I asked people what they thought change smelled like. They gave me the following flowery responses:
Some people think change smells like the changing of seasons. The sweet smell of flowers waters your eyes as they usher in allergy season. The distinctive scent of perspiration kindly lets you know summer is on its way.
Still, others think [...]

Once, in the midst of battle and strife and affliction, a wise man tore his cloak and wrote upon it:
In Memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children.
He then fastened that cloak upon a pole, this became a standard for his nation.
Centuries- even millinia- later, fifty-five other [...]

Hello everybody! First off, I would like to apologize to all of our readers for not writing in a while…we have been quite busy lately. But I’m glad to say that we are all back and refreshed as ever, which is why we are having our May Staff Contest which will be taking place from [...]

Sure, us writers of The Nearby Future can blame our lack of writing on our schedules. Or even our conflicting jiu jitsu classes. But there was a real culprit behind our lack of writing. Our theme. Our old color blocks theme killed our ideas. With a lead pipe, in the conservatory with Mr. Green.
So, as [...]

We here at the Nearby Future pride ourselves in dramatic comebacks. This latest comeback now includes a video.

Cake is awesome. Sure, the processed flour turns to sugar in your bloodstream. Sure, as a result of that your fat metabolism is slowed down. Despite all that, I love cake as much as the next person.
Why? Well, our culture has turned cake into the official birthday food! You never see balloons and smart aleck [...]

First of all, I wanted to apologize for not picking a theme. Now I would like to give you my excuse: life got crazy. Rika is a crazy person who can run on almost no sleep, but I sure can’t! Also I usually don’t write that often.
So the theme of this month is “things that should be [...]

Yep. It’s the inevitable post about our new layout.
Isn’t it funny how bloggers always love to update you on how the website has changed, when probably you readers don’t care?
Alright, it’s not funny. Kind of like getting hit by a Dodge. Ironic, but not funny.
Right. Abandoning metaphors.
In other news, the staff contest is ending so [...]

The staff contest ends the tenth!
Vote now!
Here are the results so far:
PLOTG: 6
Rika, Nero and Calister: 5
Cal: 4
Jala: 3
JD: 1
Socrates: 0

Get your own Poll!
Vote for your favorite staff member!
Information about staff members:
Rika: Rika is the sarcastic, opinionated admin of the site. This quirky writer is known for her procrastinating and position on the corn-is-not-fuel controversy. Seriously. You do not want to bring up that subject unless you want a long monologue about the starving countries [...]

The Nearby Future has technically been up for three years (if you count the time we spent tacked onto the end of freewebs.com/thenearbyfuture) but it’s been a full year since we got www.thenearbyfuture.com.
You’re invited to participate in The Nearby Future’s 1st Anniversary Staff Contest!
This time around, the stakes are higher, the competition is fiercer, [...]

This year The Nearby Future staff has written a collective 48,747 words! Here are your favorite articles from staff members with the most page views (not counting Jala, because she writes pages, not posts).

Rika’s best articles: “Corn“, “Stress: Side Effects Include…”, and “The World is Not Coming to an End“
Calister F. Well’s best articles: “When [...]

For the record, I only got a LiveJournal because I thought the layout looked awesome.
http://writeonrika.livejournal.com/
Basically, it’s just a pointless, mundane, and slightly eloquent journal about everthing from de-motivational posters to lazy people and cats.
Long story.
Example:

 
See? You don’t get why I put that poster there. Inside joke, actually. That’s what my LJ is about. Most likely [...]

Hey guys! I’m a new member to The Nearby Future! Call me Cal
Ok so Christmas is coming up and I want to know what your doing. Any random thing. Special traditions? Going anywhere?
*my first post*

Picture props

 November is here, and you can be sure that your very own Rika is spending many hours typing out her… interesting plot that includes segway chase scenes, herds of elephants, and a box. A square box.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? NaNoWriMo, of course! Read about it here.
Rika has put together a little toolbox for [...]

Videos, videos, videos! That’s our goal for next month. I’ve made an election video that will be up on the site hopefully in my next post, and I’ve got some other videos planned that will be uploaded next month, sort of combining the work I’ve been doing on Pinky Miranda and the issues discussed on [...]

And the results for the staff contest are in!

Congratulations to Piratical Lord of the Guitars for winning both the overall contest and the Staff Contest!
Oh and good job Nero for winning the contributor’s contest by a 7 point deficit!
Overall Results:
PLOTG- 11 votes
Nero- 10 votes
Jala- 5 votes
Rika- 5 votes
Hope- 4 votes
Jennith- 3 votes
Popfiddlerprincess-3 votes
Socrates- 1 [...]

The staff contest is almost over! If you haven’t voted already, vote now!
http://www.thenearbyfuture.com/the-2008-nearby-future-staff-contest-is-here/
PLOTG is in first, with Nero in close second!

Rika’s other site, Pinky Miranda Productions, has recently been updated with a new article.
“I know, I know, I haven’t been posting regularly.
That’s because I’m writing a novel in 100 days, and I’ve been focusing on my writing recently. (oh, you expected some standard excuse that all bloggers give? Psh, I think you forget whose blog [...]

As a nonprofit website, this is how we stay motivated: friendly competition in the form of a quick, 3 question survey.
 
More dramatically titled, THE NEARBY FUTURE STAFF CONTEST.
 
Think of it as the Presidential Elections. On a smaller scale.
Vote on the poll or the survey!
 
 

Get your own Poll!

VOTE HERE
 
You may want to know a thing [...]

My percentage of articles that I’ve been writing has been dropping severely, as shown by this rough statistic by one of our very own staff members, Piratical Lord of the Guitars.
July:

Rika- 27%
PLOTG-73%

June

Rika-33%
Hope-22%
Jennith-22%
PLOTG-33%

May

Hope-17%
Calister-17%
Jennith-8%
Jemaine- 17%
Rika- 25%
Socrates-8%
PLOTG- 8%

April

Rika-31%
Jemaine- 8%
PLOTG-15%
Calister-15%
Socrates-15%
Hope-15%

March

Rika-53%
Calister-27%
PLOTG-7%
Socrates-13%

February

Rika-47%
Jennith-20%
Socrates-7%
PLOTG-7%
Hope-20%

January

Rika- 73%
Calister- 20%
Ashley Lampost-7%

Averages

Rika-42%
PLOTG-20%
Ashley Lampost-1%
Pop Fiddler Princess-0%
Socrates-6%
Jala-0%
Hope-9%
Jemaine/Nero/DarkPrinceofAwesome-3%
Calister-12%

But Rika’s percent has also been dropping!
Reason? We’re not getting lazy. We’re having trouble [...]

Now I’ve noted a couple times throughout this site that I love creating videos, short films, the works. Now I’ve created another site dedicated to this hobby! It’s called “Pinky Miranda Productions” and on it I talk about everything from yogurt containers and soap bubbles to how tripods are overrated and [...]

Due to severe cases of writers block, the absence of most of our staff, and many other excuses that I could come up with right now, The Nearby Future is taking a temporary vacation. But don’t despair! We’ll be back right on in JULY! Now you can still visit, it’s just there won’t be any [...]

Writers can be lazy too, right? Well that’s exactly what I’m being right now. I’m in the middle of writing our guide to the end of the world which should be out as soon as I can find an interesting opening sentence, which can be translated as Calister-is-procrastinating again.
What is [...]

This is my amazing update on the world- otherwise translated as some interesting thoughts about the world by moi. There’s a lot of devastating news, and I think that it should be discussed a little more optimistically!
On the topic of being optimistic, we’ve been a little too calm on the subject of global warming. Scientists [...]

It’s too easy to be caught up in your life here in the U.S. and just forget about all the other countries out there that are in trouble- countries that are battling diseases, armies, freedom, liberty, peace- the world has so many problems!
Everyone is fighting for and against something, and you think that we would [...]

4:32 PM: hear Calister’s complaints about how the green flowers are too “girly”. Laugh along with him, promise that I’ll look into other templates, but secretly plan his demise.

4:46 PM: Check the site’s status and clap excitedly as I see that someone else BESIDES the staff actually commented!

4:56 PM: Reject Calister’s article on the stupid topics that have nothing to do with the future OR the environment OR technology. In the article rejection email, tell him that his next article should be about ice cream. Write a witty rejection letter in advance.

Hi everybody! For one thing, I am the first (and maybe only) person to write an article stating why you should pick me for the April Staff Contest. As a newer member of the staff, I am now well-aware of everything now. Already, I have one vote and hopefully it will keep going! I write [...]

Welcome to the first annual staff contest for thenearbyfuture.com!

To vote for your favorite staff member, leave a comment below OR take our survey! Taking our survey would help us out a lot more, but you can do either one. We suggest the quick, four question survey.

…An example of this is the latest in video games, slated to come out this winter: the Epoc. A game that uses the EEG brain signals to control a video game, this shows what we can do with technology and knowledge of the brain. The technology, as it turns out, is older and until now hasn’t been thought to be able to be so flexible. This is a perfect example of how new knowledge of the brain can turn old technology towards new uses!…