Matthew Alan Thyer's Blog, page 41

It Has Begun

Ladies and gentlemen, NaNoWriMo 2014 has begun (that’s National Novel Writing Month for those of you still out of the loop). It is also the first day of encouragement from me, your biggest fan, who will be sitting this one out.

With too much life to work on and perpetuallygrowing list of projects to complete I know my daily word counts would not approach the number I’d need to be a winner. Perhaps this year November should become PeNoEdiMo for me (Personal Novel Editing Month), I have two manu...

Teaching

I can no longer remember his name, but for two years, where I attended East Middle School in my home town, I regularly took Industrial Arts classes with a guy that made a real difference in my life. I can’t recall his name, but I can clearly see him in my mind’s eye. He was tall, lanky and perpetually wore a beard and safety glasses. He also taughtme how to turn a lath, pour molten metal using a couple of casting techniques, as well as several sorts of welding.

Back then I was in love with lea...

Why?

A thought just occurred to me. Specifically, the reason why my generation seems so bent. Ladies and gentlemen, no one, born and raised in North America and part of Gen X got to see MacGyver or The Dukes of Hazard without first seeing this.

Bite Me Apple

Last night, during a typical Pacific Northwestern wind storm, the transformer for our neighborhood popped and power has been subsequently out of service for the duration. Fortunately, I was awake to witness the power outage and then turned off all my devices which I had recently charged.

This morning, after locating a coffee shop with juice and wi-fi, I came back home intending to top everything off using my handy dandy Suntactics sCharger-12 High Performance Solar Charger. I opened some blind...

Pretty Amazing

Random encounter, serious skill, mind altering sound. Yeah, you should probably press play.

Two Wrongs

Paul Krugman, an economist I usually find myself agreeing with and a dude whom I maintain a cache of respect for, has been getting a lot of author traction on the internets of late. Why? His recent opinion piece in the New York Times Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

This morning no less than five author-peers reposted or reblogged Krugman’s opinion. Paul’s point “Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America” is arguably a valid point...

Northwest Sunsets

Probably requires no additional explanation

Comrade Vladimir

Vladimir is a retribution melee caster (magic tank) who waits for targets to come to him before metering out spine crushing damage. He is built to soak up everything the opposition can give him and pound them for trying.

Lore: Comrade Vladimir was a naval infantry hero of the Red Rustok-Nestra conflict who became first among equals by crushing all enemy resistance. After the war Red Rustok scientists took advantage of the great bear’s physique and used their cutting edge science to augment him...

Hadiya the Werehippo

The werehippo on the warpath Hadiya is an aggressive melee hero who can disha beating and soak plenty of damage. Her skills provide mobility and crushingdirect damage and she can stand up to the worst of physical attacks. Hadiya dances, spins, and crushes the opposition.

Hadiya is from a distant race of swamp dwellers who call the mangroves of Nigetia home. The Nigetians trained her in their fighting style, which looks remarkably like a dance, so that she could represent their far culture in t...

New Things

Admittedly, I am a far happier person when I stick to the predictable. Want to take me out for something to eat? Take me to someplace I know well enough to avoid looking at the menu and I’ll be a happy. I usually ignore alternative driving directions because they might take me along unknown roads and into unexperienced traffic messes. And I spend the greatest effort in my day-to-day affairs sticking to a predictable schedule so that both Aral and I can exist in the tranquility that results fr...