NaNoWriMo

Hmm.

Hmmmm…

T-minus 10 days and counting.

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No, I haven’t decided yet.

The description of the upcoming episode of CSI Miami (Monday, November 21), ‘Urban Hellraisers’ —

‘When a group of criminals play out a violent video game in real-life, the CSIs must stop them before they strike again.’

I don’t know what’s worse, ‘forensic scientists’ running around shooting at criminals or yet another prime-time sensationalistic attack on video gaming. Now, I know we can’t expect reasoned dialogue about the important issues from television, but is it too much to ask for some semblance of responsibility?

Frankly, I would be more worried about this ludicrous behavior, but given the decline in television viewership in general and the networks in particular, and corresponding rise in both Internet usage and video gaming, this sort of propaganda seems more and more like the death rattle of a bloated corpse.

I find it funny that when refs call a Delay of Game penalty, the interruption causes far longer of a delay than if they had let the play continue to begin with.

Unfortunately, due to various life events (see livestrong, among other things) this past month, I’m afraid I have to withdraw from this year’s NaNoWriMo event. It bums me out more than I can say, but it is less than the increasingly worse feelings about participating and not being able to write like I need to. It’s also a relief.

This does not mean however that I am giving up on the idea. I figure I’ll declare a RoNoWriMo (Roberto Novel Writing Month) after New Year’s — in fact, January seems like it might be perfect. I’ll check back in.

Today is Dia de los Muertos, a traditional Mexican holiday that honors ancestors and family members that have passed on. This is the first day of winter in the traditional Irish calendar.

It also marks a week since my stepfather passed away. (See livestrong.)

I miss him, but I am so glad he is no longer in pain. This is a day to honor the dead, and I will honor him in my heart today.

This has been a very hard week. I managed to get sick for the first time in months, thanks to the stress and poor sleeping. But it is a new day, a new month, a new season.

It is also the first day of NaNoWriMo and I still haven’t decided whether I have the wherewithal to participate now.

Jack was a great reader, who dearly loved the written word. I don’t think he would want me to set the writing aside. And I know that I would regret not participating after the great success of last year.

More later.

vim tip of the day. In your .vimrc file, add a line that says:

set modeline

This allows you to set options on a file-by-file basis, using a special indicator on the first line. For example, in my ~/todo file, I might like to leave off line numbers, which I have set to come on by default in .vimrc. I’d use this for the first line of the file:

// vim: nonumber:

The spaces and punctuation are important. Basically what you have available is any command that you normally use :set to turn on or off — in the above case, :set nonumber would be the command, with :set number turning it back on. Other possibilities include wrap or nowrap to turn linewrap on and off, ruler or noruler to turn on or off the cursor indicator at the bottom of the window, background=dark or background=light to change the automatic coloring.

Issue multiple commands by inserting a colon or whitespace in between, such as:

// vim: nonumber wrap noruler background=light:

Enter :help modeline for more info.

I’m not normally one to dig Flash-based websites, but this one is just amazingly gorgeous: Zephyr Syndicate

It has a Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow feel to it, which is all right by me.

Congratulations! Tom and Tiffany!!!! That is just so cool! :)

Headline of the day: Two Vikings arrested after gas station scuffle. The little mental movie that produces is just precious. :)

New the past couple of days:

• b.la: Tempting fruit
• b.la: Ghost Ships of Los Angeles
• b.la: When worlds collide
• b.la: LA Peace March Photos
• b.la: AIDS Project LA to help out Gulf Coast AIDS organizations

NaNoWriMo signups are only five days away. :) Oddly enough, between the time I first posted about this and the next time I checked, their site went down. Check back in a few days.