6 Months of Writing

General

Six months ago yesterday, I started writing daily. Although in the beginning I sometimes fell short, I mostly kept my committment to writing at least 500 words a day. For the longest time, I posted what I wrote. Recently, because I wanted to focus on writing and not necessarily posting, I stopped sharing my daily writings but I have kept up the streak.

Last night, curious about how much I’ve done, I sat down and added it all up. I wanted to mark the milestone. Because I do my writing in Writer, a distraction-free online text editor, I didn’t have an easy way to add up the word count. I had to do it manually, which was a bit of a pain. Luckily I only have to do that part once because now it’s all in a tidy spreadsheet.

I have written, in 6 months of intentional, habitual practice, just over one hundred thousand words. In fact, yesterday I passed that mark; the total as of last night is 100,323 words.

I was proud, and it made me cry a bit. That’s a lot of words. 100,323 divided by 182 days means an average of about 551 words a day. That daily number is easy enough to reach; clearly I can do it because I have done it. But 100K? That feels like a stretch. But I have demonstrated that I can do that, too.

Not every daily piece of writing is good writing. And they are not all on the same topic. Each one is whatever I wanted to write at the moment I sat down. Some of it is garbage (by my personal standards) and some of it is good (also by my own internal measure) but all of it is mine.

Is it time to ask a new question? Build on my success? Perhaps, perhaps. The obvious next step would be, can I do my daily writing towards a goal other than word count? Could I tell one continuous narrative?

I don’t know. Can I?

My Nerd Holidays

Fandom

A friend of mine has fallen in love with The Last of Us, primarily through the HBO TV show. She has played a little bit of the game but I don’t think she’s finished it. All of this is preamble to her texting me a promo last week for Outbreak Day 2024 from Naughty Dog, the developer of the game series. She had thought it meant that Season 2 was coming sooner than previously announced.

I had to explain that Outbreak Day, traditionally 26 September, was the day in-game that the cordyceps infection reached the US. And because it’s a specific date, fans have made it a day to celebrate the game, story, and characters. The TV show is still not coming until next year; but fans will absolutely be celebrating Outbreak Day. She undersstood, though she was a bit disappointed.

I realized that there are lots of holidays on the Fan Calendar; dates that specific fandoms choose to talk about the stories and worlds they love. Here’s an incomplete listing of the fandoms I participate in, its meaning in-universe and in the real world, and whether or not it’s one I celebrate.

First Contact Day

In-universe: 5 April 2063

In the Star Trek universe, Zephrem Cochrane invented anti-matter/matter powered warp drive, taking flight in Earth’s first starship, the Phoenix, from Bozeman, Montana, United States of America, on 5 April 2063, an historic event. His flight attracted the attention of a Vulcan science ship, leading to Earth’s first recorded contact with extraterrestial life. Star Trek fans the world over celebrate every April on this day.

Star Wars Day

The Fourth of May

I’ve written before about how much I hate that a universe I love so very much gets it’s special universally-recognized day of the year from a foolish pun. Yes, yes, May the Fourth be with you. Ugh. By all rights, Star Wars Day should be May 25, since the original movie was released into theaters on 25 May 1977. But I don’t get to make the rules. May 4th is Star Wars Day.

The Last of Us Day (formerly Outbreak Day)

In universe: 26 September 2003 / 2013

This day celebrates the game and television series The Last of Us. The cordyceps infection reached a critical mass in the United States, having spread from South America (game) or Indonesia (TV show). In the real world, Naughty Dog renamed the day The Last of Us Day after the actual global pandemic of COVID-19 made outbreaks hit a bit too close to home.

The Great War

10 October 2077

The Fallout game series gives us the date of humanity’s Great War. In a single day in October, nuclear war destroyed the United States, turning the entire continent into a radiated wasteland full of mutants, ghouls, and leather-clad survivors. The bombs fell and it was all over very quickly.

Mass Effect Day

7 November

In the Mass Effect universe, Earth’s special forces can achieve an N designation, of which there are seven levels. The best of the best are known as an N7. Fans of the sci-fi series have taken that designation and declared November 7 “N7 Day“, and the developers and fans use the day to share fan art, stories, and raise donations for various charities and causes.

Love you

Joy

Dad, umprompted, said “Love you” today when I was leaving for work. Of course, I said it back, though it took me a minute or two to register its signifigance. I’ve been sneaking in a “love you” to him, mostly when I am headed to bed, here and there, just to see how he reacts, and today, he initiated it.

That’s a win over toxic masculinity. Dad is getting up there in age, he’s been making comments about not being in the best of shape and not being long for this world. I hate to hear it but of course, he is right. That still does not mean that he should not be careful or that we should not discourage or prevent him from doing dangerous things like, for example, drive.

But it does mean that we should absolutely treat every moment on this dumb planet of dumbness with some care. Savor the nice moments, tell each other that we love each other, and enjoy the sunrises and sunsets we have the privilege to notice and savor.

“Not long for this world” reminds me, always, that this is the only world we have. Yes, we are aware of other worlds out there; there are plenty of observed and named exoplanets, as well as several in our own solar system, like Mars, Venus, or several of the outer moons and asteroids. Those are all hostile to human life and too far away for easy travel.

And, of course, when someone like dad says they’re “not long for this world” they are referring to spiritual or post-death worlds, of which there are almost certainly none. At least they would be even more difficult to reach and return from than the exoplanets. Other dimensions may be mathmatically possible but that doesn’t mean a comic-book style multiverse exists that we can travel to and from. No alternate universe Brians and Dads out there, goatee’ed or not, to take over my life and tell me all my life choices have been agnoized over for no good reason.

We only have this one world, and it, my friends, is in terrible shape these days. Our pollution and reckless capitalism has caused an increase in the kinds of gasses that cause the world to get warmer overall, wreaking havoc on climates we have grown used to to provide us with air and clean water and food to eat and temperatures that don’t cause us to overheat or freeze.

That same capitalism has produced a handful of people (largely white men) who lord their power over us. They use that power to collect more pointless money above and beyond the unimaginable money and power they already have. They do this to the detriment of the large majority of the population. And scammers and con artists are fanning the flames of hate and anger to try to leverage even more power for themselves.

I won’t go on and on about the problems, though. For now, I just want to say that even in in the face of all those troubles, we can still smile a bit when someone who doesn’t usually, tells us they love us.

Love you, too, dad. G’night.

Hand-written HTML

blogiversary

Today is the 22nd anniversary of the Lunar Obverse blog on this domain, bamoon.com. I have a calendar entry that tells me I bought the domain on this day in 2002 but that’s not right; I bought the domain itself on 7 January 2001. I just didn’t do anything with it until 17 September 2002. I bought two other domains on that January day and I still own all of them. The other two are lunarobverse.com, and brian-moon.com.

What I wanted to purchase were moon.com, and lunar.com but even as early in the domain registration history as 2001 all of those had already been purchased and used. moon.com and lunar.com were both registered in 1994; and I would have sworn that brianmoon.com was already registered when I was looking for domains but according to the age checker, brianmoon.com was registered in 2005. I could have had my own damned name this whole damned time. Dammit.

So I don’t have to celebrate the anniversary of my domain just yet. I would like to celebrate this blog, though. I think the first host for this place was on an old internet service run by Steve Jackson Games out of Austin, TX, known as Illuminati Online, or IO.com for short. That service goes even farther back, having been a bulletin board system (BBS), run on personal computers and accessed by calling in over phone landlines, but I was never cool or rich enough to make long distance calls for chat and games. All the BBS’s I dialed in to had local numbers, or 800 numbers, like GEnie.

But in the late 90s I did finally get an email address at IO.com, and in my personal directory, I hand-wrote some HTML pages, used a simple graphics program to make a logo for Lunar Obverse, and started posting stories. The URL for it was something like http (no https yet) colon slash slash io dot com slash users slash public-html slash ~bmoon, and I was proud of it and the stories I posted there. I knew enough to know that this URL was never going to roll off the tongue (or the fingers) like apple.com but it was mine to post whatever I wanted.

At XOXO this year, Molly White started her talk by asking us to remember the first time the internet felt like magic. That old collection of HTML is mine. I probably have all those old files saved somewhere; I’m a digital packrat and tend to archive rather than delete. But whether or not those binaries are stored somewhere, the memories live on in my head. I wrote for the world wide web. I wasn’t special. Anyone could do it. That, paradoxically, is what made it special.

Eventually, after we survived Y2K, services like Blogger sprang up, providing homes for written word websites, and I moved my blog there. I am reasonably certain that Blogger is where I finally got to use bamoon.com, and this place reached it’s next form. I’ve written before about the transition from Blogger to bespoke blogging software written by a long-lost friend, and hosted on that friend’s server, my own computer, and now eminently portable as a WordPress site, so I won’t recount that story here. Suffice it to say that there are a lot of memories at this uniform resource locator (URL). Many many stories, and many more to come.

Thanks for reading, happy to have you here.

On This Day

General

Tomorrow will mark 22 years since I purchased the domain bamoon.com and began using it for my main space on the internets. Trying to think of a good way to celebrate.

Not to spoil things too much but the celebration will likely involve writing some words. Just sayin’.

Streak update

General

My 500 words a day streak continues. In private, as mentioned previously. I haven’t been writing anything coherent, just tapping out words until I reach my goal, so haven’t posted anything here. I’m glad you are still out there watching and reading my posts. I promise to have more substantial or at least entertaining things to say, soon. I know that habit forms the foundation for inspiration, after all.

My entire Rose City Comic Con 2024 experience

Joy

I went to Rose City Comic Con Saturday. My co-worker and team lead, J., very graciously gave me 3 day badges they and their spouse couldn’t use. They’ve been sick with Covid-19 all week, maybe longer, and they were not feeling up to the convention. So their loss is my gain! I do love going to the convention.

I wanted to do a cosplay but I wanted to do a subtle one. I didn’t want to go all out. So I put on hole-y jeans, a ratty t-shirt, my well-worn Dodgers cap, and beat up Chucks, and strapped my Pip-Boy on my arm. I was a random wastelander! Just the thought of it made me smile.

If I was really doing it right, I’d have dirt on my face and clothes, and a pack full of odds and ends, like a caps stash, a stimpack, some Rad-X and Radaway, stuff like that. Maybe next year! I could make a backpack with those items hanging off them. It’s too bad Andy & Bax closed; military surplus gear is perfect for stuff like that.

Also need protection. After all, the wasteland is a dangerous place. Something small, like the Delivererer or That Gun or a 10mm pistol. Could I 3D print one of those? I still have to make use of my co-worker’s 3D printer at some point.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of my dad’s face when I walked down the stairs and posed, arms akimbo, and announced I was doing a subtle cosplay! His flash of confusion, spotting the Pip-Boy, and his snort of laughter was just perfection. He’s never played the Fallout games but he did watch the TV show and liked it well enough; he recognized the thing on my arm.

I spent probably a good 20-30 minutes trying to find legal parking near the convention center. I ended up parking at Lloyd Center and walking. Technically illegal but I wasn’t the only convention-goer parking there. They can’t tow us all! OK they could probably tow us all but the likelihood of that is low.

Several people complimented me on my Pip-Boy and I told every single one of them “Oh, this thing? I found it on a dead jerk in a blue jumpsuit.” I wasn’t just proud of this cosplay, I had a ready-and-waiting joke to open a conversation with.

And then… the convention itself. Inside was fucking jam fucking packed. There were so many people, and it was so warm in there. I was drenched in sweat, and I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t imagine the people in full costumes with masks and cloaks and all that. My wrist under the Pip-Boy was soaked; sweat dripped down onto my hand. Hated it.

So many people. I was never comfortable in crowds, being a neurodivergent introvert, but today was more people than I’ve seen in a very long time. The pandemic really has cooked my brain. I masked up inside, and wandered around the show floor, and looked at the cool costumes, and then after maybe a half-hour or 45 minutes, had to go outside, drink some water, take my mask off, and sit in the shade under a tree.

I did that cycle one more time, and then just could not bring myself to go back inside. I left; walked back to my car, and drove to Kay’s Bar for a beer and a giant jalepeño burger, before heading home for a nap. How exciting. I can’t be in a crowd anymore. Great.

Just for one day

Music

Hey, bestie?
Do you remember seeing Spoon at the Crystal Ballroom a few years ago?

Hi. Barely.

You, me, K., T.

Sorta.

Do you remember the opening act?

Bad memory, sorry.
Name it, pls.

Nicole Atkins

Nope

A brunette.
Totally my type LOL

Tracy adds a heart to “Totally my type LOL”

I got a poster signed by her
Anywho
I’m slowly getting to the point

Tracy adds a heart to “I got a poster signed by her”
I remember that happening!

So I still listen to her
And she did a cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” with Postmodern Jukebox that brings tears to my eyes

Your memory amazes me

And it came up on my drive home from work

Can’t listen now, but will later

And I was singing along
Belting it out
Oh shit are you in the middle of something?
Sorry sorry

Watching videos with C.
All good

I’m getting close to the point I promise

Tracy adds a laugh to “I’m getting close to the point I promise”

Anywho I thought to myself, self, this would be AMAZEBALLS in karaoke

Tracy adds an exclamation mark to “Anywho I thought to myself, self, this would be AMAZEBALLS in karaoke”

But there’s no way any karaoke place would have THIS SPECIFIC VERSION of this song

Well bestie

Guess the fuck what?!?!?

VOICEBOX HAS IT

Wow

Screenshot from the Voicebox Karaoke website song search page. Postmodern Jukebox's Heroes is in the middle of the list.

🎶 I, I will be king 🎶
🎶 And you, you will be queen 🎶

Anywho
Now singing real loud

Haha! Enjoy! Happy Friday Night!

There might be beer involved

I would hope so!
Cheers!