Story is done, some cool pop culture stuff, etc.

The Bruce Coville story is done. Basically. I drafted it yesterday, and I still might tweak it a bit before I turn it in, but no serious alterations will be necessary. I sent it to my professor after I finished it to see if he had any suggestions or problems or things he wanted me to change, but he told me at the beginning of class today that everything looked good and I didn't need to worry about changing anything. So any changes that I make will be purely for my own satisfaction, because it bothers me if something that I wrote does not read as well as it could. I'm also always looking to cut out unnecessary words and sentences, but my prof seemed OK with the length, even though I went over the recommended word count significantly, so I'm not too worried about that, either. As with the cigarette tax story, I will post the Coville article here, but not until after I officially turn it in. So, sometime tomorrow, in other words. It might be fairly late in the evening, since I don't know what time I'll be getting home tomorrow. I have class until 4, then a meeting about one of the classes I'm taking next semester, then I might go to the computer lab and work on this week's graphics project, which is the only thing I have left to do before the end of summer boot camp. Then it will be two weeks of vacation before the fall semester starts up the last week of August. I can't fuckin wait.

In one of my weekend posts, I put up a link to an article from the New York Times about a new drug that scientists have been testing on mice. If you didn't hear about this, they gave the drug to completely sedentary, inactive mice, and it produced in them the sort of physiological effects you would expect to see in animals that were exercising a lot. They got faster, stronger, gained endurance, etc. Now, they're not sure what side effects there could be to using this drug, and they're also not sure it will work in the same way on humans (although it seems reasonable to expect that it would).

But let's imagine for an instant that the pill would work on humans and that there were no significant negative side effects. All you have to do is take this pill, and you will become bigger, faster, stronger, even if you don't do a damn thing (and, obviously, people who do exercise will experience even greater results). They're talking about using the pill to help people who have been weakened by disease recover, and of course that should be the first priority. Give the drug to those who need it most. But wouldn't everybody want access to the drug? I know I would. It's the kind of miracle pill people have been dreaming about for decades. It makes you stronger, presumably more attractive (at least to people who appreciate an athletic figure), and would come in handy if anyone ever tried to mug you in the park. Or when playing on your company's softball team. Or whatever.

The article also mentions that they're already working on developing a test for the drug so that athletes cannot use it to gain an unfair advantage. This appears to make sense, at first. But imagine a scenario similar to the one I described, in which the drug works on humans the same way as on mice, it has no destructive side effects, and now let's add in one other hypothetical-- now the drug is widely available and affordable. I think it's safe to assume a solid 90% of the population would be using it. And, if that were the case, would it still be banned in athletics? Would we enter into a bizarro sports world that would be the exact opposite of the way things are today? Imagine if professional athletes were the only humans NOT using performance-enhancing drugs. Would we still watch the NFL if most of the fans could run faster than Terrell Owens?

That brings up another point about sports. If the drug were declared safe and not banned, and everyone were using it, it would really open up the competition for positions as professional athletes. Obviously, natural talent and ability would still be an important factor, but if the drug continued to provide rewards in proportion to how hard you worked, how often you exercised, etc., that would mean that an average guy with a tremendous work ethic could easily wind up playing center field for the Red Sox... or at least the Orioles.

And, as you've probably considered by now, think about what this could do to/for the population as a whole. A race of superhumans with great athletic prowess, speed, and endurance has been imagined by science fiction writers for decades. Now, with the development of drugs such as this one... it could actually happen. This is some crazy shit, I'm telling you. Of course, chances are it will never happen, or it will be years and years before the drug hits the market. These things take a really long time. First the scientists will need to do more studies and tests, working their way up to human testing, to see if it even works on us. And if it does, then there will be another long process to see if it's safe to use on people, the FDA would have to sign off on it, etc. I mean, best case scenario, we're probably five years or more away. But keep your eye on this. Fascinating stuff.

Okay, now for some pop culture stuff that I'm excited about. I've been pumped about Kevin Smith's new flick, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," since the first time I heard about it. I became even more excited when I found out that Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks were playing Zack and Miri. Well, my anticipation cranked up another notch yesterday when I saw an article about the movie on Rotten Tomatoes (well, it was actually an article on Ain't It Cool News, but Rotten Tomatoes linked to it). A reporter from AICN caught up with Smith at the San Diego Comic-Con, and interviewed him about the movie. The interview was interesting, but it was mostly stuff I've heard Smith say before.

The really interesting part of the article was that the writer described, in detail, a scene from Zack and Miri that Smith showed to an audience at Comic-Con. I will link to the article below, but I'm giving you a spoiler warning now. It doesn't give away any major plot elements or anything, but I know some people never want to read scripts or dialogue in advance, and want to experience everything in the movie for the first time when they walk into the theater. I understand that position, but I've never been particularly troubled by spoilers, so I didn't mind reading the article. The article described what was happening in the scene, but it focused mostly on the dialogue.

By the way, I was reading this article in the writing lab for my news writing class, while I was waiting for some of my classmates to finish up a quiz. So I'm trying to be quiet and not bother anyone, but I was having a really hard time not laughing my ass off. This dialogue is golden. Some of the funniest of Smith's career, I would say. And filthy as all hell.

On the subject of being filthy, Zack and Miri received an NC-17 from the MPAA, and they upheld that ruling when Smith appealed. He's going to make one final appeal to the ratings board to get it down to an R, and he says that if they say no, he'll just have to make some cuts (releasing with an NC-17 would be financial suicide). As far as I've heard, the MPAA's problems are all with visuals, not with dialogue, which is a relief to me. If they have to cut out a half-second shot of full frontal nudity, that would bother me a lot less than if they cut a single line of hilarious, filthy dialogue. But, hopefully, they'll win the appeal and won't have to cut anything at all. Anyway, click here to read the article if you want to disregard the spoiler warning.

Some cool books coming out this fall:

Stephen King is publishing Just After Sunset, a story collection, in November. This will be his first book since the novel Duma Key, which was absolutely amazing. If you haven't read that one yet, do so.

King will also be part of an anthology called The Living Dead, which is a collection of stories about-- you guessed it-- zombies. There are some really big names attached to the project, and I'm gonna be buying this one as soon as it hits shelves. It's out in September.

Also in September, Chuck Klosterman is publishing his first novel, Downtown Owl. I'm a huge, huge fan of Klosterman's work, and can't wait to see what sort of zany stuff he does with a novel. There's apparently an excerpt from it in the new issue of Esquire, which I just bought today but have not read yet.

George R.R. Martin's "A Dance With Dragons" is rumored to be coming out sometime in the fall, possibly as early as September, but I doubt it. He hasn't made any official announcement on his web site, at least not the last time I checked, so he probably hasn't even finished writing the book yet. But he is getting close, so hopefully fans of Martin's brilliant "A Song of Ice and Fire" series won't be waiting much longer.

Okay, that was a long blog entry. I have other stuff I intend to write about, but no point in throwing everything I've got out there all at once. I'll hold some back for tomorrow, or whenever the next time is that I have the time and opportunity to write a substantial blog post. Catch ya next time.

-Nick