I'm in a band!

Hey hey everyone who reads this (me).

Well, there's no better way to put it than it was put in the title. I found a talented and intelligent musician who wants to let me in on his band, and here I am - five or six years after the "official" death of Chrome, and I'm a drummer again, and it feels bloody good! Trevor is an intelligent guy, I like him, and most importantly, his music fits. It feels really good to hear it. Better yet, it feels really good to play it!

More to come as details arrive!

Updating for the sake of updating

Lazy. So ... bloody ... lazy

But here's a story! Eureka!

So my wife and I are at the beer store. We're bored, we had some money left over from our anniversary gift, and she loves Baileys, so she was there to pick some up. I figured I deserved a six pack, so I started to peruse the beer aisle. And naturally, my fingertips lanced across the top of all the usual suspects. Not Canadian or Budweiser or any of that, but more the stuff like Kilkenny or Guiness or Waterloo Dark or XX, etc etc. And, as I always do, I said "I want to try something different". See, I'm a beer snob wannabe.

So, my wife points at this beer on the bottom shelf, and says "get that". It's called Dragon Stout, and it's a Jamaican beer from the guys who make Red Stripe. I hummed and hawed, figuring it was too strong for me, but I manned up and bought it.

Wow! It's some HEAVY FREAKIN' BEER! It's got almost twice the alcohol content of Guiness, but it doesn't have that off-black edge that Guiness has. This stuff feels like someone pulverized bacon and put it in a bottle. When you swallow it, you feel yourself getting fuller. Yikes!

Good stuff though. It'll go into the rotation, but only during the "I'm hungry and opening a bottle is easier than cooking bacon" mood. ;)

So I'm making hotdogs, and generally lamenting about the state of my Sunday, when I hear something interesting on the television. I had just turned it on for ambient noise more than anything else, when I heard the raport of slapshots being taken. I knew it was on YTV, so I thought I'd steal a glance.

Turns out it was Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang (never watched it). The half hour had ended, so with most children's shows, this was their morale / lesson for the day.

What makes it so surprising? Well, I grew up in the days of GI Joe and the like, where most of the lessons related to not taking candy from strangers, or always wearing your helmet or the like. This show, however, aimed at an admittedly younger audience than the Joes, was teaching valuable lessons about goaltending! Yes! Instead of preaching to kids about the dangers of strangers, it was speaking to the value of coming out of the crease to deflect breakaways. About how good distance out of the crease cuts down on angles and robs valuable shot lines. Wow!

Okay, sure, at the end, they pasted on the requisite "wear your helmet", but who cares? Fact is, m'man J-Rock up here just taught a generation of kids about the good ol' hockey game, and for that, maybe I'll have to start watching more often. Lord knows my goaltending could've benefited from those kinds of lessons - maybe instead of cowering in the back of the net, I could've come out more!

And after that triumphant intro ...

So I post this line about "my first blog". Look out internet, here I come, like an overanxious pornstar in his first movie. And then I don't post a damn thing for months. Yay me.

So what's new in my world? Well, I started work on my novel. And by started work, I mean I wrote an introductory paragraph. It was a bit tough to hammer out. The character of Drew is one that I think will be pivotal to the story, but the choice to write that piece in first person was awkward. I'm used to third person, not only because it lets me ramble around, but because it gives me some equality amongst characters. By putting Second Genus in Drew's viewpoint, I'm worried we're going to miss out on other characters. Namely, the pudgy assassin guy, the lunatic. But we'll see.

Other than that? Roleplaying slowed down a bit this week, with the death of my 4Men campaign. Circumstances that shall remain a part of the internet's twisted ether conspired against me, and dropped my campaign (which had already been dropped from the 4Men to the 3Men) to the 2Men. At that point, it just didn't seem right to continue. It's like listening to James Hetfield without the rest of Metallica.

Anyway, what else? Well, above I have two "goals". I got SO close to a), but I bailed. Why? Money. I hate money. Money, to quote 6+ million video-addicted internet world of warcraft nerds, "is the suxxor". Whatever that means.

My First Blog! Oh, what giddy excitement!

Well, this is my first blog ...

Shameful, really. I'm a computer programmer by education, and a writer by aspiration. That implies that I'm a) technically saavy enough to understand Blogs, and b) creative enough to find some use in them. And yet here I am, some many years after blogging went from a "huh?" to an "oh!", and I'm just getting started!

Here's hoping that I can attract some others to my thoughts and rambling. What're my intentions for this blog?

First and foremost, I aim to use this as a benchmark by which to measure my creative pursuits. They are:

a) Find a band, and,

b) Write a book.

Seems simple, doesn't it? Well, so do a lot of other things that dont' get done, so here's hoping this pushes me in the right direction!

All the best,

Ry