Yay GIP!

I made it based on this awesome episode of mspaint_lolz's Howse!!1

I feel so leet now...

OMG...

Please don't let that be related to the mysterious lack of House-ness earlier...

29 November 2006
BitTorrent Goes Legit

Paramount, Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox are expected to join Warner Bros. in providing movies over the Internet via BitTorrent, the video web service that they once universally scorned, the Los Angeles Times Times reported today (Wednesday). As part of the deal, BitTorrent has agreed to use filtering software to prevent pirated content from going out over its service. However, the newspaper indicated, analysts generally believe that the switch-over from an outlet for pirated versions of movies to one where users must pay a fee to receive them is likely to fail; it noted that similar Internet-based movie-download services are struggling. Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, told the Times: "The problem is consumers are not convinced that paying for and downloading video is worth it. ... The other problem is it doesn't end up on the TV set. The mechanisms that do get it to the TV, like DVD burning, are not quite what they need to be." Meanwhile, Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service that allows anyone who buys a DVD copy of certain features to download a copy of it onto their computer or portable digital device. The additional charge will be $2-4 dollars.

[source]

Randomly, why the FUCK do I have a "nazi" tag in my list?!?

Okay, it doesn't really mean anything, but...

I never really said anything because technically I wasn't participating. Why? Because Nanowrimo never works for me. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the bitterness of a person speaking who's always tried and failed. Every time I've seriously tried to win it I "won". I'm putting this in quotes because I may have managed to write the required 50k words, but it's never actually made me feel like a winner. Moreso, I felt drained and empty and as of today I've not reread any of the Nanowrimo novels I've penned in the past, simply because I loathed the very sight of them.

I think the problem I have with Nano is that I don't think it stands for what the writing process should be like. Sure, it may work beautifully for many people, but for me it never did. Stories are over when they're over. Yet Nano forces you to go on and on just so you fill the 50k quota, so you end up ruining what you wrote eventually, because you keep going on with senseless drivel. You don't have time to really enjoy the creative process, to savor each word. I'm sure some people need that, this being driven towards the end just so they produce, but for me it's pure horror. I rather have someone eagerly waiting for what I've written than the big red wordcount hanging over my head.

What I do like about Nano though is this sense of togetherness. The sense of "We're all going through the same thing at the same time". That was always very nice and I've missed it this year. But at the same time it diminishes the personal experience IMO. That's like shoving all expecting mothers in one room together and have them give birth at the exact same time. For your personally it's an amazing and possibly lifechanging experience, but you just get flushed away by the flood of people who're doing the same thing. And does your novel and do YOU really deserve that?

So... I'm always very torn about it and I've told myself after the last Nano that I'm never going to waste an idea like that again. However, since I'm a sucker and hate being left out I signed up for Nano this year anyhow without actually having the intention of participating. I told myself I'm just gonna let it flow, write in my own time and see how far I get without the pressure and with being fully behind every word I write. And lo and behold, it works. Granted, not like the makers intended, but still.

When I wrote Altruism last month I penned 35k words in roughly two weeks. It just... woah! Flowed! I still know exactly the daily segments I wrote since I sent them to kribban hot off the press, so to speak. So I used those segments to update my wordcount accordingly. On that I tagged my newest story which I've written in a similar pace as Altruism. In other words, I can easily write 2k words a day when I don't get rushed and feel like I HAVE to fill my word quota. Sometimes you end up writing 1k a day, sometimes 3. It always works out somehow.

Even without Nano I know now that I can be a writer. I can write over 60k words in less than two months with the breaks in between that I need, without the pressure of just needing to fill the pages. And I'm happy about that. I may not have won Nano the way it was intended to, but I completed the task like everyone else, albeit spread out two weeks into October and two weeks into November. I'm fine with that.

Congratulations to everyone else.