When I am Old I Will Be Cranky

When I am an old man

I will be cranky

And yell at the kids on my lawn

I'll blow all my savings at the track

Or at poker games where the cards just were lousy

Because my children don't deserve a dime when I'm gone

Hell, they never write

I'll drive no faster than I want to in the express lane

And shake my fist at the idiots swerving around me

I'll cut in lines at the grocery store or movies

And flirt lewdly with waitresses

Because no one will hit

Someone as feeble as me

Old farts don't care if their pants show their butt

Or their nostril hairs grow long

Or their breath smells of beer

Or general lack of hygiene

But for now, I'd better behave myself

I've got to pay the rent

So, I'd better not swear (too much)

and piss off the boss

(the wanker that he is)

I'll try to be civil when we have company

And not tell them that their politics

Are only shared by brain-damaged marmosets

And possibly not even then

But then again, maybe I should practice now

So those who still know me

Aren't too shocked (and probably not surprised)

When suddenly I'm old

And a complete bastard

Yeah, I took down Susie's picture as my userpic.  No, I'm not "getting over" her.  I still miss her terribly, even as I love our new puppy.  But that's life, and I'm not Queen Victoria.  I'm not going to wear black for the rest of my life, and being mopey does no one any good.  There's still an awful lot of tennis balls out there that need to be defeated in single combat.

And the final project for my 3D modeling and animation class.  Any resemblance to puppies I have in my house is mildly coincidentalish.

Because one can love again, while still mourning what you've lost




Allow me to present Molly, a 9 month old Border Collie rescue.  We got her from the same shelter we found Susie at.  And for the record, this picture was taken at someone else's house, because we'd never dream of using our living room couch for storing laundry  and the odd manuscript.  Ours is neat as a pin.   No, really.

She's super intelligent:  knew her name after a day, learnt sit and down in three.  Still working on the recall;  she knows I want her back but has a teenager's habit of taking care of what she wants to sniff first, then coming back.  It's funny:  in so many ways she's like Susie (to the extent we're beginning to think Susie was part border collie), particularly in the quickness and focus.  But she's not at all Susie, much more mischievous and self-assured, and she has different likes and dislikes.  But she really likes Susie's favorite toy.  I almost didn't give it to her.  But Molly is sleeping at my feet right now, that toy tucked under her chin like a beloved teddy bear.

It's a good thing to hear the jangle of a dog's collar in the morning.  Even at  "5:45 in the blessed morning??" (which is more or less what I said)(more or less).  She's right though, it's the best time in the world to chase a ball.

Yeah, I'm still doing computer modeling and animation.  Keeps me out of a street gang.  I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed when my instructor correctly pointed out that my last movie was completely lacking in narrative.  Like many a film maker, I was focused on the effects ahead of plotline.  That is, if you want to call "spaceship fly fast!" a plotline. 

Anyway, both this discussion and the title are longer than the actual class project, which I present here for your enjoyment or lack thereof--

Another take, with better camera work (but probably less interesting music, sorry Chris).  Making animations is a lot like writing--this is less than half the length of what I started with.  Anyway, here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Today was a two rejection day, one personal (Asimov's).  Shelia found my science unconvincing, and truthfully it was fairly rubber, although based on real phenomena.  Call it more likely than traveling through time travel, less likely than human cloning.  But most people haven't heard of horizontal transmission of genetic information via viruses.  I think the lesson is -- you can stretch science a bit, but only with familiar things.  Or perhaps, the farther out from reality you are, the less you should explain yourself.  Or perhaps, just write another story.

Ah well, back into the mail tomorrow. 

I've been continuing to study 3D modeling and design.  In a way, it parallels the writing as it's another way for me to inflict the strange visions in my head upon the hapless public at large.  But at the end of the day, I wouldn't do it if it weren't fun (yeah, my version of fun involves being by myself and typing/modeling for hours on end.  I try not to examine that fact too closely).

Anyway, here's the preliminary animation for my current class project.  This is only a low quality render called a "playblast", which is used mostly to see if the animation is working correctly.  But I still have a few tweaks to go.  By the way, the film stops at the 3 minute mark, no reason to watch it after the credits unless you want to hear the end of Lazy Afternoon Among the Crocodiles

Okies, I write science fiction, I have a job allegedly oriented towards the mechanically minded, I even am studying three dimensional modeling and design.  So why do I find things like Livejournal so blessedly hard?  I just got done with spending ten minutes trying to figure out how to hide an illustration below the fold on an edit.  I eventually gave up and deleted it.   Anyway, I'm going to try again, so if you see something below the fold, perhaps there's hope for the computer illiterate yet. 

Edit:  Ok, I get it now.  Preview doesn't show the cut text.  I think I'm going to have another cup of coffee.


( Picture below the cut )

Finished up my latest story, which had its origins as the WotF one day story.  Not sure if I'd call it the same story, anymore;  I was truly grateful when it wasn't selected to be a group critique item.  But I had some fun ideas in there about horizontal gene transfer and frogs, so I felt it was worth strip mining. 

The story also has a number gratuitous aviation scenes, which may or may not work.  People seem to like it when I write about flying, which is odd to me as I've always considered it a somewhat boring subject to write about.  It's not that I don't love to fly, but it's like writing about eating an icecream cone:  pleasurable enough, but not really filled with tension unless the cone explodes into flames.  And that rarely happens.

Note to self:  work on analogies.