Post-Traumatic Tech Disorder

For those lovers of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, there’s a new blog wandering the ether called, Dark, But Shining.

Going out for lunch today, I heard a song on the radio that snapped me back to my younger days. I was in the eighth grade and the ol’ hormone soup was hitting a rapid boil. I had a crush on a girl… she had eyes you could lose yourself in and the cutest smile. I saw the smile quite a bit when I looked her way. In retrospect, she was probably just quietly laughing about me to her friends. Ya see, I was a shy youngster. The short, skinny kid with the brains that spent afternoons in the library reading and was the guy people turned to for help with their homework. And I wasn’t what you’d refer to as “socially capable.”

But those feelings inside… they’re great motivators. I was determined to win her over, but I didn’t have any clue how to do that. I started out slowly (loosely translated…I attempted a few awkward, mumbled conversations with her whenever I could catch her without any of her friends around). I didn’t really feel like I was getting through to her, and it wasn’t very often she was by herself. I started to lose a little hope. Then a friend convinced me to go to a school dance one night. I went and there she was. She looked stunning… even in the dim lighting at the dance. I could feel my heart beating faster than the dance music pumping through the school gymnasium. So, I did something desperate.

I took out a piece of paper and scribbled down some hasty words. I snuck over to the DJ’s booth, and when I was sure no one was looking, I left the note where the DJ could find it. And with my desperate plan in motion, I moved into position… nearby her but just out of sight. And then I waited. When I heard the DJ announce the next song was dedicated to her from a secret admirer, I took a step toward her.

This was my big moment.

The music began to play, and I was gathering up more courage than I ever thought possible at the time.

And then… she bolted. Turned red as anything from embarassment and rushed out of the gym as fast as she could while whispered murmurs and laughs rolled through the crowd. That’s when I realized my mistake. Even though I thought the lyrics of the song might reflect some of my feelings for her… she probably never got past the title of the song.

The year was 1985… the song…

Easy Lover by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.

Ahh… the power of the title. An important lesson I learned… titles can make or break a first impression, and it can express a lot in a very small amount of space. It’s easy to forget that sometimes… luckily, I have a mnemonic that helps me remember.

No one ever found out who requested the song, and even though I tried to recover, that fumble really put a pounding on my already weak confidence. It would be years before I saw that amount of courage again because I was petrified of failing.

Besides the lesson about the power of titles, I did get one other benefit out of it. A few days later, I wrote about the situation in my notebook. I wrote about how things could have been if I had only done this… or if I’d done that… or if I’d just said something to her earlier. I played out a bunch of the different scenarios, and I took what I knew of her personality and did my best to realistically bring it to life. It’s an exercise I stil do to this very day (in my journal). I like to play what if. What if I’d said this instead? What if I’d taken this reaction to that person’s rudeness? What if I hadn’t helped out that person at the store? And I also use the technique to get into the heads of my characters? What if it was this character in that same situation… what would he/she do?

This technique was what helped me eventually overcome my shyness and fears of speaking with others. I ran through so many different scenarios in my thoughts that eventually, they started to become more natural to me. I went from shy kid to part-time class clown. And I started to look at situations that I mess up as a learning experience rather than failure. Do I still mess things up? You bet, but at least, I’m not afraid to speak up or try new things.

National Geographic ran a story on Wednesday discussing the vocal mimicry talents of elephants. Elephants imitating the sounds of trucks…and lawn mowers…and frogs. Pretty soon, the word will spread, and pet elephant owners will have friends constantly coming by to teach their elephants how to cuss.

Thanks to Greg over at SciFiDaily, I saw this link to the new Fantastic Four trailer (it’s tiny, but if you’re used to staring at cell phone screens…no problem). “That’s gross.” hehe

For those people out there that have looking into screenwriting, you’ve probably heard about the Writer’s Guild…both of them. The Guild is divided West and East, and if you’ve seen those classic comedy routines where they draw a line down the middle of the room, you’ll get an idea what kind of tension there might be. Mark Evanier posted an insightful rundown of the conflict between these two guilds in his blog.

Palladium announced that it’s publishing a new version of Rifts.

What’s really scary is that this year is the 15th anniversary of Rifts… and I played this game when it first came out. Fifteen years ago… almost seems like yesterday, I was throwing down with Juicers, tangoing with Glitter Boys, and wandering the world tracking down ley line nexus points. I remember leading a fun campaign once where I made everyone play characters converted over from Heroes Unlimited. It was fun watching them try to maintain their heroic dispositions in the screwed-up Rifts world of tomorrow.

And since we’re talking ’bout Rifts, Gamespot recently posted a preview of Rifts Promise of Power for the N-Gage.

Finally read a bit more on the Tarantino/Friday the 13th rumblings (via my sub to the Hollywood Reporter), and noticed a few interesting tidbits tossed into the mix.

New Line tried to make a sequel to “Freddy vs. Jason” involving the “Evil Dead” character Ash, but a deal with “Dead” rights holder Sam Raimi couldn’t be reached.

For my earlier thoughts on this topic, check out my post in the old Dark Ramblings blog. And it had so much potential.

Another tidbit from this that I totally missed earlier (probably because the news hit the week after I was sick and was trying to catch up with everything at work)…

The WMA-repped filmmaker recently signed on to direct the season finale of CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Since that’s one of the few shows my wife and I watch regularly, I won’t have to go out of my way to see what Tarantino does with it.

Real quick here… looks like Venture Management has optioned two comic book properties to shop around Hollywood, Sean McKeever’s The Waiting Place, and Phil Hester & Andy Kuhn’s Firebreather. Haven’t read The Waiting Place yet, but Firebreather was a fun book.

This morning, while I was hanging out in traffic listening to a book on CD, I started thinking about something my wife mentioned to me a while back. She made a comment one time when we were stuck behind a slow moving automobile. “Just our luck. An old man driving. An old man with a hat!” Apparently, the hat had some significance. Not sure what. But it made me start thinking of a list of things I’ve noticed about slower drivers.

1. Old man with a hat. Yep, my wife’s observation takes the top of the list because I’ve seen it plenty of times. Doesn’t even matter what kind of hat. Baseball cap, cowboy hat, fedora, derby, or even a sombrero. If they’re old and got a cover, take flight as soon as possible.
2. Multiple yellow ribbon disorder. I’m all about supporting the troops… used to be one (I’m also a disabled vet with an arthritic knee). So, I don’t really mind those yellow ribbons on the vehicles to support the troops… unless they have more than one. Don’t know why those multiple stickers slow vehicles down, but I’ve been stuck behind a number of vehicles with lots of those ribbons. Maybe the ribbons are just so densely packed with well-wishing for the troops that they develop an intense gravitational force that slows the vehicle down. Or something.
3. Jesus fish and a church. Yeah, there are lots of people that sport their religious preferences right there on the backs of their cars, and one of the most predominant devices is the lovely Jesus fish. Most of the times, these people cruise right along like everyone else, but I noticed every once in a while, they’d slow to a snail’s pace. Never really understood why until I noticed that it mostly happened whenever they passed a church. Is it sinful to disobey the laws of man in the presence of the House of God? Or maybe they just get a little paranoid. “Oh no, I’m passing a church. I better slow down before God catches me speeding and decides to cast me down into the blazing inferno.”
4. The Ford-Chevy feud. I drive a Ford. Not because I’m some big Ford fanatic, but because it was the SUV with the highest safety rating that we could afford when we bought it (our priority since we have kids). And it’s pretty safe as my friend Marty has seen firsthand. Anyways, I don’t really care about all that Ford-Chevy rivalry (and I’d seen plenty of it back in my hick town days), but I have noticed that a lot of times when I get behind a Chevy truck… they slow down. Sure, they’ll speed back up when I try to pass them, but while I’m behind them, they have that tendency to drive under the speed limit. Not sure what the reasoning behind this is. “Yeah, you’ve just proved that your truck can move much slower than mine. Congrats! That’s gonna definitely win over all of your ‘my truck’s better than yours’ arguments.” I wonder if I’d run into this as much if I bought a Toyota?

There’s not really much scientific evidence to support any of these thoughts… just my own personal observations. Still, it’s neat when you can see odd little patterns in everyday life.