Category: Writing

A day late

June 22, 2007 /

I keep track of Anacrusis anniversaries in an idiosyncratic way, which means that I don’t notice things like June 21st, the day I first went public with it. But Mister Munson did, two days ago:

“Something seems to have worked in your googlebombing efforts. Bobrulez is higher in the google results than your blog site.

Hey, Happy Birthday to Anacrusis tomorrow, and as a nod to that spirited bit of rhetorical dabbling, I have posted my xanga entry in 101-word-anacrusis form.

It’s no great shakes, but it was fun. It is actually more of a writing exercise, isn’t it? It’s like Soduku for the literate.

Not sure I want to get on face book, it just seems so public. Xanga is so much more anonymous.

By the way, this email was an anacrusis!

I’m hooked.

Bryan”

I’m not sure whether I prefer “Sudoku for the literate” to “fiction for the attention-deprived,” but it is a nice dig at Sudoku. I’m not a huge fan of crosswords, but at least they’re not entirely computable.

How I spent my summer abroad

June 11, 2007 /

So some of you may remember that I like Hackers. I like it a lot. I realized some time ago that while I am not into Rocky Horror, if Rocky Horror was Hackers, I would be a full on costume-wearing hot-dog-throwing line-reciting fanboy. GET A JOB, I would shriek. YOU ARE IN THE BUTTER ZONE.

I recently moved to London and into a house where the function of the residents is, essentially, to egg each other on about goofy ideas. Catriona provided the idea of doing read-throughs of plays or movie scripts as a form of participatory recreation, and Holly asked if there was anything I’d like to toss in the prospective-script pile. Could it be really bad, I asked? Because there was one that could be funny.

Later, we were passing around emails about said read-throughs and a possible visit to a museum full of automata. Somehow Holly came up with the joke of steampunk “hackers” as “clockers,” constructing automata instead of programs. I laughed at it. Then I said “clock the Bigben!” Then I said “oh no,” because I really had more important things to do.

Instead, Holly and I spent a few weeks interpolating the movie script into 1860s London, replacing the absurd computer-feats with absurd clockwork and technobabble with Victorian slang. Then we revised and got it printed and got some friends to come over and wear funny hats, and this was the result: Clockers.

Of the people who did the read-through, only Holly and I had read the script or indeed seen the original movie beforehand, and they all did a fantastic job picking up multiple parts and figuring out what was going on. And putting up with my Matthew Lillard impression. Thanks again, guys, and let me know if you want a link under your name on that page.

Proserpinacrusish

May 15, 2007 /

Stephen claims that by stretching the Proserpina story out, I am forcing him to write stuff like this:

Proserpina gets so good at punching (after practice) that she finds herself able to punch not only physical objects, but concepts as well.

“Ow!” says Love. “What was that for?”

“You were never around.” And she is gone.

“My arm!” says Loneliness. “Why’d you hit me?”

She sits, and begins to stretch. “You never left.”

Hours later, she’s still swinging.

Her cel phone rings. “nnnnJello?” she answers.

“There are some skinheads sitting at the bar, and everyone’s super uncomfortable. Can you do something?”

“Watch them a minute. Don’t hang up.” She squints, turns her head eight degrees and points at a thin figure. “Are you Nazism?”

“Ja. Unt?” The figure stands defiantly, arms akimbo.

“Prosperina, what are you–hey, they fell off their stools! How did you–“

Several punishing jabs and an uppercut later, Proserpina picks the phone up off the ground. “Anything cool happen?”

“Their hair grew back! Then they started making out!”

“Pff. Nazis. ” She spat.

… which I think is awesome. Rest assured, Stephen, you are not helping your own case.

April 27, 2007 /

All the old blogs have been moved over to WordPress. People who blog or used to blog here: I’ll email you later with instructions and logins and stuff. When I find the strength. The Dispatch is a work in progress, as WP has no provision for importing comments except from other WP blogs, so I’m doing it manually. I didn’t realize it had this much content.

I’ve also uploaded the Idiotcams, all 278 of them, to Flickr. Now I just get to go through and retitle and retag every… one… of them.

I really miss NewsBruiser.

Hbleagh.

April 25, 2007 /

Okay, the highest-volume blogs are up, all content and categories and whatnot included. They also, regrettably, all look like WordPress blogs. I’ll fix that after I spend tomorrow importing the lower-volume ones.

With the exception of the calendar, category and random-entry pages, all the old links to everything SHOULD be working, so please let me know if you find stuff that isn’t. I’m tired. It’s almost 5 am here.

But there will be an Anacrusis later today.

April 25, 2007 /

I’ve fallen prey to the great Dreamhost CPU disaster and what that basically means is I have to change my weblog software. I’m very unhappy about this, but I can’t afford to move to a dedicated server and I don’t believe the situation would improve at another host. At least I won’t have to bug Leonard for help anymore (this is a lie, I’m writing him an email right now).

NewsBruiser did exactly what I needed it to do for almost four years and I’ll miss using it. Those of you whose blogs I host, I’m sorry; I’ll be sending out a guided tour email once I’ve got (sigh) WordPress or whatever up and running. The front page of NFD is static, so it will remain up for the duration, but everything else will go down later today.