Three Year Anniversary!

Today marks the third anniversary of my marriage to the most wonderful woman in the world. To celebrate, I wanted to share with you a dramatization of a typical morning at our apartment, with a corgi playing me and a cat playing MLW:

Light Up the Night

Last year, I wrote about attending a Protomen concert on my birthday. Well, they came back to my area this year, this time the day after my birthday. Once again, my excellent friends got MLW and I tickets to the show, and this time, everything was better than last time.

Tony DiTerlizzi is super nice, and also rad

This photo does not show it, but Tony DiTerlizzi has great teeth, too

Tony DiTerlizzi is currently on a tour to promote the release of his latest book, A Hero for WondLa. As part of that tour, he did a presentation and signing at the Barnes & Noble just a few minutes from my apartment. How could I not go?

Amendment to that last post: I was a month early...

I guess that's why it pays to double-check dates! I had thought that Tony DiTerlizzi would be visiting tomorrow; turns out, it's a month from now: Saturday, May 12.

http://diterlizzi.com/home/the-spring-2012-hero-tour-2/

It's a good thing I double-checked before schlepping my stack of books to the book store tomorrow!

Tony DiTerlizzi is coming to my town!

EDIT: The date is actually Saturday, May 12. See the "oops, I got the date wrong" post.

Tony DiTerlizzi, one of my favorite fantasy artists, will be doing a signing on Saturday, April 14 at a bookstore about ten minutes from my apartment. If you need me, I'm going to be hyperventilating.

Among the things he has illustrated that I love are:
Changeling: the Dreaming
Magic: the Gathering
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially the Planescape setting
Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You

If you need more convincing, I'm pretty sure that the second page of his site's art gallery for games has a cuttlefish in a top hat.

I'm going to approach his table, carrying a teetering pile of his books, and I'm going to be one of those people who holds up the line because I want him to sign everything, and he's going to be embarrassed, and I'm going to be embarrassed, and it's going to be AWESOME.

"Novel" is done!

My National Novel Writing Month "novel" reached 70,000 words on November 30. I barely wrote anything on the last day because I had reached the end of my plot a few days before, went back and added a scene, but couldn't think of anything else to add. Attempts to find a place to shoehorn more description or dialog only revealed tons of places where things should be deleted, so I ended up rounding out my novel to 70,000 words and leaving that as good enough.

Otherversary #3

It's been three years since my wife and I started going out. The best three years of my life...

NaNoWriMo Fan Art

One of my novel's main characters is Aleksander Kolyarov, a Russian Werewolf who looks more like a husky than a wolf. Yesterday, my wife sent me this picture:

 So I decided to use my awesome Photoshop skills to make a picture of a baby Kolyarov:

I figure, if I don't make fanart of my own work, how can I ever expect anyone else to? If you're not lucky enough to have a character who is easy to photoshop (like Kolyarov) and you don't have much in the way of artistic talent (I know I sure don't), then the next best thing is to find a picture of someone else's character who kind of looks like your character and pretend that it's fanart of your character.

But in all seriousness, I actually have received fan art for things I've written, and it is the greatest feeling in the world!

Halfway there!

It's November 15, so I'm halfway through National Novel Writing Month. I currently have 37161 words, though I haven't written today's entry yet. That means that, at this rate, I will be able to reach over 70,000 words by the end of the month! Yikes!

Well, I don't expect to actually make it to 70,000. I expect I'll be getting pretty burned out before then. The first signs of burnout have already started, and I'm sure it'll get worse from here.

That said, I'm still having fun with my writing (usually). My characters have just reached Cyberdome, so now I'm extra excited about describing what happens next! I picture Cyberdome as Thunderdome reinvented as a cyberpunk Dickens Fair. And who wouldn't want to write about that?

Fair Warning: November is Coming...

Image from austinevan's Flickr

November is coming, and once again I plan on embarking on National Novel Writing Month. The purpose of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is to try to write 50,000 words of prose fiction. You have to start the novel on November 1st, and try to have 50,000 words by the end of the month.

I've tried three times before, and even though I made it to 50,000 words each time, I felt like my first "novel" was the best and they got steadily worse from there. I hope to turn this trend around this year, but I guess we'll see how that turns out.

I plan on setting my novel in Berk. If you see me during November, please remind me that the story needs to be more zany! Wacky hijinks are also encouraged. If I'm not having fun writing it, nobody will ever have fun reading it.

This post is called "Fair warning" because I'm going to be trying to do a little bit of writing each day, so my evenings are going to be booked for the whole month. I may also have to use weekends to catch up on writing, but hopefully I won't be a total recluse all month.

But I suppose we'll see...

Is there no one who values courage over life?

When some friends came over for a party on the weekend before my birthday, they brought along some awesome gifts. One of the things I got was this:

Tickets for me and my lady to go see one of my favorite bands of all time, The Protomen. I have written about the Protomen on this blog before, so you can guess how excited I was to see them live. I spent the next couple of workdays listening to the Protomen albums back to back nonstop. When it was time to go to the concert, one of our friends gave us a ride. As we crossed the bridge into San Francisco, the sun was setting behind the city, making the buildings look like black silhouettes with shining windows. It felt very much like we were entering the Protomen world.

Happy Birthday!

Every year it feels like my birthday is an overwhelming experience, but this year felt like it was overwhelmingly overwhelming! Thanks to all my incredibly kind, generous, cool, and rockin' friends and family for your gifts, your kindness, and your friendship. Also, happy birthday to my brothers, who share a birthday with me! There's plenty of birthday to go around!

And if I haven't told you already, some of my friends got my lady and I tickets to go see The Protomen tonight. I'm so stoked, you guys. So stoked.

Hope rides A-LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!

Size Medium T-Shirts

When I was a little kid, I would wear enormous shirts that reached my knees. For some reason, I thought this was cool. It probably had to do with my perception of the hip-hop culture of the day. My favorite shirt for a while was an eye-gouging, neon shade of lime green. Go figure.

By the time I got to college, I was used to wearing size Large t-shirts that fit me a little better. I figured that, even though I was skinny, I was tall enough to justify wearing a Large shirt. Maybe part of the reason I wore large shirts was to cover up my physique. Nevermind that many of them draped over my figure like sheets, especially as they started to wear out.

Lately I have started wearing Medium sized shirts, and I am amazed by how much better they seem to fit. When I think about it, it feels like it's part of growing up. I've started trying to pay more attention to my appearance, and that includes trying to make an effort to at least wear shirts that fit.

I have no words for how happy this makes me

For a while now I have been jealous of one of my friends, who looks eerily like Christopher Marlowe:

I mean, who wouldn't want to look like one of history's greatest writers? Heck, looking a lot like any historical personality would be downright awesome. I browsed Wikipedia in the vain hope of finding someone I resembled, but my search bore no fruit.

Then today, my brother sent me this picture:

That's a young Leo Tolstoy. While he doesn't look exactly like me, the resemblance is pretty striking, and weirdly seems to grow more noticeable the more I look at it. I think it's especially around the eyes (the mustache and sideburns helps).

It's not just the facial hair, though. My brother sent me another picture, without the sideburns, and it still looks quite a bit like me:

I sat at my desk grinning like a loon for about half an hour after seeing this picture.

The good news: I bear a strong resemblance to one of history's great figures.

The bad news: I guess this means I have to read War and Peace.

Isn't It About Time I Wrote About Hawaii?

So as you all know, my lady and I visited Hawaii recently, but I haven't written anything about it yet, other than the time I opted out of the Backscatter machine. I've been meaning to write more about Hawaii, though, so here goes.

Advice for Husbands

Hi guys,

Pro tip: If your justification for a habit starts with "But it conserves...," you've already lost.

This is Why My Wife is Awesome

As all of you know, I have been on a Mass Effect kick lately. The gift my wife got me for our anniversary arrived today, and she left the package at work at the end of the day to bring it home. She also gave me explicit instructions not to open it without her.

A Year and a Day

Shepard and Garrus, by Silberfeder

Yesterday was our anniversary. Happy anniversary, my love.

If any of you would like to know how amazing my wife is, you need know only this: I finished Mass Effect 2 over the weekend, so to celebrate, she baked me a Shepard's Pie. Yes, really.

Artist's rendition. Not the actual pie.

What Happens During a TSA Patdown?

About two weeks ago, we flew to Hawaii to visit my in-laws and see the beautiful island of Kauai. But first, we had to go through the Oakland International Airport, and that meant going through a TSA security checkpoint. Oakland uses the infamous backscatter device, which the internets have been raging about since the holiday season.

I don't mind a machine that sees through my clothes to detect possible hidden weapons. If it means keeping people safe, I'm all for it. However, I've heard that these machines emit dangerous amounts of radiation, and that made me nervous. There's quite a debate about whether the machines are dangerous or not, but I didn't want to take my chances. So, when it came to my turn in line, I told the security person herding people through that I would like to opt out.

"We've got a male opt-out," she shouted. I couldn't tell who she was shouting to. She asked me, rather nervously, whether I realized that opting out meant that I would receive a pat-down. She paused before saying "pat-down," and I thought that maybe she was trying to decide on a more pleasant thing to call it, but she chose to go with what people called it. I told her that I understood.

"Please stand aside, sir," she said, and moved me next to the X-ray machine that was scanning my carry-on bag and the plastic bin that held my shoes, belt, jacket, and the things from my pockets.

When my bags came through, I asked if I should go get them. I was told, no, please wait there. So I waited.

Shortly, a TSA man came over and the security person pointed me out to him. He asked me if I could see my bags from where I was, and I pointed them out. I assume this was so that I could be sure that nobody was walking off with my stuff while I was being patted down. Then he asked me if I was traveling alone, and I replied that I was traveling with my wife. He asked me to point her out, which I did.

Next, he walked me over to a small mat with the shape of two footprints on it that was located behind the X-ray machine. He asked if I wanted to be patted down in private, but, in the interest of time, I said here was fine. So he explained that he would have to run his hands over me, but he would warn me before touching any "sensitive parts of my body," and he would only use the backs of his hands for those parts. "Sensitive parts of your body" must be TSA code for "private parts," because he used this phrase several time during the pat-down.

He next asked if I had any part of my body that was especially sensitive. I assume this was in case the person being patted down has suffered an injury or has a condition that makes a part of their painful to the touch. I don't have anything like that, so I replied, no, I don't.

He patted down me down from the back first, including feeling inside my waistband. This was honestly the most intrusive part of the pat-down for me, but I can see how it makes perfect sense from a security perspective to check in someone's waistband. It seems like a natural place to hide a weapon. Also, as I wasn't wearing my belt at this point, it wasn't difficult for him to check my waistband (I'm glad I wore loose trousers).

Next he ran his hands over the backs of my legs, and he warned me when he was getting close to the "sensitive parts of my body" and reminded me that he would be touching that are with the backs of his hands. When that was done, he moved in front of me and patted me down from the front, including under my arms. Once again he warned me that he was about to reach the "sensitive part of my body" and that he would be using the backs of his hands, and he finished patting me down and told me I could go.

I was impressed and relieved at the professionalism I experienced. It was the opposite of the horror stories I had read online about people feeling assaulted during the pat-downs. Honestly, I don't think he ever actually touched the "sensitive part of my body," and he warned me so many times that I almost told him to just get on with it. I felt like he did a thorough job that would have found any hidden weapons, had I been a terrorist, while still treating me like a human being.

What this tells me is that the TSA is very conscious of the bad press they've been getting, and they have taken steps to ensure that the people performing these pat-downs do so correctly, at least at Oakland International.

Incidentally, on the way back from Hawaii, there were two lines going through security at the Lihue airport: one with a backscatter machine, and one with a traditional metal detector. My wife and I both chose the line with the metal detector.

Looking back at the past year of Lord Admiral

First, warm wishes and happy holidays to everyone who reads my blog, whether you celebrate Lanimas like I do, or another one of the many wonderful holidays this time of year, or no holiday at all!

Secondly, some navel-gazing. I was looking back over the past year to see which of my posts were the most popular, and since I found the results pretty interesting, I thought I'd share!

My posts about Binwin Bronzebottom are my top sources of visitors, especially Binwin Bronzebottom T-Shirts and Binwin Bronzebottom and the Quest for More Money.

Perhaps because Binwin-related visits were spread out over a number of pages, my top landing page (after the home page, of course), was The Alternative Press Expo, or, Can My Camera Flash You? (which I have now adjusted so that I don't spent the whole post saying "nurds are cute hurr hurr"). Most people who have been finding that page lately are no doubt looking forward to the next Alternative Press Expo, as they are apparently arriving based on Google searches for Dylan Meconis (the talented comician behind Family Man) and Der-shing Helmer (the wizard behind my current favorite webcomic, The Meek). These searchers must be trying to discover how these skilled comicians look to prepare themselves for their own photo safari. I do apologize for my pictures being so unprofessional, unflattering, and, in Der-shing's case, incredibly fuzzy.

Also bringing in the visitors are my posts about my 2009 visit to Wondercon, my excitement about attending a Dungeons and Dragons Encounters game set in the Dark Sun universe, and my personal favorite, my nerdy thoughts on Wolverine.

Rounding out my top pages for the year are Fetch Me My Blade and Let the Music Begin, which is about my heavy metal album cover CD project (remember that?), The Coolest Video Game Box Art of All Time about Mechwarrior 2's box art, and my review of Last Exile, which was part of my short tenure at Brass Goggles.

Thank you all for reading, and hopefully next year I can continue to entertain the five loyal readers I have, both here and on Supervillainous (which now has content. Go check it out!)