Michael Gilmour's Blog, page 3
July 12, 2015
Mindwars Two Moves Forward
The other day I received my first royalty check from Amazon! I’m not about to retire but I must admit that it felt incredible to be receiving money for selling copies of my scifi book Battleframe. I normally get packing slips from Amazon so to receive a cheque was a new experience.
So what’s happening with Battleframe? One of the difficulties that I’ve been trying to wrestle with is the fragmentation of the science fiction and fantasy community. To personally participate in all of the differe...
June 28, 2015
Personal Musings - Travel Tips for the Frequent Flyer
I’ve just completed reviewing my travel plans for the next six months and it looks like I’m going to be doing a lot of international flying. This is good because it means more business but bad because I’m away from home. So where am I going?
Date Reason Destination Sept 4 – 7 DomainFest Asia Macau Sept 26-29 The Domain Conference Fort Lauderdale Oct 18-22 ICANN Dublin Dec 31 – Jan 7 Vacation (Yeah!) Queenstown New Zealand Jan 10-13 Namescon Las VegasAs you can see the second...
June 12, 2015
Saturday Musings - The Bucket Theory
I often find myself talking to my own kids about buckets. These aren’t the regular buckets that you carry water around in but relate more to the short, medium and long-term plans for your life. Over the years, I’ve found that having buckets has been really advantageous in understanding my own direction in life.
Items in the short-term bucket are things such as earning money to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Without this bucket being constantly topped up then you’ll find it a...
June 8, 2015
Personal Musings - Get Off Your Backside!
I was talking to a young man the other day and I told him that if I wanted anything done then he would be the last person that I’d ask. He was a bit taken aback by the comment and asked me why.
I looked him in the eye and said, “Because you’re not busy.”
There’s an age old adage that says, “If you want something done then give it to a busy person.” The reason for this is that busy people put the item on their list and get it done while lazy people will get around to it one day.
For example, t...
May 29, 2015
Battleframe to Feature on ScienceFiction.com!
I’m really excited to announce that the first seven chapters of Battleframe will be published on ScienceFiction.com over the coming weeks. A lot of work has been done behind the scenes to make this possible and I can’t wait to see it up on the website.
If you’ve never been to ScienceFiction.com then you’re really missing out. It’s full of briliant news that relates to anything and everything in the world of SFF, everything from; movies, collectables, comics and of course, books is discussed i...
May 13, 2015
The Power of Getting Sick
During the last week I managed to catch a flu that knocked out the whole family at one time or another. I did everything to protect myself from the dreaded bug. I even went as far as voluntarily quarantining myself to sleeping in the lounge room while my wife spread her germs around the bedroom on one coughing fit after another…..sadly, I succumbed.
At first I had enough energy to press the change channels button on the remote control and take in a TV series on Marco Polo on Netflix (thank go...
May 5, 2015
Brushing Up On Star Wars
With the impending release of the JJ Abrams version of the Disney inspired Star Wars this Christmas I thought that it was about time that I brushed up on the earlier movies. Seeing that the "Empire Strikes Back' was one of my favourites I thought that it would be a good idea to start there.
I first saw Empire when I was about 12 years old. I remember standing in the queue with the rest of my family on opening day. I was incredibly excited to see the follow-up to the greatest movie that I'd ev...
April 24, 2015
My Cat's a Genius!
Pepper, my cat, is a living, breathing genius! She’s got the whole world completely worked out, organised and constructed to obey her every whim and desire. If only life could be so wonderful for us two legged creatures.
For Pepper, morning starts with a nap followed by slowly strolling over to her bowl so that she can let the rest of the family eat with her (it’s never the other way around for cats).
Just think about it for a second….Pepper has arranged for her servants (ie. me) to fill her...
April 17, 2015
Episode 2 - The Plan
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” an astonished Bosk exclaimed. “You said what to whom?” Bosk’s short greying hair stood on end and seem to take on a life of its own as he heard his best friends plan.
Whizzbang took in his friend’s reaction as he calmly chomped into a piece of fruit that looked vaguely like an apple but tasted like a banana. After years of growing up together he knew better than to interrupt Bosk as he absorbed the ramifications of the plan. Whizzbang was wearing his Raven recon...
Are You As Excited As Me About Star Wars?
A couple of days ago I saw a link get posted in facebook which immediately stopped the conversation that I was having on skype. Yes, the next teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie just got released!
For me, Star Wars is more than just another great movie. It inspired me to dream of the stars and think about possibilities rather than problems. In Star Wars, the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad….just the way I like it. It suggested that even the lowliest of moister farmers...
