mike the mountain

Hey.

I’m currently sitting in my dear sister’s apartment in Melbourne, Australia, waiting for my girlfriend to appear on Skype so I can look into her deep brown eyes, and likely flash her inappropriately.

These sort of bloggity activities take a bit of a back seat when travelling, so for everyone out there in the InterTubeLands, have a swell couple of weeks.

(There, did I offend anybody THAT time??)

I love this quote so much I want to keep it here to remind me in the future:

At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth.

That’s from Warren Ellis, one of my favourite authors, shared by Wil Wheaton, another one of my favourite authors (and people in general).

So I got the Big Bad Flu that everyone who’s anyone has been enjoying this lovely autumn season. The first disease that sounds like an HTML tag:

<H1N1>me</H1N1>

Got knocked on my arse the very day they released the shots. And yes, I would have got mine. If you don’t get yours, you’re an ignorant selfish asshole. I’ll go off on that rant another day.

The worst part of it is I’m still too sick to do anything for Halloween, my favourite holiday of the year. I’ve got no costume, no parties to go to, I can’t even hand out candy to the kids. Just sitting in the basement watching horror movies (ok, that part’s not so bad).

A toast to the demons: May your jack-o-lanterns burn bright, may your trick-or-treat’s ring loud through the night, may your candy arm stay strong, and may you have glorious nightmares ALL WINTER LONG!!

This H1N1 is worse than I thought

Now if you’ll excuse me, Rocky Horror Picture Show is starting, and I need to make some toast.

Just posted another story on Ficly; I wanted to write something suitably spooky for Halloween. I wrote about 90% of it around 2am this morning (couldn’t sleep), and finished the rest this afternoon. You can read it here.

Unfortunately my original draft was over the character limit for Ficly (1024), so I had to cut it down quite a bit. Here’s the story in it’s “unabridged” form:

Always wear comfortable shoes when driving at night

Run.

Keep running. Run faster.

Don’t stop. For anything.

Run.

RUN!

…

Turn right. Down that alley.

NO!!

BACK TO THE STREET!

Right. Go. Stay in the streetlights.

Why are all the houses dark? Why isn’t anybody home?

Where is everybody?

…

I don’t know where I am. I don’t recognize anything, no buildings or street names.

I don’t know where I left my truck. I don’t know what I hit. Hard enough to crush the steel bumper and snap off a wheel.

I know there wasn’t anything there when I got out to look.

…

I don’t know what’s chasing me.

…

Can’t scream anymore. Hard enough to breathe.

Tried calling for help. No answer.

Tried pounding on doors. No answer. Not a light or sound from any of these houses.

Haven’t seen a single other car drive by, or person out for a walk, or even a stray cat or squirrel.

Just row after row of the same three models of some developer’s idea of suburban paradise.

…

Have to keep running.

I can hear them. Chasing me. No idea how many.

Can’t see them, but I can hear them.

They’re getting closer.

Keep running.

…

Left. Wait. Haven’t I already been down there?

Every street here looks the same.

There has to be a way out. A way back to the main road. With other cars, other people.

Just keep running. Left. Go. GO!

…

Is that a light? Is that a light on in that house?? It is!

HEY! HEY!! HELP!!

THERE’S SOMETHING CHASING ME!

PLEASE! HELP!

…

…

The light’s out.

…

I can’t hear anything. They’re gone?

No.

They’re here. They’re h

I’M SORRY I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I DIDN’T SEE YOU I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCID

Let me know what you think!

Drove far past where the roads turned to gravel, then dirt.  Parked by a tall tree with bright leaves, flanked by a twisted spruce with dead red needles.  Put one mountain peak at my back, a beckoning finger raised, and mark another in the distance.  A sheer rock face at the end of a curving ridge, like soup pouring over the edge of a spoon.

(I’m already thinking of food.)

It takes me the rest of the day to reach the foot of the mountain face.  Had to cross one small stream, trying to forget about it.  Any foreknowledge of the area is against the rules.

I gather some wood, start a small fire (the easy way) and get some water boiling in a metal pot.  Some goes in a foil pouch labelled “Chicken Enchillada”, the rest gets mixed with hot chocolate powder.  I savor the taste of spice and sweet, eating and drinking at a pace to hold the memories on my tongue.  I sleep in a tunnel of blue nylon held up by army surplus paracord.  Tonight I am warm, dry, and full.

I don’t sleep.

(To be continued…)

GAAHHHHH!!!!

AARRGGHHHH!!!!

AAAAAAAA!!!

WAAAAAAA!!!

AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

AAAAAAHH!!!

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!

AAAAAAHHHH!!!!

*whew*, that’s better.

Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest.

Unnecessary and unexcused AWOL writing hiatus over.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

This might just be the greatest movie parody/mashup video I’ve ever seen.

They had me at the Scion…

So so so so wrong… and awesome.

I had forgotten just how spectacularly awful/awesome this video is.

All I wanted to do was use one of my mp3s* as a ringtone.

I could do that on any of my old phones (that were capable of playing mp3s, if not I just converted it to an older audio spec).  But then ringtones became BIG BU$INE$$.  Now, if I want to use a clip from one of my songs as a ringtone on my iPhone, in Apple’s own words:

Buy a song for 99¢, then turn it into a custom ringtone you can buy for 99¢.

Oh lucky me!  A song I already own, I can buy from you again, then buy the RINGTONE version from you!

Silliness.  And easily ignored.

But for some strange reason, the internet was funny today: every page I clicked on didn’t immediately offer complete, accurate, and up-to-date information on a minor techincal solution.  Weird.

Me – I summon Google!  How do I change an mp3 into an iPhone/iTunes ringtone?

Google – Easy, just change the file extension to .m4r.

Me – Didn’t work.  iTunes ignoring me.

Google – Well, first you convert the mp3 to an AAC file (extension .m4a), then change the extension to .m4r.

Me – Right-clicked on the file in iTunes, only option was to convert to mp3 (which it already was).

Google – You’re an idiot**.  Preferences –> Import Settings –> AAC Encoder, then right-click on the file, convert to AAC, change extension to .m4r.

Me – Jeez, you don’t have to be mean about it (who the heck knowingly leaves the default import to AAC anyway?).  OK, I have the mp3, I have the AAC, I changed the extension of the AAC file to .m4a.  Hooray!  I has a ringtone!  Syncy-syncy.  Umm… why no syncy?  Ringtone not copying over to iPhone why??

Google – Exactly how long do you expect people to wait for you to pick up the dang phone?!   40-second max for ringtones.

Me – You couldn’t have just said all that at the beginning?

Google – But then all those other pages wouldn’t have gotten any hits!  Share the love.  Now quit your whining and go back to looking for the answers to those xkcd puzzles (yeah, good luck with those).

So, to recap (Windows Vista [please don't make fun of me], iTunes 8.0.2.20, iPhone 2.2.1):

1. Right-click –> Get Info on the track containing the sound bite with which you would like to annoy people in elevators.  Options tab, choose the Start and End times of your clip (keep it around 30 second or less to be safe).  OK.
2. Right-click –> Create AAC Version.  If you see “MP3 Version” instead, change your Import Settings to AAC Encoder.
3. Right-click on the new AAC track –> Show in Windows Explorer.
4. Right-click file in Explorer –> Rename, change extension from .m4a to .m4r.  Double-click the file to import it into iTunes.
5. Sync iPhone (make sure you have checked the option to Sync Ringtones).  Smugly smile, raise middle finger to the nearest representative of The Man.

*For the record, my ringtone is now the opening Prelude from Final Fantasy III.

**I always hear this phrase in House’s voice now.