Terran Franklin

Don’t know about you, but if Eric saw this, he’d call Obama a lightweight.

Eric:  <mock incensed>  Bud Light?  Bud Light man?!  Who drinks that rotgut swill!?

He prefers standard Budweiser, or whatever house brew that comes down the pike.  In fact, he’d drink any decent beer that ain’t skunky.  He’ll even brew his own in his eventual apartment.  (Complete with Beechwood for aging.)

Sidenote:  It’s actions like this is why black communities have a “No Snitch” rule, and some white communities consider Cops to be facist pigs.  If Captain Crowley just calmly asked for an ID, and if Professor Gates (Come on, skin color notwitstanding, does he look like he fits any profiles?) would just flash it over and go, “Yeah, I live here.  Stupid idiot me left my keys inside.” (and I would have sympathized; I’ve done that many times myself.) we wouldn’t be seeing this major draema here.  In my book, everyone was acting stupid!

And even drunk, Eric’s not stupid!

Something tells me that I need to include a beer summit in BAM Book 02.  It would be somewhat . . . different.

Eric:  <largo> Fear my need for beer!! </largo>

(Er, Eric, you need to say that in Leetspeak dude.)

As most of you know by chatting with me on 9-12 chat rooms or over IM-s or by reading this blog, I’m using the next generation of Windows, Windows 7, and unlike the Linux-head I was in the earlier parts of this decade, I am very bullish for Windows 7. Especially when they invited me to try it out in both Beta and the current Release Candidate versions. Windows 7 is very improved over Vista, and their Mac-like Power Bar is easy to customize and use. I liked 7 so much that I bought a preorder when they came out (at $50, the price was right. At least for me) and that is something I’d thought I’d never do in my life when XP was all the rage. (I still detest that operating system, considering it like Carson Kressley considers pleated pants.)

Well, their current marketing process of letting people try out their betas hoping they’d become customers is at work again, this time for their office suites. Earlier this week, I was invited to try out the Technical Preview of Microsoft Office 2010, their next Office Suite.

• See a Preview of what Office 2010 Looks like

I can easily send you a link to the added features and tricks these programs can do. However, with one exception you won’t see me harp much about the suite. I’m more of a Word Perfect guy, and I prefer the old school drop down menus and static tool bars to MS Office’s Ribbon interface. And Word Perfect’s Reveal Codes function allows me to go down to the actual markup of the file I’m working on and chance it’s formatting on a minute level. All Word Perfect needs is a real-time word counter like what Word has—a nice toy for NaNoWriMo writers—and it’ll be, well, perfect. Nevertheless, I’d have Microsoft Office as a nice replacement for Open Office, which is what I did.

The one exception I have with Microsoft Office is one of the MS programs that I’m very bullish over: OneNote. I love OneNote because it takes the best of both forms of note keeping, offline paper and electronic note programs, and combines them into a perfect match. One Note puts your notes into a binder like format, where you can have notes clip and pasted, divide into Sections and Subgroups, add sketches, side notes, pictures and links at will, and do things you’d wish you could do with a Moleskine. It’s a lot more intuitive venue for notes then Evernote’s tape format, or any off-line loose-leaf binder. I’m already planning Blood and Metal book 02 with One Note, and will intend to work on my NaNoWriMo 09 book with Office. (What can I say? It’s why I asked to be invited into this Preview)

You’ll probably be seeing me use One Note more often than not as I show screencaps of the planning stage of Book 02, but little much else with the rest of the suite as far as novel writing is involved. Office 2010 is not a bad suite, they did good on it. I just can’t work with Word as good as I can with WP. That’s not saying that the programs won’t be good with other projects, mind you. You’ll never know what comes up between now and October 2010, when I’d no doubt have to buy the program just to keep One Note :)

…And if you think that my anger against Joe Jackson is illogical, baseless, or has at least a tint of racial overtones, all I need to do is to take a look at this article.

Since he no longer can screw with his sons, he’ll go on to start off with his grandchildren.  Will somebody please give this rat bastard a restraining order.  He is not to come within 50 feet of anyone below 10 years of his age.

Add me to the list of people pissing and moaning over where all this sudden love for Michael Jackson was while he was alive.  Just a month ago, the poor man was little more than a punch line.  The fodder of sick jokes and a somewhat improved face of the “Not Guilty” image that OJ had.

You might not even have heard about the albums ‘Thriller’ or ‘Bad’ until just a couple weeks ago.  Hands down.

My personal take on Michael Jackson isn’t scorn, or ridicule, or fear for your children, but just plain pity.  I feel sorry for the man.  Michael Jackson was the kind of man who never had a positive thing said about him until those two albums, and like what I did with the first part of the original Blood and Metal—the very story I’m reworking into a non-fanfict form—he tried to keep a hold at that goodness he had with all he held dear.  But unfortunately, his past—which I take all the blame and crucify his asshole father Joe Jackson on it—came up and dragged him down.  (There’s a number less than the fingers on one hand of the people I just flat out hate.  Only two or them are black:  Joe Jackson and OJ Simpson.)   Here was a man who could recreate images of the Confederate South with the way he held that whip over his children, and especially his youngest, Michael.  Some people would think that children could bounce back by it, but let me tell you something:  During the public school years, I’d probably got a tenth of what Michael had to suffer through.  I had a psychotic break from reality before age 13, and was a hikikomori (It’s a Japanese term that you’ll see me use often; it’s somebody who stays in his bedroom for most of his life) for over a decade after High School which I’m still recovering from. 

You don’t go through what MJ had when he was a child and just don’t come out normal, and for a while he was just normal enough to be accepted and eccentric enough to be charming.  But in time, the madness made by his dysfunctional past rose up and dragged him down to what we used to know him as until recently.  And to top it all off, it all happened in public, if you will.  (Five bonus points if you can tell me where I got that little quirk) It was worse than a train wreck, it was a slow grinding and painful destruction that would make you cry or laugh at the sheer scope of what is happening.  And all the while praying to God and praising Him for not putting you through that hell on earth.

In a macabre sense, I didn’t mourn MJ’s passing.  I was morning for him while he was alive.  And I have to admit that I’m actually happy that he’s gone.  Where he’s at now, he no longer has to deal with all the pain he had to go through.  Both by his childhood, and by his reality.