So what am I up to? I'm not sure. There is some interesting political stuff going on. And by "interesting," I meant "stupid." Of course, what other kinds of political stuff could be going on in this administration? Also, I just realized I miss all the liberals that would come around and try to comment something coherent enough to base an argument on that wasn't just full of hateful rage to anyone who holds an opinion contrary to their own. I miss that. It kept me sharp. It made me research. It steeled me against the idiocy of the human race.

There's also some interesting stuff going on in video gaming. The least of which is me attempting a bit of gameplay commentary on my own YouTube channel appropriately named RivenwolfTV! My interest waned a bit, and I let content slip for the last month due to me getting sidetracked by my own personal Mario Marathon, which powered through Super Mario Brothers and Super Mario Galaxy (up to two last comet levels and all the purple coins) and then promptly got distracted by visiting my grandparents and working on a project down at their house. After that, I was cleverly distracted by the strong desire to play a game of good caliber, a la Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64. Then I realized that Perfect Dark was ported over in HD to the Xbox 360 in all its goodness, and I've been playing that.

During all that, my Xbox Live account was hijacked for the notorious 10,000 Microsoft Points robbery and my account had to be locked (and subsequently unlocked for the purchased of Perfect Dark) and my credit card number had to be changed. That set in motion a series of unfortunate events that eventually led to the suspension of my Steam account because Valve decided to wait to charge my card for a game until that one day when I reported my credit card for fraudulent activity and payment was denied. I may discuss that later. It's pretty terrifying what they threatened to do to my entire library of over 100 games because the purchase of a single game failed over a fault of their own making.

But now I'm back and wondering how to integrate WordPress into Twitter and Facebook so it automatically pushes a blog post link to the other sites I use. Is there something that'll do the same for Google+? I don't actually use Google+. Does anyone use Google+? Is it popular enough to have plugins that publish articles to it? Who knows. I'll look into it later.

Woah. WordPress has a word count now. I'm around 500 words already and I didn't even have to think for any of it. If only NaNoWriMo words came this easily. If only that wasn't 3 months away already. If only I still wasn't in university, that might actually be something I'd look forward to. Either way, I'm doing it. It'll just be really hectic and frantic and amazing instead of... Well, hectic, frantic and amazing.

But I'm done for now. Bye!

Now, there are a lot of so-called ringtones that show up on YouTube when you hunt for "CTU Intercom" on Google. To be honest, they're horrible. You can tell they're ripped from the show or amplified like you wouldn't believe or too quiet or all kinds of other things that make them poor quality. No longer!

I was able to obtain an old version of the first 24 soundtrack that carried a pristine copy of the CTU Intercom on the last few tracks. Using that track, I then waited for an episode where I heard an intercom ring long enough for the tone to sound more than once. (That actually takes a while in later seasons!) Then I took the audio track from the episode and laid it next to my own intercom file and manually and mathematically adjusted the silence between rings to perfectly match the rings in the show.

In short: This is, I daresay, a perfect recreation of the CTU Intercom! The audio file rings twice and then ends, allowing you to loop from the start without losing or gaining any perceived silence between the rings.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Here's the standard MP3 ringtone for all those people with normal phones:
CTU Intercom (0:07, 256KB)

Here's the stupid, special M4R ringtone for all those people (like me) with the finicky iPhone:
CTU Intercom (0:07, 116KB)

Enjoy! I know I will... If any ringtone should go off during class, it should be CTU Intercom.

In posts like this, I usually provide a copy of an MP3 and an iPhone ringtone. I will not disappoint!

For the record, these tracks are not tagged properly. I'm not sure who's responsible for the original theme music, whether it's Michael Giacchino, Chris Tilton or Chad Seiter. I imagine Giacchino is the mastermind behind the music is the episode, whereas someone else (maybe even JJ Abrams, like LOST's title music) made the title music.

Once the soundtrack comes out, I'll update the artist appropriately, but for now, the MP3 and ringtone are only tagged for title.

Update 1 - May 22, 2010: Alright! I've got these things tagged in a way that I feel properly acknowledges all parties involved. As it turns out, Andrew Kramer, the guy responsible for the Fringe title visuals, posted not only the original title sequence, but also the special 1985 title sequence. In the latter post, he thanks a certain "Charles" for his hand in creating the 1985 theme song. Luckily, Charles Ferran (here is his site) wrote a comment for Kramer's 1985 post, and then someone else also commented and thanked that Charles for the music.

Therefore! I am reasonably certain that the genius responsible for the Fringe 1985 theme song is Charles Ferran. Because of that, I have updated the Artist Tag on the following files to include Charles Ferran's name, and because J.J. Abrams, according to the official Fringe soundtrack, is responsible for the original Fringe theme song, I have included his name under the Composer Tag. I believe that is proper enough!

Also, I took the audio from the video that Kramer posted, so now there are no annoying crickets at the end!

Charles Ferran - Fringe 1985 (0:23, 0.3MB MP3)

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Here's a standard MP3 ringtone cut for less silence at the beginning of the track:
Charles Ferran - Fringe 1985 (0:22, 0.3MB MP3)

Here's an iPhone M4R ringtone, which is identical to the MP3 above:
Charles Ferran - Fringe 1985 (0:22, 0.3MB M4R)

I need something that lets me easily maintain things like character pages and plot notes and timelines so I'm not breaking continuity and canon. I don't want to be like every other science fiction/fantasy story out there, 'kay?! I used to have a personal wiki for this stuff, but that's the definition of convoluted and impossible to maintain.

I need something that I can organize all novel-related ideas in! I know there's a market for this kind of stuff now, but it seems to be so vast and each program offers similar features incorporated hugely different from each other and I'm not sure which one to pick or even if I've seen all there is to choose from.

I don't know what I want, but I need SOMETHING. Something so I don't have to collect binders or scattered Word documents or maintain a wiki or anything crazy and impossible to keep track of like that. I'll keep searching, but if you happen to know of any that you enjoy, LET ME KNOW!

What is NaNoWriMo for? It depends on who you ask, but generally speaking, it's to set aside time for writing 1,667 words every day for 30 days for a total of 50,000 words by the end of the month. Write fast, write hard, don't worry about errors and plot inconsistencies. JUST WRITE. That, to me, screams of brain dump. You have a story floating around in your mind and you're not sure what you want to do with it, and NaNoWriMo gives you a fun month of pep talks and forums and word counts to speed you along the path of just puking words all over your paper until something emerges that is close to a storyline. (Amateurs think this method is a joke, but brain dumping is a vital step to building a coherent story!)

Well, to be perfectly honest, I think the story I've been writing for the past 3 NaNoWriMos has finally emerged from the brain dump phase. This year, nothing changed. I like what I'd written previously and I was just rehashing it with different words that meant the same thing. There were no vast changes and no glaring plot holes and I was getting bored writing what I already knew. I know they say that if you get discouraged or stuck, you should intentionally skip ahead in the storyline and fill in the gaps later, but that wouldn't have worked this time.

I've got enough of a story arc now that I need to worry about collecting my ideas, not pouring out more of them. I've got to start worrying about making sure my characters have personality and consistency and that they're all interacting properly and in the correct order. Not only that, but I need to actually start reading some work by authors I'd like to influence what I write.

This year, I noticed that I focus an extreme amount of writing on strictly dialogue as a way of introducing information to the reader, and that's bad. There's no glimpse into the inner workings of a character and there's no sense of discovery for the reader, and I need to work on that very badly. I kind of accept that my dialogue method is my style, but it's not a style I want. Seriously, I had pages of size 10 Times New Romans of nothing but two people talking in order to build what the world looks like. I don't think that's good.

But there's my reason for my late quitting of NaNoWriMo 2009 at only 25,000ish words. In the mix are a few other reasons like school wanting me to write 3 papers by next Wednesday. I finally decided that me resting while I'm a bit under the weather this week is more important than cramming 10,000 word days AND 3 papers this weekend. Not only school, but I don't think I liked the whole "you get a special prize for winning NaNoWriMo" thing when they announced they'd be giving out 50% off codes for Scrivener. It's a nice thought for spurring people onward, but what's stopping people from faking 50,000 words, anyway? I think giving away prizes like that are kind of shifting the focus away from "writing for writing's sake" and I didn't like that. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have Scrivener if I had a Mac, but the fact that I'm feeling sad for not finishing so I could get the prize makes me remember a little bit of why I stopped.

But my primary reason is: ENOUGH BRAINSTORMING THIS PUPPY! It's time for some serious work.

Anyway, apparently, the book has its very own theme song:

So short, so sweet. So catchy, and the visuals are the definition of perfection.

So like I did with Obama National Anthem, I decided to make it into an MP3!

Glenn Beck - Arguing with Idiots Theme Song (20 seconds, 1MB MP3)

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Arguing with idiots (idiots!)
Smart debate with dimwits (dimwits!)
Truth for those who care to look,
and another way to sell our book!

Only this time, I decided to go a step further: RINGTONES! They're exactly the same, except I cut out a bit of the extra fade-in and fade-out, because they aren't going to show up on a phone very well. In fact, you may decide to listen to that one instead, but I would call the 20 second one the unofficial "official" audio, since that's in the video.

This is a regular MP3 for normal phones:
Glenn Beck - Arguing with Idiots Theme Song Ringtone (15 seconds, 1MB MP3)

This is a special M4R for the iPhone and it's stupid ringtone format:
Glenn Beck - Arguing with Idiots Theme Song Ringtone (15 seconds, 1MB M4R)

Enjoy! I know I will.