The Happy New Year Philosophy

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Every now and then, I come across something really cool to share. It was attributed to Charles Schulz, but you know how these things are on the internet: chances are it didn't really come from him. So I'm calling it the Happy New Year Philosophy. Here it is:

You don't have to actually answer these six questions. Just ponder on them.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4 Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies, Awards tarnish, Achievements are forgotten, Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here are five easier questions. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are simply the ones who care the most.

Something to think about.

Happy New Year!

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Other articles you'll find interesting or amusing:
Centennial Celebration
Civilization 5 Got Blasted
Arizona you evil state you

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In my Quest to Offend You

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I can't very well let the year end without offending as many people as possible, so here you go: Merry Christmas!

Apparently it's offensive to wish someone the best. Silly me, I thought only people in southern California were allergic to well-wishing (unless they can make a buck off it), but it's beginning to look a lot like even Santa is going to get censored everywhere he goes. Why? We all know what Santa's two favorite words are, and one of them will soon be struck from our Newspeak lexicon.

Personally, I don't get why we're suddenly on this anti-Christian crusade. (Or is "jihad" the proper term here?) America is an inclusive place. We accept pretty much everybody here. Our Founding Fathers were largely Christian. Our government is built upon Christian values. Each of our states' Constitutions mentions God and thanks Him for existence. Why are so many people trying so hard to hide these facts?

No one is forcing you to believe in God. No one is demanding you go to church. No one is going to make you have a good day if you don't want one. You are not required to accept the gift of our well-wishing. It's downright strange and anti-social, but we have plenty such people in this country, and they like to gather in remote places like Idaho and Utah. I don't recommend you join them, though, because they're liable to call you weird for not believing in God.

Do you know when the last time was I got offended for being wished a Happy Hanukkah? Never! I'd probably get locked up if I did. I don't get offended about being wished a Happy Kwanzaa either. Sure, it's a made-up holiday, but aren't they all? And if someone wants me to have a Happy Ramadan, do you know what I'll do? I'll have one! And I'll be thankful they wanted to give me one.

No one is telling Jews, Africans, and Muslims that they can't celebrate their holidays, so why are we attacking Christians? The modern Christmas is far more of an atheist holiday than a Christain holiday anyway. Who hasn't heard of Santa Claus? Who doesn't think it's weird if a kid doesn't believe in him? What kind of a sicko doesn't get cheery at the idea of spending hours in several stores, looking for the perfect way to spend thousands of dollars on people we hardly ever see in an effort to buy their love for a couple minutes?

Irrational hate of others is one of the central reasons why atheists don't like religious people. After all, it makes no sense to be fighting over who has the better imaginery friend, right? And since atheists have an irrational hatred of religious people, guess what? That makes atheism a religion! How's that for hypocrisy? Next thing you know, they'll be tithing, in the form of a tax on gasoline or something.

If you don't want to be happy, we're fine with that. Just keep your misery over there in the corner. The rest of us want to spend this time with our family and friends and make merriment. Giving gifts beyond love is optional. Here are some ideas, which will keep this site running:
















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Other articles you'll find interesting or humorous:
Centennial Celebration
How to Make More Money
Shh-it's a Secret!
Holiday Greetings

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Everlasting Trains

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It's now been 12 years since it was unleashed on the world, and it's still popular enough that there are still a handful of internet places you can go and get your computer-railroading urges satisfied. I'm talking about the best of the railroading games, Railroad Tycoon II.

Not only do I continue to make updates to my own strategy guide now and then, but there are others who keep the flame alive in their own special way.

You may not think 12 years is an especially long time, but computers age even more rapidly than dogs, and computer games age more rapidly still. In computer game years, Railroad Tycoon II is nearing 150 and still kicking, which is quite remarkable when you consider the incredibly high infant mortality rate; few computer games are on the shelves longer than two or three months, and even fewer survive their first calendar year, but Railroad Tycoon 2 is still selling just fine, despite being superceded at least twice. Off the top of my head, the only other game I can think of which has equivalent staying power is Diablo 2, which I'll talk about some other time.

Allow me to introduce you to some of the resources still at your disposal:

Hawk and Badger Railroad: Hawk has a considerable archive of maps and scenarios (which are pretty much synomymous with RT2), plus he has guides! How to play, how to make maps, how to create scenario events, and even a massive RT2 strategy guide, donated by yours truly. Hawk also has stuff for other railroading games.

The Terminal: This is a discussion forum, run by Gwizz, discussing strategies and tips to be a better player. Some of the tips in my strategy guide were gleaned from here. He also has a section about map help. AND, he's also got a butt-ton of maps!! This includes some map fixes.


And, of course, there is as ever my strategy guide, filled with information you won't find in anyone else's. I've got a few other tidbits I use, such as a spreadsheet and a couple scenarios I've tinkered with off and on but haven't released to the general public yet. Maybe some day when I can sit down and polish them up so they look pretty?

While my strategy guide was temporarily down earlier this month, I received a few messages from people trying to reach it, one of which came from a guy who has his own guide on how to make maps! Where was he when I was building my Alaska map from scratch? Well, I took a look at his guide today and made a few suggestions on how to improve it, and hopefully he'll come back with a bang-up document that'll really wow you. When he does, I'll link it up here.

So there's plenty of stuff out there for your Railroad Tycoon addiction.

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Other articles which may interest or entertain you:
Railroad Tycoon 2 Untold Strategies
Games I Play - Civilization 4
Good Thing these People aren't in Charge of our Economy

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Writing Exercises

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You guys know I'm part of a couple writer's groups, and one of the things such groups like to do is writing exercises. The one I go to at the Daytona Beach library has been doing one where they pick 10 words at random from the dictionary and you have 15 minutes to write a short story out of them. I posted my first such exercise nearly a year ago, and now I'm posting my last one because they've changed the rules.

The words given last month were these: flamboyant, acrid, morale, usher, stonewall, country, ale, discount, reservoir, bile. I'll post what I wrote in the comments section as I did last time.

The exercise we did today was to write a sympathetic character. Writing characters is something everyone tells me I'm good at, and is one of the few compliments I receive which I have no difficulty believing I deserve. Creating believable characters is something I strive for. I know a lot more about the Human condition than most people do and enjoy making my characters real.

This one came to me slowly but surely. Here's what I wrote (keep in mind I didn't get to do any editing):

His name was Benito, but if you called him that, you'd wake up in the middle of next week. To his friends he was Benny, to his business partners he was Ben, and to his enemies, he was a nightmare. Nobody wanted to be on Benito Bellucci's bad side.

Growing up in the wrong part of town, with the wrong kind of people as role models, it was inevitable that Benito's status as a model citizen would be fleeting. It lasted until his 12th birthday, the day he and some friends were caught stealing a bicycle his father couldn't afford to give him. His life progressed into deeper crimes until, aged 21, Benito did something completely unexpected.

A week before his girlfriend gave birth to their son, Benito turned over a new leaf. Choosing to make sure his child never had to live the life he had, Benito, fresh out of a short stint in prison, married his girlfriend, and swore he would do whatever it took to keep his nose clean. He did not want his child to end up like he had.

Benito never got the chance to prove he was in it for the long haul, or guide his son's life. A year after becoming a father, Benito sacrificed himself to save a family he didn't even know from a housefire he happened along. There are those who tried to claim he set the blaze as revenge for getting thrown into prison the year before, and he simply got trapped, but his wife knows he really did change that day, that he really was a good father to his son and a good husband to her. But how to prove it? That's what Louisa Bellucci would have to find out if she wanted her son to have the chance at respectability his father wanted to give him.

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Benito isn't a nice guy, and very well could have set the fire, but he's trying to do right by his son. This piece is just a descriptor, not a story fragment. To start off a story with this level of detail would've taken me a lot longer than 15 minutes to write.

All right, now it's your turn. Pick one of the above exercises, or pick both! Then post your results in the comment section. My 10 word submission appears below.

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Other articles you'll find interesting or humorous:
Watch your Words
"The The Impotence of Proofreading," by TAYLOR MALI
Curse cookies!

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The Problem of Emotional Investment

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Have you ever loved something so much, you couldn't let it go? Perhaps a favorite toy, or a favorite scarf, or even a car. Whatever it was, you held onto it a lot longer than most of your other stuff. Perhaps it's old and needs to be thrown out. Perhaps it doesn't do anything for you any more. Perhaps your significant other wants desperately for you to give it away. You know you should get rid of it, but you can't bring yourself to do it.

Why should we have this problem? Why do we hold on to junk we don't need?

It's called emotional investment, and it affects a lot more than our closet space.

When you get attached to something, it's because you've made an emotional attachment to it. Perhaps someone you love gave you a bean bag chair, which turned out to be a pretty good gift, and now, years later, it's covered with duct tape to keep it in one piece. Normally it would be long gone and forgotten, but you don't throw it out because of who gave it to you. You love that person, and so you love what they gave you.

Another attachment, besides gifts given by someone special, are things you got under special circumstances. Perhaps it was your first and only trip to Hawaii and you took a rock back home with you, which now has a place of pride on the coffee table, but you have no other rocks in your house. Or perhaps Rock Hudson kissed your hand and you haven't washed it since.

And yet another kind of attachment can come from a salesperson, or an advertisement, or feeling like you belong to an elite group. For instance, a large portion of Macintosh owners feel like their computer is inherently superior to all others, even though they cost a lot more and don't run as much software. Still, somehow they've been sold on an idea that their computer company of choice is so much better than what the rest of us use that we're all losers. They feel so strongly that they start fights about it. And then the Windows lovers will exhibit the same zealotry, and neither will be willing to admit that they're coming to blows over a piece of plastic that can't even wash the dishes for them.

It works for more than junk, too. We form emotional attachments to people and ideas all the time. The idea that we're never wrong... or always wrong, as the case may be. The idea that no one knows what we're going through. The idea that Libertarians are inherently not as valuable to our political system as Republicans and Democrats. Or the belief that all political groups are equally worthless and should be disbanded. Somehow, we form an emotional attachment to someone, something, or some idea, and we'll defend it against all rational argument.

For instance, anyone can see that the Earth is flat. Just look around! There's no way we could possibly be living on a ball. It even says in the Bible that the Earth has four corners, so therefore we must be living on a square. But somehow, it's possible to sail around the world. I haven't done it myself, so I don't know if it's true, and I think that weird thing at the top of the Sears Tower which they call the "curvature of the Earth" is just an optical illusion. And the circular shadow cast upon the moon during a lunar eclipse means nothing. The Earth is a flat square resting on the back of a turtle, who is sitting on another turtle. In fact, it's turtles all the way down.

It should be apparent that getting someone to form an emotional attachment to something would be a great way to sell them something. Guess what? It IS! Salesmen and marketers have been doing this since before we decided to start writing this stuff down. I think we started writing stuff down just so we could send ads to each other. But the point is, that thing you just GOTTA BUY, you've formed an emotional attachment to it. They made you believe that you would be cool if you bought their product, or that you HAD TO HAVE IT.

All of us have formed emotional attachments to our family, right? Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, etc. We love them, without question. Maybe they did something really cool for us when we were little, maybe they still do cool things for us now that we're bigger. Usually, our acceptance of them allows us to irrationally forgive them almost anything, but sometimes they do something that really hurts. It feels like a betrayal. Extreme emotional attachment can lead to extreme emotional outrage upon betrayal, or even just the belief of betrayal.

When it's a THING we love, often we transfer our emotional attachment to the company which made it, and if they treat us right, we rave about them, and if they treat us wrong, we may rationalize it away, or we may instead feel betrayed. For instance, all the people who thought Apple Computer could do no wrong felt incredibly betrayed when Apple announced they were going to start putting Intel chips into their beloved computers. Many Mac fanatics promised death to Steve Jobs over a decision which no doubt agonized him. Likewise, when Sid Meier's Civilization V was announced, everyone thought it would be the best edition ever, but when it was finally released, many felt betrayed and felt it was a step backwards. And when Marvel Comics broke up Spidermanand Mary Jane, the outrage was unfathomably intense. The fans are STILL up in arms about it.

When a company tells us they're our friend, that they're the best thing ever, or whatever else they can to get us to buy from them or to buy their product, be it a toaster, a Ferrari, or even a celebrity like Steve Jobs or Jessica Simpson, doing so implies a certain level of co-responsibility. They have made implicit promises that they will love us, and if they betray that promise, people get upset. On the surface it seems irrational; it's just a THING, or a person you've never met. How can you fall in love with - or hate - a person you've never met and who has no idea they've wronged you?

It seems ridiculous, until you remember that you were asked to make an emotional investment. Emotional investments carry certain responsibilities, on both sides of the line.

There are plenty of companies, products, celebrities (who are simply products being sold to us), and so on who have sworn they were our best friend, only to end up disappointing us. It happens. It's inevitable. They're going to let us down one day. The problem is that, when it comes to REAL family and friends, we can talk to them, work it out, get an "I'm sorry" out of them, and we'll feel better. You can't get that out of many companies, and good luck getting it out of a celebrity. However, the ones you CAN get it out of - often in the form of a discount on your next purchase - these companies build up VERY loyal customer bases.

For instance, when I buy computer components, I shop almost exclusively at Newegg, and have done so for nearly 10 years. I recommend them to everyone. I've given them a lot of constructive criticism on their website, and now, thanks to me, it's an even better experience now. Why? Because they treated me right to begin with, and if something went wrong, they made it right. They had something called customer service and they realized it was important. In a way, they offered me a piece of ownership in their company, and in a way, I see myself as a part of their family. Now they're just about the biggest computer component seller out there, with perhaps a million happy customers. (Disclosure: I get no kickbacks for touting Newegg.)

Most companies can handle customer service easily, but the story is a little different when it comes to celebrities. For instance, I'm currently small enough that I can answer all my fanmail and make friends out of my fans (and vice versa). In a couple years, I might not be able to. At that point, some celebrities decide they no longer have any responsibility to their fans, and mention us only so we'll stick around; they don't actually care about us or want us to have a satisfactory customer experience. But there are also a few who DO make the effort to keep up. And I plan to be one of them, because I know what it's like to be on the outside looking in. I plan to bring as many of you with me as will follow because I'm thankful for what you've done for me.

So what are you supposed to take home from all this, you ask?

People have been using emotional attachment as a sales technique for eons. We do it all the time to each other without even realizing it. Usually it results in making a new friend. The most effective sales people use it, often as a weapon, and often without understanding their half of the social contract. It's hard NOT to take it personally when your emotions are toyed with.

Next time you discover a product you really want, or a person whose accompaniment you think you really need, stop and think: is that person really going to deliver on their implied promises to be your friend? If they do something that hurts your feelings, but you still like THEM, will they consider your constructive criticism like a real friend would, or will they ignore you because they didn't really care about anything more than your money?

Thank you for your consideration. The groups I lead or am a part have lately been asking my opinion about why they should feel ripped off or taken advantage of by people, or why it appears that customer service is going away. Just remember that most salespeople/celebrities/hotties are unaware of what kind of weapon they're wielding against you, so don't take it personally. Just point them to this article and they'll understand why you took offense.

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More articles to tickle your braincells:
You are What you Consume
Writing is Easy
How to Talk Like a Trucker

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Expose Yourself #3 - Evil Can't Hide from Jim

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In this series of articles, I talk to people who have been successful at taking control of their lives, making a name for themselves, and helping others to do the same. I’m very fortunate to have met them, and very thankful they have agreed to spend a few minutes talking with me to share part of their stories. We’re going to delve into what it took to propel these people from ordinary lives into extraordinary lives. We’ll find out where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going as each guest is asked to “Expose Yourself”.

You may recall that I was stationed aboard the USS Bataan, affectionately known as a Gator Freighter because we hauled Marines and their gear around the globe. Today’s guest was never one of the guys who crowded me out of the chow line, but he probably did it to someone else a few years back when he was a Marine.

Nowadays, though, he writes books. He’s already written two: Hidden Evil and Mysterious Lady, and is finishing up the 2009 RPLA award winning Rusty Steele, and he spends his time helping other writers perfect their craft as he heads the Port Orange Scribes. As if that wasn’t keeping him busy enough, he’s also webmaster for two chapters of the FWA, regularly volunteers for Hospice in Daytona Beach, is president and CEO of JollyOne Enterprises, and still finds time to be an avid scuba diver. Let’s give a great big OORAH to J. W. Thompson!

JC: Hey Jim, thanks for stopping by. Glad you’re not wearing your tree disguise; it would’ve brought back too many bad memories of walking through the forest on the ship.*

JW: It’s at the dry cleaners. We’re going out to Ruth Chris Steakhouse later tonight and I need to look my best.

JC: Awesome! Let’s get right into this: Where are you in your life, or your career, or the pursuit of your goals?

JW: Right now I have two books out, "Hidden Evil" and "Mysterious Lady," selling in quite respectable numbers. I have two more in different stages of editing, one of which is a romance novel. And I’ve just started rewriting a new series about a tough as nails CIA agent named Rusty Steele, which won an RPLA award last year. So I’d say I’m well on my way to being a novelist.

JC: Wow! Sounds to me like you’re gonna give Stephen King some competition for prolificness. How did you get started?

JW: I’ve enjoyed writing since I was a child. Until recently, I wrote only for my own eyes and never dared to dream of becoming a published author.

JC: Really? How recently are we talking?

JW: Five years ago, my wife and friends urged me to seek publication.

JC: How did you get where you are?

JW: The encouragement of family and friends who believed in me and the help of other writers are responsible for where I am. Joining the Florida Writers Association was the best thing I could have done. Writers helping Writers is their slogan, and they mean it.

JC: Where are you going next?

JW: My goal now is to make it to the bestseller list and bring as many writers as I can with me.

JC: That sounds excellent! What are you doing to get there?

JW: I try to improve my writing every day. I have a vast network of friends and fans on the internet and I try to help every writer with encouragement and by passing along the knowledge that I have picked up along my journey.

JC: Ah yes, I noticed that you run several different webpages I wanted to ask you about. You've got a page on Facebook, another one on Myspace, even a video on YouTube, all jam packed with fans from all over the world. How important are these sites to your success?

JW: It's all about the fans, not the sites. The fans are the life and inspiration for me to continue writing. They are also the secret to my success in marketing my books.

JC: Is it a lot of work to keep them updated?

JW: It requires from two to four hours a day.

JC: That's a lot of work. It sounds to me like you’ve got a lot going on and we can continue to expect great things from you. Any last words? Anything to put on your tombstone?

JW: Never give up your dreams.

* Note: To let you in on the joke, when aboard an amphibious ship like Bataan, the Marines usually dress in their cammies for comfort. We often pretend they're invisible (because they're camouflaged), or refer to them as trees. A group of them would therefore be a forest. Most squids think the Marines are too dumb to think of a good comeback, but really they just immensely enjoy knowing we're jealous of them.

Note2: After I coerced this poor woman into taking pictures of us, Jim coerced her into buying his books.
















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Other articles you'll find interesting or helpful:

"Expose Yourself" Articles List

Solar System - Earth
You Might not Know how to Drive
Joan Jett - 1999

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Genre Sales Trends

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Starting last Tuesday (Nov 30) and running through to (probably) this Friday, Eric over at Pimp My Novel has tallied a list of eight different genres and how their sales numbers are doing. If you're writing a book, you might want to take a quick peek at his series of articles. This is his first one. As some of you know, Eric is in the sales department of a major publishing house, so he's got a finger on the pulse of publishing that few of the agent blogs I follow have.

Good luck on your book, and stay tuned, I've got something else to say today too!

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Watch your Words

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In my writer's meeting yesterday, one of my friends asked me, "How many different meanings can you ascribe to the phrase, 'He eats shoots and leaves'?"

I wondered for a moment where he was going with this, and then he continued, "You could say, 'The hunter eats, shoots, and leaves,' to say that he ate something, shot something, and left. Or you could say, 'The panda eats shoots and leaves,' which describes the panda's diet of shoots and leaves. It all depends on where you put the commas."

At which point, I said, "How about, 'He eats shoots, and leaves,' to say that he ate some shoots, and then departed?"

"Ah, but are we talking about the hunter or the panda?"

That discussion, of course, was about people's comma usage, or lack thereof. It's one of the things we plan on teaching a little more about in the near future. Not everyone remembers learning this stuff back in grade school, or middle school, or high school, or college, or from reading anything professionally published, but if you want to be a writer, it's pretty important to know how to use commas to convey the proper meaning.

Likewise, word choice is important. "I arm-wrestled a grizzly bare," has an entirely different meaning from, "I arm-wrestled a grizzly bear," even though they sound the same when spoken.

"I heard a commode from the bathroom," versus, "I heard a commotion from the bathroom." Don't laugh, there are people who make mistakes like that, meaning to write one thing but writing the other instead. Even if they get the spelling right, it's still a mistake.

Often we see people confusing "accept" and "except", "there, their, and they're", and so on, but I'm talking about things that you shouldn't be able to confuse.

"As we got to the drawbridge, the engine stalled." Uhhhhh... The car? The boat? The drawbridge? Which engine stalled makes a difference in how you imagine what's going on. It's one thing to create a mystery to be solved, but it's another to leave them wondering what the heck you're talking about. When you do that, you turn them off and they stop reading.

Even the title I use for this site illustrates this. Am I advocating More in Sanity, or More Insanity? Or am I doing both?

Pay just a little bit of attention to the words you use, the way you use them, and the commas you use to seperate them. There's a ton of difference between, "Susan Boyle, the singer," and "Susan, boil the singer."
















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Other articles you'll find interesting or entertaining:
You Might not Know how to Write in the English Language
Webster's Rejects
What you should Know about the Military before you Join

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Loud TV commercials to be CALMed

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Fresh from the excitement of having reached 100 articles, I discovered that Congress has finally decided to give us Americans something we've been asking for for decades: normal volume commercials!

Dubbed the CALM Act, for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, it finally answers about 60 years of complaints to the FCC about commercials blaring into the silence of a regular TV program. And who says government doesn't work?

Of course, in the year in which the advertisers finally have to get their act together, I can't help wondering: is it even relavant?

On the one hand, a considerable number of people have figured out that there's really not much on TV worth watching (besides Burn Notice, NCIS, and just about anything with Michio Kaku in it). Almost every day, I hear someone proudly proclaiming they don't watch TV anymore, they don't even have a TV, or they have no idea what a cable bill is. (Yeah, sometimes it's me.)

On the other hand, who bothers to watch live TV anymore when you've got DVRs to tape your shows and save about 20 minutes of your life per hour skipping over commercials?

On the gripping hand, if you wanna watch Family Guy or ( : gag : ) Survivor, you can probably download them off the internet or go get the DVD at Walmart and forgo commercials (almost) entirely. Buying them takes the middle man out of the equation entirely... at least, until Congress legislates them back in a la the whole music industry (but I won't go into that right now).

With all the options available, and with all the other problems that are a little more pressing, like, you know, all the corporations robbing us blind and the national debt spiraling out of control, not only is this too little too late, it was a huge waste of valuable time. We pay these guys over 93 million dollars a year to work only about half as much as the rest of us do, and this is how they spend that?

Here, buy one of these very popular things from Amazon in protest.

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Other articles you'll find interesting or amazing:
The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother
Nicholas Marks - 2010
What we mean when we say we will never forget

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