Giando Sigurani's Online Empire

Let's do a quick update of my life in the last year:

Still working on the new version of Mister Mercury for the Kickstarter (Sorry, it's long overdue, but a series of editors kept dropping out due to personal conflicts. I found a new, reliable editor who will help me with the final stretch).

Still going to school, though now I have a job, which eats up even more of my free time.

Oh yeah, and I also invented an awesome personal word processor called the Write-O-Tron.

It's a simple computer powered by the Raspberry Pi- a tiny credit card-sized computer. It cannot use the internet. It cannot print. It does not have speakers. It, unfortunately, has very few functions whatsoever. It does one thing, and it does one thing well: It writes.

I got the idea from one of those really old word processors, those precursors to laptops-- you know, those things that are as portable and as useful for writing as a live Saint Bernard.

Well, I have been busy getting my kickstarter up and running. I made a video. I made a post describing Lulu. And, more recently, I made a logo for Aphrodite's Coffee Temple.

My dark little corner of the internet has become, well, dark. I'm still in there, however, and if you squint, you can even see movement. Most of that movement is from doing research and typing, as I make school report after school report.

Some of that movement, however? Machinations. Conspiracies. Plots and, dare I say it, plans. 

I am going to be making some personal appearences, each related to my writing, at not one, but three upcoming events.

There are some days when I am forced to take a few steps back from my work and say, “You know, that was shit. That was certainly, definitely, feces.”

Sometimes even I admit that I need to take down the negativity a few notches. My last post is a prime example. I attempted to be clever but only came off as a hysterical, reactionary, bile-spewing shrew. You would never guess that I actually enjoyed the movie, would you? Of course not. I didn't say a single positive thing about it. All in the name of humor, which I also mostly failed at.

So while I retreat into the black folds of my mind for some soul-searching and introspection, here are some love letters that I got from a strange Italian woman and their accompanied translations. Special thanks to my friend Monica for those translations. Yes, I may have an Italian name but I don't speak a word of it. Also, I'm actually Hispanic. I've got what I call Al Madrigal syndrome: I may look white, but I'm actually Latino. So I get the unfortunately-won perks of straight white male privilege from our patriarchal neo-racist society, but I also get to cash in on that sweet, sweet Affirmative Action money. I know how awful that sounds but I already feel bad enough just by existing.

These letters get bonus points, because it inspired the person translating them to become a licensed sex therapist, for which she has just received her certification overseas. Congratulations Monica! This post is for you.

Listen.

I know I am prone to making grandiose statements, but this one, while particularly gigantic in its grandioseness, is probably very true. I will not deign to think that I know everything about you, or indeed anything at all about you. I'm only going to tell you what I know.

And what I know is that I probably like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a whole lot more than you do.

I'm not saying that I know more about it than you do, (even though that is probably true!) I'll just say that there's a good chance that I enjoy it, that I adore it, that I hold it in esteem far higher than than you do, more, likely, than any being on Earth capable of holding things in states of esteem, be they high or otherwise.

I don't quite get poetry. I don't know why. Until today, I had yet to meet a poem that really, truly moved me. Poetry is a tool for the truly pretentious, truly uninspired and truly lazy writers of the world to steal their way into greatness, so that people like James Franco can later act in movies about them.

Poetry, to the dark voices that live in my mind, is cheating.

The final part of Sleepless City is coming soon, apologies for the interruption. Instead allow me to discuss a recent real life even that I found interesting.

Evangelical Jake

I usually go to the Ava Rostaria in Beaverton, but this time, for the first time, I went to the Tigard location while waiting for my friends to meet me for a movie. The moment that I sat down, I heard a heated altercation directly behind me between exactly the sort of elitist entitled douchebag you picture when you hear the phrase 'elitist entitled douchebag,' and a couple beanie-wearing kids my age who were having a smoke.

Well, it's Easter Sunday, and you know what that means! It means that today, well-meaning people the world over are setting their little ones loose in bright green fields where either the Easter Bunny or Flying Bell has left goodies to find, all the while pondering what on Earth this has to do with their "savior" rising from the grave to "make things better" for "everyone."