This month’s theme for “Army of Ermas” was “try something new.” However, because I hate sticking myself in stories (unless I have to due to procrastination or some other reason), I chose someone else who tried something new (albeit a few months ago, but still worth noting). She trained and ran a marathon. So, have a look today at www.anarmyofermas.com. The column should be available now.

I’ll be at Comic-Con 2012 from 12-15 July. I’ll be there propping up the podcast and doing whatever I can to save the world. Let’s share a beer.

I have an uncredited article about Arab Revolutions and Arab Spring in the latest Per Concordiam Magazine. The article can be found on page 37 of the PDF. The issue is a fantastic look at the Arab revolutions and their effects across the region. In my article, I talk some of those nations affected by the changes and how they see the future.

It’s time. Random road trip for 2011 is here.

This year? Congratulations, Gent, Belgium! My Science Fiction Show co-host Keith Houin and I will be appearing at the FACTS Convention in Gent, Belgium Oct. 21-23. My friend Mario has graciously agreed to come along for a trip that includes almost 19 hours of driving. We’ll be talking about the podcast, recording segments, and trying to grab interviews from the likes of Jeremy Bulloch, Dirk Benedict, Julian Glover and Kenny Baker.

We won’t actually have a table, as the convention staff ran out. However, we will be the disapora of our own podcast, wandering the floor and eventually, with some luck, returning to our homelands. We’ll also be handing out a few goodies, like CDs with all 20 of the podcasts and our fantastic new opening theme song by guitarist Aaron Kusterer. (I’ll have a separate blog about Aaron’s generosity and skill next week)

I’ve never been to Belgium (but I’ve been to Oklahoma; that reference may be lost on some, so, here …). I’m told Gent (or Ghent) is a hip, cool place. Keith, Mario and I then should be able to fit in like gum under a table. ;) We’re looking forward to the chance of mingling and brawling with some Tuskin Raiders. We’re also looking forward to just hanging out and attempting to cobble through the myriad languages we will encounter.

OMG. JUST REALIZED. IT WILL BE LIKE HANGING AT THE CANTINA BAR IN ‘STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE.’ WIN!

In past years, the random road trip has taken me to places like California (from upstate New York in 52 hours; LIKE A BOSS), Czech Republic (randomly selected something on the GPS and hoped we wouldn’t end up as a lost reel from ‘Hostel’), Tennessee (moved a storm victim from there to Massachusetts), and beyond. Though this trip is not as random (it’s been planned for about three months), it does have the “driving a hell of a long way for something” element. It also has the “anything can happen” moment, which, as a writer, makes me very happy.

Nine hours there. Nine hours back. About 33 hours on site with hundreds of costumed Europeans whose ears will be primed for our audio incursions. Fortunately, we have a hotel room and gallons of Stella Artois beer to which we can retreat if needed. Plus, you know … science fiction convention. Pure joy all around. Sleep, I’m hoping, will be at a premium with after-Con parties and the like in abundance.

Have questions about The Science Fiction Show or the FACTS Convention? Text me at 321-285-6750. ID yourself and I’ll answer them. We’ll have updates on the Science Fiction Show Twitter feed, as well as our Facebook page. You can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes (and we’d love that) or listen on our web site, www.myscifishow.com.

The phone conversation from one of the last days of my wife’s week away from home on “girly” vacation started something like this:

“We’re 20 minutes late for our horseback ride.”

Wait. Horseback ride? You screamed like you were being attached to the human centipede when we rode the camel together.

“THAT WAS A CAMEL. THIS IS A HORSE WITH A SADDLE AND A CUTE NAME. DON’T HATE THE PLAYER!”

I’m not. I just don’t see this ending well.

“CUTE NAME! SADDLE! You don’t know! I will OWN that ride! You’ll see!”

She hung up.

So, two days later, she returns home. I’m thinking three things:

[list style="info"]

• She has no injuries because she backed out of the horseback ride at the last second, listening to the committees in her beautiful head that pass laws on her dexterity and agility.
• She’s completed the ride and did so well, she believes that she is, in fact, Elizabeth Taylor’s character in “Black Beauty.” Oh, and we would own a horse. We would have no where to put a horse.
• Her friend would wheel her in the front door on a dolly wrapped in gauze, with splints made from whatever could be found on the floorboards of the car.

[/list]

Instead, the accounting of her story goes something like this:

Apparently, Wifey expected the ride to be more like Georgia State fair pony rides, wherein she would be helped up to a steed and pulled along at a nice leisurely pace, probably through a vineyard as someone named Paolo served her wine poured from the deep pectoral crevice in his muscle-bound chest, complimenting her on all the while on her new leather purchases and purse finds.

Instead, she and her friend missed the part in the disclaimer that said, “Hey, remember those parts in all the Spaghetti western films Clint Eastwood made here where his horse is being shot at, chased down steep hills, pushed up even steeper climbs and driven relentlessly along trails made of crumbling rock and tears, propped up along the sides of sheer rock faces ground from hate? Well, except for the shooting, welcome to your horse ride!”

Her ride, it seems, read something more like the recap of the journey of the Donner Party mushing over the Rockies than it did some gentile equestrian aside. Each of the 2,313 times Wifey freaked out, the horse farted. It wasn’t so bad for Wifey, who never noticed the horse’s flatulence, but Wifey’s trailing girlfriend wasn’t as thrilled.

Hills like rollercoaster drops, loose gravel roads, barrels thrown by a gorilla rolling down make-shift wooden constructions (No. Wait. THAT’S Donkey Kong). In any case, Wifey met with an Italiana Pony Express load of problems that her Atlanta city upbringing didn’t prepare her for and apparently came close to dying more times than Abe Vigoda.

“And then,” she recounted with wide eyes, “there was one point where I thought we would fall off a cliff. The horse sorta slipped. And I actually said a prayer out loud. The problem was that I didn’t know which prayer I said out loud. So, right before we were about to die, I think I ended up wish our guide, my friend and myself a Happy Hanukkah.”

It turned out she lived and wrote her own account of her week in Italy  — including her own account of the horseback ride) in her new role as a blogger for “All Things Garmisch.” You can find that here

Just upgraded my iPad to iOS5. Not sure what to think yet. I like that Apple has added an embedded ‘to do’ list. I have an app that does that well. The one Apple has added seems inherently easier. Plus, it’s built into the system. However, the upgrade disappeared four of my apps, including a golf game with an addicting ‘closest to the pin’ challenge. I’ll have to get those back. Apple TV has also updated. Did I mention I’m a big fan of Apple TV?

Moments like these, especially with the release of the iPhone 4S tomorrow, always make me cringe. Foot soldiers on both sides crawl into the virtual foxholes and begin firing round after round at one another. This is probably the product of good public relations work on both sides, however, there are enough polarized people with their own invented fury that don’t need prodding from PR laden info bombs and an Apple-biased big media machine. I suppose there’s money to be made doing this.

I owned an iPhone for two years. I loved it. However, for the last six months, I have used an Android-based phone, the HTC Desire HD. The phone itself is FANTASTIC and has a massive, beautiful screen. I love the camera. Accessories are hard to find. Still, a great phone. I switched because I wanted to try the Android experience. It’s been okay. Not fabulous. Just okay. It’s a bit disorganized, and the overall app quality leaves something to be desired. Android crashes more than iOS. There’s more upkeep required. I miss the ease of syncing music. Would I switch to 4S? Probably. It’s just not a part of my technology budget right now and, as mentioned, I do like the HTC phone.

About six months after I bought the Android phone, one of those people who is a bit too polarized against all things Apple asked me to write a review of my Android phone for his website. I declined. I didn’t want to “side” with one camp or the other — and that’s exactly what he wanted. In some circles, that’s called “propaganda.” Writing a review (which he probably wouldn’t have liked) would have done that. I’m a technology centrist and always have been. Plus, he wasn’t paying me.

All that said, to the people people choosing to polarize themselves and stand as rabid foot soldiers for either cause? Unless one or the other is paying you, go find something to do with hunger, disease, homelessness or some other cause that requires as great or more passion. Launch those tirades at real villains instead of fueling somebody else’s profit margin. Find a soup kitchen and dish up a few meals. Go hammer some nails into a habitat for humanity house. Write poetry. Read a child a book. Find a real cause that requires as much or more passion than this. Find something.

That other stuff is boring the rest of us.

Realizing the my blog posts have been infrequent, I would tell you there’s been more work as of late and less blog posting. :) I’ve finished three short stories. One has a home as my regular monthly submission to an Army of Ermas (release date is either Oct. 24 or Halloween). This month’s theme was “ghost stories.” Mine is not the regular Ermas fare, but it is a ghost story. The two are looking for homes. I’m also anxious to get acceptance or rejection on my submission to the Machine of Death anthology.

I’ve also been learning and relearning 3D rendering software. This is where a great majority of my time has been spent lately, in front of programs like Carrara, Poser Pro 2010, and others learning to build models and the nuances of texturing 3D models. I’ve used forms of this software for better than 10 years. Just not frequently. However, I’ve decided I want to create my graphic novel in this format. I’ll talk more about that on Thursday.

The remaining time has been spent planning, creating and making my podcast, “The Science Fiction Show,” a great one. I created the podcast in May thinking it would be a way to show off science fiction, science and a bit of my writing. It’s evolved into much more than I could have anticipated, including an upcoming trip to Ghent, Belgium, for an appearance the FACTS nerd gathering with fellow co-host Keith Houin. Cool stuff. Hope to see you there.

Finally, I’ve become a HUGE proponent of the stand-up desk. The government was kind enough to provide me one at work (picture below related). And the New York Times backs up my thinking about how it will help. Not sure I can do this at home yet. Not enough space.

That said, I should be back to a regular Tuesday/Thursday blogging schedule with some new insights in writing and creating all parts of a graphic novel starting with this post. Hope you are well.

I just finished an illustration for a short story. Here’s the image:

As noted in the image, I created the image for a short story called “Death and the Magi” by Joe McKinney, commissioned by Lyle Perez-Tinics and the anthology “The Undead that Saved Christmas, Volume 2.” I contributed a number of illustrations and a short story to the first volume. Proceeds from both books go to the Hugs Foster Family Agency in California.

The image is a mix of 3D modeling and design. The color image (above, clickable) is the actual artwork I created for the inset. Mr. McKinney’s story is tender, sad and worth the price of the book itself. Here’s a link to the web site publishing the anthology.

All of the Star Wars movies will be released on Blu-Ray disc Friday. I do not own a Blu-Ray player so I won’t be buying them. However, millions of others will. And many of those same millions are upset about changes George Lucas has made to the films.

My Science Fiction Show podcast mates discussed these changes this week in Episode 015. Among them: the addition of the word “No” as Darth Vader tosses Emporer Palpatine into the pit at the end of Return of the Jedi. No Vader dialogue existed before. The music and the cinematography carried the moment. However, for almost 30 years, that is the official record for that moment. Now, it’s changed or, for the millions who will buy it, at least fractionally so.

This sort of edit isn’t unprecedented (especially for Lucas). And it’s not unprecedented in other mediums. Books are edited for rerelease (Michael Moorcock changed the format of the Elric books and edited some of the content from the first release forward). Music is cleaned up and reproduced (there’s a version of Robert Palmer’s “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)” where drums are enhanced. It made the song better. There are other examples.

But would you make Humphrey Bogart say, “Play it again, Sam,” in Casablanca? He never actually said the line. However, a great majority of people believe he said that line. So, why not just add it into the film through audio magic and assuage the masses? On that note, certainly there’s some CG of Atlanta burning that could spruce up Gone With The Wind or a bit to make The Wizard of Oz gleam again. A 3-D Rebel Without a Cause anyone?

Some hold that films like Casablanca, Star Wars, Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz and others should be untouchable. There should be a law that protects them from being edited out of their original state. Congress or someone should stand up to the film owners who want to make a fast buck off adding new material to an old film. But who judges if Gymkata is a better film that Karate Kid and how? Box Office Receipts? A “Blue Ribbon Panel”? The masses?

I disagree. While I object to some the changes Mr. Lucas made to Return of the Jedi (some vehemntly), I support his right to do it over and over again. It reminds me of my service in the military. People burned the flag as an expression of free speech. I may not have agreed with that, but I supported the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution allows flag burning as a means of free speech. So, as the owner, Mr. Lucas should be able to mark up his movies however he chooses.

Call it what you like: an improvement; another cycle of cash flow generation for Lucasfilm Ltd. Either way, the changes are made and we have to live with “Noooooooooo!” As more media goes digital, and it becomes easier to change, it will be changed. That’s how new revenue streams are created, art (or whatever someone might call it) be damned.

So, where do you stand on changing work like this?

( Come listen to this episode of the Science Fiction Show for much more (contains some harsh language) and tell us what you think or let me know in the comments below. And if you’re really feeling strong about Darth’s new words, check out the tshirt we have for you).

The majesty of the Eiffel Tower. The twisting beauty of the Seine. Fun times at Paris Disney. After five days in the City of Lights, I could tell you a number of stories, however, one really kept my attention almost the entire time: the cons. In Paris, there are four basic rackets, all meant to burrow into tourists wallets. Now, I know what you’re thinking: shouldn’t this post be about the majesty of Parisian life? Shouldn’t you be telling us about that week with your family in perfect weather? Shouldn’t you be telling us about the splendor of the Italian gallery at the Louvre.

Um, later. We need to talk about this guy.

Every day I'm hustlin' ...

Despite the history, pageantry, and spectacular vistas that are Paris, the two-bits hustlers, how their operations worked and how the police kept after them fascinated me more. So, what follows are my thoughts on how each works and how they connect. After the ‘***’ below, that’s what I discovered on Google. So the first half of this post is strictly my observation and how I *think* things work, and consists of what I wrote before I delved into search engines to find it. The second half is credible accounts of what is actually going on from the search engines and sources.

I’m doing it this way to see if my powers of observation as a reporter and writer are still keen, even as I make best guesses about what’s happening. Again, key here is to better hone my skills as a writer seeing action in the wild and seeing if what I believe is happening jives with with the facts. It’s people watching with a purpose. I’m flexing muscles I’ve had for a long time rather than relying on search engines to come though with an answer.

You should know almost all the scams occur only around tourist spots – Versailles, The Eiffel Tower, Sacré Coeur, the Louvre, and so on. You should also know that I have no idea about how the French laws for this sort of thing work. Finally, you should also know that my wife got annoyed with it by day three (although, we did both had fun trying to figure the scam out). They all have the following things in common:

[list style="check"]

• The perpetrators are dressed the same. A tight designer named T-shirt, jeans and running shoes. Did I mention running shoes? Older men wore shirts with collars, jeans or khakis.
• Everything they carried was portable and/or disposable. I’ll get to that in a minute.
• Aggressive but not invasive, like what we discovered traveling in Egypt (save one encounter; I’ll get to that in a minute as well).

[/list]

That said, let’s get to the scams:

• The three-card monte. My favorite. At Eiffel Tower, near the Tracadero, there were as many as five games about 10 yards apart. There were four-six people involved on each stop: the guy running the con. He also had a built-in audience to watch him, always included a woman. Audience members were younger and older, playing to both side of the tourist house. Games were played on stacked cardboard boxes. When the cops swooped in, the boxes were cast aside. A lookout usually stood about 10-yards behind to watch for cops. Each con looked exactly the same across the city. Everyone in on the con made like they were just people on the streets. Sometimes I’d see 20s handed across. Sometimes 50s. In those cases, the faux players would “win.” I suppose that was to attract a larger crowd. I never saw the frequency with which these guys would get rousted, but I suspect it was about once an hour. Still, I figured, like all the other cons and illegal sales, they were all connected; one or two cartels working various sides of the town (even at Paris Disney). So, if one stop fished 100 Euros out of the day (possible given an 8-10 hour day), figuring the combined income, that’s between 2,000 or 3,000 Euros a day figuring 20 of these three-card monte stops. Seven days a week? That’s 15,000 Euros a week. And that’s real money.

• Street merchandise sales. More of these guys. The merchandise includes Eiffels Tower of various sizes and colors, silk scarves, usually gaudy with the word “Paris” imprinted several dozen times. These guys traveled light. Everything is kept in an easily hauled piece of cloth with handles that can be snatched up the moment they sight cops. I saw two get arrested. The photos that accompany this blog are from a rousting where one dropped all his merchandise. Passersby claimed all of it. Same deal; one or two cartels that make their own merchandise or steal it from somewhere (I’m SURE they have a cast for these cheap Eiffels Tower somewhere). In any case, it’s more real money. Again, 50-100 Euros per day times 40 or 50 guys canvassing one spot is real cash. Those six for 1 Euro key chains add up.

This is what it looks like when the cops come ... RUNNING SHOES!

• Petitioners. There are women (and only women) who canvass other women to sign a petition. At one corner, there were five or six hitting on almost every woman they’d see pass by. I couldn’t figure out what this was for, then it hit me like an 18-pound sledge: identity theft. Grab someone’s name. Signature. Postal code. Some other info I couldn’t see on the petition. You’ve got the makings of a good start. Again, the same cartels.

Now the also rans:

• At Sacré Coeur, there were guys doing something with string. They wanted me or my 5-year-old daughter to put our finger in the string. We never got that far, although one was aggressive. Felt like a pick-pocketing thing. Plus, it’s a string trick and a Euro is worth $1.39. You think a piece of string or some lame trick using a piece of string is worth $1.39? Not this cat.
• Also, beggars. The beggars, all women, were dressed a lot like the women who took the signatures for petition. One crouched with cup out on the doorway to the entrance of Sacré Coeur. They did have on nice clothes and shoes without a lot of tread worn.

I mentioned that I believe cartels run all these scams. All the money probably flows into one or two places. I’d also guess they are connected to all those merchandise stores that sell the exact same Paris merchandise every 15 feet, so that’s a HUGE pile of money. How much of the business is legal or illegal? Not sure. Again, everything you’ve read so far is based on intuition. However, Paris authorities, via signs and posted bills, wanted to remind me that the money probably flows into something unscrupulous like terrorism or something. Finally, I’d guess that some of the guys doing the selling aren’t doing it of free will; some kind of slavery or, at the very least, indentured servitude.

And now for search-engine magic …

So, I’ve just search-engined for some answers. Here’s what I know, taken from http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/pariscustoms.html#tlf, foders.com, squidoo.com and tripadvisor.com :

• The String Guys. “When approaching the funicular or the Square Willette below the Sacre Coeur, there are men who will approach you and try to take your hand and tie a piece of string around your wrist and charge you for it. Unless you want a 5 euros (sic) piece of string, avoid them. These guys can be fairly aggressive.”
• I only saw this once. “This is the next most common scam: At the tunnel entrance to the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées, in front of the Notre Dame or at the Place de la Concorde entrance of the Tuileries Garden, a girl or a woman wearing a long skirt will ask you, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” It is natural to respond, “Yes”, to be friendly and maybe helpful. You will then be shown a piece of paper which asks for money.
• On beggars. “Often there are beggars at the door-steps of churches (DING!). One guy was sitting there with a brand new portable DVD player that I wish I had. Bad form on his part.”
• On petitions. “A new scam for 2010 is children and adults pretending to be deaf on the steps leading to the Sacre Coeur.  They approach you quite forcefully with a clipboard, indicating that you should sign it and give them some money. If you try to give them a few euros, they will turn over their clipboards which on the back say: ’10 Euros Minimum.’  If you give in to it and you remove your purse or wallet, they see where you keep it and when several children hug you to say thank you, they steal your purse or wallet from where they know you keep it.”
• On street vendors. “Most of the sellers are immigrants from Africa or (I think) Pakistan or India, and most are illegally in France. Of course, they are not operating legitimate businesses and pay no taxes, unlike the legal vendors trying to compete with them with retail stands. The food they sell (usually drinks, in practice) is often expired and stolen.”

[video style="medium_center" title=""]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1kng_UV5Y[/video]

• Three-card monte (actually called Trinidad Monte). “This is rather new here in Paris. Started less than 2 years ago, but it is a well known scam worldwide. Usually it involved at least 3 scammers, the one that host the game and 2 lucky “friends” winning lots of money and trying to bring real targets in the game. Don’t play, you won’t win. It is all scam, and played out to lure the unsuspected tourists (and locals). You will loose (sic)! Once again, mainly done by gypsies, but don’t be fooled if it is hosted by others. You will find these games where there is a lot of affluence: Tour Eiffel, Saint-Michel among other. Police are shutting them down, but they just move and start again.” More here on how the scam works: http://scams.wikispaces.com/Three+Card+Monte

So that’s that.

Oh, and the Italian gallery at the Louvre is nice, too. ;)