Polymath

Luigi's Purple Coins

Hooray for me, I finally managed to get the power star on the Luigi's Purple Coins level of Super Mario Galaxy! This means that, after fighting Bowser yet one more time, I can now play the game as Luigi.

I must have killed several hundred Marios to beat the level. I had not played the game in several months, in fact, when I decided to give it yet another try.

For those looking for tips, I will just repeat the advice given by others: decide on a path to follow around the level and keep working on it. Go for those 5 coin clusters, and spin-jump back to safety. And if the game is getting to you, give it a break for a month or so.

November

As if I didn't have enough to keep me busy, with a new job and a 10 month old daughter and a couple of pets and the holidays coming up, but it is November and that means it is time for National Novel Writing Month.

This will be my... third... fourth... fifth outing with the eight(?) year old event, which started in that dark age known as the DOT COM era. The current collection of speedy novelists is almost overrun with people writing, eh, fanfiction and related trash. Vampire romances. Surreal horror stories with talking rabbits. I'm writing science fiction.

In a brave gesture I plan on actually making sections of my novel available for download. I will set up an autoresponse address so people (if any) can get chapters in their email.

More details to come.

Special Announcement

Corita Elizabeth Kahler-Rickman was born at 9:18 am on Tuesday, December 6, 2005. She is 7 pounds 5 ounces and 21.5 inches in length.

After a brief recovery in the hospital, we are now all back home. Corita is a sweet child, she is quiet and likes to sleep.

About Me

If you look to the left on the main page you'll see a little box titled "About Me". If you click the link you can read my short biography.

To go with the new bio, I am planning on changing the name of this blog to "Polymath". It is a more positive term, and more descriptive.

still waiting for the hard work to pay off

I am pleased to announce that I am now 0 for 3 for submitting work to the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, and 0 for 5 total art project submissions in the past five years. I take comfort in knowing that in ten years or so I will be vindicated, as my work will be conspicuously absent from the catalogs of various "art and technology" exhibitions. Ignore me at your peril!

I'm a Winner, 2004

For the past 30 days I have been channelling my creative energies into writing a 50,000 word novel as part of National Novel Writing Month. Now, my novel is complete, with 50,022 words.

Now I'll just let those hundred pages of prose stew for a few weeks and then, perhaps, start editing.

Political Icon 2004

I am working on an alpha version of my Flash game, Political Icon 2004, which should appear here shortly.

My game works a little differently than other "political campaign" games I know of. And those I know of are:

• Frontrunner by Lantern Games.
• The Political Machine by ???
• Power Politics 3 by by Randy Chase and Kellogg Creek Software.

If I've missed any let me know so I can make a complete list.

Lara Croft Rug

I have recently completed work on this rug:

It is approx 21" x 21". Click on the picture for a larger version.

data recovery

I slotted an old Zip disk the other day and discovered a cache of lost VRML files. I don't feel like going through and thumbnailing them right now, but people are free to browse through them here.

On a sad note, I got my rejections from the SIGGRAPH art gallery today. Of course, the rejection of my work is not necessarily a reflection on the quality of my work, a fact I was reminded of three times.

NaNoWriMo 2003 Winner

I am a NaNoWriMo 2003 Winner! That is to say, I am one of the thousands of writers around the world who wrote a 50,000+ word novel in the month of November 2003. See: NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month

My novel, Black as Blood, came in at 50,201 words. It is a police mystery set in a fictional town in New Mexico. The writing is still very rough, so I won't be posting a copy for anyone to read just yet. Perhaps after a few weeks of editing...