I just caught the tail end of Stephen King's acceptance speech for his National Book Award. He addressed the concerns of a "popular" writer getting an award usually reserved for a more "literate" writer. He pointed out that we can build bridges between the two if we just have an open mind and read. Just read.

He said that he was accepting the award not for being a popular writer or a literate writer, but for being an honest writer.

I truly believe being honest is the most important thing about being a writer. Sure, being a good storyteller and having a good story to tell is important too. But if you're not going to be honest about it, it's not going to be good.

King used the example that most folks' last words are not "Goodbye cruel world" or "I'll see you in heaven." It's almost always something like "Oh Shit." So when you write about such things, be honest, write what you think would really happen or does happen. There's a reason why a lot of black box recordings have a lot of bleeps.

Now I'll exercise my duty as a writer to be honest. Ever gone to the bathroom, gone through what you have to go through to get that euphoric feeling of relief, and then the smell hits you? And it smells so bad you break out in a sweat? You're sitting there thinking there is no way under heaven this came from your body. You actually start to go through the things you ate that day trying to figure out where you went wrong. And you try to pin point that exact moment when you passed out and somebody, somebody evil, fed you sour orange juice and burned catfish.

No? Okay. Come to think about it, being honest doesn't mean sharing everything does it? Oh well.

  ¶ 9:52 PM

  Hey, wouldn't it be wonderful if Blondie sued No Doubt?

  ¶ 2:08 AM

  Digital Art Portfolio of Jason Hodges

I have a theory that all Jason Hodges think alike. The above is not me. I am me.


  ¶ 2:04 AM

  Weather most foul.

  ¶ 3:39 AM

  Blink 182 is about as punk as Clay Aiken is straight.

  ¶ 3:22 AM

  Last week was a long week. And tomorrow, or today depending on what you believe, another long one is about to begin. Hopefully soon I can go into more details, but for now....

I bit my tongue real bad on Thursday. It was so bad that it quickly became painful to swallow, chew, and even talk. Had nature found a way to shut Jason up for a bit on a bite? Nope. I found a way. I thought briefly about hand gestures, using them to talk. But I soon realized it'd basically be just one hand gesture over and over. Then I realized that if I grit my teeth, it didn't hurt so bad to talk.

When you grit your teeth and talk to folks, they listen because they think you're pissed off. I may keep talking like this for a while longer than needed.

I was hoping to have a new version of Devil's Advocate finished by the weekend. Considering this is the last day of the weekend and there's still hours of work to be done, it isn't going to happen. There has just been too much going on around here. And I did realize that if you don't take breaks from things, it becomes increasingly more difficult to finish them.

For example, think of a huge puzzle of a skyline and intersecting forest. If you work on it for hours upon hours, all the little pieces become just blues and greens. Sure, you can still piece them together, but it becomes harder to see cloud lines and tree limbs that can help you solve the puzzle.

I wonder if life really is a puzzle.

  ¶ 1:51 PM

  I wet myself, changed my clothes, and wet myself again. Why? A mormon family moved to South Park.

In case you missed it:

White people sailed from Jerusalem and were the first native americans. But they were killed off by Indians, who we now call Native Americans. Joseph Smith found some gold plates in the woods that said Adam and Eve lived in America. When he translated the plates, which he did by sticking his head in a hat, somebody hid the translations and asked him to do it again. This would prove he was telling the truth. Well, he said God was angry and wouldn't let him translate the same pages again so he had to translate a whole new book. And this of course, proved he was telling the truth.

I love South Park. In the span of 30 minutes took the very basic elements, all of which are true, of Mormonism and put them up against logic. Take a guess who won.

My favorite quote from the book of Mormon: "And Joseph shall not pay more than 1,500." It's a reference to taxes.

  ¶ 9:42 PM

  >From ABC 33/40 E-Warn :

WFUS54 KBMX 181758
TORBHM
ALC057-127-181845-

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
1158 AM CST TUE NOV 18 2003

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BIRMINGHAM HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
WALKER COUNTY IN ALABAMA
FAYETTE COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL ALABAMA

* UNTIL 1245 PM CST

* AT 1152 AM CST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
TORNADO 9 MILES SOUTHWEST OF OAKMAN...MOVING EAST AROUND 40 MPH.

* LOCATIONS NEAR THE PATH OF THIS TORNADO INCLUDE...CORDOVA...DORA...
GOODSPRINGS...OAKMAN...PARRISH...SUMITON AND TUTWILER.

THIS STORM SHOWS STRONG ROTATION AND MAY PRODUCE A TORNADO AT ANY
TIME. DO NOT WAIT. GO TO A SAFE PLACE NOW! PUT AS MANY WALLS BETWEEN
YOU AND THE OUTSIDE AS POSSIBLE.

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

It's now 12:48. The line of thunderstorms that caused the above warning is moving out of Walker County into Jefferson County (Birmingham, AL). It's moving very fast. Oh, I live in Dora. That's near the border of Walker and Jefferson County.

As far as I know, everybody here is okay. We got very heavy rains and gusty winds for just a few minutes. There was a tornado in Tuscaloosa County that did touch down. There hasn't been any reports of injuries, but there has been some reports of damage.

It's raining here now. The wind is still up. I knew last night today would be a bad weather day. It hasn't been the worst weather day. I'm watching the weather coverage on ABC's 33/40. James Spann, our best weatherman, said, "This isn't like Nov. 10th." That's last year's outbreak. He went on to say even though it's not that, you still need to pay attention and that some of these storms could be bad. And believe me, I pay attention.

Well, it's after 1 now. Time to move on with the day.

  ¶ 1:04 PM

  I just got out of the shower. While in there I was thinking about last weekend. I flipping through the TV and came across a cartoon that I watch with my nephew. During the week, I watch him while his mother, my sister, puts her life back together or tries to.

I found myself watching the cartoon with this weird sense of relief. It's the same feeling when I'm thirsty and find a cold Coke. I've realized that after a few weeks of hours and hours of cartoons, I kind of look forward to some and actually want to see them outside of "Boo Time." Boo, Andrew, being my nephew. I wonder if parents and babysitters go through this?

By the way, A Pup Named Scooby Doo sucks. Scooby Doo sucks. Yes, that awful cartoon, A Pup ..., where there's always somebody who they don't expect dressed up as something scary, sucks. I hate it when cartoons treat kids as if they're retarded. Most kids are not retarded. They're small people. Treat them as such, and write smart cartoons.

And why does everybody on Ed, Edd, and Eddy seem mildly retarded and have the shakes? My eyes hurt watching that show. And I want to thank the Cartoon Network for not doing a four hour block of The Justice League, something remotely cool, and instead going for a block of The Powerpuff Girls. Any animation that looks more like Flash animation two years ago sucks. I'm sick of lazy animators. That's mainly for the Whore Disney, who I'm pretty sure is going to sue me for saying "Whore Disney." But if they do, maybe then I'll get a reply from them about the Sixth Sense DVD, the one that takes control of my player so it can show me previews of crappy movies. I can't even turn my DVD player off when that thing takes control.

  ¶ 1:03 AM

  Yesterday was a nice computer day. I'm not saying everything went perfectly as planned. It was just me, the computer, and some football. Go New England.

There was some odd, computer things that happened yesterday. For example, after an update, my menu went away in both KDE and Gnome. It had to look up the fix, but it was as simple as running menu modding program, menudrake, and resaving the menus.

Since then I've installed Java and Flash for my browser. Java usually gives me trouble, but this time it didn't. There was more DVD support built in this release, so all I had to do was install libdvdcss, the software that lets me watch DVDs that I own, bought with my own money.

I'll be adding things that'll tell me weather and cpu usage. System information basically with a little radar on the side. I'll use a program called karamba (superkaramba to be exact) to embed little apps in my desktop. They'll become part of the background. I'm one of those types who wants to know exactly what is going on with my system. That way I'll know when something is going crazy and eating up all my cpu cycles.

I need to fine some skins for XMMS, the Linux version of Winamp 2, not 3, never 3. I downloaded a skin I liked last night. But this morning, I noticed that the Skin called Lemon, that actually says Lemon at the top of the fruit in question, is of a big ole' green Lime. Maybe it is a Lemon, an unripe, juicy, sliced Lemon.

  ¶ 1:35 PM

  Mozilla Firebird - Next Generation Browser

I'm rebuilding my Linux system. I've installed Mandrake 9.2 It took about 20 minutes to install more than 2 gigs of software. Everything is really nice. There are some changes but everything seems similar.

I'm setting up the look and feel of things. I just installed Firebird, the stand alone Mozilla browser. And I'm testing out the "Blog This" extension of it.

Next, I plan to set my e-mail stuff. That always gives me trouble.

  ¶ 5:26 PM

  It's been a strange night. How strange? Dharma and Greg strange.

Coming home tonight, I once again saw an owl, white and tall with black eyes that stare back. I saw him on the side of the road. He turned to look at me. As I passed him, I could see him in the rear view mirror still staring.

About a week ago, something walked in front of my car. I thought it was a huge cat. I stopped, and it's head turned all the way around so the owl could stare at me. I waited and eventually drove around the bird.

I don't remember ever seeing an owl around here. Sure, I believe I've heard them but never really saw one. That doesn't mean I know they're not around. I've never seen a rattlesnake in my backyard, but I know they live here too.

So where does Dharma and Greg come in? I'm getting to that. Around two, the power went out in a bad way. You know, sucking and surging, humming and sizzling. I unplugged my amp and computer and grabbed a flashlight. Outside, I could see a tree with dancing orange light. The neighbors basically ran from their house.

The orange died down. At the time when the lights went out, I had some headphones on and didn't hear a transformer blow. The plextron went off. The plextron goes off when the fire/medical department gets a call. Something was on fire on the street above my place. That would be the transformer and the orange light. Not two minutes later, the plextron goes off again. There's brush fire in the cemetery at the end of the street, the one right above my house. Well, I'm basically between the orange light and the cementer. When the transformer blew, electricity danced between it and the cemetery, setting both places on fire.

Dharma and Greg? Okay, so last year was the tornado. There was no power for almost a week. A power crew from Florida drove up to help Alabama Power out. They're the ones who wired us back up and surounding folks. It's about a year to the day that they wired up the transformer and lines that tonight danced with electric fire, a landlocked St. Elmo's just above my sleepy little head.

During those dark days of last year, I listened to Dharma and Greg on a little, portable radio. The yellow TV remote sized radio has been a wonderful sleep aid for many a disaster. And when the power came back on here around 2:30, oddly enough, I turned on the TV to find Dharma and Greg on.

  ¶ 3:46 AM

  I just finished watching Terminator 3. Now, I'm not going to say the people who made this movie should be terminated, but close.

The movie was empty and shallow. Sure, there was a lot of eye candy. But even that seemed so so. Ten years ago, it would have been amazing. But just because you can create complicated and realistic effects of chases and fight scenes with cars and machines slamming into this and that and flying apart doesn't mean you should. Everything seemed turned up on ten except the ending scenes with the T1 and the T3.

And for the love of all things holy, why must we always have a pause in the action and a catch phrase?

There was no tension in this movie even though it one big chase scene if you think about it. No tension at all. The T3 didn't have anything going for her but young and cute yet deadly. But she didn't seem all that deadly even though she killed a lot of folks. Yeah, yeah, I know she's an emotionless machine. But so was the first T1 in the first movie. And even back then Arnold had something going for him on film. Charisma. And this lady had none.

The other actors? Well, the new John Corner seemed interesting. And Claire Danes has talent. Though, I'm troubled by the fact that once her one true love is brutally murdered, she doesn't think about him that much. In fact, just a few hours later, she's ready to start a new with her future love. Look folks, if you love somebody and they die, you're not going to okay with it three hours later. You're not even going to be sort of okay with it.

Crap, I'm giving away parts of the movie. But if you wanted to see the movie, my comments and plot slips -- plot? What plot? -- aren't going to change your mind. And if you like the movie, I've got some Christmas lights that twinkle that I'm sure you'll enjoy as well. Lord knows I wish I'd spent the last two hours focused on the lights instead of the movie.

And get this, there was a nice little twist at the end of the movie that shows that somebody did give some thought to a story for this movie. I'm not saying there is a great story here. It should have been a nice continuation of the first and second movie. Instead, it's very flat. And who is to blame? I'm going to blame the director, which by the way wasn't James Cameron. Jonathan Mostow directed T3. He also did U-571, which I liked. So go figure.

  ¶ 1:52 AM

  It has been a long day. Right now, I'm downloading the isos for Mandrake 9.2. I've already downloaded disc three of a three disc set. Maybe I'll get the other two before the night's over.

Work continues on a new version of Devil's Advocate. I'm still looking at about a week before everything is where it should be.

I had to take my sister over to her house to get some things today. Once again, she's left her husband. Maybe this time it's for... ah, that's a thought that has been completed too many times.

Today was a very nice autumn day. Autumn is my favorite. While my sister collected her things, I sat in the car eating lunch. I then wrote some, the short story "Cide." It was nice. One day when I build my house I'm going to put a writing room at the very top, perhaps a tower. And there'll be windows in all directions. I may call it my light house, the tower. And there'll be decks with shade so I can sit outside. Here's a tricky bit, I'd like trees to come in a visit. So maybe the tower will be in the back of the house, mid center. And the back yard can have a wall of trees. I'll probably have to buy trees and have them planted.

Of course, there'll be a maze, stone gardens, ponds, streams, and whatever else floating in my head. I have only the laws of physics to stop me. And I only believe in about half of those.


  ¶ 8:59 PM

  Mandrake Linux 9.2 - LG CD-ROM drives Errata

This is important if you have a LG CD-ROM and have plans to upgrade/install Mandrake 9.2. Some Dell computers have LG CD-ROMS.

If you have a LG DVD/CD-R/CD-RW drive, don't worry. The problems only come up with CD-ROMS.

As for the problem, there is something in Mandrake 9.2 that makes the LG CD-ROMS no longer work. In Mandrakes's defense, the LG CD-ROMS do not meet the specifications of CD-ROMS. They're basically LG's own version of a CD-ROM.

Mandrake has delayed the release of the public isos of Mandrake 9.2, the downloadable version of the OS, until LG could release firmware updates for their drives. As of the 12th, they've done so fixing the problem.

This has been the delay in me updating my Linux. I've been patiently awaiting the public release. I'm not a very patient person sometimes. But this hasn't bothered me too much because I really like that fact that Mandrake has gone well out of their way to make sure everything is okay for their software. If this had been M$, M$ would have blamed everything LG and went ahead with their hack and burn software take over of the world.

In related news, Longhorn, the next version of Windows, is due out in 2006. So get used to those bugs and holes folks. They aren't going anywhere for a long time.

  ¶ 3:21 AM

  There are new things afoot. www.underthemoon.us is now on it's own webspace, part of a hosting package with Godaddy.com. This has allowed for a new e-mail address I'll be migrating everything to, jason@underthemoon.us. The package also allows for a catch all. That means that if you were to send e-mail to (anything)@underthemoon.us, I'd get it. Bob@underthemoon.us, I'd get it. BigPoppaSmurf@underthemoon.us, I'd get it. WangDangDoodle@underthemoon.us, I'd get it. Current favorite: RonnieJames@underthemoon.us.

Soon, Devil's advocate and AMP will migrate to their own underthemoon address. Sister Moon and Mother Sky has already moved. The new address is smms.underthemoon.us.

It has been a very busy week. And it's only Thursday. I've started another short story, "Cide." This one shouldn't be too long, but I'll have to wait and see.

Work continues on a new Devil's Advocate. So far, things have gone well. We were well overdue of change from the "Green" theme we had. This time we have an "Ice" theme going for us. I hope to have everything ready by next week. Of course, everything has to fall into place, and that rarely happens.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go enter some contests at Fender.com under the new e-mail address and then work on the new DA.

  ¶ 2:32 PM

  I just finished a new short story, "W. T. for Short." It's for all those who are who they are. Right after finishing, I thought of my next story. And then I thought, "Wow, I write really violent things sometimes." I do. And sometimes, I don't think about it. Isn't that nice?

Later today, after sleep, I'll start "Cide," which is also violent but in a different way. "W. T. for Short" started out more like a comedy or satire, but then turned into something else. I listened to the characters. The story, after all, was already there. My job is just to write what happened down.

Tonight, or last night, Monday night, was the one year anniversary of the tornado that took my house away. There were 14 people killed in bad weather last year here in Alabama. My family and I were at ground zero for one tornado. I wouldn't say exactly ground zero. It touched down about 20 feet from the back door. It moved my dad's truck, flattened our garage, broke my house, broke out my parent's windows, put a leaf in the frame of my mother's bedroom TV (the leaf still hangs there today), removed our neighbor's porch and placed it over hill in another's yard, knocked one light out on my car, and completely left my mother's car alone. And for about 200 yards, you can still see the path of the tornado through the trees, old oak and pines.

That tornado put a hole in the roof of my house and broke the main support beam. We were lucky that night. But sometimes, I miss my living room. I didn't watch that much TV in it. Mainly, there were computer parts and books stacked everywhere. But I had a couch, and I kept my guitars in there. I miss having my living room. I really do.

It's beautiful outside. I've checked several times. I don't know why. The sky is puffy with broken clouds. And the moon is full, though I think the full moon was a few days ago. I could be wrong on that. And it's about 48 or 50, calm, and quiet. It's the exact opposite of last year. I can remember the many-pitched whistles and groans even when I don't want to.

  ¶ 3:32 AM

  SpiralEyes

Explore. Seek Dreams, Nightmares, and Spheres.

  ¶ 3:25 AM

  Black Aria by Glenn Danzig. Black Aria is not a rock album. It's this little musical piece written by Glenn that's about Paradise Lost and then some. I've had this album for years. I just got in the mood to listen to it before bed. Then I had this thought about the cover.

The cover is of Lucifer falling with another angel. The angel is embracing Lucifer, kissing him even. But if you look closely, you can see she has a knife in his back.

As I was getting the album to listen to, I thought about the cover and how I always wanted a good sized image of it, possibly for a background on my computer. Well, since I got the CD, I've gotten a scanner the two have never met. So, I became excited at scanning the cover.

And everything was just fine until I opened up the case. Somebody has signed their name on the cover. Glenn Danzig. I had completely forgotten the thing was signed.

Signatures are only good on checks and power of attorney documents.


  ¶ 3:03 AM

  Under The Moon: The Homepage of Jason Hodges

Somebody has a new url. It's new, and it isn't. The old address still works, but now there's a much shorter url that... well, points to the old address. But all folks need to know is the short url. Try it. Then tell your friends.

www.underthemoon.us

  ¶ 1:20 AM

  Well, it's my birthday. I'm 28. I is what I is.

So far, today has been a busy day. My sister is home early. There's a lot going on with her that I don't want to go into. Let's just say it's life altering, and it's altering everybody's life. While that's going on, my job is to watch my nephew during the day. He's off with her for a few minutes. With her around, or his dad, my nephew is on twelve.

CBS has pulled their mini-series about Ronald Reagan, giving it to Showtime. This is good because you can't ever say anything negative about Ronald Reagan. He is, after all, our best golden calf. Does the mini-series say anything negative about Reagan? I don't know. And neither do all the folks bitching about it. They haven't seen it either.

Last night, I watched "Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci." It was pretty cool. There was a lot of controversy around this program, most from folks who haven't seen it. On by the way, Pat Buchanan is an idiot. But you probably already knew that.

"Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci" explored the notion that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife and that they had a child. I've often thought Jesus and Mary were married. See, there are other things besides the Bible the Catholic Church okayed for us out there. For example, the Gospel of St. Thomas, Philippe, and Mary Magdalene, all ordered destroyed around the 4th century by an Archbishop. Why? Fear perhaps. Maybe it had something to do the fact most of it said you don't need a church because Jesus is everywhere, not in a special building. Or maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that those gospels said Jesus loved Mary the most and told her things the he didn't tell his apostles. According to the Gospel of St. Thomas, the apostles and Mary even argued about this.

The child of Jesus and Mary was, according to this and that, named Sara. Mary and Sara, after the crucifixion of Jesus, relocated to France. It gets better. The Holy Grail? The Cup of Christ? That was Mary according to some. The Knights of the Templar were to protect the Holy Grail and the Family of Jesus.

Da Vinci's Last Supper supposedly holds hidden messages. They don't look all that hidden to me. To Jesus' right you're supposed to see John, a young man. Look again. One of Da Vinci's students painted John later, but oddly enough, made him out to be a woman. Look at John again, it's not John. It's Mary.

The Last Supper

Oh how could I suggest such a thing? Just look and have an open mind.

Close up of John/Mary

I don't think it's John. Leonardo Da Vinci painted Mary on Jesus' right. Later, one of Da Vinci's students painted the same person as a woman, same face, same hair, same everything.

Was Mary Jesus' wife? Maybe. Did Jesus have a child? Maybe. Is that a sin? Nope. Even the Catholic Church admits that Jesus having a wife and child would not affect his divinity.

Oh, Mary was not a prostitute according to the Bible. There is a prostitute that Jesus heals mentioned right above the introduction of Mary in the bible. The Catholic Church admits that she's not a prostitute, but they're the ones who started the rumor in the first place, another archbishop but this time in the 5th century. It seemed at the time, she was more popular than their men priests. Ixnay on the womanay.

  ¶ 2:51 PM

  "I didn't want to know. I just didn't want to know," - Blue by A Perfect Circle.

The Saints beat the Bucs today. I love the Bucs, but you should know by now I love the Saints. The Saints have been building for a few years.

Greenbay had a tough game against the Vikings. Brett Farve, with broke thumb on his non-throwing hand, led the Packers to a 30 - 27 victory.

For the life of me, I can't remember who's playing Monday Night. Last week was a strange night with the Cheifs in a game relocated by fire, but Monday Night Football is turning into the strange thing that happened along the way.

My search for a hardback of Paradise Lost continues. Somebody pointed me toward abe.com, a used bookseller. I found paperbacks starting at $1. I also found some hardbacks at $3,500. Man, it would be so nice to have a really nice book, something made with hands and care, not machine and form factors. One day I hope to own a book worth more than my car. If I don't get my oil changed soon, a paperback will do.

I also want a really nice, and probably expensive, edition of Lovecraft's Necronomicron. Yes, Lovecraft wrote it, not the Mad Arab. I can't stand to have folks argue with me about it. The book isn't all the grand to begin with, but still it's pretty cool. A while back, I won a H. R. Giger book on eBay, and when it got here, the seller had packed the Necronomicron in as well as a nice surprise. I hope the sentiment was nice.

  ¶ 2:15 AM

  Halloween was... well, unfortunately, it turned into a regular holiday for me. I do not like holidays these days. They almost always feel empty for me. I get the blues, the not so good blues. There were no trick or treaters again this year. And we had the extra bonus of certain family and their husband doing their best, all by accident of their nature, to fuck it up for everybody.

It really sucks when you watch somebody stay with somebody who treats them like shit and pass it all down to their children. That's a nice little life lesson. Also, for everybody who watched Joe Schmo, there's another little lesson of life; nice guys only win if the game is rigged.

There was this build up, Halloween movies each night, spooky things about, talk, chatter, smiles and salutations. Then it all goes away. I'm usually in a Halloween mood all the time. It's nice to watch spooky/dark/scary movies. But I so rarely get to do that with folks. Halloween gives that chance, but only a slim chance.

Never the less, I did try to enjoy last night. I've started reading Paradise Lost by John Milton. I read it years ago. I think it's great. So great, in fact, that I wanted to buy a hardback version of it, put aside my paperback edition. Uh oh, hardbacks aren't common. And when I did find a version, it was out of print and/or extremely expensive. I saw a nice one for $107. That's not fair. But hey, life's not fair. Why should literature be?

My own literature moves forward. I am working on a short story called "W. T. For Short." After that I have one called "Cide" to write. I hope to have "W. T." finished real soon. It's really a personal side step for self amusement. I am enjoying it. It's about... that, you'll have to wait for.


  ¶ 12:35 AM