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• Funny articles and pictures
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McCain Alienates Astronomers with Adler Planetarium Gaffe

"The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one."

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Writing the Beginning of the Book is a Mammoth Task!

I really underestimated the importance of perfecting the opening chapters in my first novel. It took almost seventy pages for me to realize the foundation of the book was just too rickety for me to continue. And now, months later, I've spent more time tinkering and tautening the first fifteen pages of Wayland Priory than I spent writing the first seventy pages! Do I feel like this is too long or that its time wasted? No. I don't think so because I don't care if the book takes fifty years to write – I can't force myself to write something I'm not happy with!

The opening pages of a book are like the lenses on microscopes: one little scratch or imperfection can ruin the vision. The later chapters don't need nearly so much tinkering, IMO, so I believe that I'm going to be on a role for awhile now that I feel that my beginning is elegant enough.

Wayland Priory (Episode 2)

Chapter 1 (Continued)

Ten leagues downrange in the place called Wayland Priory, a middle aged man called Prior stood atop a 400-foot high tower. He scanned the horizon like a hawk. At the base of his tower there was a stable luminous plane of energy being patrolled by slaves who carried massive lightning rods. They looked like an ancient army of hoplites with the long, unwieldy things.

Static electricity brewing about Wayland suddenly raised the hair from the slaves’ scalps. They awkward sight was soon joined by the sound of violent, tumbling thunder in the distance. Wayland’s stormy curtain was up-in-arms.

Prior said, “Be ready, faithful!” and the slaves frantically spaced themselves in loose staggered lines. One slave was struck by a stray bolt from the distant storm. He lay burnt on the ground screaming for several minutes, causing some of the others to buckle at the knees.

Prior said, “If you die, you will die for the Way!” over the growing booms of thunder.

The slaves stood fast.

The storm overtook Wayland.

Dibble was about to retire to his shelter when he noticed a lone, animated shadow in bright sky. It surfed the edge of the thunderous waves artfully. Dibble smiled and said, “It is Ecah.”

#

Ecah approached the city, but the storm raged viciously, and it lifted him into the dark sky.

“1 more league or dead in the black...” he whispered to himself.

That's a saying Waylanders used. It meant, Do it or die to them.

Ecah’s board sliced a sparking path up ascending bridges of lightning. The electricity melted the board into a blur of white, orange, red, and yellow. He tipped back and allowed the storm to launch him.

From Wayland he looked like a climbing meteor. He breached the tropopause (the breathable atmosphere’s ceiling). The temperature dropped precipitously, and his board cooled to deep black, and it smoked and smoldered. His melting rubber armor stopped making him sweat; it brought him precious warmth instead.

Ecah decelerated instantly as the energy that had propelled him sputtered and failed. He looked down through the eye of the receding storm, and saw home. There, Wayland’s tower sat atop a semi-solid translucent surface. He allowed himself to fall towards it as he ran out of electric road.

Wayland held its breath as its favorite son fell from heaven. The burnt and scattered slaves who fought the storm wafted like buoys on the electric surface. All the souls in Wayland covered their ears to the sonic boom that accompanied Ecah’s fall, and they awed at the sight of the Aztec plume of color bursting from his shilloette. The static energy resonating from him bent light, mixed colors, and glowed and shined supernaturally.

The reentry was perilous, but it was triumphant.

When Ecah slammed into the Priory grounds, the explosive force rippled away from the point of impact and kneaded the electric plane. The shockwave wobbled the buildings, and it threw the people around like toys.
Ecah listed motionlessly with the bodies of slaves on Wayland’s grounds. Waylanders looked at one another in mass-apathy. No one wanted to check if he was alive. No one wanted to be the one to find out if he were dead.

Writing Contests

I've started becoming more aware of the great opportunity that exists out there in writing contests for aspiring writers. I'm definitely going to start entering some more! Check out this blog entry here on the subject:

Writing contests can be a good way to get published and have your name as a writer more recognized. Winning a contest will take some time and practice. Use your imagination and let your creativity shine through. [...]

Where to Find Writing Contests Online:

http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions -Writer's Digests sponsors several competitions annually. Including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, self-published, and more!

http://www.freelancewriting.com/writing-contests.php - List of current writing contests in a variety of writing styles and genres.

http://www.writerswrite.com/classads/writingcontests/ - Writer's Write Writing contests.

http://www.writersweekly.com - Good Resource Writing Web Site

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/contests.html - Warnings on fake writing contents

People Underestimate the Resilience of World Religions

I was reading an article on the telegraph today (you can read it here: link) that speculated that Christianity may "die out" in England fairly soon. Some of the reader comments on the page really got me thinking though about how people are kind of overlooking the fact that major world religions never truly die.

Greek polytheism, for example, is not dead, it still survives in neo-pagan circles where the ancient mysteries are practiced by ethnic Greeks. Today is the June solstice, and some of these pagans are celebrating it right as I type this!

Not sure about the Romans, but I do know for a fact that great cultural and religious scholars like Joseph Campbell have written that the Roman Catholic Church IS a Roman church. That is to say, if a Roman in 200 AD walked into a Catholic Church, he would be in an environment that he would immediately identify as a Roman temple (just with gothic architecture instead of Greco). Roman religion certainly survives in interesting ways in our society, though. Western courthouses and government facilities ARE Roman temples. The statue up high on the Chicago Board of Trade building in the loop is Ceres, the Goddess of fertility. Justice and Minerva are on every flag and seal for the state of NY. Renaissance nobles would put portraits of Venus, cupid, etc. on their bedroom walls as a charm to improve their fertility (they would offset this blasphemy with massive donations to the church).

I can even think of surviving elements of the Egyptian church in our society... A lot of people probably already know this, but Christmas was also the birthday celebration of the Goddess Isis who had a strong cult following in Rome before Christianity came into play (her temples are in Pompeii), obelisks like the Washington Monument are symbols in the Egyptian mythos, the obelisk in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican was actually FROM ancient Egypt (it was stolen by the Romans and placed in the Circus Maximus, the Vatican then claimed it as the Vatican is built on the Vatican Hill which is where the Circus was...)

So I guess my point is: don't put too much money on "the death of Christianity" just yet...

Tips for Writing Faster -- Crucial Advice here!

I found this really helpful resource here, where Ali describes some tips for writing faster. For someone like me who has the problem of taking forever to write something, I think the advice of getting the first draft DONE is very important, indeed.

I'll keep scanning this blog for more good advice in the future -- you should all keep an eye out too!

Aetiee (Episode 1)

Aetiee is a fan-fiction series set in the Halo science-fiction universe. There will be weekly installments of this story here and on the Halo.bungie.org website every Friday!

1.

When I settled the horses into the barn, I swung the large doors shut, and ran home as fast as I could. The sun was setting into the rocky escarpment called Aetiee that towered over our farm. I bounded over the three wooden steps leading up to the patio, and threw open the screen door on my way inside. Grandfather watched me from one of the windows. An envious smile overcame his typically stoic face.

Following habit, but also aware of the importance of good manners, I slipped off my muddy shoes (without untying them) and put them on the bottom row of the rack by the door. And then I went to find grandfather.

He wasn't in the living room where I saw him looking out, but he had retired to his little study under the stair well. It was a cramped, dusty old place, but he liked it just fine. It made him feel secure, he'd say, and made him feel tied down to the planet.

"I took care of the horses, grandpa, will you tell me your stories now?"

Our relationship was as sweet and serene as any between a boy and his grandfather: hard work, delicious lunches, late-night stories, and (of course) overwhelming love.

He said, "Well alright then." But then a troubled look erased his little smile. It was extremely out-of-character. I asked him what was wrong, but he just shook his head.

He took off his glasses as though he had some terrible news, and his eyes watered up a bit.

He said, "Jimmy, my boy, I've thought about this for awhile now. I think you're old enough and…" he searched for a word, and then said, "and bright enough to listen to the most important stories I have to tell you."

"What do you mean grandfather?" I asked.

"It's nothing for you to be frightened about, my boy, nothing like that. It's just that it becomes rather… rather hard for me to talk about certain things. But I want you to know these things, and it is very important that you listen and remember carefully."

"I always listen to you, grandpa."

Grandfather smiled a little bit once more.

"Yes. Yes, I know."

And then he leaned over his desk and tapped the AstroAtlas that built into his blotter. It came out of sleep-mode, and the Orion Arm of the Milky Way slivered across his desk. Crimson sparkles on the arm (which represented the fifty or so New Inner Colonies) materialized onto the blotter while subdued grey circles highlighted the lost worlds of the war. Grandfather pointed at the outermost of the crimson sparkles.

"This is our star Jimmy. We just call it the sun, but the people on Earth call it—"

"Vega, grandfather."

"Yes, that's right. That's very good." Grandfather's voice choked a little bit when he said, "There were once cities as big as any on Earth itself when I was your age, you know. There were thousands of people in this very valley of ours, in fact."

"I know grandpa," I said, also sad. "They told us in school."

"Did they, now?"

"They told us all about Aetiee; they told us about those squids and prophets. They killed all of those others there, too," I said while I pointed at the grey circles on the AstroAtlas.

Grandfather said, "They shouldn't scare you like that in school."

"It's not scary grandpa! I've even seen the bones myself when daddy takes me plowing the fields; the machines drag 'em up sometimes. And guns, and helmets, and all sorts of stuff."

And then grandfather closed his eyes and shook his head. It was the first time I had ever seen him look genuinely disappointed in me.

When he opened his eyes, he said, "Jimmy, my boy, I fought on Aetiee. I was there."

I froze.

"I fought the Covenant across both continents, in space with the Marines, and even on Earth."

"You were in the war, grandpa?"

"Yes."

"What?! Why didn't you tell—"

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?"

I closed my mouth, and prepared to listen. Grandpa rustled through a box behind his desk and pulled out a card with scribbles and printed letters all over it.

"This was my draft card. Drafting is when the government forced us to join the military."

"Why would they need to force anyone to stop the Covenant, grandpa?"

"Times were different, my boy. No one really wanted anything to do with the war. We knew it was going on, but we thought we were winning! But when the refugees starting coming from closer places like Jericho… Well… People caught on."

"So then they joined?"

"No. They rebelled."

"What?"

"You will never hear about this in school Jimmy, but we hated the UN just as much as we hated the Covenant."

I hated grandfather at that moment. I wanted him to come to school with me – to see the truth about the war. I wanted him to see how humanity rallied to the cause and defeated an overwhelming force (and on the home world, no less).

Grandfather sensed my alarm, and turned off the AstroAtlas.

He said, "Jimmy, let's drive up to the escarpment, and I'll show it to your own eyes."

I nodded, and stood up to leave the study. When my grandpa put his draft card away, I saw other mementos in his box: there was a silver star, uniform ribbons, photographs of starships and soldiers, and dog tags.

The car was parked next to the barn, and I got in and strapped my belt. I was looking out my window when I heard the horses neigh. The engine started, and I turned to my grandpa.

I told him, "How come we've never gone to Aetiee before, grandpa?"

He said, "We're not supposed to."

"Why?" I asked as he pulled out of the driveway.

"There's no need to disturb the poor souls up there unless it's for the good of their memories."

"What are you going to show me, grandpa?"

"Their memories."

I remained quiet as the car drove on the straight road across the valley towards Aetiee.

When the road steepened, though, I said, "I'm scared grandpa."

Grandpa smiled, and said, "Me too, my boy, me too."

Hilarious Video: Ali G. in Northern Ireland

Ali G. is hilarious, but this clip had me laughing so hard it hurt! Ali G. in Northern Ireland:

What This Blog is All About

This post is the 101 if you're a visitor to Duffy Priory. So what is this blog all about?

The short answer is: this blog is about powerful writing.

So... why should you care?

Powerful writing moves people for the same hard-to-put-it-into-words reason that our favorite songs, movies, or games do. I'd say the reason blogs are so popular, and the reason mine is especially worth your time, is that guys like me have the luxury (unlike the formulaic newspapers and TV programs out there) to cut through the bullshit and just talk without rhetoric, political correctness, lowest-common-denominator vocab., or pussyfooting of any sort.

My ulterior motive, of course, is to introduce you to my writing, and hopefully get you to spread the word about it. But before you say "screw you, buddy!" hear me out: writing can't happen without reading. Period. If you find something compelling to read (a blog, a book, a newspaper, whatever!), it's like you're pumping writer's gasoline into your brain. That's why -- even if my stuff ain't really what you're interested in -- I highly recommend you take a look at my blogroll and recommendations. CHECK THEM OUT TOO! If you want to be a writer, it'll pay you back in dividends! And if you want to be a seeker, connecting with good writers and thinkers will bring you closer to what you're looking for.

Here's a few of my favorite posts that might be a good place to start:

Wayland Priory (Episode 1)
Red Hair for Blue Eyes (A character sketch)

And if you have a bit of time on your hands, here are my documentary films:

The Fall of the Schenectady Railway Company

I hope that you check out my stuff and get the kind of bittersweet satisfaction that I get while writing it! But if not, thanks for visiting, and I hope you've at least enjoyed Duffy Priory 101.

Class dismissed!

Fired U.S. Attorney a Star Wars Fan!

This is David Iglesias, one of the fired US attorneys from that big scandal awhile back (the attorneys were fired for not playing ball by making political voter fraud cases against Democrats). At the end of this Daily Show interview, he talks about how he felt betrayed by Bush & Co.:

Beginning of my Novel

“Do any of you know what happened to the Earth?”

The refugees who had been asked the question looked at one-another in mass-apathy. No one wanted to displease the newcomer by giving him a stupid answer. He had, after all, been their first guest in over forty years of lonely scavenging. A sheepish man (who looked as though he were old enough to have remembered the last guest) shuffled forward reluctantly and chewed a few words off his tongue. When he was finally ready to answer, he sighed a great burden from his chest.

He said, “My parent’s parents would just weep whenever I asked about that place. Earth. They never told me what happened to it. Rumors say it was quite a lovely place, though.”

Ecah Wayland –- the guest –- nodded. His eyes had a distinctly sour look in them. He wasn’t annoyed by the answer the old man had given him, but he was annoyed at how pathetic it all was: an old man and two score others mewing like frightened slaves to a single, well-meaning stranger. Ecah felt like asking, why are you, who are so old and wise, scared of a boy? Ecah was seventeen, and did consider himself a boy. He felt that no boy could ever call himself in a man in a mad world of total fear.

The old man shrugged apologetically. Did he understand Ecah’s frustration?

“I am sorry that I don’t know,” the old man said.

No. He did not understand.

Ecah turned away from the refugees and gazed over the railings of their shanty little barge. All the world was an electric ocean. The land, the water, and the skies were gone. In their place were forests of lightning, waves of aurora light, and breakers of colorful static mists.

The sight reminded Ecah of his curse. He lived with knowledge which most people his age were spared from. He knew that there was once Earth where now there was only electricity. He was privileged -- “chosen” -- to carry the knowledge of its existence for the benefit of a lost cause: the cause of hope. Ecah Wayland was a Waylander: a member of a scientific order dedicated to reclaiming Earth. The order’s origins were as mysterious as the fate of Earth itself, but its legend was not unknown to a single surviving human being on what was left of the world.

Ecah fitted a rubber helmet over his head. His entire body was mummified in the same material, but most of it was scarred, cracked, and burnt from his journeys.
“Goodbye,” his muffled voice said to the old man.

The old man bowed a bit. But then he looked nervously at his fellow refugees and turned red from their pressing stares.

He gave in to the pleading stares and said, “Do you come from a place called Wayland, sir?”

Ecah glanced back, but he didn’t answer. He leapt over the rail and fell to the electric waves below. He landed solidly on a long metal board that was moored and waiting for him. The board was the vehicle of his people.

#

A week later, Ecah rendezvoused with two companions atop a massive geyser of lightning. They drew smiles across their helmeted faces using their pointer fingers. It was the warmest greeting they could manage in such conditions.

He led the pack as they jumped over the edge of the geyser, and slammed their boards onto the lower plane of electric current. They were surfing across the vast ocean of geothermal energy one final time. Their month-long crusade was nearly over. They were on their way home to Wayland Priory.

The final run was the most dangerous of all. Wayland was isolated on a gentle atoll that was curtained by the wrath of a violent, eternal cyclone. As they entered the outer rim of the great storm, the lightning waves intensified. Ecah was flanked by wild lightning bolts, but he dodged them with nimble maneuvers. The electricity swirled and slammed against his board, but he absorbed every hit playfully.

He looked back. His companions were not so lucky. They half-piped between two massive tides of energy that were closing in on them. The tides were swallowing them. Ecah turned away.

Red Hair for Blue Eyes

This is a short character sketch for one of the main characters in a sort of science fiction novel that I'm writing called Wayland:

Prior Dibble’s mysteriousness was nothing unusual. He always smiled whether or not he was happy, and his eyes never failed to have that relaxed, smug, and cool blue look. He spoke with gestures, and the movements were too well-thought-out and too methodical to be natural habits. He trained himself to be pretentious. But in more relaxed moods, he could also just be a nice guy with a good sense of humor. By being able to make people laugh and by being able to intimidate people into sharp mental corners using pseudo-intellectual lectures, Prior Dibble embodied the perfect negotiator.

Five years ago, Wayland Priory faced a particularly difficult crisis when its hydrogen matrix – a critical component of Wayland’s automated water generator – broke beyond repair. While skates rushed to Wayland Priory’s neighbor, Basil Priory, to construct a replacement with the water engineers there, the entire community faced dehydration. By chance, however, a freelancer seeking a bounty arrived in Wayland on a freighter which, among other cargoes, had an old railroad tank car filled with brackish, but drinkable, water. The freelancer had no interest in trading it for anything Wayland Priory had to offer when Prior Dibble first explained the water situation, but the Prior nonetheless showed courtesy and hospitality towards the man. After sharing food, what little drink there was, and news with the traveler, Dibble still failed to reach any kind of reasonable agreement. But then at some point in the night, the freelancer noticed a limping, red-haired slave, and commented (only jokingly)to Prior Dibble that the slave looked similar to a wanted criminal, and that he might even fool his employers into paying the real guy’s bounty if someone were to bring him to them. Prior Dibble humored the freelancer’s far-fetched scam at first by sharing a laugh and jokingly proposing a trade for the water, but as the night wore on, Dibble’s sly, intelligent voice filled the freelancer’s head with assurances that easy money was at his finger tips, and that it would only cost him a bit of foul-tasting water to get the bounty without having to risk his neck going after the real guy.

When the freelancer departed the following morning, a giddy grin brightened his gaunt face. His freighter unmoored from Wayland Priory without the water. The red-haired slave that Prior Dibble had traded away looked back to his home in absolute horror. The people of Wayland Priory were not concerned, though, as they happily lined in front of the water tank car with jugs and containers to collect their much-needed rations. Prior Dibble was thirsty himself, but he did not line up. He watched his people with his calm, cool blue eyes, and smiled broadly at his own cleverness.

My Railroad Documentary

This is a railroad documentary I made earlier this year about the fall of the Schenectady Railway Company around where I live. Basically, it was a really good streetcar system that was completely torn up and replaced with highways and buses, very sad. Check it out!

Star Wars Drunk Driving PSA from 1979

Ah Yes, we all remember Star Wars. but how many of us remember these low moments from George Lucas's cash cow?







I find this anti-smoking one way funnier, though!








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Buffalo Bob's Hole

Man, I remember watching Joe Dirt in high school and quoting lines from in it in physics class every single day with some buddies of mine. That poor, poor teacher. He probably had no idea why we were demanding each other to rub lotion on our skin...