"Genius" - a Graphic Novel Review

Ranting: Enjoyed it.

I recently had the opportunity to read the graphic novel, "Genius" by Steven T. Seagle. It initially got my attention because it was about a quantum physicist who discovers his father in law knew Albert Einstein and holds on tightly to a secret Einstein told him. I was surprised, because, who writes a comic about a physicist? or Einstein? So I felt I had to read it. And at 128 pages, it didn't take me too long to read.

I enjoyed the layout and artistry - I feel it helped convey the struggles of the lead character and the feeling of the entire story. The comic is mostly subdued colors, hues of brown, eggshell and sepia tones - which I felt worked. I had trouble with the font of the text, seemed almost cursive and almost print, with some letters hard to decipher - but that could just be my inner elderly man coming out. I found the story interesting, although if you don't like physicists, life changes and career dystopia - you probably shouldn't read this. It's a good internal struggle for the main character. Although there was an unnecessary (at least I felt so) discussion of masturbation which I felt intruded upon the story and kicked me out of the flow - otherwise it flowed well.

Disclosure: I received a free ebook of this title for preview and review. I am not paid for this review.

Give a Mouse a … Oooo Look Over There!

My attention span is very limited. I get bored writing. I'll start writing a story and then get tired of writing it and just let it die. It's something I'm working on. It's sort of like what happened to me a few days ago when I opened the door to the laundry room (which isn't really a 'room', it's more like a large closet that barely fits the washer and dryer) and sitting on top of the dryer, was a mouse. A tiny little brown mouse who didn't seen to concerned with me. I quietly closed the door and walked over to my girlfriend, "There's a mouse on the dryer."

"Really?" she said and open the door to look.

She was interested in capturing the little creature, not killing it, but capturing it and setting it free in the wild. But first, she needed to name it. After some deliberation, she decided to call the mouse Mr. Jingles - which sounded more like Mr. Jangles to me - from the Green Mile by Stephen King.

I don't know if you have every tried to capture a mouse - but it's exactly like the movie Mouse Hunt. So first we …

See? I'm bored with this story already. It's not that interesting. We caught the mouse with a live trap, and let her free (yes, we determined it was a she) out in the woods next to the house. But I didn't want to write the rest of the story. This is where my podcasting comes into play. I'd rather talk about then write about it.

All I know is if you give me a cookie, I'll probably need some milk - same goes for the mouse.

Recent Books I've Read

Early in my life I liked to read. Not loved to read. Just liked. I enjoyed it, but I found it difficult to do. It required focus, attention and … um … something else. And I've always had trouble reading because I felt the words seem to get in the way - in a "can't see the forest through the trees" kinda way. That's why I normally stick to comics. More pictures, less words - much like good porn (but that's another story). Recently I completed three books. That's right, three books. Two of them I had been reading on and off for the past 6 months (or more) and one of them I read in one night. And now I feel compelled to talk about them - in the order in which I completed them.

#1, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. This is a non-fiction book about randomness, with the bulk of the book discussing the history of the scientific and philosophical breakthroughs in the field of randomness - and the remainder how randomness actually affects our lives. It's narrative is limited, considering it's non-fiction and I felt the last part of the book was rushed - but all in all - I really liked the book. This book took the longest to read as I was constantly making notes and highlights. It gave me pause to think and I like that.

#2, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. This was the first of the 3 books that I started reading. Between the time I started it and completed it, a movie version, written by the author was released. The movie was pretty cool, but had very little resemblance to the book. There was also another drama about Lincoln released during this time - it has little resemblance to this book - but in a different way. I highly anticipated reading this. I LOVED it. It's written as a historical biography, using Abe's own diary as the driver for the story. It has vampires, civil war, politics and historical events. If you like Lincoln, but want it to be a bit juicier - this is for you.

#3, Mile 81 by Stephen King. This is a "Kindle Single" which really means short story. This is the one I read in one short sitting. I really enjoyed this fictional account of an abandoned rest area (at exit 81). It had a typical King-ness about it. People die, unexplained things happen and, well, shit happens. Very cool, doesn't take long to read. I'm a slow, slow, slow reader and I finished in the same evening I started it!

That's all I had to say. Tune in next time when … never mind.

Neglecting my Duties

Heh heh -- I said Duties. Anyway, that's not why I've called you all here. Today I realized, well actually yesterday I realized.  And the reason I realized was a friend of mine had a realization that was vaguely similar to the realization I had after his realization.  Well, maybe not as vaguely similar as eerily similar...  What was a talking about?  Oh yes, my realization. I've been neglecting writing.  Ever since I started podcasting, I've spent more time doing that than writing; and for me, that's just wrong. I have lots of useless, pithy, boring, exciting, witty, funny, offense, and bad stuff to express and my laziness is preventing me from reaching my full potential. So that's it.  I'm going to blog about whatever I want to much more often than in the past and I'm going to drag your sorry ass with me.

You're welcome.

Press Release - New eBook!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jackson Stull releases new ebook entitled, "Anti-Valentine's Day Essays and Depressing Poems"

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (February 9, 2013) - Jackson Stull, known for his podcasting and blogging, has published his second book - “Anti-Valentine's Day Essays and Depressing Poems".

In this collection, Jackson shares his thoughts and opinions on the Valentine’s Day holiday, from a historical perspective to his anger over being manipulated by the media to by gifts.  The majority of the collection is what Jackson likes to call, “depressing poems to make you sad.”  These were written during a particular dark time in his life and he felt now was the time to release them.

His book is available at Amazon and Apple's iBook Store.

Jackson's previous book "Regis Jack's Perception is Reality" has been out of print for several years and is considered a collectors item by many.

To find out more, visit the book's promo page at http://thedistractedphilosopher.com

Contact: Jackson Stull
http://thedistractedphilosopher.com/contact-us/

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And Now I've Seen A Sith Wedding

Yes, you read it right. This Sunday I took part in a Sith Wedding ceremony at the Carolina Renaissance festival. It took be by surprise. I friend of mine from the Ren Faire contacted me late Saturday night over FB and said that he knew a Sith Wedding was going to occur and they were going to sacrifice a Jedi! So I gathered my Ren Faire Trooper gear and headed out that morning.

After meeting the happy couple, who were excited to have a Stormtrooper for their ceremony, they regretted not contacting the 501st before hand to get more people - they thought of that too late.

The couple are the owners (I believe) in Leather Mystics - dressed in black leather and armed with sabers. The ceremony was conducted by Ren Faire Great - Shamus the Insulter, whose deep voice really added to the mood.  And he had done his Sith research, he referred to the couple only by their Sith names, everyone had to repeat the Code of the Sith and pledge their devotion to the Sith and the couple exchanged light sabers. It was great! And the King and Queen showed up to make it complete!

So, that's something I can check off my bucket list!

Also, for those who don't know, here is the Code of the Sith (from Wookieepedia)

The Sith Code, as written by Sorzus Syn^[1] and taught by Darth Bane:^[2]

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

Clever, Cute and Meaningful

Please think of this blog post as something clever, cute and meaningful.  This will save me a lot of time actually trying to create something clever, cute and meaningful.

Thanks for your attention.

Wilkes Library Con 2012

This weekend was the absolutely huge one day convention at the Wilkes County Library in North Carolina.  Well, maybe not huge, but it was over 330 people - and it's big enough to dress up in costume and talk with old friends and meet new ones!  This Saturday I was there in two costumes, my Renaissance Stormtrooper and my "whatever".  I saw dozen's of different costumes: Stormtroopers, Black Stormtroopers (the armor is black, it's not a racial thing - I know there is a name for this type of trooper, but I can't think of it right now and I expected my color description to help most people anyway as they are not as familiar with Star Wars lore), Boba Fett, a mini Boba Fett (and it was a girl!), a Jawa (very impressive one), Tusken Raider, a tiny Doctor Who, a normal sized Fire Star, Darth Talon, Raven, Spiderman, Batman, zombies, droids and much much more.

I made the local paper (at least it's website).

This woman drew an absolutely adorable picture of me too!

[caption id="attachment_1864" align="alignnone" width="640"] Brittany Dunn drew this at Wilkes LIbrary Con 2012[/caption]

Regis' Recent Activity

1. Yes, it's been 2 weeks since the last podcast.  Stop bothering me. Should be one next week.


2. New site may seem operational, but it's actually not.  Lots of deleting/importing/exporting going on.


3. Have lost 16 pounds in the last month.  Cut out excessive sugar and bad eating.


4. Going through withdrawal for M&Ms


5. Slutty brownies: Double Stuff Oreo, topped with peanut butter, covered in brownie mix, then baked.

Welcome One and All - and Forgive the Construction

Welcome to my new home on the web. I am Regis Jack, also known as the Distracted Philosopher.  This site is the conglomeration of several of my sites - hopefully all the posts will get along just fine.

This is the new home to my podcast, "The Regis Jack Experience" - a weekly podcast where I talk about whatever the hell I feel like.  Also on this site is my blog (formally at 2 different locations) and a new category known simply as "Stasis Leak" - which houses my fiction writing and poetry.

Right now I've imported a lot of previous work but still have change to make - so if you made it here - please look around.

Everything should be right soon.

- Regis

P.S. Actually things are never right, this site will always be in motion!

Enthrone

My vocabulary ain't very big. I use simple words. I talk pretty one day. But, alas, my time has come to embrace the words I learned over the years in actual sentences. Or, more to my point, in word games.

I've played scrabble for years, but mostly as a kid. Where I used words like, hi, him, one, two, ax, axe (oooo, a varient!), it and other words of a child my age that was educated in public school. Once I tried to use the word 'Oreo' in a game with my Grandma, but she slammed me hard on the rule where we couldn't use proper nouns. She was a tough scrabble player, even when I was 8. I still have nightmares....

Anyway, the age of social networking has stolen the gaming concept of Scrabble and now calls it Words with Friends. I play this game often and get my ass handed to me by my friends on a regular basis. And while I win once in awhile, its usually luck - got a triple word or letter with an X and stuff like that. But today is different.

Today is not about winning. It's about the fact I was able to use ALL 7 tiles to create a word that I knew. I starred at my letters on and off for a while trying to figure out what to with them. And then I saw it. 'Throne' I know you're saying, "Hey, you said you used all 7! What's the deal?" I did use all 7, but I had to start somewhere. Actually I what I saw was, TH<blank>ONEN". Once I had that, I just had to find a place to put THRONE on the board (because Thronen isn't a word). But in looking, my spaces were limited, but I continued to look and look.

And there it was. There was an available 'E' on the board. And that's when it came together - ENTHRONED. I trembled as I dragged the letters from my tray to the board. I dropped a letter part way because I was sweating (the iPad doens't like wetness, although I do!). But eventually I placed the word on the board. But before I pressed the Play button, I had to run around my apartment showing everyone what I was about to do. Tears streaking down my eyes in happiness.

61 points! Take that Grandma!

It's Raining at Indian Wells

No matter what the weather - hot, warm, cold, raining, windy - it's always good to be at the beach. I know you probably don't care, but for me, the beach is about relaxation, laziness, and actually staying on the beach so I can see and hear the ocean all day and all night long.

The beach is a time to read, write, podcast (or not), reorganize, reevaluate and create new ideas. It's also the time for overpriced buffet's with lots o' crab legs (and I do mean lots) and scary frog legs, a time for butt fuzzies (from the trip to and from), a time to watch wild dolphins in the surf, watch the birds guard the beach and dead jelly fish wash up along the shoreline *sniff*. It's also a good time for sleeping, Tai Chi and meditation, but not all at the same time.



Some days the water is rough, some days it's calm as can be - the wind may pick you up and carry you away or be just enough to cool you down. No matter what, the beach is the place to be, unless there is a hurricane coming. Then get as far away as possible.

And of course, time to spend with the ones you love (and possibly some you don't).

That's all for today, sorry you had to read it.

Creative Conflict or ADHD?

Recently I experienced a creativity conflict.  It's the reason for my lack of posts and the reason there hasn't been a new TRJE podcast in a few weeks.  Some would say I suffer from writers block, but I say nay to these people (to which these people say, "Nay? Really?  Who talks that way?")  I have loads of ideas and tons of material to write about or talk about - but what I don't have is, well, that's the problem.  I don't know what it is I don't have.

This goes back to an old discussion I had many years ago with a manager (who I believe heard it from a politician) - it's about 3 important things that will help you plan.

1. Known Knowns.  These are things you know you know.  Or in other words I know something and I'm aware of it's existence.  I know how to post to my blog - and I know that I know how to post to my blog.


2. Known Unknowns.  These are things that I know I don't know.  For example, I don't know Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the population of Bismarck, ND or how to bring a woman to orgasm.  But, if I need to know these things, at least I know I need to look them up and learn.


3. Unknown Unknowns.  These are the most important things on the list.  These are the things you don't know, but you don't even know that you don't know these things.  For example, um, well, never mind.

The secret is #3.  If you know that, you can plan for anything. Unfortunately, the fact is, there is no way to deal with or address #3.  If you know of it, it's #2.  It's just another way to say, "Shit Happens."

Anyway, that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm not even sure how I ended up talking about it. Oh well. My problem is I have so much I want to do, I can't figure out which one to focus on.  Even writing this is distracting me from my creativity.

Actually most of this is a lie.  Just like the cake.

Thanks for listening, I'm so sorry you had to read it.

Female or Amateur Female?

While browsing ads on my local Craigslist recently, I came across the following:

"Looking for an amateur female or female to take adult style photographs of me (I'm male) I can provide the digital SLR camera also if needed. I do not have a location to shoot, but would be up for shooting at whatever location is comfortable. Contact me if you are interested or have any questions, thanks."

I found so many things interesting about this ad, I had to blog about it.  Let me break it down.

"Looking for an amateur female or female" - I'm not exactly sure of the difference between a female and an amateur female, but I think a female is born with a vagina and an amateur female still has a penis but looks like a mighty fine woman (can someone say Bailey Jay?  Google or Bing the name, you know you want to.)

"to take adult style photographs of me (I'm male)" - Everyone who reads this thinks of one thing and one thing only.  Penis.  Look at my penis.  I'll be naked and I have a penis. Did I say penis?

"I can provide the digital SLR camera also if needed" - This just means he is packing more equipment than just his penis.

"I do not have a location to shoot, but would be up for shooting at whatever location is comfortable." - I'm married and want to meet you at your place or some hotel room.  Your place is better as you may have a cute roommate and after I'm naked and you see my big bad penis we could have a threesome.  Then I'll "hide" the pictures on my hard drive and accidentily post to Facebook and twitter.

I know some of you are thinking that I placed the ad.  Guess you'll have to answer it to find out!

That's they way I see it, sorry you had to read it.

Reset; Edit; Cut; Damn It!

So here's the story.  I've been "blogging" on the web long before anyone knew what it was.  I loved to write for the web, posting my ideas, opinions and other stuff for dozens of people to read (only dozens because it was long before good search engines). But eventually everyone was able to blog, I no longer felt special and my drive to write for an anonymous audience left me.  So I stopped blogging and pulled a SOPA on myself!

Then I started a podcast.  That was the ticket.  Podcasts were not as mainstream yet, so I felt a bit like a rebel.  But then that became popular (the medium of podcasting, not my podcast) and I began to question why I was doing any of this.

And then it hit me.  I had started to fall into the, "I care what other people think" mode of thinking.  WTR (what the regis) was wrong with me?  I mean OMFR (oh my fraking regis)!  What had come over me?  Caring about what other people think!  How dare I!

Well, that's going to stop.  And I'm going to start up again - blogging about whatever the hell I feel like and podcasting about whatever the hell I feel like.  I'm moving domain names around and working on a way to shave my sites down into just a few.  I'll have the podcast site (http://regisjack.com), my blog/writing site (this site, but have a few domains point to it), my professional site (the site under my own name - for my day job) and finally my religion site (a work in progress - had a domain, but never followed through).

2012 will be a year I take back myself and my multiple personalities and get back to being me.

Thanks for listening (or reading), sorry you had to hear (or read) it.

Alone at Last - NOOOOOOO!

There used to be a time when I loved to be alone.  That was a time where I could get somethings done, not have to answer to anybody and, of course, not wear pants.  Being alone was like a deep dark well, damp, quiet, but always comforting.

But all that has changed.  Sometime over the past few years, I've gained access to feelings.  Yes, you heard me.  Actual feelings.  My feelings.  And while I've been in touch with negative feelings for quite sometime, it's the positive ones that cause all the troubles.  Trouble such as, missing my girl when she's gone and, um, well, that's the pretty much the driving force.  I admit, everyone needs time apart, but not to much.  I know I'm ready to admit that.

So, besides masturbation, I found another way to cover for these emotions - by watching Lost.  And after about 60 days of 120 episodes of Lost, I found it be a great distraction.  But now that's done.  I've tried to replace it with Eureka and Psych but neither has the appeal of Lost.  I lined up several movies on Netflix to watch, but it's just not the same.

I could be distracting myself by writing the script for Regis' next podcast, but I'm not. I'd like to say I'm avoiding writing, but, um, well, I'm writing this, so I guess I'm avoiding being alone by updating the blog.  This is almost like talking to other people, but not really (since no one reads this blog - I'm pretty sure about that because I don't tell anyone it's here).

Anyway, I forgot what I really came here to say.  Sorry to disturb you.  Go back to sleep.

Wait... I mean....

Thanks for listening, I’m so sorry you had to read it.

Well, Now I'M Lost

Back in the day, when the Internet was new and we were just realizing that it could be used for more than just porn, I was blogging. Back then that made me unique. I was part of a small collective of people. We weren't even called bloggers, they didn't have a term for us. We were just geeks. I was writing stuff for the web for years before social networks and standard blogging platforms were in use. But now, even as I type this, I realize, writing stuff on the web doesn't make me special, it just makes me normal.

Well that sucks ass, and not in a good way. So what the hell am I supposed to do now?

Recently I turn my attention to 'Lost' the TV series. That took up about 44 minutes times 120 episodes, on average, with extra time to read what the crazy bloggers of the world thought about the show. I did this in less than 60 days. This made me realize that I need to get back to writing. To exercise my creative side.

And that's just what i'm going to do. Slowly. But I'll do it. If I can get back into blogging, I can probably get back to writing that great American novel I'm trying to write.

Thanks for listening, I'm so sorry you had to read it.

Finally, I Don't Care

I just returned from spending 4 days at the beach and I have realized that for those 4 days, I didn't give a crap about anything. It was great. But instead of writing some insightful, yet entertaining blog post about, I'm just going to make a list of what I remember from the beach.

• iPad was great for navigation (although I could really use better directions)


• Butt Fuzzies


• My fingers prune when it rains, but in and around the ocean, nope.


• Bitch Slapped by the waves


• Naked


• Dead Jellyfish *sniff*


• Tiny Crabs (spider-like) used for fishing bait


• Watching the sunrise, even when it was hazy


• It burns when I pee now


• Watching the moon rise


• Bleeding like a stuck pig


• Big Ass Hole (three words)


• Let's talk about drinking (but shoot me in the head first)


• Sleeping to the sound of the ocean.

That's all for now.  Sorry you had to read it.

Hickory Con Spring 2011

Was at HickoryCon this past weekend - turn out was a bit slow this year - but that didn't stop me from show up as the Renaissance Stormtrooper and for Regis Jack to appear as, well, I'm not exactly sure.  Besides meeting up with friends, I met a comic author, Phil Juliano who writes a comic titled "Best In Show". He's cool, it's cool check it out.

http://bestinshowcomic.com/wordpress

You can also find pictures of me and Regis somewhere on his main page. But if you can't find them, I've included some snapshots here as well.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Regis Jack as ????"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="It's Me, Phil, Vader and the infamous Fett"][/caption]

Ow.ly is 4RAPE

So I was on my Facebook stream and came across a story about the Indiana Government and Planned Parenthood.  The story itself was not important, but they used ow.ly as the service to shorten their URL for the store.  The shortened URL was this  ...

http://ow.ly/4RAPE

Yes.  You saw that right.  4RAPE for a story about Planned Parenthood!!  I'm not sure if this story will still be there after word gets out, but damn that's a quirk of technology and fate.