Thursday night an event will take place. While I am not at liberty to divulge any details about this event, rest assured, it will be “world altering”…where “world” refers to kilian’s world, and “altering” is synonymous with not actually altering…

But this event, if all goes well (which, around here, we can all agree, is not an assumption any of us should make), will be chronicled here on the pages of Normality Restored for your aural pleasure on Friday morn, and will be the “launch” of yet one more hap-hazard endeavor by us (that is, gilgrim and I) for the entertainment and illumination of our loyal Normalinauts.

I would also like to mention that I have been working on Chapter 1 of “The Dawn Lights the Way” and so you should look for that this week…maybe on Wednesday, maybe sooner.

You may have noticed that gilgrim’s artwork is currently…oh, how should I put it…empty…we’ve had a variety of issues in trying to deal with how to best implement an image gallery. The images all exist on the server, just hanging out for anyone to find (they can be found by the way), but we may have a workable solution to implement this week. Of course, with our luck, probably not…

So I’ve been listening to Pandora a lot lately. Mostly because it streams better at work than a lot of radio stations I like and you can skip (up to, I think, five an hour) songs you don’t like. You can’t actually just pull up a song you want, which is odd, I think, but hey it is free. Anyone who is interested can find my current “station” right here, though I anticipate it will continue to evolve the more I listen.

But I’m putting it up nevertheless…

This thread from a D&D forum says that Gary Gygax has died.

Thoughts?

Alan, over at the Newswire got to posting this before me, so I’m compelled to give him his due…

Basically, Nine Inch Nails purposely released to BitTorrent the first in a four part series of instrumental albums. You can download the whole four part series for a paltry 5 bucks right here, though the $300 Ultra Deluxe version (which I believe came with a naked picture of Trent Reznor, but I could be mistaken) is already sold out…

I’m not a huge fan of Radiohead, so I didn’t download their latest effort…but I AM a fan of NiN, so you can bet your sweet-ass I’m grabbing this tonight!

I like that we are seeing more artists embracing digital media and distribution and realizing that money (it’s an important piece of the equation, after all) does not necessarily have to be made in the same ways that it has been for the last 100 years. Certainly, bands like Radiohead and NiN can get away with stuff like this because of the large and loyal fanbases each band has. A new or up and coming band would be hard pressed to find success doing the same thing, and so I think we will see record labels (if they’re smart, which isn’t something we should assume…) start to be more of a vehicle to launch careers as opposed to being a vehicle to sustain careers. Larger acts will, I guarantee you, begin to take more control over the production and distribution of their content and the leverage that a record company has will only be applicable to a group who does not already have a large and dedicated audience…at least, that’s my theory…

And this is just a really good song (and interesting video) that I wanted to share…

First off, a question:

What, in god’s name, would compel me to sit in Urgent Care for two and a half hours last night? I knew…I mean, I was absolutely positive…that I wouldn’t get antibiotics. I’ve been sick for, what, 3 months now and still I knew. And still I went. And, yep, after sitting there all that time, with no dinner, all I got for my trouble was a subscription for a stronger decongestant…

Secondly:

Two weeks after our Nude Lohan discussion, we are still getting various traffic coming in from search terms like “matt dallas nude pictures” and “lena headey nude 300.” Which, I have decided, necessitates that the words “nude,” “naked,” “porn,” and “celebrity” will now be a part of the SEO for every post that goes up on Normality Restored, regardless of said post’s actual content.

Chapter 1 of TDLTW later today…stay tuned!

Can be found, here….

It occurs to me that this, endeavor, I guess we’ll call it, is fairly suicidal on my part. As a writer, my most basic nature is that I should never let anyway look at my writing before it’s “ready”…partly because it’s still not complete, but mostly because I don’t want to hear criticism.

Graduate school has done a good job of killing off that instinct, I guess, because I can think of no other reason that I would be doing this otherwise.

My point is that you are all reading something that is very much a rough draft. And if my first novel is any guide, rewriting is less a hobby for me, and more a commandment. So I make no claims as to the quality of the story (either what is already written, or what will come)…of course, I make no claims as to the quality of anything else that I’ve written…

Also, I realize that this story is most definitely related to my first novel, in that it references places that exist in that novel. My second novel could certainly exist in the same universe as the other two works, but there are no direct connections. There may, or may not, be cameos, if you will, from some of the characters from novel numero uno, but time will tell on that.

Of course, none of that should matter much to anyone other than exsulis (and maybe Tengu) since they are the only other people to have read a significant amount of that first novel…