JamesSavik

Don't expect to build your universe in one sitting. It takes a LOT of imagination and work. You have to create a believable "history" and make your world consistent and logical for readers to buy into. Otherwise... well you've got network TV. The Lord of the Rings didn't just fall from the sky complete and ready for Peter Jackson to exploit. It took Tolkien decades to build it all. He also borrowed quite a lot from Norse mythology. If building a massive history, mythology, folk lore and customs wasn't enough, Tolkien built several languages from scratch. Amazing and completely off the chain. Other universes were collaborative. The Star Trek universe was created by Gene Roddenberry but it had numerous writers in its various incarnations all agreeing on basic precepts. The Star Wars Universe is the private property of George Lucas but he has opened it for numerous authors and even game developers to expand it. Speaking of games, Halo and World of Warcraft have their own shelf of formula derived fiction at Borders and Barnes&IgNoble. I can't tell you HOW to build a Universe but I'll tell you how I'm building mine. I have notebooks full of material that I'm working on: history, culture, planet names, politics, points of conflict, flash points, names of ships, Technologies, etc. It's a huge undertaking but its a lot of fun. If you do it right, kids will be buying your action figures.

She sells sea shells on Seychelles sea shore...

The Dreams of Tomorrow The Red Planet Bar & Grill was like a thousand others. It was a seedy little establishment at the edge of Flynt-towns spaceport and, much like the town, it had seen better days. When Mars was booming, the place would easily seat a few thousand people a night. Now it saw barely a hundred on a good night. It was just the sort of dark, quiet place that Daniel Sokolsky was looking for to do business. He picked a nice dark booth in the back, ordered a steak and waited for his contact. Peter Devries of GenTech arrived shortly after his steak. The dowdy scientist looked a little twitchy. As he arrived at the table, he scanned the few customers in the bar. Satisfying himself that nothing looked wrong, he sat down in the seat opposite Sokolsky. Daniel looked up from his steak and said, "Could you have tried to look a little more suspicious?" Devries ordered a beer and sat back in his chair scanning the small crowd. "What you are asking me to do is a serious crime Mr. Sokolsky. I have to ask: are you a member of the Alliance Secret Service?" "No. Of course not." "The Human Genome Protection Act is very serious business. They would send us to a penal colony for decades if they knew we were even talking about breaking it." Sokolsky waved his hand at the bar, "You can buy guns, dust or arrange to have someone killed here. The mob runs this place. The cops are paid off." Devries still looked skeptical but he seemed to relax. He turned on an electronic jammer device so that their conversation could not be recorded. "Like I told you and your wife, we take samples of both your DNA, sequence it, remove any genetic defect or disease and implant a perfect fetus. That's legal. We do it a few hundred times a day all over the planet. It's even necessary because of all the genetic damage that most Mars natives have taken from radiation over the years." Sokolsky said, "It's the enhancements that we're interested in." "So you want a genius or a champion athlete." Sokolsky shook his head. "No. We just want to give our son and edge- edge enough to get out of this place. Mars is a slum and since it was mined out, it is only getting worse." "So why don't you sign on for one of the new colonies?" Devries asked and sipped his beer. "Because it is dangerous and difficult and so many colonies fail. I've got a good job here but I want to give my son options." Devries sighed. "OK. It is expensive and I've got to tell you that it is dangerous. Ordinarily our implantation procedures are completely safe but with enhancements, there a 27% failure rate. There is also a small chance of a rare genetic anomaly occurring as the child matures." "You aren't much of a salesman Mr. Devries." "I'm trying to talk you out of it. Public hysteria over enhanced individuals is... quite hysterical these days." Sokolsky said, "I think we can keep it under wraps." "You had better. Enhancements carry a mandatory ten year minimum sentence." "So let's talk specifics. What exactly can you deliver?" Devries smiled and said, "I think we have just what you are looking for. Dr. Bruckner discovered it in her masters work. For her masters thesis, Dr. Bruckner studied the DNA of a number of very prominent scientists: Einstein, Gauss, Liu, Shu- men and women who were the genius of their age. She found something that 98% of them had in common: a mutation in the gene designated H76. We can add it and your son will have the tools that will put him well ahead of his peers." Sokolsky asked, "How much?" "400,000 credits. Under the table of course." "How will we know that we have gotten what we paid for?" "You will know. Believe me. You will know quite soon. Just be prepared for Ivy League tuitions in fifteen years or sooner."

When it comes to technology, never say never. We have seen the birth and rise to prominence of the Internet within our lifetime. It happened so fast and was so pervasive that it has completely changed the way we live, do business and work. It's hard to take a person serious that does not have an email address or a business that does not have a web site. Technology has an amazing power to transform things in a very short period of time. It moves quickly in jumps, starts and leaps in completely unexpected directions.

Six years clean & sober today. Sometimes you have to surrender to win. That's one a hell of a lesson for someone who was taught to never quit.

I'm packed

Great whiskey! I used to enjoy Canadian Club.

It's missing our pals the Brits.

I'm one that tends to take scientific terms at their meaning. Asexual refers to the reproductive habits of microorganisms. When they have stored enough energy to reproduce, their chromosomes undergo mitosis and the cell divides. It is simply reproduction without sex and is quite ancient. Genetic diversity is achieved by bacteria sharing snippets of DNA by passing plasmids back and forth. This is also how bacteria become anti-biotic resistant so quickly. That is the definition of Asexuality. Period. End of story. Defining "asexual" as a person who isn't interested in sex is simply assigning a name to a neurosis. Freud said that the only abnormal sexuality was to have no sex at all. The more interesting question is why would a person want to define themselves as asexual and the answers become more illuminating. Social pressure/consequences Religious conflict regarding sexual desire Family Expectations sexual dysfunction Fear of disease Fear of punishment Fear of Sexual Inadequacy Unresolved trauma from sexual abuse Fear of Loss/relationship failure sexual paraphylia (interest in sexual conduct that is either illegal or too kinky to find) physical ailment (low testosterone) sexual burn-out (tired of sex)

Happy Birthday! Stay Sweet

It has always been this way. In Europe during the Middle Ages there were the so called "Great Houses" which were simply very successful families. They kept it going by only allowing marriages into other "Great Houses". This only worked for a few centuries until they were all hopelessly inbred. Now the top of the genetic pyramid goes to the Ivy League or makes millions of dollars in the NFL or NBA.

HRC = lame They sat on their ass for a year and a half while the O'bumble administration dithered. Don't want to annoy Massa with petty complaints, naw sir.

In Mississippi if you are out at work, you are out of work.

LBJ Tricky Dick Loopy Jerry the Peanut Farmer Uncle Ronny Poppy Wild Bill Curious George Barak Hussien

Stardust I. Genesis The comet 1733/Latimer was born in an ancient supernova remnant among the rack and ruin of a star and its shattered planets. For eons the magnetic and gravitational force of the pulsar left behind acted on the gas and dust like a blender keeping it hot and ionized and blowing it farther out into the emptiness between stars. Over millions of years the gas and dust of the titanic explosion began to cool, the nebulae cloud began to contract and the comet began to grow in one of the Milky Way

Happy birthday Meeko! May you find plenty of unguarded cat food.

Enter the Dragon

Harry Potter... Bah! I'm waiting for the Ron Weasley movie! Once you go ginger, you never go back.

What is it with you British laddies! Is being uber-cute like a law or something over there?

There's a 12 step group I'd like to see. Mass murderers Anonymous. MMA. Free coffee and group therapy. NO. I'm not one of those pathetic souls on a mission from God to wipe out hookers. One at a time is for rank amateurs and under-achievers. I'm talking fifty, one hundred, a thousand or a million at a time. Why do I feel like a murderer? When I first got out of college I went to work for a defense contractor. Won't say who but if you did the math you could probably figure it out. We were given a problem: How do you go from one digital map to another and keep your position precisely given a set of variables like the curve of the earth, wind speed, wind direction, speed of advance, bearing, etc. It was quite the programming challenge. It took the team I was a part of nine months to crack it. It turned out to be a key piece of the next generation of guidance systems for the Tomahawk TLAM/C & D cruise missile. It was the Cold War. The Soviets were the bogey man. You wanted your missiles to be accurate. You didn't want to park a W-80 warhead over a school. You wanted to park it over the sub pin a few blocks over. On to the next job. Years pass. The Soviet Union crumbles. The first Gulf War breaks out. Then Operation Desert Fox. Somalia. Afghanistan. The Second Gulf War. Raytheon is cranking out Tomahawks like they're having a f**king bake sale. The cruise missile: weapon of choice for first strike. Will fly through a designated window or door and blow the living shit out of anything there with a unitary warhead, cluster munitions or a mission configurable nuke. We gave them that capability because we believed that they would use it wisely and it would save lives on both sides by taking out high value targets with pin-point accuracy. In Afghanistan they used them against mud huts. It's funny how you can be damned for doing something that you believe in. Arleigh Burke class destroyer firing a Tomahawk cruise missile.

In the movie Star Trek IV the Voyage Home (1986) the crew needed a material that could hold back tons of water and whales. Scotty's answer was a substance called transparent aluminum. Funny how the Star Trek franchise just keeps getting it right. Transparent Aluminum

I like hot fudge, caramel and strawberries on my vanilla ice cream in that order. Not all at the same time. I prefer French vanilla. It is smoother and compliments the taste of the toppings better. If you've got hot fudge, pecans are great. Strawberries are best in season. When the strawberries are fresh and just right, you can make an unforgettable Sundae!

After killing key cast members in season ending cliffhangers, CSI has finally jumped the shark. CBS is premiering this season with Justin Bieber as a bad boy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5piVFEf1QA I'm sorry. I ain't buying that cup-cake as a bad boy.