Excerpt from "Fountains of the Abyss"

Here's an excerpt from the book I'm working on. It's current title is Fountains of the Abyss.

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Scorching pain strays through her body. She manages to lift her torso, bringing her face up off the ground. Emily removes a nugget of asphalt from the gash in her right arm. Her legs strain as they lift her up.
As she pats herself off, Miller's car makes a quick u-turn. Emily panics as she notices the tan vehicle approaching. She turns around in an effort to run away, but her legs won't move. The car comes to a stop beside her. Her brain sends a signal to her
body, again telling her to run. She begins to move, stumbling at first, but eventually gathering grace and speed. An incoherent yell comes from the car. Then, it starts following behind her. Emily knows she won't be able to outrun the vehicle, but is intent on trying. She pivots to the left and grabs on to a fence post. Miller stops. He yells at her out his window. The panic combined with the physical pain make it impossible for Emily to comprehend what he's trying to tell her. She lifts herself up, ready to leap over the fence and dart away, but then she stops. Her foot touches the ground. She clears her mind and looks back at Miller in his car. He obviously would have shot her already if he wanted to, or not have rescued her in the first place.

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Star Wars

It has almost been a year since the Star Wars saga was completed with Episode III. I was extremely impressed with it too. The prequel trilogy had a lot of problems with it, but with Revenge of the Sith, it redeemed itself. George Lucas has always said that these movies should be viewed as one film, that he didn't make six movies, he made one movie. Of course, when the original Star Wars (Episode IV) came out, it seemed as one movie. It had the hero leaving off and blowing up the Death Star. Watching it felt like seeing one good movie. Sure, Darth Vader escaped it in, but lots of movies have the villain escape to leave the possibility of a sequel.

After the success of Star Wars, we got to see the rest of what Lucas had planned. Episodes V and VI both seemed like a whole movie each, but definately seemed best together as one movie being the sequel. It had the hero going off on the journey, and losing. But in Return of the Jedi, true to the title, he returned to win it all. So although Lucas may have intended them to be seen as one movie, they certainly worked as individual movies.

The prequel trilogy changes things up. The first movie can't possibily be viewed as one movie. It has no hero. Anakin is the hero of the entire prequel trilogy (and saga depending on your view), but in Episode I he isn't seen until quite some time into it. Qui-Gon is obviously the Old Man (Mentor) and Obi-Wan seems more like the Sidekick or Shapeshifter (something like Han Solo).

Episode I wasn't complete. It had a happy ending (although that was part of the evil plan), but it didn't complete anything. It wasn't supposed to. The prequel trilogy actually was meant to be viewed as one movie. In Episode I, Anakin leaves his home and crosses thresholds, but doesn't get any further down his journey.

Well, okay. This post doesn't have a point. Maybe (probably not) I'll come back to it and rewrite it to make sense. I do want to say though that I really liked Star Wars. I'm definately looking forward to the 2008 TV series.

Also, my favorite character is Senator, Supreme Chancellor or Emperor Palpatine AKA Darth Sidious. Check out Senator Palpatine's Blog.

Go Google

Wow...Google's amazing. I heard today rumors about a possible PC or Google-brand hardware in the near future. I'd love to have it. Google has aleady been providing great services online and keeping with their motto of "Don't be Evil". It's a truely amazing company. I would give up on Windows for a Google OS and I wish they'd make printers too, so they'd finally work right.

I heard recently about a deal with AOL and Google in the works. I don't know what all this would affect for me, as I don't use AOL, but it's a terrible idea for Google. AOL bes Evil, the opposite of Google's first commandment. AOL is the SPAMMiest of the big Internet companies. It sends out unwanted CDs to everyone several times a year. They also insist on their users using their own web Browser, full of excess junk they want you to see. Google is all about getting rid of that junk. The only thing on Google's search page is your relevant searches, ads labelled to the side and relevant searches from other Categorical sections. However, maybe Google will change AOL and make them behave appropriately. This deal will surely bring more power and potential to AOL and Google and will most likely be good in the long run. I disapprove of them choosing AOL for this though, unless they intend to have a good, long talk with them about how to be a mature, responsible Internet company.

Speaking of Google, there is one critic that I know of that opposes them. Daniel Brandt operates a site called Google-Watch.org which is full of ramblings against Google (their PageRank system, privacy issues, cookies, etc.) It seems that Brand also operates a site called Namebase.org which doesn't rank high on Google's search. It seems this is probably what caused the hatred of Google. But I assure you, his website doesn't deserve a ranking on Google. No one wants to read any of it. His site looks like a piece of crap full of cheesy Paint drawings and subject links such as: Terrorism, Big Business, Assassinations, UFOs, Nazis, Elites, etc. This is obviously a conspiracy nut.