Nigel's Not Well: A Blog

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I just passed the 50,000-word mark in my new novel. This means I officially can write long-form fiction without the magic feather of National Novel Writing Month. It took me three and a half months instead of just one, but at least I got a lot more sleep.

Anyway, now to reward myself with some candy. Only 30- to 40,000 words left to go!

Why is it that pre-release codenames for computer products always seem to be cooler than the ultimate product name? Is it because they don't have to go through the Nine Circles of Executive Approval Hell, or what?

This thought occurred to me when I looked up some information on Windows 7 (the release date, namely, since I was curious). Wikipedia tells me that its codenames were "Blackcomb" and "Vienna." Odd names, perhaps, but much more interesting than the number 7; an OS named "Windows Vienna" would actually really intrigue me, which I thought was the whole point of names in marketing.

Consider some of the other codenames applied to software and hardware over the years:

• Windows Vista - Longhorn


• Windows 3.1 - Janus


• Xbox 360 Elite - Zephyr


• Nintendo Wii - Revolution


• Nintendo Gameboy Advance - Atlantis


• Adobe Photoshop CS4 - Stonehenge

Maybe it's the fact that codenames tend to be short, punchy and evocative - even if they have nothing to do with the product itself - that makes them seem so much more interesting. Or is it just me?

So, Bethesda Softworks is apparently not working on a new Elder Scrolls game to follow up 2006's Oblivion, even though they had earlier indicated that it could come as early as 2010. On the other hand, there's some evidence that they're developing an MMO based on the Elder Scrolls universe.

Great, Bethesda. I look forward to killing ten mudcrabs for some Khajit who stands in one place all day, so that I can then be allowed to kill ten giant rats for him. I feel like I've been waiting patiently to be seated at a cool new restaurant only to be informed that they don't have tables and are just going to scatter some bread on the street outside for everyone to pick through.

Cracked's headlining article for today lists the 6 cheap acting tricks that fool critics (and the Academy) every time, and right at the top is the biopic. That got me thinking about how there's probably no Hollywood formula more formulaically formulaic than the biopic; in fact, just about the only two biopics I can think of that don't follow the checklist are Amadeus and American Splendor, mostly because the former plays fast and loose with actual history and the latter experiments a lot with translating its subject's work onto the screen. It's no coincidence that these two movies are easily the best biopics I've seen. The rest, from Ray to Man on the Moon to a little Cuban film called El Benny, could be easily summed up by filling in the blanks below:

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I saw Home Alone in theaters when I was seven years old and laughed so hard through the whole thing that I didn't even touch my popcorn. I promptly declared it my favorite movie (it would have to share that title with The Rocketeer when that came out the following year). Even now, I still love to re-watch it, especially around Christmas. It's no masterpiece, but between nostalgia and the manic sense of fun in John Hughes' script, I never fail to enjoy it.

John Hughes died of a heart attack today, at age 59. Most people will probably remember him for Ferris Bueller and the Brat Pack movies, but I'll always associate him with the first movie I ever declared my favorite.

I created a widget to monitor my progress in writing my new novel Hubris, as you can see in the blog's sidebar. That was time I could have spent writing Hubris, but oh well. I guess I'm just so used to Nanowrimo that it's hard for me to write without applying some kind of metric to the process.

To that end, I'm keeping myself to a pretty rigid 1000-word-a-day schedule, with plans to be done with the first draft by year's end. It's basically like Nanowrimo in slow motion. This means that I'm chomping at the bit to have this book finished, but I think the slower pace will be better for the quality of the writing in the end. We'll see how things turn out.

But is no one worried about the day he gets out? He'll be 221 years old, hardened by a century and a half of imprisonment. That's not a guy I want on the streets.

Today marks the last day that broadcasters can transmit analog television in the US. Get your jollies while you still can, analog enthusiasts.

I spent a few hours today struggling to implement Asirra on this blog to ward off the frumious spambots, but I got confused by the inner workings of Nucleus and couldn't get the PHP backend working. I already had a CAPTCHA plugin installed, but while the jumble of letters seemed to cut down on the spam, it didn't stop one obnoxious WoW gold farm from breaking through once a week or so. Asirra is a much cooler idea, and a lot less annoying: you're shown a few images of cats and dogs (real ones apparently eligible for adoption) and asked to click on the cats. Simple, elegant and still well beyond the capabilities of image recognition software to circumvent.

But since I couldn't get it working, I decided to try again later and to set the blog back as it was - with the exception of the CAPTCHA, which I had already uninstalled. I figured I'd have the Asirra thing figured out in a few days or so. I can make it that long without any comment defenses, right?

Well, in the space of three hours the spam hounds were upon me and I was overloaded with junk comments. Once I waded through and deleted them all, the CAPTCHA went right back on. I have a newfound respect for that little plugin; it must be deflecting these lame attacks all the time.