Disney Store Closes

The Disney Store at Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, a suburb to the north of Seattle, closed.

Dark and shuttered

The sign didn’t say they had moved. Instead, it encouraged customers to shop at their website.

I’m not sure exactly when they closed. Obviously, they would have stayed open during the Christmas season, and then a little afterwards to process any returns or exchanges. I don’t deny the internet is more efficient, but children enjoyed walking in and seeing their favorite Disney figures—including a figure of Alice from Alice in Wonderland, I think about three feet tall, in the front window. It’s kind of too bad. 

Book Review: Midshipman’s Hope

Midshipman’s Hope (The Seafort Saga), by David Feintuch

Nick Seafort is a seventeen year-old midshipman who suddenly becomes captain of his starship.

Bound by his oath, he cannot lay aside his duty to command, though he knows he is unqualified. It would be easy to return to Earth, but he decides to go forward on this months-long trip to deliver needed supplies, though the other officers and crew cannot believe it.

But Nick is no ordinary sailor. Instead of becoming a disaster, we see him make one wise move after another. This is not because he is smarter or more skilled than his peers; far from it. Instead, he is dogged in his determination to be thorough in his duties and to maintain the respect due him as captain. By enforcing discipline and not letting up on his sworn duty, we see him become the captain he needs to be.

Midshipman's Hope is not everyone's cup of tea. Nick's command is a lonely one, and he constantly wrestles with self-doubt. This is portrayed realistically, so readers who enjoy a more ensemble approach to leadership may be put off at points, but I encourage them to keep reading. Also, discipline among the crew is enforced physically, with the old practice of caning. Readers who are offended by such a concept should force themselves to read this novel, to see what is necessary on a ship where disrespect for orders and the chain of command can spell disaster. Also, the harsh but measured use of force to try to reform a bully among the midshipmen was eye-opening for me. The methods used will either destroy a bully or reform him, but there can be no letting up.

Fans of Ender's Game should like this story. Because of Nick Seafort's age, this novel is technically a Young Adult book, but it features none of the typical teenage angst and melodrama of the category. It's unfortunate that it is currently just in e-book format, otherwise it could be casually left around among teenagers to see what they make of it.

Travoltify Your Name

John Travolta somehow massacred Idina Menzel’s name by introducing her as Adele Dazeem at the Oscars. Now you can Travoltify your name here. Travolta’s name comes out as Jan Thozomas.

photo by Towpilot 

If you want to make fun of a celebrity but don’t want to get sued, this might be a way to generate an alias. Miley Cyrus becomes Molly Cozzins. Elijah Wood becomes Emily Weed. And the Travoltified version of Tom Cruise is hilarious. 

Bitcoins and Dated Story Details

For those of you who invested in Bitcoins, this may interest you: “In one of the biggest heists in history, Mt. Gox confirmed on Friday it lost nearly $500 million of Bitcoin due to a ‘system weakness,’ forcing the former leading exchange to file for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo.”

 public domain

I am not advising for or against investing in or dumping Bitcoins; I’m actually giving advice on writing. My favorite television show is Almost Human, starring Karl Urban and Michael Ealy. (Karl Urban is best known as the new Dr. McCoy, and for fighting Bruce Willis in Reds.) It’s a detective story that takes place decades from now, with Urban as a hard-as-nails detective, and Ealy as the android he’s been saddled with.

photo by Eva Rinaldi 

Although the science fictional details are good (mostly information technology) I mainly like the police procedural aspects of it. They do a good job of building a coherent future that still is enough like our own times that we can appreciate it. Except for the Bitcoins.

photo by pop culture geek 

A few times now, they’ve mentioned Bitcoins in their episodes, including the Bitcoin equivalent of an ATM (or ABM, for those of you in Canada). The problem is that Bitcoins are a popular item now, but we don’t know if they’ll be around in the near future. I don’t mean the more distant future when the story takes place; I mean a few years from now. If the series lasts a few years, they’ll look silly to mention Bitcoins as a monetary unit of the future if it all implodes in a few months.

It might seem like a good idea to write about Teslas as the car of the future. Maybe, maybe not.

In other words, it’s not wise to include something that’s currently all the rage. If you get a book accepted by an editor now, it might be two years before it hits the shelves. You don’t want people to laugh at your page 50 and say, “Wow, last year’s fad.”

Sometimes it’s unavoidable. In a novel I’m still trying to get accepted, the main character is tired of being temporary and wants to become permanent. One of his main reasons is to get insurance. But with all the changes going on with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), I’m having to change the dialog. More than once. But try to avoid including things you know can pan out, no matter how popular they are right now.

Almost Human is on Monday nights at 8:00 in most time zones, on FOX. 

Clash of the Titans—Is it Incest?

I watched the last 5 minutes of the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. The ending is still stupid. According to the Greek myth, after Perseus saves Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea monster, they marry. The movie has him taking up with some nymph named Io.

Trouble is, Io and Perseus are distantly related (see details below). Io is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Perseus. The moviemakers should have known better than plucking a name from Greek mythology without checking.

I know, eventually everyone is related to everyone. But it would seem more natural for Perseus to get interested in some second or third cousin, not a direct forebear. This just seems weird to get interested in a multiple-great-grandmother.

Does this count as incest? It’s an intergenerational relationship along a direct line of mother to distant son, rather than broadly separated cousins. Another way of looking at it is Perseus is the illegitimate son of Zeus. But Zeus also had a son by way of Io. So Perseus is getting interested in his illegitimate father’s girlfriend. I know Greek mythology can have weird relationships, but this movie made it worse.

Perseus, son of Danae, daughter of Acrisius, son of Abas, son of Lynceus, son of Aegyptus, son of Belus, son of Libya, son of Epaphus, son of Io. 

The Oxford Comma

I’m throwing down the gauntlet. I am in favor of the Oxford comma, and I defy those who think otherwise. What is this divisive comma? Glad you asked. 

Tom, Dick, and Harry

The Oxford comma goes before the conjunction towards the end of a list. In the above example, the comma occurs after Dick. Without that comma, the list is Tom, Dick and Harry.

(We Americans tend to call it the serial comma, which sounds so pedestrian in comparison.)

The Oxford comma has gone in and out of style. But style is a matter for ties, not punctuation. When I grew up, we were drilled on using that final comma, and we would be marked down for not using it.

Things changed. A writing professor in college told us we did not need that final comma. She said the word “and” separated the last two items, so what did we need the comma for? She asked that of the class defiantly.

I think it obvious the word “and” connects the two items together—after all, that is the job of that particular conjunction.

Things changed again while I was an adult. A seminar teacher told us of the legal case of Tom, Dick and Harry.

Tom, Dick and Harry A reason to sue

A man specified in his will that his estate should be divided equally among Tom, Dick and Harry. This was taken to mean each would get a third. Tom sued, saying it meant he should get 50%, and the other two would get 50%. Tom won.

See?

Conjunctions do whatever they are supposed to, but commas separate. Period.

So I hope everyone out there is in favor of the Oxford comma. If not, bring an argument.

Ender’s Game Italiano

I plan on renting Ender’s Game this weekend. I like the Italian version of the trailer.

That one word at the end is great. 

Zombie Alert on Emergency Alert System

Some local station in Montana got hacked, so its Emergency Alert System went on. The message displayed on the air was, “the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living.”

Because of multiple copyrights involved, and because the video might get yanked off of YouTube at any moment, I won’t embed the video. The link is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7pNAhENBV4

Obviously, this could be an inside job. Or, if the default password for such systems is “password” and nobody changes it, that makes it vulnerable. This was a gag, but what if a terrorist group gave false directions to people that all is well after a terror attack, or instructed people to gather at a certain public building, and then set off a bomb there?

As a nice touch, the last message was, “This station will now cease transmission, so please use your battery-powered radio.” 

Deport Justin Bieber – Young Adult Authors Cannot Do This

You’ve probably heard the White House website has a petition area where people can post just about any petition, and if it gets enough responses, they have to officially answer it. A funny example was from 2012, when petitioners asked the government to build a Death Star, like from Star Wars. They had to answer it. A more serious one was for the legalization of cell phone unlocking.

public domain 

A current one is for the deportation of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber. I signed it. Unfortunately if you’re a Young Adult author, you can’t afford to do this. Or at least not admit to it online.

You might say, “My audience is too intelligent to scream over Justin Bieber.” Think again. Or suppose that twenty percent of your readership likes the Biebs. You can’t afford to lose that twenty percent.

This reminds me of how a new author was interviewed on TV. He said his novel was like a Michael Crichton novel, only with good characters. I happen to like the characters in the couple of novels by him I’ve read. More to the point, the average viewer would associate Michael Crichton with the Jurassic Park movies, which they like, and not know what this guy’s problem was. So don’t introduce yourself by being negative—to your potential audience.

And don’t introduce your vampire story by saying, “At least my vampires don’t glitter.” Don’t do that.