate them or something. Anything to keep my mind sharp on both of these fronts. Maybe working out a schedule or something. We'll see.

For now, I'm just trying to keep my levels balanced so I don't end up losing these abilities--as good or bad as they may be.

photo via chrismaverick

Guess that's what I get for staying up all night (going on hour 18 since I slept last).

photo by zamburak

In the past 8 years of my life, I've been given outlets for my "creativity," and lately I've been in a spiral of taking one or more on at a time. Or, at least, I've been trying to take one or more on at a time. More explanation later.

I've been talking about creativity a lot lately (with no expertise at all), so I apologize if you came looking for something different today.

To list my outlets, they go in this order (starting in 2002):

1. Trombone
2. Bass guitar
3. Electric Guitar
4. Computers (Flash, coding--HTML/JavaScript)
5. Electric Guitar/Acoustic Guitar
6. Writing (lyrics, poems, short stories)
7. Glitch/loop-rock
8. Writing (blogging)
9. Coding
10. Garageband
11. Electric Guitar
12. Coding
13. Storytelling (speech - Dungeons & Dragons)
14. Writing (short stories, scripts)

And here I sit now combining too many of these things into my life and it's both exhausting and overwhelming to the point where I want to do them all, but can only do them in short bursts.

Is this just me being "old"? Or is it me taking on too much? I guess the problem could be my tendency to simply dive head first into these things and not come up for air until I absolutely need the air (or rest)--again with the pool metaphor. I can hear the thought in the back of my head (the logical portion of my brain) yelling "MODERATION IS THE KEY IDIOT," and yet I just can't bring myself to make that conscious effort to moderate myself.

In all of outlets above, not a single one has been something I simply gave up at and because of that, I feel like I am a more rounded person. Call it a bit conceited, but I truly believe it. I can recall all sorts of information regarding any of those outlets and it's damn handy--one of the advantages of immersing myself so deeply in these things is being unable to forget them.

I could go on for paragraphs on each outlet, detailing the struggles and successes I had in each only to round about to a point where my mind was simply overwhelmed and tired of the outlet causing me to drop it. You may notice a few of these things I picked back up (namely, writing, guitar, and coding) but even still, I eventually moved on--and I can honestly say it was because of being overwhelmed/tired.

But back to my real point to this whole post is this: right now, I'm immersing myself in multiple outlets all at once: Writing, blogging, D&D, guitar, coding. I want to do all of these things, but I don't have enough... energy to get as super motivated as I usually would for each of them if they were being dealt with individually (or maybe two at a time).

So, I'm blogging about it. Trying to write out my ideas in order to maybe come up with some answer (as I tend to do), but honestly... I've got nothing here. There doesn't seem to be any real solution. All I can think of is there being 6 extra hours in the day and more deadlines I could meet.

You see, deadlines equal motivation to me. If I have a solid deadline with consequences, I can get things done or at least get damn near close. All of these things I'm doing... there's no real deadline. Basically, I have this:

1. Writing - scripts for mat42dr
   • The show starts filming in the Fall. I have episodes 1-12 written and episodes 1-3 have been sent out as "finalized and edited" to Katherine (producer) to be sent out to the actors and actresses.
   • For now, Ive decided to wait to write episodes 13-18 to see how the show goes and if I need to really rewrite episodes 5-12 like I'm worried I may have to do.
2. Dungeons & Dragons - The Solstice Adventures
   • I have a two week gap between sessions, which means I don't have to plan until... the day we play or the day before that (every other Wednesday)
   • Usually, I plan things for the next session right after we finish a session and then add on a bit the day we play.
3. Blogging
   • Hah. I write as I am reminded (by whatever reason) that I should update. This is usually caused by me checking Google Analytics, seeing someone else blog (Warren Ellis, for some reason, usually inspires me), or I want to write, but I don't know what.
     • In regards to that last reason 3/5 times I do this, I end up just closing the tab and not posting
4. Coding
   • I have ever-going projects that need "maintenance" or "upgrades" but for the most part, they're fine, so no motivation
   • There are a few projects that need to be upgraded/modified based on some random deadlines.
   • I've taken on a new side-project for some money. It's in the "thinking" stage, so no motivation to code until I get the "go ahead" from a few sides (mostly the signing of the contract and the okay on the design)
5. Guitar
   • I've always had a guitar in my room, but lately I've been picking up the mini-electric guitar I have and playing, as well as the acoustic guitar I took back from my sister after I realized she never played it. It's been kind of a "can I learn this song" kind of deal which usually ends up in me seeing a song is far too difficult to play (for me).

Reading over that... I seem like a real lazy ass. Oh well. Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from.

So now, I'm just hoping for those extra 6 hours in the day, or maybe some extra-vitalization during the hours I'm awake. We'll see how that goes.

So, if you're wondering... that's the kind of stuff I like and find funny.

Does anyone have any good tweets I should favorite?