Small Weather*

Life's been busy recently, because I now have a job. I spend my days in a modern air-conditioned building. You might think weather wasn't an issue in such a place. But it is. Localised weather is prevalent. It's not uncommon to have dry and warm weather, followed by cold winds sweeping in from the north.

Another side effect is climatic variation in different rooms. The toilets are like the arctic. Not such a good thing in a room where you temporarily remove bits of clothing. Fortunately, there's a hand dryer that puts out warm air. That helps stave off the frostbite.

But the small weather inspiring this post was a localised thunder storm. Lightning started coming out of the air conditioning. This adds to my theory that the whole small weather thing is the fault of the air conditioning. Letting it have atmospheric control in the building is dangerous. Personally, I think it's terraforming the building in order to seed its own life forms**.

Will there be floods next? Maybe I need an umbrella.

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* The title was inspired by the R.E.M. song 'Bad Day', which has a music video showing small weather. I haven't had a tornado yet, but it can only be a matter of time.

** One theory about the origin of life involves lightning strikes.

First Impressions of Wii Fit

Wii Fit is outside of the sort of games I normally play/review. But it was in the house and I don't pass up free stuff. For those who don't know what it is, Wii Fit is an exercise game for the Nintendo Wii console. It comes with a board that measures your movements as you stand on it.


Why Use It?

The game is mainly marketed at people wanting to lose weight or get fit. I'm in neither category. But I do have issues with balance (I have some ear problems) and flexibility (genetics... I was the kid who couldn't touch my toes). I'm reviewing the game based on how well it handles those things, rather than the fat burning potential.


Weight-In and Goals

The first thing it* does is take some personal details, including a weigh-in session. After getting through all that, I set my goal to gain/lose 0 pounds in two weeks. You can at least by-pass the weight loss thing in that way.


Fit Piggy

I want a fit piggy (the thing that records how long you've been exercising). I think it's a shame you only get the sentient board with the pack. I'd like a real fit piggy. It'd make a cute clock.


On to Real Exercise

I started with a fat-burner as a warm-up. They have a hula hoop game, which seemed like it'd be warm-up and some flexibility. It was quite fun. If I dropped the hoop, it'd give me a new one and I could carry on. It didn't end early because I messed up. However, it didn't tax me from the aerobic exercise point of view.

I did well on the basic yoga (flexibility), though I don't think I could do anything harder than the ones I tried for awhile. It isn't really a game, but it explains it simply. I didn't have a problem following the directions and I could feel the strain on the muscles.

I tried skiing and tight-rope walking for balance. I didn't do that well on either, though I had one lucky break on the tight-rope... I managed to stay on it till the time ran out. I wasn't so impressed with the balance games. The two I tried were frustrating for someone with poor balance. Skiing was easy to fail completely. It didn't reward partial success. Tight rope walking restarted the game every time I failed. Having to restart every ten seconds isn't fun. Possibly some of the other games are better... I want a starter game more like hula hoops, where a failure means a point reduction rather than ending the game.


Conclusions

The most obviously working thing was the yoga. I could feel the affect on my muscles on the first attempt. I liked the fact the games had a little monitor to show if you were moving correctly. It made it easier to correct posture and balance.

The balance games weren't the best for starter games. I wanted a game that didn't restart when I fell. With that said, I think they'll work in time. I did see an improvement using the tight rope walking, even if it took a lot of restarting to get there.

As far as general aerobic exercise goes, I'm not so convinced. My level of overall fitness was too high to benefit... I wouldn't be able to maintain my current fitness levels with this device. I get far more exercise from walking and bouncing**. I can see it would help someone at the early stages of an exercise routine, but people should be aware they'll need to move on to other forms of exercise at a later date. The reviews I've seen have glossed over this point.

And I want a fit piggy clock.

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* 'It' is an animated, talking, version of the board you stand on. I'm suspicious of that talking board. I usually like my gaming devices to be non-sentient, especially if I'm trampling on them.

** Some might loosely refer to this as dancing. There's music. And there's jumping up and down. So it might qualify.

Five Ways I've Prepared for NaNoWriMo

These are my NaNoWriMo preparations so far...

1. I drew my own NaNoWriMo monster. You can never have too many monsters.

2. Tidied up my Nano profile. It's got a synopsis and everything. I took a long five minutes coming up with the title 'Wishing for Roses'.

3. Added new Nano friends and followers to Twitter/MySpace/Insert Social Network.

4. Drunk tea. Staying hydrated is really important for brain usage.

5. Wrote other stuff. It might be tempting to stop writing other stuff with all the preparation (never underestimate how long it takes to drink tea and draw monsters), but I persevered.

From the depth of my preparation, you can tell I'm not an outliner. What have other people done to prepare? (Either preparing to take part or preparing for your 'Bah Humbug to NaNoWriMo!' campaign)

About Short Stories - A Few Links

There's a post on John Joseph Adam's blog about speculative short stories (comments from editors of 'Fantasy and Science Fiction', 'Asimov's Science Fiction' and 'Strange Horizons'*). I was heartened to see that robots are coming back into fashion. I like writing about robots.

It raises a thought about reading magazines to see what they publish. It seems as though 'Strange Horizons' has shot itself in the foot with that one. People read it. They sent in stories just like the ones published. Now the magazine has too many stories like that. There's something to be said for sending the story anyway, as long as you're in the right basic genre.

On the topic of spaceships, he also has a post up about a themed science fiction anthology. But exploding spaceships probably aren't the best opening, all things considered.

And my last link of the day is a bit of humour. This is a everyday event written in (bad) science fiction style. If you catch yourself talking about polycarbon-derived artificial fabric, resist**!

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* If you've never heard of them, try browsing through Duotrope. It has more magazines than you can wave a stick at.

** You might get away with it if your character is a robot.

Borrowing Horrible Things - A Book Meme

Because sometimes following the crowd is funny. This meme comes from Fluffy Bunny of the Apocalypse. Here are the instructions:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open the book to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don't dig for your favourite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

I had two equidistant books, so here are both of their sentences:

Could I borrow these things to play with? (from 'Nellie and the Dragon' by Elizabeth Lindsay)

And...

After he died, his son, who succeeded him, forbade the useof [sic] such tortures; thereupon the famished snakes rose to the surface in a tightly packed mass and gnashed one another with their vicious fangs, so that out of all their great number there remained but one alive - a horrible one with a huge body, which tore cattle and men to pieces in its gaping jaws and venomous mouth. (from 'British Dragons' by Jacqueline Simpson)

So there you have it. One sentence doesn't make sense outside the book. The other is a mini-story. And yes, I like dragons.

Inspired by Nature: Blood-Sucking Insects

The air turned into mosquitoes. Every evening, we'd breathe them in. Going anywhere required wading through a fog of biting insects. I'd douse insect repellent on every half hour, but I still got bitten. This was at a camp in Austria... an area with a temperate climate and lots of waterways.

Fantasy likes to avoid that reality. Most mosquito attacks happen at one time in fantasy novels: the hapless party has strayed into an area of tropical swamps. Mosquitoes aren't a problem when ambling down the side of the average river in summer.

Even when the characters are getting bitten, it never shows. There will be minor complaints about the insects. The next time they need to look stunning, they'll still look awesome... despite the fact they should be covered in red marks. Bites can take weeks to heal.

Using some form of insect repellent is for the weak. They just suffer the pain, because they're rough and tough adventurers. Who don't care about catching malaria apparently.

It's a minor detail perhaps, but a detail that readers notice. Mosquitoes live in most places. Where they don't, other biting insects are likely to take their place. People know what it's like. They know it's crazy talk to have your hero and heroine strip off by a lake on a summer's evening. There's nothing less sexy than being eaten by mosquitoes.

It's always good to know your enemy before you write about them. This is also helpful if you're writing a non-Earthlike setting. Chances are, something will be chomping down on your characters. If it's not a mosquito, it will fill the same niche*.

• Diet: They don't just drink blood. Mosquitoes live mainly on nectar. This is true of other blood-suckers, including most midges and horse flies. How did this come about? It's the female who sucks blood. She needs extra nutrients for making eggs.
  
  I've never seen a story where a peaceful mosquito guy feeds on flowers. If you'd like to do something to address this gender discrimination, here's your angle.
• Mouthparts: Based on diet, you might expect all blood-suckers to have one of those needle-like straws to stick in you. This works nicely for blood and nectar. And it is true for mosquitoes and midges.
  
  It's not true for horseflies. They chop down on you with a hefty set of jaws. Nature doesn't always go the way you expect.
• Habitat: They all like wet places, but some more than others. Horseflies lay their eggs on vegetation. They need it moist, not soggy. Mosquitoes and midges lay them in the water (though some mosquitoes lay them where there may be water in the future... the eggs wait for the water to hatch). Mosquitoes and midges are found in most habitats, including very dry ones. Even a desert has some water.
• Time of Day: Different species like different times of day. However, the clouds of insects by waterways are more common at dusk in many places.
• Finding Prey: Smell is the main method of the mosquito. They can fly long distances, so they will find you. There's no escape. The horsefly takes a different approach. They have good eyesight and will lie in wait for prey. When something comes into visual range, they'll attack. This means horsefly attacks are more localised, though you might get numerous bites where they're found. Mosquitoes are wider ranging, because of the distances they travel looking for food.
• Repellent: Insect repellent isn't a new idea. The old way was to crush plant sap on the skin. A number of the herbs used have a lemony scent (including lemon grass and lemon balm). There will be something your characters can do to keep insects away, no matter how primitive their medical technology.

That doesn't mean the extreme is a good idea. Take ten pages to discuss insect bites and your reader is asleep. But it wouldn't hurt to mention the use of some herbal gunge to keep the pests away, or the solid mass of insects you get by waterways on summer evenings. It's a small detail, but one that makes it clear you don't live in a hermetically sealed bubble**.

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* This post is about the small and flying blood-sucker niche. Things like leeches aren't being considered.

** If you do live in a hermetically sealed bubble, considering writing a memoir about it.

The Silver Lining of Bad Reviews

It's not unusual to hear writer's worrying about bad reviews, slamming the bad reviews on their blogs, attacking the reviewers who wrote bad reviews, crying in the corner over bad reviews... you get the idea. There's a fear of bad reviews going around.

But bad reviews aren't a bad thing. I've brought a number of books due to their terrible reviews. It's the good reviews you have to worry about. Positive reviews are prone to being about the warm fuzzies. This is great for the author. Who wouldn't want more warm fuzzies? Especially if they look like this:

It's not so good for the reader. Whether the reviewer liked it doesn't matter to me. I want to know the nitty-gritty of the book. Bad reviews often highlight the details. Should that detail be something I'm looking for, I'll buy the book. It might be they criticise it for being too complicated, they might think mushroom men are so last year, they might think the author is a raving loony... all of these are good things for my fiction shelf.

As an example, I brought the 'Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth' by Carol Rose. Many books of that sort aren't non-fiction. They're fiction, but they're marketed as though they're non-fiction. My concern was this book would be the same. Till I read the review slamming it for being too dry and informative, and using 'boring' historical pictures instead of full-colour modern artwork.

The book was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted an encyclopedia with a more historical/mythological approach. One person's bad point is another person's selling point.

Much as I hope people will like my stories, I'm not going to forget my love of bad reviews. If they help me buy books, they'll help other people too. A bad review can make a book sound much more interesting.