This week has been quite busy – both when it comes to writing and when it comes to finishing off the last details when it comes to my father-in-law’s funeral.

I have to admit that I am quite proud of my wife and her family, as they are handling the loss of dad really well.

And I have managed to do quite a bit of writing, although none of it on my short stories. I guess those are just going to have to wait until I return to Canada in just over a week’s time. I’ve put a great deal of thought into the harvesting series of issues that I’m writing up for Wisdom from the Wastelands. I am nearly finished writing the fourth issue, which will finish adding harvestable material from almost all the creatures in the core rule book.

This week has been quite busy – both when it comes to writing and when it comes to finishing off the last details when it comes to my father-in-law’s funeral.

I have to admit that I am quite proud of my wife and her family, as they are handling the loss of dad really well.

And I have managed to do quite a bit of writing, although none of it on my short stories. I guess those are just going to have to wait until I return to Canada in just over a week’s time. I’ve put a great deal of thought into the harvesting series of issues that I’m writing up for Wisdom from the Wastelands. I am nearly finished writing the fourth issue, which will finish adding harvestable material from almost all the creatures in the core rule book.

The thing is I will end up having to write a 5^th, but there are not enough creatures. So I’ve been putting some serious thought into what extra rules I can come up with. I have quite a few, and I will end up splitting these rules up between each issue. This will spread out the harvest entries a enough that I can finish it after five issues.

And on top of that, I plan on finally getting around to writing up the bonus material for my recently published issues. I have not done so and I’m a little bit behind.

After I’m finished with this series of issues, I have every intention of getting down to business and seeing how much work I can put into finishing off the Powered Armor book, and maybe the robots book as well, since they will go hand in hand.

Finally I have been working diligently on converting all the weapons and variant Aliens from Aliens: Colonial Marines. At this point in time I’m still considering writing up the ‘bug-men’ from the god-awful comic ‘Colonial Marines’ series put out by Dark Horse comics, and maybe the ‘Royal Jelly’. But my normally overactive imagination is having issues with

I will need to come up with more creatures to convert, but that should not be a problem. Hey, ever since I arrived in the Philippines, I’ve been pretty much spamming the D-infinity site non-stop, putting up two entries a day.

I guess that’s a good thing.

Once I return to the great white north I will be hunting for work, so during that period of time I will probably be doing more conversions and posting them, as well as working on my RPG material.

I have no idea when ‘Dark Inheritance’ is going to be edited and published. I really don’t know if I am going to work on the sequel or not. I probably won’t bother now until I finally find out when it’s going to be edited. So if I put that on hiatus, it means that I will end up putting work into the various source-books that I have had on the back-burner pretty much since my last trip to the Philippines back in 2013. Only 17 months ago. And I can’t really post any of the 11 short stories I’ve written to tie it and the sequel together until it’s finally for sale. There are simply too many spoilers in the stories, and this would end up ruining the book for the readers if they know what to expect.

Hey, the good thing is that the artwork is all done at least!

This week I managed to finish off the novel ‘This Green Hell’ by Greig Beck. Honestly it was pretty disgusting, but very well written and the whole Alex Hunter series is really worth reading. In fact I created a conversion called ‘Arcadians’ that I posted about a week ago.

I had been thinking of which book to read next and decided to go with John Ringo’s ‘Islands of Rage and Hope’. Decided upon a good zombie novel to enjoy. Already half-way finished the book and I only started it yesterday.

I’ve also managed to get around to watching ‘Escape Plan’. All things considered I have to say that I did enjoy the movie – well up to the end, where it sort of became the typical ‘I shoot everything and never miss’. Still it was well worth the time I spent watching it.

Also I watched a new release called ‘The Giver’. I never heard of the movie; and never saw a trailer for it, just the poster. I’m guessing that the studio did not bother promoting it all that much. It wasn’t exactly what one would call a serious action movie, just another dystopian flick. Still it did hold my interest and I did rather enjoy it.

It really does amaze me, life in the Philippines that is. See, I typically make in 2-3 hours what the people here make in a full week. The only things that I have found that are cheaper here are essentially clothing, food and certain services. Everything else, especially electronics or name brands, cost as much if not more than they do back home in Canada.

And yet the folks out here have iPhones and other gadgets, and spend money like crazy. Maybe it’s because the population of this country is three times the size of Canada and as such they will have a significantly larger percentage of folks with cash. But from the stories I hear from my relatives here, a lot of the people end up losing everything they have because of the whole ‘keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Several families that were what we would consider to be ‘filthy rich’ ended up losing absolutely everything because of the kids.

I even met a couple of them, people that I met when I was first here in 1992. I do recall them being quite well off and having massive homes and literal fleets of Jeepneys and cabs. Now they’re living in tiny hovels and barely have two Peso to rub together.

Pretty sad when you consider it.

Jealousy is a vicious beast here and those who don’t have what you have, and become jealous, often go out of their way to take what you have, or conspire and manipulate so that if you’re not careful, you end up losing what you have.

I do love the country, I really like the people, but every culture has its drawbacks and what one can only describe as ‘character flaws’. Jealousy and Keeping up with the Jones' is without a doubt the worst character flaws this country displays.

I guess that’s it for this week.

It was great to see that I finally broke the 100 likes! I’ve had my personal author’s page up since March 1^st, so it’s nice to see it grow. It will take time, but I will continue to see it grow with each month.  So if you haven't liked it already, please do so! 

Until next week, peace.