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articles news writing

February Recap

Man… I’ve been meaning to write more, but between games I have to play for review and the articles themselves, just been distracted while still getting some content out into to the world. I’ll be around more this month, you have my word. I was only able to get through about a hundred pages of what I’m re-reading right now (1984 by Orwell), so I haven’t had time to read read – let alone review – another book with the workload I have currently.

Speaking of books, MY novel is still being worked on in second-draft form. It’s slow-going (also from the reviews and previews distracting me from it), but it is still coming along. I’ll include the prologue chapter of the second draft at the end of this post for anyone interested in a short teaser. It’s brief, but hopefully it well represents the tone I’m hoping for in the finished story. I hope you like it!

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book reviews

Book Review: Fight Club (1996), “I am Joe’s Borrowed Cliche”

When I started out my annual Points List breakdown of what I wanted to accomplish, I included with it a list of books I hoped to get through in the coming year. I posed the question of what I should read to friends on Facebook, and the first one that popped up was an old college friend who offered one of her favorites: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

The book that inspired a movie that inspired a series of kitschy one-liners and unnecessary hospital visits, wrapped in an ideology nobody wants to admit appeals to them. And don’t worry, I intend to be just as corny with some of the sentences (like that title up there), as I am one of those people who enjoys their own past a little more than they probably should. And this is going to be indulging in some of that past with newly-glassed eyes (in that I have newer glasses than when I would’ve read this before) and a completely different outlook on my world than my early college years.

Be warned: I don’t intend for them, but there is the possibility of spoilers. But if you haven’t read it yet, it’s been almost 20 years since it came out, so that’s your fault.

Teena, this one’s for you!

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books

January 2015 Book List

january 2015 books(1)

In order to keep me able to determine just which books I’ve gone through over the course of the year – slow a reader as I can be – I’ll be updating at the end of each month with the books I’ve read over that month, along with a brief summary and impression of each. That was I not only have a list I can more easily look back on, but I have a record of my thoughts on them at the time (or close to the time). In case anybody might wonder about the books I like, or what I’m doing when I’m not working on my own writing projects.

Enough of that, to the books!

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news writing

The Problem With Ideas

I have a lot of problems with having too many ideas at once, and trying to follow through with all of them (at least partially). The beauty of a blog is, the articles aren’t too long, so I can pound one through when I have something to talk about – usually these are about two single-spaced pages – and wrap them up with a little linguistic bow at the end. But when it comes to longer work, like a novel or other long-form projects, there’s usually a lot of planning and re-working to make them functional and not… y’know, total garbage.

In that spirit, I thought I might elaborate a little on some of my current projects, some of which will likely never see the light of day. But knowing somebody is reading this, coupled with the idea that somebody might be interested in some of these ideas, maybe I’ll be bugged enough to bring more to fruition that I otherwise might.

Yay for self-imposed pressure!

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religion

Pascal’s Wager (and why it’s bullshit)

I’ve been on a Christopher Hitchens kick recently. Say what you will about his thoughts on Mother Theresa (a con artist), or George W. Bush (supporting the surge into Iraq), or Henry Kissinger (a war criminal), when he debated the religious he was always two things above all: smart and witty. As I watched him decimate the likes of the abrasive Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and enjoyed his running circles around the backhanded (and remarkably ignorant) host of “Wretched Radio”, it reminded me of the times I’ve been approached by the proselytizing, and one of their most common approaches gets to me like no other… a popular argument commonly referred to (when identified) as “Pascal’s Wager.”

It basically flows like this: if you don’t believe in G/god, and you’re wrong, you’re infinitely punished for your mistake. And if you believe and you’re right, then you’re infinitely rewarded via heaven. If you’re a non-believer and you happen to be correct about there not being an afterlife, then you’re still in the ground. You’re still dead. Right next to the religious person who was wrong in their assertion. It’s the making of a grid with four boxes, only one of them leading to eternal paradise, and only one side even proposing such a possibility.

“So why not take the chance?”

This is one of the oldest and most classic of the arguments in favor of believing in a higher power – at least, one with an assertion of an afterlife – and thus I think it deserves a specific rebuttal. Because the very concept of it to me, the thought that such an argument is still considered “valid” and not “insulting to the human mind”, is very, very stupid.

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