First, A Word From Your Host

It's been a long time since I weblogged something on these intertubes. The thing is, there've been many things in the last 2 months that I've wanted to talk about on here, but the twin devils of work and after-work idleness got in my way.

Now I'm in San Diego promoting our book, and I therefore have something half-decent to blog about, and all these other happenings need to be neatly summed up in a few sentences. Like so:

- We passed the 52nd week of Elephant Words (link to Elephant Words in the sidebar over there; I'd fetch it for you, but the touchpad on this EeePC is a bitch to use). That means I've written a short (sometimes incredibly short) story every week for the past year. I never knew I could do that. My co-conspirators at EW are some of the nicest people and finest writers a guy could hope to know. I plan to continue with it.

- Speaking of anniversaries, I'm at San Diego Comic Con again, and do you know what that means? Well, considering I started this blog in order to document last year's con, I'm pretty sure that means this blog is one year old. Huzzah!

- Our book is out. Well, no, that's a lie. Our comic CAGES is being properly printed in September. But I am currently in possession of several incomplete proof copies, and they're really real books. They've got glossy covers and nice binding, and they have our names on the front. It feels warm and fuzzy.

- Holy expletive there are a lot of good shows on TV right now. Battlestar Galactica, Big Love, Dexter, Mad Men and Flight of the Conchords have joined forces to overwhelm me with awesomeness. Are we living in a Golden Age of television? When did this Renaissance happen?

- Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog was bloody fantastic, wasn't it? I can't wait for the panel at San Diego. (It's funny; I've enjoyed watching the stunned/appalled reaction from certain corners of the internet in re: Act 3. It's a Joss show, people -- that means guaranteed pain. At this point, I'd be surprised if he didn't rip our hearts out and show them to us.)

- D&D 4th Edition is amazing. Yeah, yeah, it's culturally lame, and playing it sorta makes me feel like I'm back in high school. But I think it might be one of the best RPGs ever written, or at least the best since Exalted. And at this point, I can't afford to be choosy about culture -- I'll take any book, game or show that makes me feel that sense of wonder and awe again.

Right. Next up San Diego Comic Con International!

Fail

Of course, I failed Script Frenzy.

It's my fault. I'm not going to blame the new job, or the marketing for CAGES, or all the other crap I'm doing, or the fact that writing a screenplay is goddammit seriously hard. It's my fault.

Still, I really like what I've written. Enough that I'll keep going and finish the damn thing, some time, at some point in the indeterminate future. This I swear.

By the way, I'm writing the script using Zhura.com, and I really like it. Don't let the silly social networking look of it put you off -- the in-browser script editor is robust and powerful. If you'd rather not download a copy of Final Draft for whatever reason, this is your best alternative.

The reviews are in for CAGES, and people like it. They really like it. This makes me happy. I'm also soon to be doing a phone interview thing for CAGES, which is bound to be embarassing.

So I guess Cubans can buy computers now. And they run fucking Windows XP. Look, I don't want to sound crazy here, but if the Cuban government wants to shield its people from the grasping talons of corporate capitalism or whatever, well, why not go open source?

I can't believe I never heard of this before: Lego's free Factory program that lets you build your perfect virtual Lego model, then delivers all the required bricks to your door. How cool is that?

Also, I own the film Iron Man an apology. Here goes: Iron Man, I'm sorry I pre-judged you and said bad things about your trailer after San Diego last year. You are actually really awesome. Let's be friends.

Finally, I leave you with this parting image, which I'm pretty sure I saw on a gilded mural within the hallowed Duomo of Florence.

A Peek Inside My Google Notebook

Next in a series of posts which I like to call 'Google Application Data That Would Be Really Useful To Anyone Stalking Me': a bunch of clippings from my Google Notebook.

In case you're not familiar with it, Google Notebook is an unobtrusive little application that lives in your browser. It allows you to highlight anything (text, images, video), right-click it and save the whole thing in a little pop-up notebook. Google then remembers the data you saved and the page it came from.

I've been using it for months, but to be honest there's not a whole lot in my notebook. I only save things in there when I remember to use it, and anyway, my personal note-taking/idea-jotting system is fragmented across at least six different media (Let's see: Moleskine notebook, pocket-sized notepad, desktop note-taking application, an actual word processor, Google Reader's 'Star' system, and Google Notebook), and the choice of which one I'll use for any given note is largely arbitrary.

Still, looking at it now, there's some interesting shit in there. Some links are frankly fantastic and deserving of another read (the mystical President of Slovenia), while others have me scratching my head as to why I noted them in the first place ('Auditory Side Effects Of Anti-Convulsant Drugs'? Hmm).

Anyway, here's the link. There's bound to be something cool in there.

My Vancouver

Sometimes it's hard to imagine how our prehistoric ancestors lived, back in the dark days before 2005 -- back before Google Maps. I personally can't fathom the idea of moving to, or even visiting, a new city without the aid of Google's magical, geo-synchronous sky-fairies.

The following is my personal Google Map of Vancouver. Some of the markers denote places I want to go; others are places I've already been. Of the latter, some are places I've been only once or twice, out of necessity (e.g. Art's Auto Service); others are firm favourites (e.g. Stella's Belgian beer and tapas bar -- make sure to try the Golden Draak, officially the World's Tastiest Beer).


View Larger Map

Epic Win

Signed a rental contract for a house today, 5 days after rocking up to Vancouver with nothing but a car. It's in a great location too; right on the corner of East Hastings and Boundary Street where the suburb of Vancouver meets the suburb of Burnaby.

With all this good luck, we must be doing something right. And thank Xenu for Craigslist.

Brass Monkey

We're currently staying with a friend in LA while we wait for our flight up to Canada. Today, our friends in Calgary emailed us to let us know the weather forecast for the day we arrive.

With wind chill, it's going to be -41 degrees Celsius.

Minus forty-one.

You know at what temperature mercury freezes? Minus thirty-eight.

Coming from Australia, I have no frame of reference for this shit. I'm just praying my balls don't shrivel up and drop off the second I stop onto the tarmac.

Changes

You may have noticed some changes around here.

(Well, only if you're reading this page in its natural environment. If you're reading it in a feed reader, you won't have noticed anything at all.)

The minor (but very obvious) change is that I've played with the colors. There's no exciting story behind it, other than the black background was getting on my nerves. With the sun behind my laptop, I had to squint like a geriatric just to read my own blog. So away it went.

The second (less obvious) change is that I've bought the domain xanderbennett.com. I just found out you can purchase domains direct from Google for $10 and transfer your blog across, without even having to pay for hosting. Apparently the feature's been out for a year, but nobody told me.

And finally, the really-big-but-not-at-all-obvious change is to the content of the blog itself. This whole workblog thing isn't really working for me (ha ha). So I've decided to make it more of an info-dump, a place to store and display the articles, clips, stories or posts that tickle my fancy.

Yeah, okay, link-blogging. But I'll at least try to make it interesting.

Looking Forward

2007 was a 'transitional year'. And that's about the nicest thing I can say for it.

I got a lot of promising projects started, almost all of which have yet to come to fruition. I also started a lot of things that fell over and died horribly. Certainly, 2007 holds the undisputed record for Most Formal Rejections, Most Broken Promises, and Most Exciting Projects That Disappeared Down A Black Hole Without Any Word Of Explanation.

It was a year of hoping, trying and waiting, and there's still a lot of waiting left before I find out whether all of it was worth it.

On the other hand, I went to San Diego Comic Con, I got offered real work doing something I love, I wrote more short fiction than ever before, and I completed NaNoWriMo. I also made a few good friends in both the film and comics spheres -- a bunch of altogether excellent people who I know I can count on. You know who you are.

2008 is definitely not going to be a transitional year. No more hanging around waiting for something to happen. Quite the opposite, in fact. As most of you probably already know, I'm moving to Vancouver in a month's time.

Why Vancouver?

Well, I have friends who are also going, and the (vaguely-defined) plan is to rent a big old house together.

It's a big city, and the prospect of living in a big city is starting to sound pretty good after five years in the least cultural place on Earth.

It's within flying distance of the USA, without actually being in the USA. And there's huge opportunities there for freelance writers, or so I'd like to imagine.

But mostly, when I get right down to it, it feels like the right thing to do.

Here's to 2008.

He Knows When You Are Sleeping

Some Xmas linkage for you:

Saint Nicholas' evil minions -- Children used to be told that Schmutzli would beat naughty children with the switch and carry them off in the sack to gobble them up in the woods. Today there is no more talk of beatings and kidnappings. More's the pity, really. Wikipedia has more.

The 10 Best Xmas Horror Movies -- Good to see Gremlins on there.

Holiday wishes from Valve -- The world's coolest videogame studio.

Merry whatever, everyone.

In Viet Nam...

...and incredibly tired. Wishing I was in Saigon already -- Hanoi isn't my favourite Vietnamese city.

Really, I had a lot of other stuff to say here about how everything's still mind-bendingly strange, yet it feels like we never left; how this country seems to mean very different things to different people; how good it is to eat this food again, and so forth. There was also going to be some whining about my NaNo wordcount.

But it'll have to wait, because my eyes are drooping and I need the sleep.

Election Called, Plus a Quiz

'J-Ho' (as the lovable Mr Clayfield insists on calling him) has finally called the election.

In lieu of anything better to do, I took a 50-question test (link courtesy of dual masterminds Xander and Nico) on my Australian political leanings.

My results are here.

No surprises, then. It's actually a pretty good test, and I recommend it if you need a quick guide to which political parties are on your side, and which represent the death of all hopes and dreams.

Until next time, let's all read some Matt Taibbi: Living God of Journalism, and start working up our righteous rage.

I'm Alive, Plus Link

I made it back from Outback Queensland, more or less in one piece.

Here are some quaint, lovely images from Wolf Creek Crater... er, I mean Clifton, where our film will be shot in about six days.



See? Quaint.



And by 'computer', they mean 'abacus'. Hah, just kidding Clifton. You're alright.



A dog in a ute -- the quintessential Australian image.



An intrepid trio of filmmakers.



Mm-mmm. You can really taste the fun.

Also! I was particularly taken with this recent post from the excellent Cabinet of Wonders, not only for its admirable sentiment and sexy, sexy historical facts, but for the wonderful closing image of Cory Doctorow as a digital John the Baptist, shouting in the desert, preparing the way for the Second Coming of Internet Jesus.

I just have one question: When he's out there in the desert... does he wear the goggles?

Over the Hills and Far Away

Today I'll be travelling to the middle of the god-forsaken wasteland that is the Australian Outback to look at shooting locations for the short film.

If I don't come back, tell them to look for my sun-bleached bones at these coordinates.

On Pimpage

Apparently all I do now on this blog is pimp products. How far we've fallen in only 3 months...

I guess I tend to shy away from blogging about things which annoy me, but maybe that's the wrong tack. Perhaps I should write a few hate-filled screeds to balance out all the love? Let me know, faithful Readers.

Or, I suppose, I could actually write about work. On my workblog. Bizarre, I know.

Anyway, there are some good, juicy work-related posts coming your way in the near future. Details on Cages' special preview at the Birmingham Comic Con, for instance. And maybe, if you're really lucky, a sneak peek at the brand-new Cages trade paperback cover.

Finally, here's my latest, greatest entry for Elephant Words, and here's the image that inspired it. It's a homage to The Masque of the Red Death, my favourite Poe story.

Why I Installed Linux

/begin evangelism

Cory Doctorow has finally gotten to me. Apparently I read too much Boing Boing, and I've been indoctrinated with all his open-source, anti-copyright, Creative Commons, weird-obsession-with-Disney-Land beliefs.

Okay, maybe not the Disney Land thing.

But I did install Linux. Ubuntu, to be exact – a relatively new Linux OS designed to be incredibly easy for the home user. Also? It was founded by a billionaire astronaut philanthropist.

I know what you're thinking, and it's the exact same reaction my friends had. Their two most common questions were, 1. “Why the hell did you do that?”, and 2. “Does it actually, y'know, work?”

To the first of which, I would answer:

1. Because I was fed up with Windows and I felt like making a bit of a techno-political statement.

2. Not only is every piece of software free, every piece of software is open-source – which means, in most cases, they're excellent.

3. Fuck Apple and Microsoft.

4. Nelson Mandela told me to.

And as for the second question... well, I haven't booted Windows Xp in two weeks, except to sync my phone and play Medieval 2.

Honestly, Ubuntu does absolutely everything you can do under Windows; and in most cases, it does it better. Bittorrent? PDF authoring? Raster graphics editing? Photo management? Wireless networking? Ipod library management and device syncing? CD and DVD authoring? All of these things are arguably easier and more powerful under Ubuntu.

No viruses. No spyware. No 'You have 27 days left in your free trial'. No trawling sleazy torrent sites for cracks and keygens. No Ctrl-Alt-Del, why-won't-this-fucking-window-close.

Basically, it's personal computing Paradise and I'm never going back.

So I guess the $64K Question is: Should writers install Ubuntu? Will it help your work in any way? Well, not really. The word processors are great, but to be brutally honest, I don't like celtx as much as Final Draft when it comes to screenwriting apps. But for my money, the difference is made up in terms of stability and generally feeling good about yourself.

So give it a shot. You can grab the install disc here. I burned mine myself, but you can have one delivered to your door for free, wherever you happen to live. In a time when every new computer user is getting that vomitous mass called Vista shoved down their throats... why not make a switch? It's simple, it's better than Windows, and you'll probably like it.

/end evangelism

Grindstone

I've finally knocked out Cages Chapter Three. On the whole, I'm extremely pleased with it; far more so than with the previous two chapters.

And so my Work List of Doom becomes a little shorter. It now only includes, for the next two months:

• A new issue 1 script (22 pages),
• A possible two more comics scripts (22 pages each),
• A ~30 page feature film treatment (due soon),
  
• An outline and treatment for a webcomics idea,
• An outline and script for a TV pilot collaboration (45-50 pages),
• More notes on a friend's feature film script, and of course,
  
• The novel, which has been hovering at 20k words for over 6 months and really needs an infusion.
  

Interesting times...

All My Idols Are Insane

I was reading this excellent 1978 speech by Philip K. Dick, and it had me nodding along in agreement, enthralled by the power of the great man's ideas.

Right up until the bit where he says the year is actually 50 AD, and we're all living in the Bible, hallucinating these last couple of millennia.

And it got me to thinking: A lot of my idols -- the people whose art has had the biggest influence on me -- were/are completely insane, by any reasonable standard.

In the 'still alive' category there's Grant Morrison, who travelled to Tibet to have a UFO encounter experience, wrote himself sick with a flesh-eating virus, and who has publicly stated that humanity is only a years away from making first contact with a fictional universe.

Then there's Alan Moore, who smokes 60 joints a day, worships a snake-god, and conducts rituals in a magic cave he had excavated beneath his house.

Further back in the 20th century, there's Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who for much of his life was too afraid to sleep at night, lest he be carried off by the flying anteater-bats from Pluto.

Lovecraft was good friends with Robert E. Howard, who would write all night in the belief that there was a barbarian standing behind him ready to behead him if he stopped, and who shot himself in the head following the death of his mother.

And, of course, there's my favorite author of all, Cordwainer Smith (not his real name), a world-renowned professor, psychological warfare expert and military advisor to Kennedy, who also happened to believe he was lord of an interplanetary empire.

This is not about me deriding these artists. This is me saying, where can I get some of this crazy? Because it looks like a lot of fun.

As the Tick said, "Sanity is a one trick pony -- all you have is rational thought. But when you're good and loony, the sky's the limit!"

Prattle

I'm currently resisting the urge to turn this place into a political blog -- because, fuck it, there are a lot of things to get angry about right now, most of them beginning with 'APEC' and ending with 'Liberal Party death throes'.

But, no. This is a workblog. Stay on target...

So I now have Facebook, and you can find me on there if you're so inclined. So far I haven't spent more than 10-15 minutes at a stretch on there, because the interface is clearly a freakish black hole of time waste-age.

My first Elephant Words image has gone up, and already the fictional responses are more inventive than I'd expected.

I found this page today: New York Surveillance Camera Players. Now, that? That's provocative art. Their site is a goldmine of weird mind-expandiness. Check out the FAQ, for instance.

Returned

The flight was long and painful, but I'm home.

Time to get to work.

Expect lots more blogging in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here's my latest Elephant Words piece, inspired by this image. I wrote it just after getting off the plane and just before my brain slipped into REM sleep-state. If anyone figures out what it means, please tell me.

In other news, Warren Ellis is shutting down The Engine. This is disappointing and sad. Still, that's the beauty of the internet: It never stops changing and adapting. Geeks will find a way.

El Ay

I spent the day catching buses and wandering around Westwood and the UCLA campus. I did not take any photos because, well, most parts of LA look exactly the same, and that sameness is fairly non-descript.

Because I can, I will now quote Matt Fraction quoting Mike Davis describing Los Angeles:


"...The city that once hallucinated itself as an endless future without natural limits..."

-Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear

Sounds about right.

Also, for those of you interested in the nerdly arts, I can confirm that Kevin Smith's comic book store in Westwood is clean, well-stocked and pleasant to browse. It certainly beats the other comic book store in the area, Santa Monica's Hi De Ho, which was dusty and awkwardly laid-out. I hope to visit Golden Apple tomorrow and compare.

Bear in mind that this is all relative. Even the 'Graphic Novel' section of any given American Barnes and Noble is so well-stocked as to put most Australian comic book stores to shame.