The Number Zero

So not long after I got my internet back, I was whisked away for three days and two nights for a job-related function I'd been looking forward to for some time. Three times a year, our region holds what's called a Train the Trainer seminar, where those who would become trainers attend and learn about our training process and associated topics like preparation and delivery, and some who have been trainers for some time attend to review and recertify. I did neither, because this time I was one of the trainers developing the candidates. It was a wonderfully fun experience for me, because despite being a rather non-social creature I enjoy meeting new and awesome people. I got to meet about fifty really awesome people over time, some of which have already availed of themselves of my offer to call me up and ask for advice.

If I did good on this assignment, then I would earn myself the opportunity to be considered for training at more Train the Trainer seminars or even getting to go out and open new restaurants, which is a good road to advancement. Thursday, I was judged as having done just as well as they felt I could, and I'm going to be considered for the next one, which had me jumping up and down. Friday was a good day at work, but I probably overdid the celebration cause I woke up sick Saturday morning.

What does this mean? Well, I did definitely forget about a certain crappy book I was reading in favor of better ones, but with the book sitting right here on my left and a few friends looking forward to the next insallment ... well, I can't disappoint the tens of fans I have, right?

Resisting the temptation to use the logo again, since I just used it in the last entry, but I feel kinda proud of myself for making it because it's actually the first picture I ever cobbled together with an editor. Usually I just crop and scale, but this time I did some cutting and pasting and adding text. Sure, there are people with way more Photoshop-fu out there, but I don't even -have- Photoshop and I've never been much of an artist, so yay me!

Before I get into the ground rules of this exercise, I want to give a shout out to the ones who inspired it. Obviously (for those of you who might have read his stuff) major inspirational credit goes to Mike Smith ( http://mike-smith.livejournal.com ) and his humorous critiques of the Harry Potter series which have been giving me lots of laughs and perspective since 2005 (warning: not safe for die-hard Harry Potter fans). He also posted a brief critique of the Twilight Saga as a whole back in August 2008 during the frenzy of the impending release of Breaking Dawn based on their plot summaries on Wikipedia at the time. The review was funny and awesome, because of or in spite of the fact that the plot summaries were crap, and it is my hope I can do for the Twilight Saga what he did for Harry Potter. Or at least entertain and gain new readers.

Another major inspiration is one of my closest and dearest friends, Amanda Dalton ( http://amandadalton.com/index.htm ), who is quite possibly the nicest and most encouraging person I know, and certainly one of the most creative. I figured I had a potential winner on my hands when I mentioned this project to her and she got a maniacal gleam in her eyes and said "Do it!". So I am. It's always encouraging to know that what you do will make at least one person smile and laugh.

Credit also goes out to all the friends and acquaintances whom I've discussed the possibility of this project with, in particular Steve ( http://pandoras-closet.livejournal.com ) and Heatherface ( http://www.heatherface.com ). More inspiration also came from the rapid-fire stylings of Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation ), and also from many random women at OkCupid who consider the Twilight Saga to be among their favorite books. If it was under my radar before, it certainly isn't now. Not a bad thing, mind you, because visibility is part of how new fans are born.

All right, without more proving why I'm the Master of tl;dr Disaster ...

( The Story So Far ... )