Category Archives: Geek

2007 Resolutions

By lytspeed Posted in Fiction, Geek, General, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Writing Leave a reply

Yes, like every other blogger in the blogosphere, I’m going to post my resolutions for the new year. I did this once before, in a prior incarnation of the Lytspeed Communications site, back before the term “blog” existed. I did keep a few of those resolutions, namely dropping the weight (45 pounds, actually!), playing more live music, volunteering for Colorado Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, and learning more about coding HTML, but not in 1997.

Yes, my online home turns ten years old this year. And though I don’t have the popularity or visitation that mainstream bloggers have, I do feel pretty good about being ahead of the curve.

I think my resolutions for this year are quite a bit more reasonable than the ones I made in 1997. Maybe I’ll look back in another nine or ten years and see how many of them I accomplished this year.

Okay, enough stalling. Here are my resolutions for 2007:

Manage Finances Better – I have always had a hard time with finances, and I’m getting tired of always being behind the 8-ball. It’s time for me to get it together this year.

Take Care of My Health – My heart attack scare of a couple of years ago really woke me up, and I have made some changes to prevent that from happening again. However, there are some other concerns I need to address before they become Big Issues.

Write Every Day – Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make one better at what one practices, and I haven’t practiced writing enough. I need to write every day. What I write and which medium I use is immaterial; if I write every day, I will get back in the habit I used to have in college, when I was most prolific. Yes, that means more blog entries, too.

Publish Some Fiction – 2006 was a great year for me as far as writing goes. I published several articles at ComputorEdge, sold four poems to Romantic-Short-Love-Stories.com (now defunct, unfortunately), and actually managed to turn a meager profit for the year after deducting my writing-related expenses. However, I didn’t accomplish one of my main goals for last year, which was to publish some fiction. It’s time to complete the set this year.

Do My Taxes On Time – Last year, I was late — very late — in doing my taxes. I guess this could be part of managing my finances better.

Buy a Variax – Line 6 makes the ultimate geek guitar, and I want one so bad I can taste it. (Yum! Rosewood!) I have all kinds of ideas on how I could use it to make things easier in my gigs.

That’s it. Hopefully I’ll get somewhere with these goals this year, and if you’ve made resolutions, I hope you reach your goals as well.

I am not a poker pro, but I am a writer

By lytspeed Posted in Conventions, Geek, Poker 1 Reply

I played in the Inaugural PokerStars Blogger Championship Sunday, and I sucked. I finished in 1193rd place out of 1473. By comparison, Wil Wheaton finished 328th! (Congrats, Wil!)

The long and short of it is that I got impatient. The hand that killed me was a hand on which I should never have bet hard (AQ that turned into a pair of queens) and I got beat by a straight (AK with QJ on the flop and a 10 on the turn.) If you know anything about No Limit Hold-Em, you will know that I should have folded after the flop, rather than raising based on my paired queen. Oh well.

However, I had a blast at MileHiCon 37, both Saturday and Sunday. The panel discussions I participated in were fun, I met some cool people (both fans and participants), and hopefully I made some good impressions. I look forward to participating in the convention next year, assuming they ask me back.

My apologies for the lapse in domain name registration over the last few days. One of the disadvantages of being unemployed is that things like domain name registrations, no matter how crucial they are to supporting a budding writing career, are less important than things like mortgages and car payments.

Form Testing

By lytspeed Posted in Geek Leave a reply

There’s a certain amount of creativity to this entry, but not in the way you might expect. I’m revising a website for some writer friends, and they want a Recent News blog similar to the format I use for this blog.

The form they will use to enter new news items is not working like I expect it to, so I’m typing an entry here to see what I’m missing and how it’s supposed to work.

What D&D Character Am I?

By lytspeed Posted in Gaming, Geek Leave a reply

I’d have to say this survey is pretty close, and I’m a sucker for D&D stuff. I found it through bluejack’s site.

I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Bard Ranger

Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Deity:
Hanali Cenanil is the Chaotic Good elven goddess of love, beauty, and art. She is also known as the Heart of Gold and Lady Goldheart. Her followers delight in creation and youth, and work to spread happiness, love, and beauty. Their preferred weapon is the dagger.

Find out: What D&D Character Are You?

Oh Clementines

By lytspeed Posted in Geek Leave a reply

I love my Treo 650. This entire blog entry, including the picture and the hyperlinks, is being generated on the Treo.

First, I took a picture of a coworker’s clementines sitting in formation on the floor (don’t ask) using the built-in camera. Then I resized the picture using JPGview. Then I uploaded it to my FTP site using VFSFTP. Then I moved it to the appropriate folder on my web server using a DOS batch file, which I activated by logging into my desktop computer using PalmVNC. Finally, I went to my private WAP submissions page and typed this entry.

Is there an easier way? I’m sure there is, using some pre-constructed software. But the point of this Creativity Journal is to explore creative things, and being able to say I used my own creativity to put together this site and devise my own method of doing this means something to me.

Update: In the interest of full disclosure, I did edit this post after uploading. I had specified the HREF link for the picture incorrectly, so I respecified it within the text of the post. That made the picture show up. Also, I added line breaks. Evidently, the Treo 650 sends a different CR/LF combination than the Treo 300 did, so no paragraphs showed up. No problem; I just need to do a little more work on the code.