Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I was feeling a bit sick last night, but now I'm better. Today my brother and adorible neice visited.

One of my new years resolutions is to sit down and finish my first novel. Unfortunitly I'm very good at starting projects that I'm really excited about, but I'm terri ble at finishing them.

My brither got a new computer (Part of the problem with my not writing), and I've been playing around with a online game called Second Life. SL is basicly a 3-D chat room world where players can make objects. The building system at first looks pimitive but it has some features that makes it pretty detailed. You can even script opjects to do stuff, like make weapons, veichles and a lot more. I made a big top hat and a coffee mug with a floating donut that I think looks pretty good for first projects that I ddint spend too much time on. Right now I'm working on a statue of Marvin the paranoid android from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy that will s some of his lines from the movie/books when you click it (So I'm learning scripting too).
My name is Mason Barnes. Feel free to say "hi" if you see me on SL.
It's fun to pull out some of the games I havn't been able to play in a while because of a lack in computer power. right now I'm replaying Deus Ex and Dungeon Seige.
Speaking of Dungeon Seige. I hear director hack Uwe Bole is going to be making a movie on it, BOO!

I hope everyone has a good and safe holiday!
I hope you also remember the reason behind the celebration.

Yes! Power! Also Two books

We finally have power back. I spent all day away from home because of the cold, and then tonight I went with the family to the mall. It was a pleasent surprise to find out house has power so I can work again, and more importanly heat and light.

I've been reading two books today, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes and Shakespere's comedy "As you like it."

I just happened apon Flowers for Algernon by chance, and I'd heard about it and my mom even commented that it's good. The novel is a first person naritive of a retarded man who undergoes an operation and changes to be very intelligent and his realtionship with Algernon, a lab mouse. I still havn't finished it yet, but it is interesting. I have a certin "bent" twords first person stories, especialy ones that go out of its way to make you feel it is real, as this one does. The writer writes, in the guise of Charlie, the mentaly deficent protagonist of this story, bad spelling and grammer and all. As the story and Charlie's intelligence progresses so the writing quallity changes. I'm already expecting the story to end sadly and be depressing like steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", which is a sort of simular story that I really liked, but at the same time depressed me at the end.

This is the second time I'm reading as you like it, and it happens to rank at about my third favorite of his plays (Of course I refuse to nail down an exact list, it's too hard). The version I'm reading has nice little footnotes to help understand the old english. I love the characters and the grand arangment that is made at the end where most everyone is happy.

Storm!

Well, another big storm came. We lost power, along with about 1,000,000 other people in the area. I'm writing this post at a friend's house who a few people who lost power are hanging out. Mostly I'm frustrated because I'm not getting much work down with no computer. I tried writing a little on a notepad, but I found this hard both because of my bad handwriting and the lack of stuff to refer back to.

Idea in my head

I have this idea, it's been actually cooking in my head for a long time, years.
The idea is a world, started by the lizard-people in the game Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (Which is a great game). I started building a world and culture, using some of the words form the "language" (Really just a cypher) in the game to build a language of my own. I wrote a site from the point of view of a organization from the inside as if it were real. I've been interested in exploring this world I built. I also incorporated the world, along with a few other new worlds in a game I am developing. So now, I have a contenent. So now I get to play with how they interact wikth the worlds around them. I guess my poiont is, little ideas very easly become BIG ideas. All you need is a small seed to start, and it can easily become a world.

I'm not sure if I will ever use "Saltha" in any real project. I would like to see it used for something someday. One idea I had is a sort of illustrated jounral, told from the point of view of a human explorer experiencing the world and customs for the first time. The story idea, I admit is hardly original, though many times its a human experiencing a wholly bizarre culture that seems to have little logic as how it cames about. The only example I can think of the "strange world" story being done
well is the "piggies" in Orson Scott Card's Xenocide. If there are other good stories about someone meets a (believable) alien culture, I'd love to hear about it!

The site with information on everything I've written about Saltha is at www.bikaesh.pbwiki.com.

Starting OVer....

I'm taking a serious look at what I have so far with my novel, and it looks like I'm starting mostly from scratch. I think I need toi develop who my characters are a little more, and get a better picture of where I'm going. I told my brother this and he said "Good it needs to be rewritten". I told him that he hadn't read it even, but he said that everything should be re-written at least once. Perhaps he's right.

New Drawings: Batau and FMA logo

Two new drawings I did.
Batau, From Stand Alone Complex

The alchemy symbol, from Full Metal ALchemist

Real Fools

So, I was playing an online game and found myself in a guild. The guy who recruited me up me was a really nice guy, I thought the rest of the clan would be the same. Unfortunitly I was wrong.

One of the members started making rascist remarks (Against multiple races, so he can't claim the whole "blacks calling selfs the N word" thing, which I don't get anyway.) on the clan talk channel. I asked him to stop and pointed out that it is against the rules (The Clan channel is considered public). He did not. The instigator even made the grossy insane straw man point that making rascist remarks isn't as bad as Genocide. I pointed out the ATTITUDE of rascist remarks and genocide are one and the same and he and other members of my clan bashed me for being a "weak Christian". Then they kicked me out of their clan.

I actually take this as a compliment. I never said I was a Christian, or got the chance to awnser after I was asked. However I'm not ashasmed of it, and if I came across as obviously a" Christian", to me that's a good thing.

I have no problem with swearing, I mean I don't think it's right, but I can understand why people swear when upset. To be judgemental of that would be hypacritical even. But I do not tolleriate rascism and hatred of other people.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are ignorant biggots on the internet but it does irritate me.

To them I say good ridence, I hope the one who recruited me to the caln sees those in those in the clan who participated in this (and aproved quietly) for what they are, petty people who can only build egos for themselves by tearing others down.

I'm moving on and am going to enjoy the game despite this experience, I'm not loosing any sleep.