Well, first up, a new find: the Video Game Name Generator: [link] . I've been playing around with this for a while, and my favorites so far...

1. Raging Railroad Pioneer
2. Big Bird's Cardboard of the Third Reich
3. Advanced Bowling Corps
4. Big Bird's Cookie Deathmatch

There's also been a Photoshop Phriday on SA, so if you'd like to see some concept art inspired by the VGNG, check it out. [link] [link]

So yeah, chasing the dust on the back of another meme, but it's still fresh to me.

Class is going well, if anybody's interested - trolling some animal-rights type in my Environmental Ethics course as much as possible (I blame Nietzsche and Aristotle...), and I'm getting back into the whole formal logic thing again since I'm NIU's more advanced logic course. Feeling good so far, this time it's focusing on set theory and predicate logic. With any luck (and if I can ever be arsed to go see a counselor) I should be set to graduate by the end of next semester. Just gotta do 2 more required courses, 2 Philosophy electives... and, well, then I've got one free spot. Any suggestions on what I should take? I could always stand to broaden my horizons a bit.

Did I ever mention that my SM9 finally showed up? Well, not 'finally' - it was about 2 weeks ago now - but it's been what I'm using while I'm at university. I think I'm getting spoiled - though I was pretty content with my late-model Smiths, the SM9 is just a brilliant piece of work. Does about everything I could want it to, with an effortless keystroke, plus some absolutely brilliant German styling. I'd hesitate to call it Bauhaus... but it gives off that sort of feeling, you know? Once I get around to doing some photography, I'll have to put up a review on Schreibmaschinenen, because honestly, if I had to start over with only one typewriter, I think this would be The One.

So, for me, the search is over now. I bang away on my Oly without desire, without wonderment about what else is out there. It's just... you know, this wonderful feeling of satiation, you know?

^{but FFFFF I've sort of got writer's block right now. I'm waiting to stumble into a good idea.}

My big novel project, On Madness & Social Interaction (title pending, I don't really like it) is pushing 100,000 words now, which is a very publishable length. Just gotta do a little more writing, and a bit of revisions, which might take me to about 105,000 words, and, after nearly 10 years, the end.

I just did a word count of all the drafts I've written, and it comes up with 402,750 words amongst 6 different manuscripts. I know that constant revision and purging stuff out of self-consciousness is a destructive habit (that I'm guilty of), but as I page through all the different attempts, I see the development of my writing over the past 10 years. I think it's satisfying to see the maturation of my voice. All in all, I think the 300,000+ words that make up everything I'm not aiming to publish are still important - though for a different reason.

So yeah, after that's over, I can start on another one. I think it's about falling in love with the characters I've created - which is, in part, because they've all got a kernel of myself somewhere in them, and also because they've been in my mind for the past 10 years.

Old friends, you know? I'm probably pretty lucky to be able to sit down with people I know whenever I want to, haha.

All right, so I figured that I could actually do something useful, so I opened up a typewriter blog through Blogger: Schreibmaschinenen. I'll be posting some in-depth reviews of all the typewriters I've got lying around - I figure I might as well, seeing how scarce the information is. Putting it on the Internet might help keep the craft around, y'know?

Either way, check it out: [link]

Today's post is my old Olympia SM7, seeing as there's next to no information about them out there.

My last year of NIU starts on Monday, which is nice, I suppose - just finishing up the classes I need for the program, and after that I'll be on my way, or something like that.

...Honestly, I was considering applying to a couple libraries. Seems like a pretty decent gig, and the librarians all said that job security is great if you can get a spot. Honestly, though, I'd much rather get published and just write my entire life, but the chances of that happening are probably pretty slim, so I'm not getting my hopes up... although I think that I could get published in a year or two with due dilligence. I mean, I'm not trying to say it's easy - the process is probably going to suck - but it's easy compared to making a decent income from writing. That's probably not going to happen.

^{...though I do sometimes wonder if it's really the wise and forethoughtful thing to do to even try and expect to profit from writing - after all, I do it for the pleasure I derive from writing, not the promise of big bags of money getting handed out from the publisher, so just like musicians are artists because they love to make music regardless of the circumstances, writers are artists because they love to compose regardless of the circumstances. So I think that, in part, at least, the profit that comes as a result of your work should be taken as something coincidental, because if you're really a writer, there would be enough intrinsic value in a good work of fiction to make it worth doing just for the hell of it.}

All diatribes aside, the UN Case File is coming along nicely, and will probably be done by the end of the semester. The former Phoenix October is also coming along nicely, though the revisions are a bit more than I expected. I'm going to have plenty of free time around Dekalb, though, so I anticipate that reading/writing is going to take up a lot of my time. After that... well, I had another UN story with Norma and Boughton (imagine a German-immigrant-run diner serving lots of bacon called Speck Ops), and aside from that, I thought I would try and make a faux documentary of a 1950s rock n' roll band called 2LT Joey & the Pasty Whites. Racism, Korean War vets, Feds, commies, and all the period stuff. Think Omaha would make a good setting?

Got some Chivas 12-year scotch as well, which I like very much. I'll have to keep a bottle next to the Black Label, which I think I like just as much - Chivas is a bit more peaty than JW Black, though there's a bit more rasin and vanilla in the Black, which is also nice depending on what mood you're in - but I might give some single malts a shot, like Glenfiddich. Anybody got recommendations?

Oh, and the Olympia came (the Traveller Deluxe) - and I was sort of expecting that it'd be smashed to hell from its trans-Atlantic trip. The seller did a great job of packaging it, however, so all day today I've been banging out some prose, and it's a delightful machine to use. I'm also waiting on an Oly SM9, which should be excellent, and after that I'll have a most of the modern Olympia portables. Slowly, I'm finding myself preferring Olympias to SCMs, which I thought would never happen...

...but really, there's something to them that the SCMs don't have. Don't get me wrong, I love all my Smiths, but something about how modern and smart the Olympia machines all come out looking... geez, I'd like to know how their engineers thought. Such beautiful machines.

^{Interestingly enough, my new Oly is, in fact, a license-built copy by Unis, a Yugoslavian (Sarajevo to be exact) firm, though they're supposed to be just as good as the German machines - which I can believe, so far. If anything, this is making me love it more... it's like they knew somebody was a fan of typewriters, Modern style, and Eastern-bloc nations.}

Rolled back into good old IL at about 17:40, which was certainly nice, and even though Iowa is very nice looking (hell, anything would have looked beautiful after Nebraska) it's nice to be back home... partially because, when you're near your home, you know you how much you can push the speed limit. So... 72 MPH all the way down I-80 and I-88, home in time for dinner. Not too bad. Witnessed one blowout overall, but otherwise it was a pretty average trip.

So, learned some important lessons:
1. Cruise control is more useful than I used to think. Holding down a pedal for 16 hours starts to induce severe leg fatigue.
2. Five-Hour Energy causes explosive diarrhea if you're not used to it. Sorry, Omaha La Quinta.
3. Horns might not communicate the same level of rage as the bird, but they get attention faster.
4. Crown Royal is mediocre.

So, yeah, no luck on the tumbleweeds either. We only spotted them in far western Nebraska, and they were out of range for collection. We might have come too late into the season for a successful collection. Unfortunate... but that's the case.

As for the Crown Royal, well, it's very smooth once chilled, but other than that it seems extremely simple, particularly when I think back toward Black Label, which is my current favorite - though I'll have to see how that goes tomorrow; I'm going to try some 12-year Chivas and... uh... broaden my horizon. Maybe it's because, whenever I think of Crown Royal, I think of Royal Crown, the quasi-generic soda. Not that it's bad - not at all - but when it calls itself the "Legendary Import" I think it's saying a bit much.

So, not to languish while in Colorado, I blew some money on another typewriter, this time coming from the UK (shipping was atrocious). It's an Olympia Traveller Deluxe ([link]), in ultra-mod white/black. I like Olympias, and my stable is lacking the more modern ones (there's an SM9 somewhere out there with my name on it) so I decided to go for this one.

While we're on the subject of typewriters, I had mentioned before that I have 18 of the stupid things, which is part of the reason that the following situation even exists - most of the time I pick them up at the Goodwill, do a function check, and if it's not something godly (it's usually very nice, but I reserve the word "godly" for really special pieces) it makes its way to the basement one way or another. Such is usually the case with my Royals, which are very functional but not very elegant; in fact I usually find them ass ugly, but a working typewriter is quickly becoming a commodity... so I can't really complain. However, it's pretty musty in the basement, and I'd hate for any of my machines to rust, so I've got them lined up in front of my dresser again, and while they were around I decided to clean them all, and do another function check.

That all turned out fine (the SM3 needs a bit of adjustment, and one of the SCMs has a sticky key), but I had neglected really... uh, well, to really care for one of the Royals, which I found out (after looking at the back of the machine, hurrr) was an early Futura 800 - innocuous enough, until I started to try it out - and geez, for a $3 thrift-store machine, it feels like it's brand-new! Nice and clean, not a spot of rust, buttery smooth action - even the ribbon was dark and new. Maybe some misguided family member or whatever took it down to the thrift by mistake.

So, the Futura and I are settling in - mostly, that's me getting used to the keyboard layout - and I'm starting to really take a liking to this Royal. I suppose, if this is somebody's baby that got lost somewhere, it's got a good home with me - so that's the point, really - gotta keep the words flowing.

I'd rank my favorites like this:
1: Olympia SM7
2: Smith-Corona Silent
3: Royal Futura 800
4: SCM Galaxie XII

...although that's pretty much a dead heat; I love them all.

So, tomorrow I'm off to the Goodwill again. Hopefully somebody will have left a typewriter behind.

Hey all, I'll be leaving for Colorado tonight, so I might not be on for a while. I've got 2 GB of solid-state memory for my camera, and a trunk that needs to be filled with tumbleweeds. Those of you living in Illinois, the liberated tumbleweeds will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis. Please do not release tumbleweeds in order to cause chaos.

^{If you leave too soon, your oxen will not be able to graze. If you leave too late, you will not make to Oregon before winter.}

Party:
Pablo
Mike
Lauren
Tegan

Profession:
Philosopher
(Starting cash $0. Receives bonus to "Enlightenment" score)

Start Date:
3 Aug 2009

Location:
Aurora, IL