Northern Attack's 2007 Writing Contest - Week 8

There were 24 entries for last week's challenge, so that was pretty cool. Reading all the awesome entries over the course of the entry period, I thought it would be really tough to pick 3 favorites when it came time to vote. While it was tough to pick 3 favorites, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

A day or two after I submitted my entry for the Jim & Pam / Dwight & Angela double date challenge I had an idea that I really liked: Beet pizza. It seemed obvious enough that surely most people had thought of it before, and it would probably be used for that challenge, but it wasn't. So going into the 8th and final challenge, I was determined to incorporate beet pizza into my entry, no matter what the challenge prompt might be. It didn't have to be in any big way or anything, just enough to use the words 'beet' and 'pizza' consecutively. To a lesser extent I also wanted to incorporate a casual Friday into my entry, including Dwight wearing a Happy Smile Patrol t-shirt. So, what was the 8th and final challenge? This:

"Pick a character and describe their childhood."

So the casual Friday / Happy Smile Patrol t-shirt idea was out, although hopefully I'll be able to use it if there's another contest next year (which would be awesome), and beet pizza would certainly be difficult. But not impossible. Here's my entry for the final challenge:

Writing Assignment #8: The Wonder Years

Angela Martin didn't have many friends growing up. Instead, she spent her free time with her cats. Concerned about this, Angela's dad Freeman decided to take action. He used to know a guy that taught lessons to misbehaving children, but J. Walter Weatherman moved to California awhile back. A friend referred Freeman to a man who recently moved to Scranton. The man, a musician, agreed to take Angela's favorite cat Daisy for two weeks, to break Angela's attachment.

Two weeks later the man went to return Daisy. Besides Daisy, he also carried on his bicycle three pizzas topped with mounds of beets that an area farmer hired him to make for his grandson, who will have to eat the pizzas in one sitting as punishment for eating the 'money beets' from their beet stand. The man rang the doorbell, but there wasn't an immediate answer. He set the pizzas down and walked around the house. Hoping a neighbor found Daisy, Angela opened the door, but instead saw the pizza boxes. There was a post-it note on top, which simply said, "Daisy." Angela was confused until she opened one of the boxes, saw some strange crimson matter, and shrieked in horror. Just then the man walked around the corner carrying Daisy to give back to her.

While her terror lasted only a moment, the damage was done. Since that day Angela hasn't eaten meat, nor has she figured out why Dunder Mifflin's quality assurance representative has always looked strangely familiar.

-------------

I think I did more revision to this entry than any of the others in the contest. Originally the first part of the story involved Angela sneaking a cat into church and it escaping and her getting in trouble for that with her parents, them talking to the pastor for help, him going to Poor Richard's for a drink, Creed playing there, and at the end of the set saying that he also played children's parties. Also, originally her parents gave her cat to another family and she didn't know, and so when she thought Daisy had been made into a pizza, she never found out it wasn't Daisy, and she buried the pizzas in her back yard. I thought that was too dark, though, so I reduced the time frames on everything, especially the amount of time she thought the cat was dead. I also tried briefly to make the entry into 2 talking heads, 1 long one by Angela explaining why she was a vegetarian, and 1 short one at the end by Creed, saying something simple like, "Back in the '80s I did a lot of odd jobs for extra money." But there was no way for Angela to know everything for the story to make sense. The other major challenge getting it down to 250 words. I had a little trouble with the double date entry, but I was able to cut some unnecessary stuff pretty easily. This one was 280 without anything obvious to cut. I remember I got really frustrated that I wouldn't be able to get it to 250 without cutting something essential, and I briefly considered trying another idea, but I took a break and when I looked at it again, I was able to trim 20 non-essential words pretty quickly, and the other 10 or so didn't take too long to get rid of, either.

Despite all the words I've used to talk about writing my entry, I haven't mentioned one simple fact: Compared to the other entries for Challenge #8 so far, mine isn't even that good. The other entries this week so far are so good, they collectively might be the best entries since Week #1. And there's only 8 entries so far!

Wii!

Today I went to Target to get some cereal and my (very uncreative) contribution to the prize pool for Northern Attack's writing contest. While there I saw something I'd never seen before: A Nintendo Wii in stock. So that was pretty cool.

Northern Attack's 2007 Writing Contest - Week 7

There were only 13 entries, including my own, to the writing challenge from week 6. So that sucked. But there were some pretty interesting ones, and I'll take quality over quantity any day. This time I had 2 favorites and 2 that were close behind. I filled out the email with my 3 votes, and right when I was about to send it I changed my mind and switched the 3rd one I voted for. I think I made the right decision.

The writing challenge for this week was quite different from any of the other challenges, either from this contest or the previous one. This week we had to take a quotation from the office and attribute it to someone historical / famous in the real world, or a fictional character, etc. Whereas in past challenges the main work is to flesh out a decent idea, this week it's all about 2 simple choices: the quote & the attribution. So instead of debating about a little change here or a little change there, the big task for this week was deciding between possible entries. I'd imagine that everyone approached this challenge differently, but my way to handle it was to rewatch every episode of The Office over the past week to try to find some good quotes, and then go through them and find creative / interesting / funny attributions for them. In all I came up with 13 possible entries, maybe half of which I considered actually posting. I was hoping to come up with one that I'd knew was it as soon as I came up with it, but that didn't happen. So I went with my nerve-ending rich gut and posted my favorite last night. Here is the entry I submitted:

Writing Assignment #7: That's What They Said

"Hey, Clapton! Keep an eye on her, all right?"
-George Harrison, referring to Pattie Boyd

I kind of felt bad not using the 235 other words at my disposal, but whatever. Here are the other 14 possible entries I came up with:

"Yeah, here's the deal. I did not understand this was supposed to be a full on, like, report or whatnot... I was under the impression this was more of, like, a meet-and-greet type of deal."
-Hans Blix, February 5, 2003

"People are always coming to me, 'Mark, I have a secret. You're the only one I trust.' No thanks, because keeping a secret can only lead to trouble. Like, I was watching Cinemax last weekend, this movie. Portrait of a Prostitute, something... Secrets of a Call... More Secrets of a Call Girl. And the lead character, Shyla, is framed for murder, goes on the run, and winds up working at a bordello in Malibu. I don't... I don't wanna live like that. I like it here. I don't wanna be Shyla. I like being Mark Felt."
-W. Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat

"I wanna be married and have 100 kids so I can have 100 friends, and no one can say no to being my friend."
-Mulai Ismail Ibn Sharif, Age 11, who went on to father over 1,000 children

"When I was little, my dad and I played a lot of games together. My dad cheated a lot, but I never busted him on it. I would have, except I didn't know about it. He didn't tell me 'til years later. I was shocked when I found out."
-Eddie Ford, son of Whitey Ford

Ryu: Ooh, yeah. Good move.
(Ryu moves behind Chun-Li and puts his arms around her, Chun-Li laughs)
Ryu: Ooh, yeah. Good move. Ooh, not such an ultimate fighter now, huh?
Chun-Li: (Laughing) Oh, hey, put me down. (Laughing) Put me down!
(E. Honda glances over, Chun-Li notices)
Chun-Li: (Serious) Oh my God. Hey, put me down.
(Ryu puts Chun-Li down)
Chun-Li: (Annoyed) Hey.
(Ryu steps back, bewildered. Chun-Li pulls her shirt down and joins everybody else)
(Ryu is left looking severely confused)
-Overheard on the sideline during a fight between Blanka & Dhalsim in the Street Fighter II: The World Warriors fighting tournament.

"I look really good in white."
-Jenna Fischer, at the Blades of Glory premiere

"Okay, first off, my fans. Because I couldn't have done it without them. Thank you. Let's give [host TBA] a round of applause for MC-ing tonight because this is a lot harder than it looks. And also because of the orchestra, too. Um, so, finally, I want to thank God. Because God gave me this Emmy. And I feel God in this auditorium tonight."
-Jenna Fischer, accepting the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy at the 2007 Primetime Emmy Awards on September 16, 2007

"Can I trust James? I don't know. Do I have a choice? No, frankly, I don't. Will I trust James? Yes. Should I trust James? You tell me."
-Oprah Winfrey, on James Frey

Sean Hannity sitting in for Fox News HR Guy: All right, Bill. You are accused of making sexually suggestive remarks to Andrea that made her feel uncomfortable. Solution. Andrea, you are to make sexually suggestive remarks to Bill that will make him uncomfortable.
Bill O'Reilly: I accept your decision.

Jeff: I have to fire someone today. Okay?
Ben: Fine. Fire someone else. Fire Kevin, he's terrible. I am so much better at my job than Kevin.
Jeff: Okay, well, I already picked you. And you know that. So, unless I just go through with this, you're always gonna look at me as the guy who almost fired you.
Ben: No, no, no, no, no, I will forget so fast. You will be my savior. You're they guy who gave me my life back. Thank you.
Ben: I knew you'd see it my way, Jeff. God Bless you. You're a fine man.
Jeff: Don't...
Ben: Listen, you will not regret this either. Kevin's terrible, no one's gonna miss him. Good, good, good.
...
Jeff: Kevin, could I talk to you for a sec?
Kevin: Ben's an idiot, you know that.
Jeff: Well, he...
Kevin: No, no, no, no, no. You had it right the first time.
Jeff: Well, maybe I did.
Kevin: Exactly. You gotta go with your gut man.
Jeff: Huh, well... no. I can't, no. I can't go back. I would look like an idiot.
Kevin: That's why I'm being fired?
Jeff: No.
Kevin: So you might not look like an idiot?
Jeff: No. It was all the stuff that I said. It was business downturn, the cutbacks, and, and...
Kevin: This is unbelievable!
Jeff: I just hope that you and I can remain friends.
-Jeff Zucker trying, but failing, to fire Ben Silverman, and then firing Kevin Reilly

Katie: How do you come back from that?
Bryant: Um, you don't. I don't think, come all the way back, you know?
Katie: No, I mean, doing that with Michael. How do you come back from that, as a human being?
-Katie Couric and Bryant Gumble on Today after it was announced Lisa Marie Presley had married Michael Jackson.

"Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did, however, tip my urologist. Because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones."
-Mr. Pink

"You know, sure, playing the field is great. Don't get me wrong. But there's more to life than notches on my bedpost."
-Pope Benedict XVI

It starts with xkcd and ends with Beautiful Katamari

xkcd is a great webcomic, and last Monday's cartoon is one of my recent favorites:



Back in the day Super Mario Kart for the SNES drove me to wit's end. The 50cc and 100cc classes were easy enough to handle, but the 150cc class Special Cup races were just insane. The Donut Plains 3 track was particularly infuriating - it makes me angry now just thinking about it. I don't think I ever did get the gold trophy in the 150cc Special Cup. I don't remember if I just gave up, or I started playing another game and forgot about it, or what. The only other Mario Kart game I played was the N64 one, and it wasn't nearly as frustrating, leaving Mario Kart for the SNES the undisputed frustration inducing champ.

Until I got a PS2 and Katamari Damacy.

While most of the levels are a blast, as the goal is to just roll up everything in sight, there are 2 notable exceptions: Ursa Major, where you are trying to find the biggest bear possible (the Kintaro Bear), and Taurus, to catch the largest cow possible (the Holy Cow). But, the level ends the second you touch any bear or cow, no matter how small it is. After a few hours (and a few hundred swears) I was able to master the Ursa Major stage, and I can now get the Kintaro bear just about every time. The Taurus level was more difficult, though, since I didn't know that the Holy Cow appeared in the forest, and I always did a shooting drop into the enclosed village area, with the Holy Cow moving around, and the 4 cow men standing around the middle. If I didn't hit one of them on the drop, I usually grazed one as I bounced after a dash trying to flip the Holy Cow. Eventually I managed to roll up the Holy Cow, leading to much relief. I assume that I'd be able to get the Holy Cow most of the time now that I know how to get it in the forest, but I don't have much of an urge to play the level again to find out.

I recently played through Katamari Damacy's sequel, We ♥ Katamari. While the graphics are slightly better and there are some more inventive levels, the control doesn't seem as tight and the music isn't nearly as good as in the original. The one area where the sequel outshines the original is frustration. The Cowbear stage, where the goal is to roll up the huge Cowbear, and touching any cow or bear instantly ends the level, is even more infuriating than the Taurus stage from the original game. You have to get to just shy of 8 meters to flip the Cowbear, and it's pretty easy to get up to that size without touching a cow or bear, but it can be tricky getting into position, dashing to flip the Cowbear, and then adding it to your Katamari before some random little cow or bear prevents you from claiming your prize. Like the Taurus stage, I haven't played the Cowbear stage since beating it, and I don't plan to anytime soon. But, unlike the 150cc Special Cup on Mario Kart, at least I did beat these ridiculously frustrating Katamari levels (on the other hand, I'm not even close to collecting 1,000,000 roses, which is just torture).

Still, the fun of all the other levels of these Katamari games more than cancel out the frustration from these cow/bear levels. The fourth game in the series (besides the two PS2 games there was also a game for the PSP, Me & My Katamari), Beautiful Katamari, is going to be released later this year. It'll either be an XBOX360 exclusive, or it'll be on the Wii as well. I don't own any systems from the current generation yet, and as long as Beautiful Katamari isn't released for the PC, it'll probably determine which system I end up buying. The graphics look great, and there should be less intra-level loading (which was another major frustration in some of the later levels in We ♥ Katamari), but the major thing I'm looking forward to is online multiplayer. The multiplayer in the first game was awful, and in the second game it was only slightly better. Hopefully with the power of the new systems and the online multiplayer with up to 3 other people, Beautiful Katamari turns out to be the best Katamari game yet.

Trip-Hop Is Not Dead, Dammit

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Northern Attack's 2007 Writing Contest - Week 6

With the entries for Week 5 of Northern Attack's 2007 writing contest, there's good news and there's bad news.

The bad news: There were only 18 to the writing prompt. Although I suppose that with the holiday in the middle of the week, the drop off probably could have been even worse.

The good news: The 17 responses besides my own were some of the best of the contest so far.

After reading all the entries a bunch of times I had it narrowed down to 5: 1 super-duper favorite, 1 super favorite, and 3 favorites. Eventually I got it down to 4, at which point I didn't think I'd be able to choose the last spot except by flipping a coin or something. I finally picked the third one (non-randomly). I might have to give the writers of the 2 favorites I didn't get to vote for this week extra consideration next week or something.

For this week's challenge, I came up with an idea I liked not long after the challenge was posted and started getting my ideas down, and I ended up just writing it all right then. I like my entry, although I'm sure I'll think of a lot of things I should have used over the next week. But at least now I'll get to enjoy the new entries as they're submitted instead of having to wait to read them all at the end. One thing: I forgot to add the second set of parentheses in Andy's talking head in my official entry, but I added them below.

Writing Assignment #6: ...regardless of Creed...

Kevin (TH): I have never visited any of those websites... What was the first one again?

Phyllis (TH): No, Bob and I have never done that in the women's bathroom over the lunch hour. (Blushes)

Stanley (TH): (Laughing, but stops when he notices Michael by the doorway.) I never said any of those things. (Turns and sees Michael is gone.) It's all true, and I think it's hilarious. (Resumes laughing.)

Meredith (TH): I know for sure that Creed is not Jake's father. (Ponders) Maybe...

Jim (TH): Apparently Creed self-published a tell-all book about everyone who works here. (Holds up book.) 9 To 5 Confessions: An Office Insider Spills The Beans About Dunder Mifflin by Creed Bratton.

Michael (TH): (Reading, then looks up.) All these incidents are taken out of context. And what the heck is some of this stuff. Flonkerton? But the worst part is he had Kinko's do all the printing.

Andy (TH): (A tall stack of books in front of him.) I bought all the remaining books and paid the guy at Kinko's to destroy the master copy. This will help me get on everyone's good side. Don't know what I'm going to do with all these, though... (Flips through one of the books, stops, then turns the book sideways.) Dwight and... Angela?

Creed (TH): (Counting a handful of $20 bills, then looks up.) Book? I have no idea what you're talking about. (Smiles, then goes back to counting.)

Northern Attack's 2007 Writing Contest - Week 5

It took me quite awhile to pick my 3 favorite entries from challenge #4. Once again I had 2 favorites and 3 more close behind. But after reading all the entries many times I was finally able to choose my 3. One nice thing about challenge #4 was that slightly more people posted entries than had posted entries for challenge #3. Hopefully this trend continues for the rest of the contest.

Earlier today I posted my entry for challenge #5. I thought this was the toughest challenge yet. Whereas with last week's challenge the big task was getting the content to fit the constraints of a limerick, the big challenge this week was coming up with content that fit the characters, made sense, and was interesting. I'm not sure if my entry accomplished any of those 3 things. Two other problems I had along the way were 1) my first draft was too long by 50 words, and 2) in my first draft Jim had most of the dialogue. Fixing the first problem wasn't as tough as I thought it might be, as I just had to cut 2 things and then got rid of the rest messing with wording. Although I did have some other things I wanted to include, after I did the word count and saw 300, I just stopped with what I had and started editing there. And I had an even easier time fixing the second problem. As a non-writer, I find my solution hilarious, although I'm sure real writers would cringe at what I did, which I consider a testament to how bad I am at writing dialogue: I simply changed the attribution of a few lines from Jim to Pam, without changing any of the actual dialogue. That I could do this without having anything else is pretty cool, not to mention depressing. Anyway, here's my entry.

Challenge #5 - It's A Date

Nighttime, Jim and Pam standing outside.

Jim: A lot has changed since your original documentary stopped filming.

Pam: I've been staying at home with the kids and trying to paint.

Jim: She's being modest. Her painting has really taken off. She was even featured in Fine Arts Aficionado Monthly.

Pam: And after the documentary started airing, Dwight sold a bunch of Dwight bobbleheads on his website. He used the money to open up a restaurant with Angela, which opened last week.

The camera pans to reveal a brick building with a large “Dwangela's” sign. They walk into the restaurant.

Mose: Ah, you're finally here. Follow me.

Mose leads them to the party room, where Dwight and Angela are already seated at opposite ends of the long banquet table. They all greet each other. Jim and Pam take seats across from each other in the middle of the table. Jim motions to Pam to look behind her. She turns and sees one of Angela's baby posters.

Pam: Classy!

Jim: Um, do you serve soft shell crab?

Dwight rolls his eyes.

Dwight: They'll have Dwangela specials. Four Dwangela specials. Pronto!

Pam: What's the Dwangela special?

Angela: A beet salad, followed by a beet burger with a side of roasted beets. Beet wine to drink, and for dessert, a slice of beet cake. It's all vegetarian.

Jim and Pam grin at each other.

After dinner, Jim and Pam say goodnight to Dwight and Angela, then walk outside.

Jim: That was... interesting.

Pam: Definitely.

I Got Goosebumps...

July 3, 2007 - Keith Olbermann's Special Comment - Bush, Cheney should resign