2015 Upcoming

Here's to an even better year than 2014. I finished writing a 170 page story, and I think I will have it finished by March; fingers crossed it'll be the one to kick open the door. Otherwise I got a ton of shorts I keep sending out. I hope you all achieve your goals and have great success in the new year.

Hawai'i

     Hawai'i is probably the best place on Earth. Don't tell anyone because it's already crowded with enough tourists. But seriously, tropical locations are the best. Perfect temperature. The water is perfect to swim in. There are hardly even many mosquitoes in Hawai'i. And the island itself is very peaceful and without strife. I remember when I was younger my family vacationed in Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. The native poor populations are mostly blacks, while the tourists were all affluent Asians/Whites. So there is some understandable animosity. What wasn't understandable was when one of them tried to run me over with a go-cart and I had to jump out of the way, and as I did he yelled out, "Is okay mon!"

     Anyway, here is Hawai'i (the big island) goodness.

The view from the backyard of our rented house.

The clouds were below the heights of Mauna Kea.

Kamehameha the Great, inventor of the Kamehameha Wave.

The Kīlauea Caldera

Inside a volcanic crater. 

Like entering a fantasy world.

The overlook over Polulu valley.

Wild horses! I zoomed in. Word of advice, don't get near wild horses. They can be dangerous.

                                                                Sunset over paradise.

Now back to writing!

Return and Christmas Writing

Hello everyone! Hope you all picked up my newest short story 'Malvore' in the latest edition of Wicked Words. Unlike some of my previous story, this one isn't offered for free, it's $2.99 for the 100+ page volume (crocodile tears). I have been hard at work writing, writing about five pages a day in this big project of mine. As soon as that's done, I'll be back to writing more short stories and hopefully I can start this year off with a bang and get more shorts published. I have about 9 in rotation, so I'm bound to get some place to pick them up.

In the meantime, I just got back from Hawaii, so when I feel productive I will grab some of my fave pics and post them. I saw dolphins and a giant spider; the former were more impressive up close, and the latter I didn't get a picture of because he was hiding in our car until just the right moment to terrify us. I knew we weren't in danger though because I looked up venomous animals in Hawaii and found out there were none. I did this because one night I slept outside and woke up in pain with a numb feeling in my wrist. Turns out there's nothing venomous but the centipedes pack a bite like none other.

So yes. Stories rolling along, pictures income. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, we're all just waiting for the next season of House of Cards.

It Has Arrived!

     My most recent story 'Malvore' is on Amazon Kindle in 'Wicked Words Vol. 3.' There are 112 pages of fantasy, science fiction and horror in this beautiful little zine, and about 16 of them are mine.

     'Malvore' is a play on the old legend of monsters that can only prey on humans when they are invited into their homes. While this legend has been used recently in 'Let the Right One In,' the story goes back hundreds if not thousands of years in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The story opens up with Nina sitting in a lit hallway with a shotgun in hand, staring at the darkness, using what courage hasn't yet left her to scream at the monsters to come. Funny how now she begs for an invasion by a malignant force when not long before she used to fall asleep with her husband's arm around her pregnant belly.

     Malvore and the entire 'Wicked Words Vol. 3' are available for just $2.99 or £1.97 at Amazon UK. Give it a look, purchase if you feel generous and need good reading material, and if you feel like being awesome, please leave a review of the magazine so this gets more attention on Kindle. Thank you so much, hope the story gives you nightmares.

How to Come Up the Right Way

     Hey, so I intended this blog not just to showcase my own work, but to link with other writers and connect with anyone wanting to know the inside baseball of writing. So, let's talk about coming up the right way. Oh sure, there have been a few non-writers who got a wild idea one day that, "Oh my god, wouldn't it be fun to write a novel?" And there are a couple people (and here the word 'people' is a stretch. More like bog-creatures) who have written fan fiction and one day decided they would like to turn their blended scraps of other people's ideas into a novel. And yes, a few of these cases have sold millions, which is why mainstream literature (rant cuts off abruptly here)

     But you want to do it right? You want to develop your skills and work your way up the amateur leagues by publishing short stories before you pump out your seven book epic fantasy? Well then good for you buckaroo! I know that's why I wanted to do. When I was starting out I would listen to Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman interviews and they all had the same advice: write.

     There's really no trick about it. When you write you develop your skills, your style, you learn the what editors want and you become that much better. But where to start?

     Well luckily for you, modern man has a solution. That solution is called Duotrope. Duotrope is an online database that has literally thousands of literary magazines in its listings. Furthermore, Duotrope breaks down the listings by: genre, word length, payment, submission type (paper or electronic), how difficult they are to get in, and a host of other things so that you can find the perfect litmag for you. There is a small fee of $50 for a yearly subscription, but if you have even the slightest desire to be a writer this shouldn't be a big deal. Will $50 really stop you, you John Steinbeck in the making?

     So that's my tip to all you aspiring writers. Rack up a couple short stories, four of five, get a Duotrope account, and send 'em out one by one. Depending on the magazine it will take a while to hear back; I always have at least four short stories in rotation at all times as some get published and I replenish the stock with new stories. So go out there and let the world know how much of a special little snowflake you are!

The Power of Nature

     A couple weeks until my horror story is published! Perfect if you want to be terrified while cozying up by a fire. Until then I'm working on my novel when I couldn't figure out what to put in next. Coincidentally, my dad drags me to a hike. I didn't want to go. I told him it would rain. He doesn't believe in Google. It did. But it was great and now I know exactly where the rest of it is going. Nothing like getting out in the middle of nowhere and just thinking.

Another story incoming!

Hell, it's about time! I am getting a horror short story titled 'Malvore' published this December in Wicked Words. It's a horror story, so it will be perfect to give you the winter-time chills.

It's a good thing it's getting published soon too; I don't think I have gone a single year since 2009 without getting at least something published professionally, but over the past year I have been working on a novel that has consumed so much of time that I haven't been able to write short stories. Thankfully, I managed to get this one published right before the years' end so my publishing streak is 5 years running!

2312, River of Gods and True Nerdom

     Over the past couple of weeks I have been contemplating the state of 'Nerdom' and geek culture, as it is defined today. The zeitgeist has certainly gone in favor of geek icons, geek stories, geek heroes, but I can't help but shake the feeling that the spirit of geek culture is lost. When I was growing up in the 1990s, on the tail end of when video games, anime, comics, in-story universes (such as the Marvel-verse, WoW-verse,) were consider low culture and weren't respectable. Now though, 'geek culture' is considered to have won as now the biggest movies are superhero movies, comic-cons are enormous, vid games are super popular, even e-sports.

      Pro player Soulkey's first person perspective in a game. Who wouldn't want to watch pro players this good? Warning: Soulkey is so fast it may cause seizures. 

     Perhaps I am just a cynical bastard, but doesn't it feel like even though the franchises and intellectual properties are the same, the actual spirit is gone? That perhaps all these old science-oriented and highly speculative properties have been reworked into highly stylized, Hollywood stories that are interchangeable from all of the dumb 'non-geek' works, but no one has noticed that style has replaced substance?

 

     My most contentious example of this is the new BBC Sherlock series. Don't get me wrong, the music is great, the style is amazing, and the acting is impeccable. But does anyone else notice that Sherlock Holmes never actually uses intelligence or science to solve any crime? Ever? Thanks to fast-paced editing I think most people failed to notice that Sherlock either makes impossible guesses or says things that are completely obvious? 

                                       Oh yes Cumberbatch, I'm coming for you.

     Episode 4 with Irene Adler is my favorite example. Sherlock steals Irene's phone upon meeting her and has 3 chances to guess what the 10 character code is to unlock her phone to get the information. He gets no clues but manages to guess SHERLOCKED and figures it out just in time!....Except how does that make any sense? (1) Irene Adler programmed the code before she ever met Sherlock in person (2) if she did genuinely become infatuated with Sherlock from afar, why would that mean she would make the code on her phone containing military secrets a pun dedicated to Sherlock? (3) Am I supposed to believe a super-genius like Irene Adler isn't going to make a code based on semi-random numbers and letters like Jm4!Q9b$ or something like that, that no one can guess? So Episode 4 ends with Sherlock using no science or deductive reasoning, but making a literally impossible guess to solve the mystery.

     All the other episodes are essentially the same. In Episode 1 the killer actually finds Sherlock and tell him his whole plan, and Sherlock isn't even given the chance to outsmart him thanks to Watson. In Episode 2 the writers make a tongue-in-cheek reference to Sherlock's uncanny ability to get very specific things write by having Watson mock Sherlock for not knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, implying that Sherlock's knowledge is very specific to forensic stuff...and then the episode has Sherlock decode 16th century Chinese secret codexes and we're supposed to believe he would reasonably know this because the part of a normal human's brain that remembers pop culture and 4th grade science has been removed and replaced with a part that knows medieval East Asian wordplay...? 

     Seriously, watch any episode of Sherlock and what you'll find is that he never actually uses his intelligence to solve crimes; it's all just impossible guesses and then common sense (as in Ep 5 when he noted that the British scientist said, "I'll call you" which is an Americanism, instead of "I'll ring you," so Sherlock was able to deduce that he lived in America for a while...what a genius!).

It's rare that Americans do better than Brits at high-brow cinema, but RDJ's Sherlock is much more faithful than the BBC's, and not just because it takes place in the same time period as the books. 

     I know everyone loves Sherlock except me and another writer friend I know, but I can't get behind it. Yes, Sherlock does everything right EXCEPT the writing. The actual plot makes no sense, and in my mind what's the point? The whole point of the old Sherlock Holmes character was someone who uses intelligence and science to solve cases. What is the point of calling Benedict Cumberbatch's character Sherlock if he just fires off one-liners and improbable guesses?

     The same could be said about a lot of revived nerd properties, such as the new Star Trek series. I'm not going to critique those as much because I think most people realize they are silly. I'll just say, why did Nero plot revenge on Vulcan for destroying his home planet in the future when he was in the past and could just prevent it himself? Or why did Old Spock not teleport off the ice moon when he literally lived next door to someone with a teleporter? 

  

     I'm not saying either of these are necessarily bad, but when people say geek culture has won I think we need to take it with a grain of salt. I mean, the new Sherlock is good; the pacing is great, but it comes at the cost of actual deductive reasoning. The new Star Trek has great action sequences and is funny, but what happens in the film is that Spock begins to explain something scientific and Kirk interrupts him in a way that is not only humorous but communicates to the audience that Spock is intelligent (without ever having to do anything intelligent) while Kirk is brash. In the 1960s Trek show, Spock would have gone on for 5 minutes explaining the logic and science behind something, which would have been boring, true, but it would have at least proven that there was some intelligence in the show. These properties are good in their own way but it seems that these 'nerd' properties have become famous by removing everything about them that made them nerdy. 

     Which isn't to say that our culture is totally bereft of nerdom. Stories which have a lot of thought behind them and don't compromise are available, just not as big as the more vapid ones. My favorite example of a great sci-fi film would be Sunshine, a gem by Danny Boyle (one of my fave directors) or District 9.

     As far as books go, if you're looking for something to read (that isn't my work...hint hint) Ian McDonald's 'River of Gods' is an amazing work that is so filled with Indian culture and science knowledge that it reaches the point of pretentiousness. River of Gods takes place in 2047 India and it tells the story of 6 different characters from all different castes, classes and backgrounds in the holy city of Varansi on the Ganges river, as a conspiracy involving advanced A.I.s erupts during a war crisis with a neighboring Indian state (by the way, India has split up into different states who contend with each other). To say that this book is thick is an understatement, and I actually gave up reading it for a year because it was so thick on science and exploring Indian culture that I felt it ignored the central plot and characters. But trust me, the last 50 pages are worth it. It's as if the first 550 pages were all one giant set up to a punchline that lasts for 50 pages and blows your mind at every step. if you want a hard sci-novel that isn't just an empty crime drama but with gadgety things, it doesn't get any better than River of Gods

     Currently I am reading the only book possibly thicker than River of Gods, which is 2312. 

     I can't even begin to explain this, suffice it to say it won the Nebula and Hugo award and practically every sci-fi award. It drives me a bit crazy because it is basically a science textbook that covers astronomy, physics, theoretical physics, optics, biology, anatomy. and a host of other topics and there is some vague story going on in the background. I am already mostly done with it and when I start a book I finish it damnit! There's only been one book that I refused to finish in my life, so I will work my way through 2312. If you are looking for a challenge it is worth picking up, and even if you don't finish you will at least pick up some interesting ideas to discuss with your smart friends, because oh Lord is this book thick with great ideas. So much so it has trouble fitting in a story. But what do I know? Did I win a Nebula or Hugo award? No(t yet). 

Here Comes the Big Time

     A couple days ago I finished what might be my best work! I wrote a 60 page romantic fantasy novella set in modern day rural France. I'm so confident that I am sending it off to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which is perhaps the most well-respected and widely read F&SF litmags in America and the world at large. Stephen King and a host of world famous award winners have published there, so it would definitely be an honor to be published there. Fingers crossed, as it would certainly be my biggest acceptance ever!

     Until then, shall we admire a beautiful sunset and my trouble-making dogs together? 

Sophie, the little black and gold one, is actually quite the little monster. Always wants attention, always bothering Tanner. But she is too cute to stay mad at.

Oregon Coast Adventures in a Storm!

A friend of mine and I went to Newport and a few national park areas. Unfortunately it is Autumn, meaning that it rains almost every day on the coast/Willamette Valley; in fact it was storming when we got there! But the pictures turned out nice and we had wet, cold adventures.

                                       A sea lion! There were quite a few when we went.

                                          Newport doing it's impression of Silent Hill

                                 This is all we could see out the car at times due to the heavy
                                                                     fog and rain.

                                 This is horror movie weather. Can you spot the ax-murderer?

I am usually not photogenic, but maybe the cold weather suits me.

Southern Adventures

Well, I need to post more often. I have been pretty occupied. I have a novel, a novella and 9 short stories I am sending out to lit agents and lit mags (respectively). With 11 different works out there I am sure to be published soon! Until then, I should update you with some of my adventures. First! The South (specifically Charleston).

                                               The fam rented a little Southern mansion on
                                                 the coast. It's on stilts for hurricane season.

                                                                    The backyard.

                                              The backyard's dock which leads to a canal
                                                         leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

                                                                    In Charleston

                                Fort Sumter. The coolest part of the boat ride over was seeing
                                                                   dolphins in the bay.

                             A Southern visit wouldn't be complete without a visit to a swamp.

                                                               Take that Charleston!

Mortified

     Every now and then I have the opportunity or misfortune of finding some of my old worker. As a writer I take pride in evolving, developing my style and becoming better. So when I come across my old stuff, especially from when I was starting out I can't help but cringe. Yes, even at some stuff that I published. Recently I found five word docs from four years ago and it was like reading the ravings of a psyche patient. Most of them weren't finished and all of them were clearly going for something but got whacked at a dark gas station along the way. But one particular story I found was finished, in proper manuscript format and damned if it didn't make me smile. In fact, it was so good I added it to my revolving cake display and am going to send it off to litmags for publication. It was definitely ahead of its time.

     But yes, looking back at older works is a lot like finding your old childhood diary and realizing how much of an idealistic moron you were.

The Kindest Rejection Ever

     After quitting my job, and a glorious little outing to South Carolina, it's back to writing and submitting! 

     Which brings me to my favorite rejection, which just came in last week. I sent in my book to a literary agency which will go unnamed. The response I received was: "There really was a lot to like about it, I thought. The writing was great and the world building credible, and nicely served up." But ultimately the publisher chose not to take it due to the slower build-up (in my defense, I only got to send in the first three chapters. The shark-punching and explosions come later). 

     So, I'm a great writer, but no thanks. As far as rejections go, that is at least a nice way to put it, and it beats my previous favorite rejection I got for a story which remains unpublished to this day. A year ago I wrote a high-concept piece meant to illustrate the arbitrary assignment of meaning to actions. The set-up was that an alien who was monitoring the daily life of a California yuppie has a machine that tracks his every movement and another that tracks his emotions. The two fall out of sync and so the alien has to put the daily routine and emotions through a simulator and see which is the more plausible. Three simulations (or stories) are created and while the actions are the same in each story their meaning completely changes. Either in one story the yuppie is a happy person who learns his girlfriend is cheating on him and looks for solace in a Buddhist monastery. In another he is suicidally depressed and when his girlfriend reveals she is cheating on him, something which he expected, he feels a weight lift off his shoulders as the certainty brings him closer to acceptance and the Buddhist principle of letting go. In the final scenario he realizes he is gay and his girlfriend cheating on him opens up the possibility for him to fall in love with Krish, the bald-headed, soft-handed monk.

     I thought it was good. The only rejection letter that detailed why it was rejected (most litmags don't because they deal with hundreds of stories and personal letters would bog them down) said it was 'too esoteric.' Perhaps being the pseudo-intellectual I am I took that as backhanded praise. But it would have been nice to have that piece published and share it's genius with the world.

     C'est la vie. Which is French for 'dammit.'

Soon....

     I have had quite a period of silence recently. I haven't stopped blogging, don't worry! Recently though, I have been in the process of quitting my job so I can be a full-time writer and apply to grad schools. But before I leave, I have been working crazy hours, but soon it will be over and I will return to you! Soonish....my last day is Friday, but then my family is taking a mini-vacation to Charleston and Savannah, which will be the farthest South I've ever been.

     In the meantime I have been tortured because I keep thinking up new ideas for stories and yet I have had no time to write them. But as soon as I am unemployed I will have the freedom to write out all the stories I wrote, and maybe even a few philosophical essays.

     Finally, I sent out 5 stories to litmags, just waiting for them to respond and I have kept firing out the novel, so hopefully I will have news on those fronts as well.

Stories That Scare the Author

I find that the best story ideas come five minutes after my head hits the pillow. On the one hand, I have enough sanity left that my brain hasn't yet entered Wonderland, but at the same time logic starts to leave the story flows more smoothly. Last night I was thinking up a horror story, which was scary enough to keep me awake, which is always a good sign.

Unfortunatley, I am still working on my rural French, fantasy rom-com story, so this horror story will only be keeping me up for the next few nights.

Now My Rejections Mean Nothing!!

NOOOOOOO!!

Sorry. For the longest time I have been holding on to my rejection letters for stories that didn't get published. Pourqoui? Because there is a litmag called 'The Rejected Quarterly'; which publishes stories that have been rejected five times. Although submitting there must be scary; to rejected from the rejects? That's pretty far into the island of misfit toys.

Well, I checked today and it seems inactive. So now my rejections mean nothing. Goodbye you beautiful little e-zine.

Credit to Digital Artists

     Speaking of the Marvel aesthetic, and how the most interesting thing in their movies is the background, I can't help but think about how digital artists never get credit for making a film more endearing. So often they get blamed for being used in place of actual stories. But there's more than just one film that is enhanced, and even works just because of digital magic.

     Perhaps the best example would be Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Gollum was such a well-done and endearing character. I honestly think that if he were played by an actor it might have ruined the movie. Can you imagine a dirty, bald man walking around in a loincloth instead of the CGI Gollum with oversized blue eyes and overly large smile? Essentially having an insane hobo in Lord of the Rings might have scared children.

     Okay, maybe Tom Hanks could have made a good Gollum, but aside from that, it might be horrifying...

Marvel's Aesthetic

Just some small thoughts today. I think at this point everyone on Earth has seen Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. On the one hand, it was extremely well-done, but on the other, it was a point for point rehash of every hero origin story ever. I know most people have raved about this, but I thought it was just decent because it didn't take any chances, but if I can say one thing about Marvel, is that while their stories are unoriginal, their aesthetic is amazing.

      Whenever the universe is in dangers, there will always be mid-30s,

heterosexual white people to save the day

     Aside from just the generally great set-pieces for Guardians of the Galaxy what really intrigued me was the main 'Good World,' Xandar, isn't like any other sci-fi world I'd seen before. In any civilized home world you either get Coruscant, a civilized, super-Manhattan, you get Blade Runner's L.A., which is a fire-choked, smog-filled hellhole, or you get Naboo, a stylistically beautiful sci-fi world with waterfalls and natural creatures and bad acting. What made Xandar so different and so fascinating is that Xandar was an image of the future of civilization as a giant mall. Nothing in Xandar was natural, the fountains were all artificial, the trees were put in place rather than grown naturally, and while the architecture was interesting it seemed out of place.
     In so many sci-fi movies you can't help but ask why anyone would ever leave the main, super-civilized world. In movies like Blade Runner you can understand why people wouldn't live there, as it is a hellhole, while properties like Gundam, Firefly, and Star Wars assert that most people choose not to live on the main, civilized planet because the outliers are in conflict with the main civilizing world. In Guardians, the setting implied something wholly different: that people like Starlord chose not to live there just because it's so boring. There didn't seem to be any discernible nature on the planet, nothing particularly seedy, you could even go so far as to say that it's a 'child-proofed' planet. It's an interesting thought, and one that makes sense. As our technology prevents death and prolongs death it's natural to think that humanity would do everything to make itself safer as people live hundreds of years longer and are in better health. As such, you can expect thousands of health and safety regulations, everything has a guardrail, a net, and there are no big drop offs or cliffs. Basically, in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, civilization has become Irvine, California: one big gated community where you can get fined if your garage door is open because it's unsightly. So as to the question, "why would anyone ever leave a safe, prosperous place for the dangerous outlands?" Might be answered by Starlord with, "Because it's fucking boring!"
     Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but my original point about Marvel remains: the main plots are the most painfully tired there are, and just because there are a handful of diverse side-kicks doesn't help make the all-white 'Hero Myth' any better. But where Marvel really shines is in the background. If only the stuff in the foreground was half as interesting...

Gary Girod: Master Juggler

Well, I've sent out five short stories to literary magazines and my novel to another agent. Unfortunately, it takes usually a month or more to hear back. What's worse, is that you can expect more rejections than acceptances so it may take an entire season or more to publish. This is why I try to write a ton of stories so that way I always have something going through the loops and getting published. I swear, as soon as something new comes up I will add it to the blog.

1984 Meets LOTR, Последний кольценосец

     Has anyone ever read a totalitarian fantasy novel? I can't help but think that might be an incredibly interesting premise for a story, something along the lines of 1984 or Brave New World, but with illithids disguised as Elves ruling over mankind or something. There are hints of totalitarianism in much of fantasy literature, but they are only used to make the bad guys seem more evil with the THREAT of totalitarianism, but like Voldemort, Sauron, they always fail. Also, themes of dictatorship are sprinkled throughout fantasy literature, like Thranduil in 'The Hobbit 2.'

But it's okay because he's pretty.

     The only out and out 'Totalitarian Fantasy' novel I can think of is 'The Last Ringbearer,' a novel that has had trouble getting published in English-speaking countries because it is an unapologetic rip-off of LOTR. The short of it, is that the novel, originally written in Russia as Последний кольценосец, retells the story of LOTR except that Morder is a peaceful Eastern civilization while the Western nations of Gondor and Rohan are war-mongering empires. It might be more interesting if it weren't so depressing and also such a flagrant and heavy-handed attack on the West by a Russian/pro-orc author.

     Totalitarian stories are so common in sci-fi, but practically non-existent in fantasy. Perhaps because people buy fantasy looking for what they wish the world was, while people buy sci-fi novels to read about their worst fears of our world coming true.

BTW I'm not dead.

     Contrary to what you may think, I am not dead! And neither was this blog! I have just been busy laboring, sending out my manuscript to literary agents, writing new short stories and sending them out to other people. I am going to keep writing and updating this blog with thoughts on the literary scene and hopefully I'll have some of my stories to publish, which will be linked. I will not be updating daily, but trust me, I have many a thought to pour out onto the world about story-crafting, and I shall!

Predicting the Future: Duct Tape

     Occasionally I write sci-fi stories and one of the hardest parts of writing sci-fi is: how will the future change and what technologies will be invented/come to prevalence? Writing sci-fi that takes place 1 or 2 years in the future is easy, because you can say that all current day technology is the same except the technology that's relevant to your story. The farther you move in time, the harder it gets, until you reach the hundred year mark and you basically have to play the role of a witch doctor in your predictions.

     There is a cheat though; I've found that in the history of humanity, every time there is a genuine problem there will always be a duct tape solution. Let's look at the history of medicine for example: every time there has been a major epidemic science has managed to come up with a treatment and, rarely, a cure, as int he cases of polio and smallpox. But more often than not, killers like AIDS, cancer, diabetes are researched until they have a workable treatment rather than an actual cure. Conspiracy theorists claim it's because doctors and hospitals want to make money off of expensive treatments rather than curing a disease. But there are two damning flaws to this conspiracy theory: (1) every doctor and researcher on the planet wants to be known as the person who found the cure to a major disease, so there is no way that if a cure is found it will stay hidden. (2) The conspiracy theory that cures are hidden to make people take expensive treatments relies on the logical fallacy that pharma companies need a logical excuse to charge people ridiculous prices. They don't, they raise prices all the time for no better reason other than people can't fight them.

     The truth about why we don't have a cure for AIDS or cancer is simply: it's hard. And once you reach the duct tape solution the incentive to cure a disease with a workable treatment falls off the map. Example: When AIDs was a huge epidemic and anyone who contracted it had a very short amount of time to live, there were companies and organizations working around the clock to cure AIDS. They did a tremendous amount of good and now a person with AIDS can live for 20 years if they take care of themselves. While AIDS as a killer in the United States has rapidly declined, cancer is the biggest killer and depending on which cancer you are diagnosed with the survival period is relatively small. As such, the largest amount of funding dollars, media coverage and research is towards cancer research.

     And this is how technology works: as long as you can find a solution that works relatively well, chances are things won't change. That's why doctors and lots of older professionals in Japan still use pagers instead of holograms. It's why subway systems and cars haven't all been replaced by tubes. And why duct tape will still be used for the next hundred years of human history. Yes, that is my prediction. Duct tape will be used for the next century. Why? Because duct tape is the single best 'Plan B' there is.

The perfection of technology.

     Whenever people need to actually weld something together, there are Plan As, but as far as Plan Bs duct tape is so reliable that astronauts have been using it for forty years.

Apollo 17's wheel. Because NASA is professional.

     I'm sure someone could come up with a better product than duct tape, but there doesn't seem to be any demand. There are already better solutions to duct tape, but all those are Plan As; costlier and more permanent. If a director needs to attach a camera to a dummy for multiple runs up a roller coaster they can make a mini-crane to hold it in place. But if they just need one shot they will duct tape a roller coaster or a snowboard, or someone's helmet.

     Because of the sci-fi law of Duct Tape Solutions, I'd say duct tape will be around for another hundred years. Though I'm not sure what kind of sci-fi story you could write about it...

New Landscapes

Canada is pretty idyllic. At least, Ontario with its thousands of lakes and western Alberta and British Columbia with their mountains. Everything in between was flat cornfields and tiny towns that never took off.

Despite this, I think I need to visit a part of the world that isn't North America or Europe. The landscape in Canada is so similar to Germany, England and Oregon. I think I need to go to Asia. My friend is trying to get me to go to southern India next Spring...