Terran Franklin

Something tells me that I might need to reopen that Wiki (It’s still in the same directory if you remember it) to collect the notes I need to show to people.  The first of which involve the calendar Maatla uses, which is starkly different form the Julian Calendar we know.

The year number starts from the birth of Donnovan, an important religious figure, 2058 years before Eric’s not-so-grand entrance. The months are taken from Maatlan’s version of the Chinese Zodiac:

Spring: Rat, Dragon, Monkey

Summer: Ox, Bear, Rooster

Fall: Tiger, Horse, Dog

Winter: Rabbit, Sheep, Pig

Months are 28 days each, broken down into four weeks of seven days, with days noted by the seven elements known in Maatla: Sunday, Moonday, Earthday, Fireday, Airday, Waterday, and Spiritday. Spiritdays, like Sundays on Earth, are considered a day of worship and rest, and most businesses do not operate at that day. Some businesses and most schools do not operate on Sunday as well.

Holidays differ from country to country, but nearly all countries celebrate Rat 1; the first day of each year. It is the designated birthday of Donnovan, and is usually called Advent. It is similar to your Yuletime holidays, such as Christmas or Hanukah.

More such tips will come up as they are needed.  If you’d like, you can help out by calling out whatever questions needed answering in the story.  I’ll do my best to answer each one as they come up.

As I commented elsewhere, the word ‘Racist’ is being overused, and it’s becoming little more than just a slur that’s tosses around with all the other epithets that you’ll won’t see me use here.  You will see me use ‘Jackass’ a lot, though:

And even though we might be on differnet sides on topics like, say, Health Care, and the use of Czars (whom I don’t talk much about because their powers are limited when it comes to getting laws passed, and let’s face it, I don’t usually talk about things every other conservative blogger talks about.  I talk about Furries.  Does Shawn Hannity talk about furries?  No, he does not.  Because he can talk about the Czars til he’s blue in the face.  I’ll shut up now.) , we pretty much agree with what we’re actually pissing and moaning over, and contrary to what Jimmy “Waste of Skin” Carter says, it’s not about race:

“There’s been a long-standing debate in this country that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition, or when presidents are trying to bring about big changes…It’s an argument that’s gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, What’s the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look out for one another? … This is not a new argument, and it always evokes passions.”

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/18/obama-race-overriding-issue/

Now we’re talking about one of the fundamental facets behind Blood and Metal; what kind of a role government should have.  Barack once commented that the Constitution didn’t account for economic and social justice, one of his pet topics.  I might agree with him on that, but I’ll add an important caveat:  That’s not the Constitution’s job.

Think of government like a car, with all the differing parts, each with their own individual role that, when combined, results in an operational vehicle.  The Constitution is the engine of the government, the way powers are created and distributed.  It can not do social topics, because it’s not designed to be.  That role belongs to another part, say, a certain act, or a department, that’s working alongside the normally operating government wither in co-operation, or even independent of the government, such as a charity.

I believe that there is a point in the power scale of governments that is at its peak capacity for it to run properly.  Not enough power, and you have impotence (Re:  Articles of Confederation).  Too much power, and you have incompetence, sluggish bureaucracy, and at some extremes, people like Chavez.  (And don’t think for a moment that there isn’t anyone in Congress today who would pull off something like what Chavez did.  Nanci Pilosi is a prime example.)  Finding that balance can be extremely tricky and–surprise!–it isn’t standard for every country.  (There’s a good chance that China’s optimal power level needs be higher up than America’s.  That’s something I can accept as long as they don’t drive a tank up my ass.)  And starting in Book 2 of BAM, which I’m starting to type the first draft, that’s something Eric will address as well.  He’s not going to go change the system to his liking right off the get go, even if Sarah does want to use some part of America’s system.  He’ll allow the people to haggle it out themselves, and you can bet things will get as spirited in Vintanos as it gets in Washington.

Just don’t expect people in Maatla to pull out the race card, though.  They might settle things in the Octagon, but they won’t get as ugly as thinking in only species vs species.  The divisions are different there.

You’ll notice something about this blog that can be controversial to some people, but it’s where my stance is on things:  I refuse to bash President Obama.  Got sick and tired of it long before he was inaugurated.  I’m especially nauseated toward the birthers who claim that he’s constitutionally disqualified for the office in spite of Hawaii posting the birth certificate to everyone.

You’ll see me bash Nancy Pilosi and Harry Reed all day.  Consider Acorn and SCIU the modern day equivalent of a goose stepping brown shirted mob—especially with how they’re starting to shove concerned citizens exercising their free speech rights away from the Town Halls.  I can talk about issues all day with some people—and just don’t mention Hillary to me, she makes me want to puke—but I will always make an effort to show the President in a good light.  He might even have a cameo in BAM 01 just to piss people off.

My reasons why are two fold, the first one is more obvious.  After twenty—yes, twenty—years of nothing but wide scale Bush and Clinton bashing, I have learned to turn a deaf ear on anybody crapping on any current president.  I just couldn’t look at the president anymore and feel a sense of pride for the man.  Or anyone wanting to get to that office.  I want to look at the president—or in that matter America in general—and not be filled with an urge to chuck up my dinner.  That’s why I refuse to join in on the smearing of Barack.  (Also unspoken is the fact that, being someone who’s, ahem, well known in the ‘chans, I know what it’s like to be treated like Bush, and it ain’t pretty.)

The second reason is where Truthiness lies.  I grant you, Barack may be a progressive and I won’t agree with him on every topic.  He might even be considered misguided in some areas, but I believe that he is trying to do what he thinks is best for the country, and at times he shows that he’s actually doing the right thing.  For any proof in this, I merely point to articles like this:

Justice Department Asks Supreme Court to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos

If Barack was truly an leftist ideologue, he would have personally put those detainee Abuse Photos out on the public for all to see, and let the soldiers fighting for us be damned.  He could have even pull a John “The Baby Killer” Kerry and claim that all of the Iraqi War soldiers were like that, creating a new batch of broken veterans and ensuring that there’s no money in the world that could bring anyone to join the services, much like what I felt about how they treated the armed forces after Vietnam.  But Barack refused to do that.  He making his wishes known that he wants those photos secured, and if he had what I think is his way, he’d want them shredded.  That tells me something.

Barack is doing what he thinks is the right thing.  And in fact, I agree, in this topic, he is doing the right thing.

He might know more about organizing communities than changing regimes, but he has a good decent grasp at what is right or wrong, and seeing those photos on the front page of, say, the New York Times—a company where every employee would no doubt fap over seeing those photos on the front page, and I mean, they’d literally unzip their flies and pleasure themselves over the printed copies.  Right where they’re standing too.  In public, if you will.  I wish I was kidding—would be just plain wrong.  Both the photos and the fapping.

(I will never make it in talk radio.)

You ask me, I think Barack would be better served by a more balanced congress than the one he has now.  This current congress is being run into the ground by Nanci Pilosi and Harry Reed, two progressive ideologues who are completely out of control, and are leading the president in ways that not only are not liked by the general public—who are as I posted earlier being flat out ignored and discounted by the elitist leaders in Washington—but could give some people bad images of America’s past.

You should really concern yourself with what will go on with the midterm election, especially with your senators and representatives.  Congress is out of control and it’s imperative that we should dismiss these current members out and put in people who will think with cooler heads, read the bills they vote on, and think of the people who vote them in as little more than peasants who can’t even take a dump by themselves but still are required to vote for them.

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 :)

One of the main reasons behind writing Blood and Metal is what Eric would define as what America should be.  All along the story, he does random acts of kindness, rescue a cat from a tree, take down a Mechanoid, patch up a kid’s skinned knee, stand up for an misunderstood critter, all sorts of things.  And all the time he’ll say that he’s not doing anything anyone else couldn’t do.

“Eric, I heard what you said about it all, about all the claims about the heroics you’ve done. You merely shrugged your shoulders and say, ‘Pshaw, anybody would have done it.’ Eric, nobody had done it like you. I’ve haven’t heard of someone just jumping off his bike and saving anyone out of the goodness of his heart, has anyone?  —  Charles, BAM 01

If Eric would have any example on what an Un-American world would be like, he would point to this sad case in Connecticut not too long ago.  A near eighty year old Angel Arce Torres was run over by a perusing car, and just laid there unconscious, paralyzed, and silent.

Nobody fucking helped.

Cars just drive by.  A guy on motorcycle just circled him and rolled away.  Pedestrians just gawk and walk on by.  And I’m sure someone snapped the picture of the still-living body to post on the internet with “LAWLS!!!1111!!1!” plastered on it.  (And then the troll called 911, probably just to laugh over it.)  But that was it.  Nobody came to comfort the poor soul.  Nobody even bothered to stop traffic.  When a cop finally showed up, it was for an unrelated purpose; there was a chance that he’d be left to die.

There’s a good chance that nobody in the city or state would do a thing over it, despite the public outrage and the family’s cries.  (All of which would have been dismissed as butt-hurt.)

Angel Arce Torres was taken off life support earlier this year.  He wasn’t even eulogized.  Outside of some assholes that would drop a neck brace on his tombstone.  And yes, they did it for the lulz.  And they were the ones driving the cars that hit him.

This is not the kind of world Eric would want to live in, although Kentuckians have enough of a moral compass to help people they know have been, say, powned by a tornado.  And it’s definitely the kind of world anyone in the 9-12 movement would rail against.  BAM would show Eric inspiring the public in Vintanos to find their own ‘inner hero,’ saying that it is the highest in patriotism, in ether Vintanos or the strange, new, and in some places popular American philosophy, (You’ll find a lot of US flags and pins by Book 4) to not only strive for their own dreams and desires, getting educated, making inventions, starting businesses, making art and all that, but to also be aware that they’re a part of a community of like minded people and to help others in mean.  That includes scraping people off the ground when they’re run over.  Oh sure, make sure you bring the neck brace too, but for Gaia’s sake, at least bring the fucking neck brace!

Angel Torres didn’t even get that!