the last rant...

 I've switched to the Crypto-Cranium blog.   you can POST there!

"Call me e jamelle."  How is it after being online for 25 years (from BBS to blogs) I just realized I have a digital name?  Virtually perfect    There's e-commerce, e-gov and e jamelle!  Which makes it even more depressing that none of my early online ventures were successful.  I should say financially successful.  As hobbies, they were the bomb. StarSeed was truly the first international New Age forum (1986-92), but no $ from that.  BUGS  before that (1983-86) was the first BBS User Group Support (hence the name) and no $ from that.  I have an entire Cyber Chick rant about the early days and  told my friends I felt the web was my destiny when I tried to make ZiaLink, Inc. (1993 - 1996) the commercial face of the web.  Ha! AOL won that first round, along with Netscape, then Yahoo, and now Google are the billionaire benefactors and I'm still working the government job.  Sigh!  

So, like Ishmael, it is my lot in life to wrestle down one specific Dick (Philip K, get your mind out of the gutter there), a sci-fi whale, and my own personal albatross.  How's that for mixing metaphors!  And, apparently not to make a lot of money in the e-game.  So, best I get back to the writing schedule and stop lamenting my cyber loss.  The name remains mine, permanently.

*** e jamelle   (see ya on the new blog)

New Blog?

Back to the Future (again)

One of my friends said two things that made me laugh hysterically this week.   1)  that a series of localized thunderstorms, including a direct lightening strike on my power pole, was because of my Flux Capacitor (aka De Lorean time machine.)   Duh!  Of course I have one.  How else could I explain the time travel required in my AKS novel?   2) that he never knew I played video games on the computer.  Wow!  I could understand new friends not knowing this, since in recent years I traded in my joy sticks and dual-shock playstation controllers for my iconic Venus Flytrap (man-eating) avatar for online poker.  But, the gamer heart and soul remains, and always will. 

It was computer video games, not balancing my checking account, that prompted me to get my first computer in 1981.  Prior to that I was playing pong and Space Invaders  (Space Armada, it was called to avoid copyright issues) on a Mattel Intellivision  -- very cutting edge in 1979.  (BTW, Intellivision is a "portmanteau" -- combined from Intelligent Television, much like web-log became BLOG.)

My brother, who isn't my brother at all but became family as a result of our shared love for owning Commodore computers and playing video games in the very early 1980's, especially loved RPG and D&D.  He introduced me to "Castle" adventure games.  It's hard to say which I loved more --  Castlevania or Temple of Apshai.  I still have every version of Castlevania for Playstation and Gameboy Color  (GBC) and often play them.  I also have my 25-year old Temple of Apshai game on cassette, complete with pristeen box, manual and instruction sheet.  I knew it was collectible, but today saw it called "a gamer's treasure" in this history of computer RPG.   I also had this wonderfully fun game for my Vic-20.  What do you expect from someone who sports a COSMIC vanity license plate ??  It was Roswell aliens, Marvin the Martian, Space Invaders, and all things UFO that got me to this point in life, baby!   Larry King is just catching up!     (his hour-long show on UFO's is replaying now, gotta watch.)  

Installment Deux  (Sunday) on RPG/fantasy in the form of Magic!   another favorite topic of mine!

Potter Fatigue

It's Harry Potter's birthday and I'm done with him, the seven books and wizarding for now.  While kids on summer break from school might read the book in 9 hours (two sessions), as a working adult it took me a week of reading spurts to slog through 760 pages.  SPOILER ALERT:  While in general I loved the series and book 7,  I absolutely hated the epilogue.  Why ruin a perfect ending?  I won't actually mention who lives or dies in case you've read on anyway, but my comments will give too much away, so stop now if you haven't finished.  I can see a reason to tie up some loose ends "19 years later," but not the ones JK chose to address.  It was just like the terrible ending to the HBO series "6 Feet Under"  --  TOO much information.  Letting us use our own imaginations about the future lives of some of those characters would have been FAR preferable, IMHO. I've certainly determined I will never end any future movie or book I write that way. 

I truly am moving on now --  to Gore's book (below) and my own writing.  I'm not even going to see the "Phoenix" movie.  I'm so done with the Order, Hallows and Horcruxes.  Now, time travel?  Well, that's another matter  

Assault on Reason

The most outrageous, astonishing fact I've heard (even more mind-blowing than 8.3 million Potter books selling in 24 hours) is that our federal government wasted $36 MILLION on unused ice from the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The inconceivable waste was on the man power and resources required for transporting and refrigerating the stuff for two years, then ultimately destroying hundreds of thousands of pounds of it. ICE. I can't believe it.  Frozen water!!  If that's not an impeachable offense, what is?  

Our screwball president gets away with murder in Iraq and waste of astronomical proportions.  I'm afraid Al Gore and my favorite candidate John Edwards, will have STROKES trying to convey common sense solutions to an imbecilic administration and constituency.  (see that's my way of politely calling everyone idiots  )  I should be reading Al's book since I have it out from the library, there's 95 holds on it and I can't renew it.  But, of course, in a true assault on reason, I'm reading the final Potter book. OK,  I'll multi-task and at least scan Gore's book before it's due next week.  (but i still have 400 Potter pages to go! with Death Eaters, dementors & Inferi on my trail!)