The Blarg

Pump prices have been lower for quite a while now, so this might not be extremely interesting, but I’ll post it anyways.

I remember that at the height of gas prices there was a TON of complaining. It was Bush’s fault, the government should do something, the oil companies are evil, etc. Once you see the following though, you will be a better informed citizen, and when you hear people say stupid things, you can then correct them.

Gasoline prices are directly related to the price of oil. The price of oil gets set in a fashion similar to the stock market. That’s not something the government controls, or George Bush (or now Obama), or the evil oil companies. It’s set on the open market, and take a look at the graph below. The price of oil and the price of a gallon of gas are perfectly aligned. In the future, the next time you see Congress summon the heads of the major oil companies to see if they are in collusion, now you will know what a bunch of idiots they are.

To make your own chart go here.

…at least for today. Luke got a fever on Friday, and it didn’t start to go away until last night. He’s also got a throat infection, so he’s on antibiotics, and lucky dad gets to stay home with him today. I think he’ll be ready to go back to daycare tomorrow, and daddy back to work.

I’m about halfway done with my final read through of Terra Nova. I’m still finding little things to fix and change, but I’m confident when it’s done it will be the best it can be. After I’m done Stacie will read through it, and we’re good to go. I need to finish it, because we can’t both read it at the same time.

I finished Metal Gear Solid 4 on Friday. It was cool, but I don’t know if I’d ever want to play through it again. It’s certainly a pretty game, though the story is a little ridiculous. The story goes on and on and just gets more ludicrous. Unfortunately it doesn’t haven’t trophies, but Fallout 3 does!

Over the weekend we got satellite tv. I didn’t really WANT to…but I was tired of fixing the DVR I had built. I’m sure once the Dodgers start playing I will appreciate it, and even right now I can actually find something to watch besides news, judge shows, and soaps. We went with Dish, and the DVR we got can record up to 2 satellite channels, and 1 ota channel at a time. It’s even connected to the TV upstairs, so you can watch recorded shows and access the guide on a second TV, something we couldn’t do with the htpc. I’ve got an order placed for a Popcorn Hour A-110 to replace the media capabilities of the htpc.

We have the TurboHD Silver package…so what should we be watching?

Unpacking my first book from CreateSpace

Here’s my dorky unpacking video! Overall I’m very impressed with the quality of the printing. The cover is a little thin compared to most major books, but the paper and printing inside is awesome. I’d say it’s even better than most paperbacks you’ll find at a bookstore.

Right now I’ve got a small list of changes to make. The text on the back is a little big, the gutter is too wide, and the top margin needs to be bigger. Stacie is going to read through it and find any final errors she can, and then I’ll make my final edits. I’m shooting for another couple weeks, and then this bad boy will be ready!

I’ve been thinking about “selling” my book and how it’s a little out of my comfort zone. I like to have opinions here on the blarg, but overall I really don’t like to talk myself up. It’s a little weird for me to talk about myself and tell people “hey, look what I did!” and make myself the center of attention. If I ever want anyone to read it though, that’s what I’ll have to do.

Edit:  Here is the original cover artwork if anyone would like to compare it to the new cover that is two posts below this one.

Not a ton going on here, just getting ready to enjoy a three day weekend!

The hard drive in my HTPC died. Arg! I seriously considered getting satellite, but I didn’t. This is the second time the hard drive has died in the last year. I think the first time might have just been normal hard drive failure, but when Western Digital sent me a replacement it was a refurb, so that’s why I think this one didn’t last long. I ordered a NEW drive made specifically for DVRs, and at 1 terabyte it should hold close to 100 hours of HD video. As much as I hate opening it up and setting it up, when the thing works it does a darn good job. I just couldn’t justify spending $50-60 a month for a DVR with limited space, no ability to edit or save shows, and a channel I really want (Dodgers!) and a few channels we enjoy on vacation.

My proof copy of Terra Nova is still on its way. Should be here Monday along with the new hard drive. I think next time I might pay extra for faster shipping. Here’s what shows on my UPS tracking info so far:

SUMMERVILLE, SC
WEST COLUMBIA, SC
GREENSBORO, NC
COLUMBUS, OH
MAUMEE, OH
HODGKINS, IN

I’m guessing it was on a truck…a very slow one that liked to stop in every city it passed. It left that last stop 2 days ago, so I’m guessing it’s now on an airplane.

I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid 4 the last few days. I really wish it had trophies, but I already had it, and it’s pretty fun. I have Fallout 3 coming to me from ebay for cheap. My new philosophy is to buy games used, play them, and then sell them and recoup some of the cost. Few games are worth having for a long time anyways.

Pictures of baby soon, I promise!

For the last two weeks I’ve been on lockdown working on the book, and it’s just about done. Over last weekend I finished all my edits, and I’ve been working on formatting ever since. If only work wouldn’t get in the way!

Now when I say formatting, I mean serious formatting. You have to design and format everything, from something as simple as the size of the book, all the way to stuff like the gutter (extra margin near the spine so you don’t have to tear the book apart to read words on the inside). By far the most annoying task was numbering the pages. At first you think it will be easy…just go to page one, and hit “start page numbers.” But then you realize, it looks stupid to have page numbers at the top of blank pages and first pages of chapters. I am now a master of the section break!

The next most annoying task was justifying the text. You can’t leave it on left justify because you get really dumb looking edges, so instead you use full justify. The problem with that, is that without hyphenation, some lines have super big gaps between words. This usually happens when you have a long word that needs to be hyphenated, but not always. You could tell Word to autohyphenate, but then you get stupid things like people’s first names getting hyphenated. Luckily there is a “manual” mode where it will search for large gaps, and then let you decide what to do. Hopefully all my margins and font size are fine, because if I have to change anything, it means going back through the whole book and rehyphenating. Ugh!

And finally, today I’ve been designing my cover. I bought an image off of www.istockphoto.com a few months back. I fiddled with it a few months ago, but you can’t design the cover until you have a final page count, because that affects the width of the spine (and thus your cover). So here is what I have right now, and I’m pretty excited about it. It’s the first thing in a while I’ve had to share, so feel free to give your opinions! You like it? Wrong font, too big, etc?

And in case you missed it a long time ago, you can read the back to see what it’s about. There will also be a barcode that gets put onto the back in the bottom right corner.

And lastly (is that more final than finally?), I bought the domain www.charltonbooks.com so I can build an author page. There’s nothing there yet, so don’t waste your time.

I haven’t left my house in exactly 49 hours. We were supposed to go out for New Year’s Eve, but Stacie got sick. Then today Luke had the worst poop in the history of all organisms that poop. Whatever the stomach flu is that’s going around, Luke must have had a touch of it, because I’ve never seen something so disgusting in my life. Stacie wasn’t home, so I was all on my own too. I told her she could change the next 10 diapers and we still wouldn’t be even.

Since I’ve been on lockdown I have been working feverishly on the book. I’m now up to 65% done with my edits. Once I reach 100% I need to format it for printing and finish my cover. Once that is done I’ll post a picture of the cover.