JamesSavik

Happy birthday Jakob! You remain one of my favorite net-people. I do hope that at some point in the future that you'll write a book on marriage since you are a pioneer in this area. PS- Nono complained of being sick in his blog. Remind him that it would be a good thing if he let us know how he is doing.

Dio- Not irrelevent at all. The L Word ~ a lesbian soap opera. I've never seen as it's not on any networks that I get. The "word" on the L Word is that the writing is a tab better than QAF. Both are "gay" soap operas which define a new genre. Dio>> What do you think of the play-house methodology that I discussed? [Rather than a very rigid sequential soap opera, a series of loosely connected short stories that share setting, characters- examples: the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. Each episode can stand on its own, but fits in the larger framework. I've not seen it applied to this genre but I'd bet that it would make the series unique enough to sustain interest.] Sunset>> I'm not hating on your idea. I like the idea of a series that portrays gay people living life. I just think that the situation comedy and soap opera have been done to death and need a new spin. If you think about it, the BIG winners that always deliver are unique and innovative. Star Wars was so very different from anything that had come before that a lot of critics doubted that it would fly. 24 introduced the unique concept of real time drama (despite the occassional contradiction you might spot if you pay close attention). Another quality of the big winners, which seems to contadict unique and innovative, is that the big winners WIN with the very same elements that the ancient Greek playwrights used: strong characters in dramatic conflict. While Star Wars was a highly unique and innovative when it came out in 1977, it is still a heroic saga- a literary form thousands of years old. Just my opinion- if you want to succeed with this concept, it has to have a special sauce [something unique] to set it apart from the competetion. I'm not sure what that might be and it won't please everyone. If it pleases enough people however, you'll have a hit on your hands. Bets of luck.

Cops are paid so poorly that they attract a lot of people that have bad motives. A lot of them a losers that get off on the power of the badge. Others use the badge as a means to prey on people at the margins of society: kids and criminals. A great many sexual predators become cops (or they try to) because the job gives them power and protection to some extent. Usually when it is a matter of one person's word over a cop, most people will side with the cop. The trick is to get a NUMBER of people singing the same tune. Then they have to listen because if they ignore the allegations and he offends and is caught, they are hella liable. BTW- sexual predators gravitate toward jobs which give them power, especially power over young people. FBI stats taken a few years ago show that of new sex offenders caught, over 75% of them were cops, teachers, coaches, preachers and so forth. I don't like cops but what I am saying isn't merely cop bashing. Police Departments need to screen their recruits much better and improve their training and oversight. Some of the people that they are giving a badge & a gun to these days aren't a hell of a lot better than the criminals.

May your 22nd year be the best yet! Happy b-day Jack!

Canadians are cool. We need more of them.

Pay Pal, cashier check or a simple briefcase full of cash would get my attention. But seriously folks- there are any number of writers who could do this project. The trick is finding one [or several] who will. Screenwriting is a quite different from the traditional forms that most writers here are familiar with. It is a brutal area to work in because you are writing for a team: producers, directors, studio peeps, actors, actresses- all of which WILL want to have some input into the process. Writing is usually a solitary task and many writers have great difficulty adjusting to what is, by necessity, essentially a collaboration. Many writers of novels and short stories who see their work (mal)adapted to the big screen or television are horrified at the results. Last year I was part of a collaboration called Collision which was a novel written in round-robin fashion. IMHO it worked fairly well because I did my home work and talked to other authors that had participated in past round-robins and learned from their mistakes. I wrote a document called the Gameplan and the first chapter of the story (which was a mystery BTW). the Gameplan established the setting, major characters and their relationships. It profiled the main characters, what they drive, hobbies, what they listen to, background, etc. The setting was very generic: a mid-sized US city named Springfield (yeah we stole it from the Simpson's ). The first chapter kicked off the story, set the tone and set up hooks for the other authors to follow. For any collaboration to work, guidelines are necessary to maintain order. No one author KNEW exactly what the answer to the mystery was. We figured it out one chapter at a time and it worked very well. [Collision is hosted at Awesomedude, CrvBoy and Deweywriter]. I would suggest a fresh approach to the series. BREAK THE SHIT COM MOLD! Destroy it. Set it on fire. Discard the ashes. The genre is a frequently beaten dead horse and everybody is sick of it. Slop-operas are pretty tired too. Many people avoid them because they are tightly woven and if you miss an episode, you are lost. Rather than a shit-com or slop-opera format, I would suggest a PLAY HOUSE format. The most well known play-house type series are the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. The "play house" is an hour/half-hour show which is essentially a number of loosely related short stories. I have never seen it applied to a drama but I think it would work quite well. Create a set of guidelines that define characters, setting, maybe define plot elements that are static or dynamic over time. Basically set the canvas and invite authors to submit short-stories written within those guidelines. The results will be quite different from anything that is out there now and that's exactly what you want: something that sets this apart from the competition and is not the same old formulaic shit that the studios and networks excrete. If you look at what has been successful in recent years, it is the shows that are innovative, well written and dramatic. 24, Lost, Jericho: they are all serial dramas with strong characters, solid writing, and keep the audience spellbound. Good luck and if you decide to go this way, I would be happy to contribute an episode or two. I'll even fore go the briefcase full of cash.I just wouldn't want to try to write the whole thing.

I would suggest an alternate: Mississippi We only show you the good parts if we like you.

I hate Rosanne Barr. It's not that she is crude, ugly and generally disgusting. What bothers me is that she revels in being crude, ugly and generally disgusting. She reminds me of my former bf's mother. [where is the puke emoticon?] Domestic goddess my ass.

>>From my (very) little knowledge of US laws, discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal in many of the above situations. Having laws enforced is yet another problem. This sort of illustrates the red state-blue state divide in the US. Some states DO have anti-discrimination laws and they are, quite predictably, blue states. Red states are where the problem lies in more ways than one.

Gay marriage is a red herring and frankly I'm sick of it. It will never happen in the US but gay political groups pin all of their hopes on it. All gay people would be better served if we went after basic human rights like equal opportunity employment, fair housing and other anti-discrimination protections: bread & butter economic and civil rights that gay people DO NOT have in the majority of the country. If we persue these rights and protections as clear cut civil rights issues, we'll win. If we persue gay marriage, a misunderstood and contentious issue that puts us in direct conflict with powerful religious lobbies, we'll lose every time. It's a simple matter of numbers and they've got more.

No need to apologize Myr. I've been on GA for a couple of years now and you run a great site. In the wilds of the Internet, all sorts of things can go wrong: bad updates, bugs, hackers, malware, bad network connections... Truthfully- it's amazing that anything works. I've run UNIX boxes since the mid eighties: HP/UX, SVR4, Sun, Ultrix, Linux and so on. It's all good stuff. The SysAdmin's big gun is always kill -9 pid It wacks those wild processes like Sicilian him man.

Amazing! NJ is Sweet 16! (Not really, NJ is always sweet )

V1280 Scorpii = Nova Scorpii 2007 (February 7, 2007) Source: American Association of Variable Star Observers IAUC 8803 announces a new nova in Scorpius, independently discovered by Y. Nakamura and Y. Sakurai. The position is 16:57:40.91 -32:20:36.4 J2000 and the unfiltered magnitude is about 8.3 (T. Krajci, 2007-02-06). Spectra indicate blue color, no emission blueward of 540nm, but Halpha emission with P-Cyg profile. Report observations to the AAVSO as: 9999+99 V1280 Sco. Please be sure to indicate what you used for comparison stars. Thank you for your astronomical efforts and contributions! This special notice was compiled by: Arne A. Henden _________________________________________________________________ No- this isn't a super-nova. They are bigger and more dramatic. This is an outburst of a recurrent nova- a white dwarf that has an extremely unstable outer layer. Here is a good explanation of how they tick: Nova at Wiki This Nova is special because it is the brightest one in several years and is fairly easy to see. If you go outside to look for it, it is the "new" star inside the curl in Scorpio's tail.

>>Chinese guys are soo cute LOL- well there is that. Vietnamese and Thai guys aren't bad either.

Happy birthday Nono! Best wishes for a wonderful year!

In my experience the best room mates are cats. You never expect a cat to pay bills or even rent. Cats don't do drugs, throw wild parties, listen to rap music or hip-hop or get the cops called. Nor will they run up the phone bill, borrow your stuff without notice, wear your clothes, scratch your CDs, lounge around the place in boxers, download spyware and virus infested porn, bring home an underage date, change the thermostat, or move out the day before rent is due. While cats can be annoying, they are much easier to cope with than people.

I agree with Colin. NEC makes a very good monitor. A few years ago they merged with Mitsubishi and are the heir apparent to "Diamondscan". For a very long time I installed Mitsubishi monitors for my customers who bought new PCs. Of the several hundred that I installed, I replaced only 1 which was the best record of any manufactuer. If you go NEC, be picky about the model you get. Look at some sites that rate hardware like PC magazine or Tom's Hardware and make good and sure that youb are getting exactly what you want. I bought an HP flatscreen at a steep discount when I bought my PC. It is sturdy and steady and I have no complaints.

I think that he does needs a cure- for being a 2-faced sack of >Censored<

Setting Goals is important for getting things done. I encourage young people to do exactly what you are doing. There are a few things that you should keep in mind: Keep your goal realistic- if you are 100 pounds, you are unlikely to become a dominate linebacker in the time allowed. Don't overbook your goals- learning calculus, physics and C programming is a bit much for 3 months but you might do it in 6. Have a plan to succeed- this is the difference between goals from wishes This goal is your own- it is for you and no one else. Don't let anyone discourage you or tell you that you can't or that its not worth it. Success/failure is by your own yardstick- it is about the journey, not the destination Make it a priorty- goals slip away when day to day crap crowds them out I wish you luck and stand ready to buy a copy- and hope you'll sign it. JS

Luc- My condolences for the loss of Pretty Baby. They really do become family and I know how much it hurts to lose even one. Cats can have a number of congential and other sorts of problems that can lead to sudden death. [usually involving the heart, kidneys, liver or vascular system] From the limited amount of information that I gathered from your blog, this sounds like it is probably the case. For some reason cats with Tortiseshell coats are prone to strokes which is how I lost Sissy a few years ago. They go to sleep and just don't wake up which is an easy way to go but a foul surprise to their people. Most of the other things that could have gone wrong have symptoms that would have been hard to miss so I seriously doubt that you have a pending "cat plague". James

Jack Bauer Interrogates the Moonites __________________________________________________________________ What? You guys don't watch the news? Sigh. OK- here's the set up which makes the video hysterically funny. These are Mooninites- obnoxious 2-dimensional creatures from the moon. They are recurring characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: a cartoon that appears in the wee hours of the morning on the Cartoon Network and enjoys a cult-like following among slackers and potheads. Aqua Teen Hunger force has a stunning array of idioticvillians who are only slightly dumber than the heroes of the show: Frylock (a large order of McDonald's fries), Master Shake (a milkshake) and Meat-wad (a lump of hamburger meat with a suitable IQ). To promote the show, a New York ad agency, using Guerrilla marketing put a number of displays in major cites all over the country that look like this: Boston authorities pushed the panic button and thought that it must be a bomb. It has electronics, led lights, batteries and a message that we don't understand. It must be a bomb. Right? CNN: Two held after ad campaign triggers Boston bomb scare (P)MSNBC: Cartoon promo causes panic in BostonMarketing ploy for

My goodness WrathofMagneto! If that's what you did when you were bored, I can't wait to see what you come up with when you are inspired. The talent of the people here at GayAuthors never ceases to amaze me. I'm just glad they let me in. :wacko:

After a great deal of thought, I'm going to leave Broken alone... at least for a few more months. What I will do is continue the sci-fi thing I have on the back-burner called Operation Hammerhead. It's fun and has a lot of potential. It can get me back in the saddle without jumping off the deep end. Thanks for your input!

Razor- One never knows what the different seasons of life may bring. We really don't know who we will be 10, 20 or 30 years down the road. Many gay people have proven to be excellent parents- when they are ready and up to the task. What we go through as kids often gives us an understanding and/or empathy that str8 parents just don't come with. Never say never. Never is long, long time. James