Things have been interesting in Matt Land, to which I immediately started humming the old Batman theme, but only with MattLand instead of Batman.

I got a new laptop. I broke Chiyo because I was being careless. The powercord got wrapped around the arm of the chair I was sitting in and when I went to pick it up, breaking the powersocket on the laptop in the process. So with a little help from my parents, I’m the proud owner of a Dell Inspiron 1501. It’s faster and lighter than my old laptop, and it runs Linux. What more could I ask for?

I won a poker tourney a couple of weeks ago. I played in a $25 buy-in tourney at the Palace Poker Room that had 62 people in it. I was the last player with chips and got $455 as winnings. I felt I played well, while not having very many “monster hands”. I had a lot of pairs and two pairs, and a couple of straights, but very few trips and flushes, and no full houses or better. I only misplayed one hand in my oppinion, and that was me hitting a straight on the turn against trips. I had a feeling that my hand was good, but the board was too messy for me to really make a move. Best poker I’ve played in a while but I haven’t been able to do anything since.

I won National Novel Writing Month, yet my novel is no where near complete. It a novel based on the comic that Mike and I are working on, and that I promise will continue to work on now that Nano is done with. While writing an Nano based on the comic was a very fulfilling exercise from the standpoint of getting the background of the comic fleshed out, I would not do it again. It was painful at times. Nano was a very cool experience, like always, and I managed to meet some very cool people in the process.

I just found out that one of my  classmates had to take a quarter off because he found out, by fainting, that he was diabetic. My thoughts and prayers are with him while he recovers.

I’ve been fighting a little bit of a cold the last couple of days, and as such I’ve been living off of Advil Cold and Sinus. That stuff is a God-send.

Well, that’s all I got. Take it easy Internets, and I promise that I’ll be better about posting.

Apparently the Tigers got a shortstop lastnight in a trade. I’m

not sure if I like the trade, since we traded Jurrigens, who was a solid talent. Also, the short stop we got, Edgar Renteria, is 32. But hell, Dave Dombrowski has put together a Tigers team, that well, doesn’t suck.

I think TV lied to me. A commercial for Brothers brand printers tells me that following Plan B is wearing ugly pastel shirts.  I guess it might mean plan B. B for “Bad Fashion Sense”.

I am so not ready for Nanowrimo. At all. I mean, I do have part of my story plotted and most of the setting ready. I’m just not ready for it mentally. Last year I went into blissfully unaware of the hell I was getting myself into. This year, I know all too well.

And now for your moment of Zen.

Me: God I hate you Math Nerds.

Eric: That’s okay, we hate us too.

In an attempt to “get things done”, I purchased a moleskine notebook and using several ideas I found on Lifehacker, I’ve made a planner/idea book out of it. I’m gonna give it a whirl and hopes that it makes me more productive.

Nano is around the quarter and I’m planning on doing some planning for Nano. I do not want to go into it unprepared like I did last year. It was a good experience and and I did enjoy writing Nova Titan, but Mike and I kinda want to use this a script eventually. So I’m atleast going to write a crappy outline, hopefully more.

I broke my laptop. I went to pick it up off my desk at school and the cord was wrapped around the arm of the chair. I broke the end of the plug and the socket where the plug plugs into.  So with some finacial help from the parents, I was able to purchase a new laptop, a Dell 1501 from Sam’s. So far I’m happy with it but the first thing I did was install Linux on it. Vista Home Basic is a “slice of shit”.

That’s all I’ve got right now. Good night. Go Boston.

I’ve been a lazy writer. I have done absolutely nothing with Script Frenzy. When I mean nothing I don’t even have a title. Which is all sorts of sad. I do have a composition class this quarter, so maybe that turn things around. Probably not, but atleast I can dream.

One thing before I end this post: I saw the dirtiest as in white trashiest asian ever on Saturday before Poker. He had a mullet, white trash mustache, a teal hoodie, basketball shorts, was buying a tallboy of Coors Light and drove a rusted out late 80s Blazer. I had to really control the laughter.

I did find a perfectly good 40 gig maxtor drive sitting on my desk. I know what computer it came from but I’m trying to figure out where it came from, because I generally only buy Western Digital drives. Nothing against Seagate or Maxtor, I just know what I’m gonna get with their drives.

I picked up some Vitamin Water lastnight on my way out of work, kinda gross. I mean, it wasn’t bad, it just had a funky aftertaste.

I’ve been sneezing like a bitch lately, due to all of the dust I’ve kicked up from my computer cleaning the last couple of days. I’d open a window, but there’s an air conditioner sitting there. HAH!

I’m doing Script Frenzy this year, which is a screenplay writing contest along the same way as Nano. I have no idea what I’m writing about. That’s not entirely true, I do have ideas, but they’re either blatent ripoffs of Office Space or Rounders.

Also, for those of you who are fans of sports, me and some of the guys have a new sports blog here.

The haul for Christmas wasn’t bad, I got some money (most of which I’ve pissed away playing poker, more on that later), some DVD (If you haven’t seen Stargate: Atlantis, do yourself a favor and do it.) and some books. Not bad, really. I got a $25 iTunes giftcard from my Uncle Jim and Aunt Nancy (is it said the relatives who most “get” me are the ones I only see on the holidays?), and I’ve barely put a dent on it. I guess they need to make some decent music.
So, yeah, the Law of Averages has been hating on me a lot lately. On Thursday, I went to the Bingo hall to play poker, and I had Queens full cracked by quad sixes. The dude did slow roll them to perfection, I’m just glad I made the correct read. I seriously don’t think I’ve gotten a flush in atleast 3 weeks. I’m just gonna play it tight and wait for the cards to hit. To make it even worse, on Thursday I was playing Blood Bowl against Brad, and he proceeded to kill two of my guys, and KO atleast 7 of them. His team’s got the same Armor as mine, and yet, I didn’t break armor once.

Speaking of hard shots, Mom and I bought Dad the WSOP PS2 game to help from going insane. The way I understand it, a disk has buldge in his back, and that’s pitching a nerve that is cause the intense pain that he’s under. He can’t sit up straight for more than a half an hour. And he does like to play online poker, and we figured this would be a decent substitute. Better than the GBA game I bought him, anyway.

So he and I have been tag teaming tourneys and such on that, and I’m starting to get my eye back. That is, I’m recognizing the weird ass straight that people hit. We’re a bit at odds tho, because although we both enjoy hold ‘em, he likes Omaha and Omaha HiLo Split, and I like Razz.  Also, HORSE tourneys are lots of fun.

Today in VB, Noah and I made a simple RPG. I basically wanted to see if I could do it, which I could. Right now it’s a single form program that only hands combat at the moment, but I’m working on getting a market set up. And by market I mean Ye Olde WalMarte. We were both ahead in class and didn’t really have anything else better to do. Kinda makes me want to dust off my perl skillz and make a textbased RPG in perl.

I haven’t done any writing lately (::hides from the Wrimos::). I just haven’t had any ideas. I do now, tho, and unless I get sucked into watching a shitty movie with Dad (Atomic Train was awful), I’ve got some ideas. I think I’m gonna do the whole “carry a small notepad for ideas” idea.

Also, may pokemans, let me show you them.

Last night, before I went to I had a panic attack for the first time in a while, and I’m not sure exactly why. I’ve got my shit together at school, I’ve come to terms with work and my depression’s under control. So in short, I have no idea why, but you know what, I’ll take one panic attack every three months or so over every night.

So NaNoWriMo unleashed the inner novelist in me and now I want to write all the time. I’ve got three ideas bouncing around in my head and I’m just waiting to pass Nova Titan off to Will. One of the eyes if for Shadowrun, another idea is loosely based off of Spencer’s DnD campaign. The last idea I don’t to say to much about, because it’s actually original. I’m gonna start working on it tonight and tomorrow and if I get anything written, I’ll post a bit to tease all five of you who read this.

I forgot how simple coding in VB was. Form manuplation is easy. I’ve got a feeling that I’m gonna help teach the class, because my Instructor has said on several occasions that he is not a programmer.

Pinko and I are thinking about getting the band back together, and by band I mean podcast. I know I’ve said that before but whatever.

Also, I have a beef with the Word’s spellchecker. It has “Linux” in there, but it doesn’t have any of the moons in the solar system except for “the Moon”, “Titan” and “Ganymede”. To a sci-fi writer, single the Red Line of Shame under words like Europa and Io and all of the other moons out there gets old quick.

Also, the Word Spellchecker doesn’t have room for Jello, which is weird.

At 1.5 spacing, Nova Titan comes out to a McBeefy 180 pages with another 5k words or so to write. Once that’s done, then it’s off to Will for editing goodness.

There’s probably something I’m forgetting to post about. Ohh well.

The question on everyone’s tongue is how did my Nano go. Well, I won. My novel’s no where finished, but I did reach the 50k word goal. I plan on doing a bit more writing then doing editing. And if what I have after that isn’t utter dogshit, I’m gonna make a webcomic out of it. Or that’s the plan, atleast

Work is work and school is schoo, but I did pull a 4 poin this quarter. Completely awesome

One last thing before I go get something to eat, here is a real conversation between Spencer and I after we saw three GB Township cruiser in a driveway at his park.

Me: Wow, it’s the po po.

Spencer: I wonder what they’re doing.

Me: Crack House.

Spencer: Yeah right.

Me: You should care tho, it’ll knock down property values.

Spencer: We don’t own anything.

Me: What about the lots?

Spencer: Yeah, we pay lot rent.

Me: So bring on the crack houses?

Spencer: Yeah, lower their property values!

It was a lot funnier there, I guess

Dad didn’t do as well but I have more experience playing at a table than he does. One things we both noticed was that the quality of players was not as good as at Soaring Eagle. There was one guy at my table who would visably shake whenever he decided to call with a draw of some sort. And there was a guy at Dad’s table that would play about anything.

I got my schedule for class for next quarter, and it’s a bit on the strange side. I’ve got a night class on Thursday, and morning classes on Friday and Saturday. Ce La Vie, I guess.

My Nano is still chugging along. I didn’t write in it today, but that’s what I get for buying FFXII. Which is a good game, I recommend it to anyone.