Thursday 1st April 2004
Headache: must make short. Ish.
I'm actually likely to rewrite that by the time the novel reaches the point at which it occurs. Partly because it kinda self-references what will have already been explained by that point, and partly because it seems strangely rushed, to me. Call it a sketch, or a storyboard, for what it'll eventually become.
Ordinarily, I come up with some sort of entertaining hoax for April Fools' Day. This time...it may not be required; fact is dumber than fiction.
Thing One: JestBuy promised to have my damned laptop fixed and back to me by 30th March 2004. Guess who lied to me again. As of now, I'm considering my laptop to be officially stolen. If my head didn't hurt so much, I'd probably do something nasty about that.
Funny, semirelated note. I picked up the April issue of Fangoria, which had an interview with James Gunn--the writer for Remake of the Dead, who, in discussing what's-his-name [the character played by the English guy who wasn't quite Tim Roth, but was pretty damned close], described him as 'a total loser. He works at BestBuy' [possibly paraphrased; my head hurts; I can't read anymore]. So, that was slightly amusing, all things considered.
According to myriad christworshippers, not only do various deities exist, but today is 'officially' [they say] National Atheists' Day. Which, regardless what I'm actually supposed to infer from this monument of polysyllabic theistic erudition [insert sardonic grimace here], suggests, to me, that, as on EarthDay you're not allowed to litter, and, as on ArbourDay you're not allowed to chop down trees, for today, you're not allowed to believe in deities. So: happy day; today, the christworshippers are able to ameliorate to mere fools. Good for them. Tomorrow, we'll focus on getting them to grok that one times three is not, in fact, one.
I mentioned this on the board already, but then I switched over to a blank one, burying it under the 2004-01 archive. Despite my lack of laptops, as well as some other complications [like getting nearly preempted by Remake of the Dead, which bounced dangerously close to what I was about to write down anyway], I finally got round to writing out a sort of prototype version of a keystone chapter in Pandemic, partly to see whether I could actually do that, but mostly because this one keystone chapter has been the focus of obsession ever since I thought of writing this novel sometime last year.
Anyway, I uploaded it, to let the regulars here get a peek at it in advance. Initially, I uploaded a .pdf version which, unless I rewrite it once the rest of the novel catches up to this point in the story, looks like it'll look in the final, printed version. But, for some strange reason, the majority of feedback on the .pdf was 'it won't load'. So, I've reformatted it into hypertext, which should load for anyone capable of reading this; for the rest of you: well...I guess there's no point in saying anything more.
So, uh...here's the 'sample chapter', which is also at http://SiteoftheLivingDead.com/Pandemic.htm, in the event you can't handle IFrames, either....
Speaking of Site of the Living Dead, I'm back to plotting out its aesthetics a bit. I think I'm going to end up creating two concurrent versions of it--one in pretty basic and smallish hypertext, and one in a larger, more entertaining Flash format. I'm not sure exactly what the .swf will look like yet; the .html version will probably be one of three or four different designs--whichever proves to be the coolest and most functional [rarely are both characteristics present in a single hypertext file, of course]. I may further adjust one of the runners up into Version Fifteen of gremiln.net, which is already three months overdue, based on the averages. Or, I might not. Maybe I'll come up with something completely new for gremiln.net; maybe [but probably not] I'll just leave gremlin.net as it currently is for the rest of eternity. I can't guess right now; my head hurts. Go back and read the chapter above for more on migraines.
And, on that note, I'm gonna make like my headache and split. But I'll have more news tomorrow.
....
April Fools: there's no way in hell I'll be back tomorrow; I never update this blogue thingy two days in a row; you know that....
More later. Ish....
--Gremlin